Hi. New and glad to be here . Diagnosed Bipolar Schizoaffective (with a dash of GAD in the mix) about two years ago. I've been dealing with mental illness since I was about nine though. At first the diagnoses was Major Depressive Disorder recurrent and long story short here I am.

Anyway, I was just wondering if this illness (or whatever illness you're going through) has colored the way you feel about God, Source, etc. See, at first I didn't feel that my psychosis was a problem so I never spoke about it in bad terms. My psychosis was my connection to the spiritual. Through the rose tinted glasses of psychosis is how I viewed the world. My spirituality was my everything. And I guess the hallucinations and delusions were a huge contributor to my "spiritual" experiences. So, I never saw a problem because I was connecting to to the universe. Am I making any sense?

Anyway, lets see if I can give you a bit of my spiritual story. My mother died when I was thirteen and it was shortly after that I really started to pay attention to the supernatural. I could swear that she was coming to me in dreams and sending me signs and communicating with me in my waking life. At fourteen I became interested in the pagan/Wiccan path. I followed this path for ten years and boy were the hallucinations and delusions on overdrive during this time. I could see everything from dead people to fairies. I could talk to animals and astral project. I could do it all. My entire life centered around this psychosis. I even wanted a career as a tarot reader and occult shop owner. Then when I was twenty-four that all changed. Jesus Christ came and saved me (or did he?). I was interested in reading the Bible and as the interest grew my "spirit guides" began to become much more sinister. Then when I was lying in bed one night...I don't even remember how it started that night...Jesus Christ came and exorcised demons out of me. Now for a few weeks prior to this I believed that Jesus was around me, but he had never made himself so well known until this moment. I knew that I had to pray, but seeing as I was a pagan/Wiccan I didn't know how to pray! However, due to my early years in a Catholic school I did remember the first part of the Our Father. So, that's what I said. I repeated the little bit of the Our Father that I remembered. As I prayed I could see and feel Jesus Christ and God (who looked like two pillars of light) pulling demons out of my left side. It was probably the scariest night of my life. I looked over to my left and could see two demon faces on the curtains of the window. One, half a face with a tongue sticking out and the other (what I realized later was the demon of witches...I didn't know that at the moment he was being exorcised) was a baphomet goat head. I crept into my grandmother's room as she was sleeping and lay there on her bedroom floor scared out my mind. I stayed up most of the night as demons swirled around me tormenting me. I prayed. I prayed. I prayed some more. After that night I finally admitted to my doctors that I was seeing things, hearing things, getting "messages" and all the like of psychosis. They medicated me and by George it worked! For the most part the psychosis is gone/greatly subsided. However, after the incident I converted to Christianity. I was saved that night, or so I believed.

However, I still can't get away from a nagging question. Was it real? I don't know if it was real or just psychosis and if it was worth changing my faith over. I did things and felt the way that people in the Bible did. Such as burning all of my occult paraphernalia and the like...I found out they did this after reading the Bible for the first time. Have any of you ever felt this way? Have you ever had an experience that so drastically altered your perspective? I do feel a peace with my new found path, but I don't know if I can trust how I got here. What would you do? I know that I need faith in a higher power in my life. I've tried to just hold off and not claim a particular faith to give myself some time. However, I feel so empty when I do so. But was it real? I just don't know.

[A18793715]

There is no god. And if there is, he's a very sadistic god to watch his children that he claims he loves, suffer horribly. Not just mental illnesses. Africa. War. Murder. Rape.

If there is a god and he created a plan for all of our lives, that means he planned all the horrible things in the world and since he's all knowing, he knows what will happen if it was something out of his control. But still

If there is a god, he's more sadistic than the devil.

God is real and satan is real. And I will not get into a debate about The Holy Trinity with you(A18793751) or anyone else, so don't start. This is my feeling, everything you saw, thehours, was real. I have had similar experiences. I too, have been medicated at a young age, went down the wiccan road, have had too many Jesus experiences and have seen angels and demons. This is what I discovered in my case, don't know if its close to yours, I have free masonry and witch doctors in my ancestry. Which is the root of all of the problems. I dont know if you have heard of SRA or RA, maybe you should look into it. I made a post about the subject on this forum. Anyway, I noticed when I started telling the drs what I was seeing, it was rode off as delusional. Which I am most certianly not delusional, thanks. Medication also never really worked for me. I dont take medication anymore or go to therapy. Its been almost 6 years since I have. You can send me a private message if you want to talk more, or come join us in the chat tooms on this thing. Bye now! And take care thehours.

I believe in God and by reading the bible it has open my eyes , if you have any questions I would be happy to help you have a stronger walk with God .

Originally Posted by Nature1968

I believe in God and by reading the bible it has open my eyes , if you have any questions I would be happy to help you have a stronger walk with God .

See I feel the same way about reading the Bible. I just might have to take you up on that. Thank you so much.

Read the whole bible in a year with Brian

Here is the website I use
Bible | Daily Audio Bible, Bible Study Tools Online

[SillyKitty]

My only religious experiences have been while manic or straight up psychosis, so I can't help you much. There is no reason for this post except to give you extra hugs.

