Spiritual Awakening or Mental Illness

Just watched some videos on youtube talking about how psychosis is a healing process and spiritual awakening. Kills the ego, you see visions of love, and releases all the stress in your sub-conscious. Is it possible that I'm not back to normal because my episode never completed itself? I know I said there was going to be a new me.... which there is, but the question still bothers me. Why can I not think like I use to. Maybe I just have to let that part of my belief die. Idk.

I think there could be a wide variety of reasons you still don't feel quite like yourself. Are you saying that you have not experienced this spiritual awakening and therefore that's why you think the episode did not complete itself?

But you do raise a very interesting topic in general. I've personally experienced things that gave me a certain belief structure at that time in my life. I was absolutely convinced that things were a certain way because of what I saw, what I experienced. Now knowing what I know about psychosis and delusions I actually find myself saddened. I have not experienced such things in several years and I question whether they ever happened at all or if it was only within my own mind. I find this thought quite depressing.

To me, it was something that gave me hope and life in a way. To think that it was only part of an illness... that's just flat out unfortunate.

I am struggling to make sense of some things relating to the highs and lows I have experienced, too. It is almost like I have a beautiful gift that allows me to touch a peice of life that few others get to experience. Its sort of like gaining access to a window into the universe. Like seeing for a moment (or longer) the answers and the ultimate in connectedness of all living things. To me, that IS deeply spiritual, however, like Nessa said, if that is just part of an illness and not really real, it is super sad.

As far as the psychosis goes, I believe the brain is just working full-throttle during that time, and that the after-effects are like the wake left behind by a boat in overdrive on the water. Eventually the water (your brain) will find equilibrium again...but the amount of time may be longer than you expect. I mean you can run a boat hard and fast for a couple seconds, but it can take several minutes before the water has totally settled. Unfortunately, you cannot just will yourself better. You just have to be good to you, be careful not to cause your brain any distress and just hang tight.

I have asked myself and wonder what if my "normal" has changed (last depressive episode was the worst of my life)? What if I need to accept what I have learned and not expect to be who I was before. Honestly, that person was far less compassionate and far less aware than I am today. I am also much more fragile and lonely at this point. I guess just learning to accept (once you go through a life-changing episode) that life is just different is important. Whether that has spiritual ties, chemical and/or cognitive ties, or otherwise...not sure that that changes the end result...we are different for having gone through what we endured and we can look at that from a variety of perspectives.

I hope that you regain the parts of you that you miss and that you feel good about yourself again. I look forward to that day, too : ). I guess we are in the same "boat". LOL. Sorry...stupid sense of humor.

The definition of spiritual conversion by one theologian is this:

"It is the burning of the ego to the degree that one becomes conscious of
an over-riding Spiritual Guide". I suppose it's possible to give almost any
meaning you wish to that.

I don't know, psychosis is very often not visions of love but torment and persecution. Lots of psychosis is a full on attack where people are being told by voices that they are worthless and deserve die/go to hell/evil/bane of human exisistance, etc. And visual hallucinations can be very horrifying images as well. Plus, most paranoid delusions are persecutory. "They are out to get me, so that they can destroy/kill me," is a very common theme.

Sure, there is the grandios psychosis of believing you are the chosen one or Jesus or whatever, but even then often persecutory themes are running within it. My experience was that I was very powerful, the chosen one, which was why they were out to get me.

This is disturbing on more than one level for me. I'm a 'practicing' Catholic who's had a large number of deeply-felt spiritual experiences in my life, when I felt literally like I'd been touched by God and put in the right place at exactly the right time, or was especially close to Him and could hear His voice talking to me in the silence of my mind.

I suppose I should mention that most of these have taken place during periods of great happiness, fear, or depression.

So, does that mean I was delusional or psychotic at these times? I'd hate to think that some of the most beautiful experiences of my life are nothing but products of my fevered brain.....

I don't think so, Bipolar Nurse, and I do believe in spiritual conversion. There
are just too many rational, well-educated, wonderful people who have
experienced it to believe anything other than it does occur in men and women
who are open in their minds and capable of reception of very high levels of
mental functioning.

It occurs everywhere there are people operating in their lives using sublimation* as the
source of all their behavior. That's the highest level of human functioning. It's the
kind of life the saints lead.

*(Sublimation is the transformation of the basic human drives for power, reproduction,
and social approval into drives for serving, abstinence of sex, and having no worldly associations except those that are given to the effort to help others and serve God first and foremost.)

I want to have the kind of faith I once had. I want to pursue God and worship with enthusiasm the way I used to. I am afraid of going manic so I plod along with my medicated brain and hope I'm not disappointing God.

