My Voices (Triggering? Controversial?)

[shatteredhopes]

They used to think schizophrenics for instance were "possessed," and while we have come a long way from those days of burning people at the stake for hearing voices, sometimes I think if we have gone too far in the other direction. Now, we presume it is all a delusion of the mind, totally subjective and clinical, ignoring other possibilities. For instance, paranormal investigators recording supposedly haunted houses have recorded voices in the quiet when no one was speaking on sensitive equipment, referred to as "EVPs." Maybe they aren't in fact ghosts or spirits or demons, maybe there is a scientific explanation that is yet undiscovered or at least some plausible explanations for how some phenomena can actually be real. In addition, there is some evidence schizophrenics actually do better over the long run in places like the third world where it is presumed to be a possession or spiritual state and individuals remain incorporated into the community as opposed to medically, chemically treated schizophrenics in western civilization.

Also in the other direction, depression for instance in places like Japan used to be viewed as a spiritual state of consciousness, but now they have totally bought into pharmaceutical western exports of our methods of treating mental illness. One mental health professional commented that if we had the anti-depressants then we do now, Picasso's "blue period" might never have happened, as though drugging someone is better than an artistic catharsis and achievement as a mode of healing. People in manic states often also exhibit great creativity and sometimes unusual abilities to accomplish or possess almost super-human strength. Imagine if there was a less noxious method of dealing with the downsides of mental illness while accentuating the positive outcomes and attributes. The Nobel Prize winner who was the subject of the movie "A Beautiful Mind" elects NOT to take medication for instance, but has learned on his own to cope with and mitigate the problematic aspects of his illness, feeling the medications produced far more negative side effects than the original illness they were meant to treat. And, after all, he did his best thinking and his most genius thoughts were generated prior to any mental health treatment, as though deviating from the mental norm was precisely what enabled him to so creatively think "outside the box" and come up with ground-breaking economic theories.

In association with the triggering of or experiencing trauma and extreme depression or grief, twice in my life I bordered between sanity and insanity. The second time this lasted for over a year and no medicine, hospitalization or therapy stopped the voices I was hearing. While there is no question mental illness was a portion of the equation, could it be that chemical imbalances or other changes in neurological and cognitive functioning tapped in to something that fully sane people cannot perceive, just as a dogs ears pick up things a human's do not or an owl's eyes are more acute than a human's a night? I wonder this because there are some things that happened that cannot be explained as mental illness alone. For instance, after I lost my beloved pets, there was a dog somewhere in the neighborhood that looked a lot like one I had when I was married and my husband kept when we divorced. When that dog was being walked, I absolutely loved to pet and greet the little fella. One time the voices told me, after comforting me for a while over some upsets and feeling as if something was stroking my head, they said "get up and go outside right now. We have a reward for you." I got from the bed and went to the door, slowly opened it and walked outside, just as the dog was rounding the corner and reached the end of my walkway just as I did. Another time, I was feeling bad because I could no longer afford to continue my newspaper subscription, and my daily newspaper was something I so enjoyed and looked forward to every morning. The voices asked me what if they could do something to a computer for instance that would ensure I would receive my subscription. I said that sounded unethical, as the paper wouldn't be compensated. They responded, well, what if you continued to receive the newspaper but didn't know how it happened? I said, well, I guess it would be okay, I guess...the newspaper continued to come for 9 months despite cancellation of the subscription and no bill or collector ever, ever came. Maybe someone paid for subscription, but how could the voices predict if they were just mentally ill thoughts from inside my head? There were many such experiences. I have heard other people talk about hearing voices that told them to commit suicide, whereas mine fought ever suicidal thought and impulse I had. For instance, one time I was preparing to drown myself in the tub, when a voice sternly, sharply and loudly told me to GET OUT OF THE TUB RIGHT NOW! There were times they gave me instructions and told me to write them down...there were so many things that I remain satisfied that while mental illness was a portion of the equation, something else was also going on.