[SillyKitty]

Originally Posted by A18793715

There is no god. And if there is, he's a very sadistic god to watch his children that he claims he loves, suffer horribly. Not just mental illnesses. Africa. War. Murder. Rape.

If there is a god and he created a plan for all of our lives, that means he planned all the horrible things in the world and since he's all knowing, he knows what will happen if it was something out of his control. But still

If there is a god, he's more sadistic than the devil.

Ditto A18793715. This goes along with my "remission" thoughts.

Originally Posted by SillyKitty

My only religious experiences have been while manic or straight up psychosis, so I can't help you much. There is no reason for this post except to give you extra hugs.

Thank you so much

Originally Posted by Nature1968

Read the whole bible in a year with Brian

Here is the website I use
Bible | Daily Audio Bible, Bible Study Tools Online

Thank you for the link.

Originally Posted by Thehours

Thank you for the link.

Your Welcome

[SDarbo]

Most all theists feels they have the correct religion, the correct body of scripture, and the correct interpretations.And who knows out of hundreds of thousands of religions and millions of interpretations maybe you have hit the jackpot.

I've been delusional which I think bears some resemblance to being convicted in one's beliefs. Its devastating when one realizes they have put enormous emotion and energy into something that just isn't real.

In the post that started this thread:

Anyway, I was just wondering if this illness (or whatever illness you're going through) has colored the way you feel about God, Source, etc.

Yes, I found in my illness that I can be in opposition to what is real and feel justified and insightful even while being profoundly wrong about what is happening. I don't think its just me and other mentally ill people who can be that way. I think religions in general are shared delusions.

Now a lot of religious sentiment has valuable stuff about getting through life. I'm not out to wreck any psychological mechanism that is helping another person make it in this world. However, I don't take religious ideation as authoritative about anything, just as I hope people wouldn't accept my internal narrative I have about reality and purpose as authoritative.

If there is a God let him decloak and give substantive guidance to the 21st century. Ancient scriptures are essentially worthless except for people willing to read a lot into them like people did with the Sibylline prophecies. Sad fact is I think we are on our own. Happy fact, I think we can somewhat make it anyways.

[KJ2791]

I steer clear of religious topics for the most part, but will approach this from a different angle.

Believing in something bigger than ourselves provides hope that we have a purpose regardless of our condition. I find great comfort in both dealing with my condition and approaching my life experiences.

Whether it's true or not, hope may be able to help in your recovery.

KJ

This is a sensitive topic so I don't want to insult anyone's beliefs. I love and respect everyone here, but you ask what we believe. I was raised christian. For years I had the Jesus, Holy Spirit, and God experiences. Even speaking in tongues. But I spent years and years researching it and I learn such christian experiences are so very contradictory and can be found in many other religions. I love christians but it was not cool when I used to tell people the bible clearly says you go to the lake for fire to be tormented for ever if you simply are an "unbeliever." For me it's not truth. Sorry.

I too have spent years talking to guardian angels, guides, and evil spirits but after all this time I finally conclude its most likely not real. Don't get me wrong. I still really believe in the power of the subconscious world. I think as humans we are soooo amazing it's just beyond words. But honestly I don't think any religion or even open minded scientists are even close to figuring it out.

Religion has been a source of great depression for me leading me to the brink of suicide many times. I prayed and prayed to Jesus to heal me. He said he would. It helped a lil emotionally but not really so much. I know lot of people get healed in many religions. So in that respect religion is good. I just can't accept the dark side to religions, such as telling people an all powerful and knowing God would create humans knowing our very human characteristics would lead most of us to not believing in a God who doesn't give us any real proof and a God who would create hell and cast us his children their for ever leaving and abandoning us.

But then again I haven't been so fare to all religions. Like, there are over 40000 christian denominations and many will argue for ever that God extinguishes unbelievers and will not cast them in hell for ever. So that's pretty good that they have a nice happy religion and don't believe God is a monster.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SDarbo]

I gave a response earlier in the thread that was based on me and was in the moment.

The bigger picture response, regarding people with mental illness, is that the community and theology one aligns themselves with should be a likely safe place.

I don't mean a politically correct place. I don't mean a theology that has had all its thorns and unpleasantness removed. I'm thinking people with serous mental illness ought not engage a worldview or theology that keeps them up at night wondering about the eschatological implications of a meteorite.

Our world has a lot of uncertainty. The answer to uncertainty anxiety ought not be to embrace a rigid system with ultimately more doom and gloom than our uncertain situation already had.

I'm not any sort of authority on the ultimate nature of reality. My main thing about choosing a spiritual or religious orientation as a mentally ill person is that our big picture view of reality does have influence on our day to day coping with reality and our dealing with our mental illness.

[hexacoda]

I was Pagan/Wiccan prior to psychosis as well. Since then I've leaned more towards Buddhism and general spirituality without deity or supernatural beings. I can't trust that supernatural beings I might observe wouldn't just be more hallucinations. Now I work towards mindfulness, meditation, compassion, personal values, and to the eightfold path of Buddhism to some degree. I like some of what Neil deGrasse Tyson has said as well - Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes - BrainyQuote