Well, I was proof that there IS athiests in foxholes, so my opinion is informed on that belief (non-belief?). In fact much of the things I saw in the service further reinforced my belief/non-belief.

I also have nothing constructive to add to the conversation. I have no experience in psychosis, clinically or personally, but I truly hope that you get all your questions answered, and they lead you down the path that is right for you. Personally I've found I'm happier overall since I shed the last vestiges of my faith. And, even with my illness, I still live more 'christlike' than most healthy, self identifying Christians I know.

I agree with what middlepath said: it IS a gift, but it comes with a price. I, too, have come to think that that beautiful moment that happens (or happened to me, at least) before the acute stage of psychosis, is the most beautiful thing I will ever feel--pure, delightful light, clearness and awareness. I don't know whether it was "real" or "fake" in the most pragmatic sense, but I know what I felt, even if it all was some awry brain activity (what is the experience of reality but a brain observing itself?).
I think that people who suffers from a mental illness has got access to a part of the universe (to a consciousness realm, so to speak) that not everyone can have. The thing is, that realm is so meaningfully deep that it can not be expressed by words. The same holds true for the acute, frightening, stage of psychosis. Of course you'll change after a break, as you cannot enter the ocean without expecting to get wet.
Wait, if you're desperate. In the meantime, be here, now, for that's all there is.

A part of being a human being means growth, growing older, growing wiser. Everyone does it, even people without mental illness.

The interesting thing about people with Bipolar Disorder is that, due to their heightened level of creativity, and frequent energetic episodes, new ideas and revelations often come at them faster than to the average person. And so a psychotic episode can feasibly offer an individual a huge amount of awareness all at once, whereas people without mental illness may make the same revelations more gradually, and over a long period of time.

The thing is, once a psychotic episode changes your personality and perspective, you are then a different person, and can never go back to how you were. This happens to everyone, to people with Bipolar it can happen more rapidly when psychosis occurs.

I know that my mania leading up to full blow psychosis was something spiritual as well. Believing I could see the future, the devil was after me, people were starring at me, and I was in a utopia of sorts. I felt a special connection with every human I interacted with. Like I could feel their astral body one with mine. Like my soul was leaving my body and communicating with others in higher consciousness realm.

Everything I was doing felt so real and everything was making sense in a perfect way. It's kind of like I could do anything I wanted, but I was already receiving everything I wanted. I was a peace and the only purpose in the world was to serve God.

I wonder what would of happened if I didn't become medicated. Would I of crashed or would I of "come back to reality on my own terms?" It's a "what if" question.... but it honestly bothers me. I hope the ripples in the water settle down soon and I can regain normal functioning (as far as being social is concerned and the ability to use better words to describe situations and stories). I hope I can eventually be dry again.... But still be cleansed "spiritually?" I still don't know.

I've read things online that people that don't get treatment end up bad. What they mean by bad, I have no idea. I don't feel like myself and it pissed me off yesterday when I was at an open house. I felt like people expected me to say more, be more involved. I could only stay afloat for a while before I took a dive and ran out of conversation topics. I figured I would use a water analogy, it seems to be the trend. I was telling some people about the feeling like you're on top of the world... and they look at me like I was crazy. I guess I am and that's something I'll just get to hold with me for the rest of my life.

I've had a few manic episodes and the tendency seems to be that they feel very spiritual. The cause of it's all chemical and actually an imbalance; people weren't meant to become psychotic. Bipolar people have the interesting condition of actually feeling "too good" sometimes, and so instead of seeing the manias as the disorder that they really are, we can cling on to the good parts of them.

Whenever I try to explain psychosis to people who have never experienced it, I usually explain it as "dreaming while you're awake". You are very much awake, but you have no control over your mental faculties. And as such, you float around doing things that may or may not be rational. That's the long and short of what psychosis is, no more, no less.

When I came out of the few years that I experienced psychosis it led to a lot of spiritual activity on my part, but all along the while I had intense social anxiety that was a condition of not properly treating and dealing with my bipolar, while I focused on this "spirituality". Once I finally got my medications worked out, I strangely felt stable, not paranoid, and capable of existing in society on a day to day basis, having great relationships and great experiences. That has been a greater spiritual experience than anything psychosis has ever offered me.

I know what you mean about describing stuff and having people look at you like you are crazy. I only share my real experience with a sssssuper-short list of people and even THEY don't actually understand, they just try. Trying is enough and that is appreciated, but it still feels lonely when people don't actually get it. I think at least here on PC, people do get it : ). yeah!