Scientists postulate, calculate that there are parallel universes to this one, in one for instance the reader is sitting in front of the computer with the legs crossed, and in another with legs straight. An infinite number of variations can produce varieties of different chain reactions and therefore outcomes. And from what we know of time-space and relativity, we can presume in another universe I am 5 minutes behind myself here, in yet another, I am 5 minutes ahead, in another I haven't been born yet, in another I am deceased. If hypothetically all these universes across dimension are juxtaposed upon our dimension and universe and point in time-space, it is all happening at once. Whether they are "real" or like echoes of previous universes in the span of infinity with the big bang and end of the universe repeating itself over and over, abstract theoretical scientists are mathematically convinced they exist. Just as hypnosis can produce altered states of consciousness, regression into supposed past life experiences, or emitting knowledge beyond the scope of the individual communicating it...what if certain states of consciousness, or mental illness for that matter, are simply tapping into another point in time-space in parallel juxtaposed upon this one that others can't perceive?

My voices told me they were coming from 2012, and that it was akin to a translation problem, in that I am in my point of time-space and my limited experience and intelligence and knowledge and they were in a different point, making some things not make sense or be empirically wrong or nonsensical to me. When I first started hearing them, it was the voices of people I knew, as if I were talking with them telepathically or "hearing" their thoughts or conversations outside my presence. They appeared to me first as something I would trust. Could it be I was talking with these people in a parallel at that point in time-space and somehow perceiving it in the "here and now" or communicating through or across dimension? That didn't last long, and yet at one point when I told them the date, I was warned I was in grave danger. Sure enough, I rapidly grew very ill necessitating hospitalization, and the destruction of my life as I knew it and practically everything I held dear began. At one point the voices turned so cruel I endured what I can only describe as mental torture. I still have nightmares of some of the eternities they threatened me with and experiences, while they were challenging my previously held faith. The nearest I can figure, and simplest way to explain it, its like a living dream state. Just as we work out things in dreams and can have psychic dreams and problem solving dreams, or nightmares, but they are not "real" technically. And second, I started to see so many interconnected things and things fitting together across such a large span of information that no human mind can possibly comprehend, causing in essence a sort of infinite regression inducing a simultaneous breakdown of mental health. But some of my best ideas and insights still come from that time period. I was able to understand and absorb information and knowledge far, far beyond what I am capable of now.

The experience still haunts me, especially the deplorable way I was treated by the mental health profession while I was already part of time in a living nightmare...I take a small dose of medicine now to appease family and as a precaution against the return of that experience. But, given the voices subsided later as I learned how to deal with them on their own, not from any medication (even at extremely high doses) or therapy, I wonder, is there something else we are missing in the way we treat such psychotic episodes that occur in association with trauma or severe depression? Have we gone to far in ignoring spiritual or other aspects beyond mental illness that might explain and treat problematic issues in another way? If we could change the mental health profession to stop trying to "normalize" us and instead look for ways to mitigate negative aspects while benefitting from some of the very same illnesses? Hasn't much social, artistic, and knowledge-based progress been achieved by those often perceived as mentally ill or deviating from the norm? A therapist told me to be careful who I talked to about this, that its not so much a religious issue, as a control one. There was one person I met for instance in one hospital who was a long term resident who was been held, I am convinced, because of his dissidence rather than true mental illness.

Ultimately, when it comes to mental illness, I believe sometimes the holes we dig for ourselves or those dug for us can be the well from which we draw our strengths. Just as depressed people sometimes can show an extraordinary compassion beyond what "normal" people possess, what might we discover if we cataloged and examined what voices said to and delusions exposed by mentally ill people?

[crystalgaze]

It's thought-provoking. I don't know! It is a possibility! I'm so glad you would share!

((((((((((((((S-hopes)))))))))))))))))))))


Edit: You know.... I thought about this some more & you're idea would make a great novel or something like that OR a great video game.....!!