I have had the same feelings, thoughts, and grief.

But I also simply cannot believe that those experiences are simply "illness"

I do believe that Mania helped to gift me those experiences but I do not believe that those experiences were simply effed up brain firing.

Most of the time when people experience the divine or have mystical experiences they are in a mind altered state (even normies). They are starving, or severely ill, or sleep deprived, or on drugs, or near death, or otherwise out of their "normal" mind state. Now sure there are a lot of people out there with tons of explanations for why this could be devoid of any spiritual anything....BUT there are tons of people with explanations and support for the fact that there IS something to it. just like every other issue in life.

So....think about it. We "mentally ill" have a leg up in terms of being able to leave a normal mind space. We live our lives riding the cusp of an altered mind state. So we are a hop, skip, and a jump from those incredible spiritual experiences.

Sure because our brains are so open and vibrate at a different frequency than normal we are equally susceptible to the negative, crashing, deadening parts of the "illness". But I don't believe that just because part of it is negative, that it negates those life affirming, all knowing, life altering, boundary shattering, glistening, purple rain (yeah i saw it) experiences.

I am medicated. I have a family. I love my life and my stability. I do not miss or seek out those magical moments. But I thank the God I believe in with all my heart for gifting me those times. I do not honestly know that I would trade them for normal. I don't think so. No.

The crashes are terrible and I am traumatized and I do not want to go there again. Also in the midst of the mania (in retrospect) I can see the moments that it perhaps went to far...from birds pulsating with light to music one week to constant chills because of the dark spirits in my apartment the next. But again I don't think that the negative overflow of the illness parts of the illness mean that the profound connectedness, the experience of all powerful love, the unexplainable or repeated able understanding of the universe, are to be thrown out as nothing. Like the tiny specks of gold in the muddy water....the muddy water is not pleasant and one could say anything that existed within it was worthless but it is not. It is an incredible gift.

I have struggled with this and processed this in various ways since my dx almost 4 years ago. I have been through periods of almost complete rejection of spirituality. But I have ultimately made my own kind of peace with the whole thing. Part of processing who I am as Bipolar. And this is one of the reasons I am proud to be Bipolar in spite of all the mud. We are different, we are special, we may even be "ill" and that is fine. Whatever. It doesn't bother me anymore.

I am now very healthy in my spirituality and I hold very dear all of those gifts.

Peace to you.