This title is misleading. I'm not going to spout off any facts about people with mental illness nor will I spout off any facts about spirutual types. What I am going to do is share my own personal experience on being a 'spiritual type' who has been diagnosed with mental illness in the past and still has bouts of symptoms, if you will, from said illnesses. Of course the 'illnesses' are based on western medical standards and that itself has become rather questionable. So let's call this a depiction of my personal experience in the western medical society's definition of being mentally ill.
Let us start off by looking at the Merriam-Webster's dictionary definition of mental illness. Buck up! It's long as fuck!
Mental Illness: any of a broad range of medical conditions (such as major depression, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, or panic disorder) that are marked primarily by sufficient disorganization of personality, mind, or emotions to impair normal psychological functioning and cause marked distress or disability and that are typically associated with a disruption in normal thinking, feeling, mood, behavior, interpersonal interactions, or daily functioning.
Essentially, your daily function is impaired by the ways of your mind. That's heavy shit. I lived this horribly fearful definition for majority of my adult life into my late 30s. I was barely a functional part of society. I was on the highest milligram dosages of two mood stabilizing medications and labeled with both type I and type II bipolar disorder. It was a miserable existence, mostly due to the constant shifting and managing of the medications I was on. I was a zombie. Sad times, but let's not harp on that.
That entire experience had to happen how it did and though regrets (of letting it go on as long as it did and mommy guilt) creep into my current mental space here and there, I'm aware that I was doing my absolute best during that time and that it was an integral part of my experience of creating the person I am today. The question SO many have is, is it spiritual warfare or just a REALLY big decision you have to condition your neuropathways to connect to in order to change? That truly varies from person to person.
What's interesting is that I still have what could be considered (by definition) psychotic episodes periodically. I would say once every 3 months or so. There is a massive difference in these episodes now as compared to when I was on psych meds 5+ years ago now. Now when they happen, I do not feel fearful. I know what it is and I have coping tools spiritually, mentally and physically to allow it to quickly pass. An episode that would have been weeks long for me and had me calling a psychiatrist to adjust my meds years ago, I now have the ability to observe and allow to pass within a matter of hours typically. After that I'll feel tired, but certainly back to being 100% functional in my life. It is fascinating, honestly.
Because of the intensely mysterious nature of the human psyche and the levels of the subconscious mind (including the superconscious mind), there are no text book explanations as to how I was able to come off of the psych meds and learn to be better. And there are also no explanations as to how long these episodes will exist in my current reality. In my opinion, they'll last as long as my egoic mind allows me to continue identifying with them. That means I can stop them when I'm good and ready. The question is, what is it I still need to learn from them? My next question is, how can the outcome of this lesson turn out better than I ever expected? That question makes me feel light and filled with joy and hope! The ups and downs of this life happen FOR us and they all become simply beautiful when we learn to just roll with it all!
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