Trouble dismissing hallucinations

I have two questions:

(1) Does anybody know what type of psychosis I had? It seemed different than normal. That is one reason why I question if I had a mental illness.

(2) Does anybody else have trouble discounting their hallucinations as mental illness? Maybe it's hard for me because it was so mild by comparison to most of you.

Apparently in 2009 I had psychosis for a week or two that was similar IMO to paranoid schizophrenia. It went away gradually without medication. Compared to most people here I'm sure that was very very mild.

After that two week period is where it really got troubling. Every month or two it would seem like I had a religious experience (seeing people that nobody else saw, etc.). I was super religious and dreamed of joining a monastery. I gave away most of my savings. Gradually I started realizing that nothing made sense, and I quit going to church.

So now I'm mostly fine but those memories upset me. Sometimes I wonder if some of what I experienced was real somehow. When I think too much I start getting anxiety and depression, because I don't have a satisfying explanation. I tell myself it was all psychosis, but I don't believe that deep down.

Anybody know what I'm talking about?

Hi, x213. At the time you thought those experiences were real, but they didn't match other people's reality--hence, the idea that you were having hallucinations.

Religious ones are problematic. I personally believe that people can have encounters with spirits, angels, etc. But when they start believing they are a god, etc, then I would have a problem with it.

Would it help to talk to a priest, rabbi, or pastor?

Thanks. I talked to a priest at the time, because I didn't know anything about psychosis. I assumed these things were religious visions to guide or misguide me. I think the priest was probably an atheist who didn't have much respect for me as a person. I don't know why he didn't try to educate me about psychosis. I suppose he didn't think I would listen to him or he just didn't think it was his problem. He was very hard to figure out.

Sometimes something happens that makes me worried about the nature of reality. I don't have hallucinations now, but for example I thought a certain type of insect was spying on me and several experiences involved those insects. If I see those insects then sometimes I worry that something spiritual is happening.

I know this is small stuff compared to schizophrenia. I've noticed people with schizophrenia seem to accept that their hallucinations were not real, but that is harder for me - maybe because my problems were less extreme.

There are many reasons behind hallucinations, not just psychosis. I had vivid hypnogogic hallucinations as a child and still sometimes have them now. It's due to a malfunction of REM sleep that occurs as your falling asleep or as your waking up.
Sometimes meds can cause them, migraines, other medical conditions, stress. Many religious people see them as a part of their faith, I believe it is possible to hear God as do many people. I think it does depend on whether the hallucinations cause distress or impairment in functioning. If you are still concerned it maybe worth speaking to a pdoc.

The first stage was very similar to schizophrenia IMO. I thought a huge conspiracy was spying on me and trying to make me go crazy because I had accidentally offended them. I had hallucinations at least once a day, but they were little hallucinations with less religious symbolism. Like I remember seeing glowing symbols all over somebody.

After a couple of weeks that first stage faded away without medication. The next stage was much more interesting religious-themed hallucinations, but they only happened once a month or so. That stage gradually faded away too after a year or so.

A few years ago I mentioned these religious experiences to a therapist that I was seeing for a different problem. She educated me about psychosis which was very helpful. Unfortunately she hurt my feelings and caused me to become depressed, so I decided to not go back.

I tried to see another therapist, and the first session seemed very promising. Unfortunately I started getting an anxiety attack and after a few days I told her about the anxiety and that I didn't understand but I couldn't cope with it right now. She was very understanding.

The anxiety seems to be triggered by woo woo. I'm sort of superstitious now even though I don't like being that way.

I could be wrong about this, but I'd just go with accepting your experiences as spiritual in some way. It doesn't sound like your currently seeing stuff like you were back then, so I'd just leave it as that you had some spiritual experiences which were meaningful to you. Hallucinations do not always mean schizophrenia.

Thanks, Steve. The problem with accepting these experiences as spiritual is that there is a package of experiences. Some of these experiences were inspiring and some of them imply things that I don't like to contemplate and some of them were confusing.

I started a thread today about concerns I have meeting a friend in a couple of weeks. Some of the experiences caused me to suspect my friend as part of a conspiracy to harm me. It is a long and convoluted story. Here is the more recent thread I started:
http://forums.psychcentral.com/schiz...psychosis.html

In some ways I want to believe I was imagining everything, because that is so much simpler, but it is hard for me to dismiss these experiences when I remember them so clearly and they seemed so real.

It's just the spiritual dimension of life that you accessed for a period, your ancestors were familiar with it,it's only since the recent age of reason and dominance of left brained thinking over the right,that visions,symbols and the spiritual became irrelevant and discounted,they are the sumpreme avenue of the right hemisphere of the brain and the soul.

The paranoid thoughts are from lower or bad spirits who use fear to enslave you.
In ancient times across all cultures and in tribal cultures still today they had effective systems and ways of dealing with bad spirits but we no longer have them today.

Thanks, you might be right. Whenever I seriously consider spiritual explanations, I begin to feel panic. I'm not sure why.

EDIT: For my mental health, I try to be a metaphysical naturalist.

Definitely you cannot accept anything as reality. Certain experiences can be accepted as "real" while others cannot at least in my life experiences. I can say that I have had paranoid, strange ideas that simply made little to no sense. The key is to know which things are basically positive beliefs and what things are negative. Of course, "positive" beliefs that are excessively grandiose (thinking your some kind of great figure, prophet or some sort, headed for fame, etc.)are not be good either because that can come across as very stereotypically "crazy". Otherwise, having positive beliefs are generally potentially beneficial. You could look at it like you have had a sort of religious awakening rather than psychosis.

Trickster demons can make you believe very determental things,but I think people believing they are Jesus etc is just some sort of divine beauty flowing through them and they don't know how to interpret it except in these cultural models and symbols.