Real World v Spiritual

hey @supermodel thanks for sharing. i'm so sorry to hear you had a negative spiritual experience. makes total sense that this would make you feel unsettled, your feelings are super valid.

unfortunately i don't have personal experience with this, however, i am here to listen and sit by you.

when you've had negative spiritual experiences in the past, were there things that helped you deal with it?

@rav3n

I haven't had negative spiritual experiences in the past I have had a couple of positive ones though (much easier to handle lol)

I have had negative schizophrenia impressions that to this day still bring up poor results.. and was only able to overcome these through time and medication/isolation.. not what the doctor ordered but it worked in relation to the PTSD and OCD symptoms reoccurring presence of negative thoughts..

I guess I'm just trying to shake the evil thing as a component of fear.. I know I have god on myside 🙏 but that just draws a component of reality to regress otherwise would be just to blame the illness which obviously is what I am doing as a whole..

Thanks for replying

@rav3n

I don't know if I'm looking for an answer or just a place to vent 😔

i wish i had an answer for you @supermodel maybe others might. but you're more than welcome to vent here!!

oh so this is your first negative spiritual experience- no wonder why it's worrying you more! the firsts of any sort of experience tend to be scary to get through, but once you do, hopefully you'll be able to look back and say: yeah i conquered that. and it seems like you've conquered the positive ones, i believe you can overcome this one too.

do you mind me asking, how did you handle the positive spiritual experiences? what sorta stuff helped you get through them?

@rav3n

The positive never felt like a threat..

ohh i see! @supermodel i have heard of stressors/sudden changes contributing to the manifestation of those more negative spiritual experiences at times.

are there people who can talk to about those threats? like a psych/GP, family or friends, someone you trust spiritually/shares your spiritual beliefs? you deserve to be heard and seen 💙

@rav3n

Yeah that's just it - last time I heard something I had to up medication because there was cause and effect stress and physical assault related to my symptoms.

This time it was different somehow

I will put off talking to a councillor for now unless it gets worse it's just a case of getting over the experience without having a heart attack or something lol 😆

Anyway thanks for listening and I'll be sure to update you and anyone else who taps in to the progress of my devils beasts lol

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On a lighter note I'll give you the insights to my positive spiritual experiences..

There's a few others but for the most part these experiences were positive affirmations and although I'm aware they were probably created by my own mental state it's nice to think the higher powers of good are around.as well!!

Anyway thanks again

really appreciate you sharing that with me @supermodel and i can definitely see the difference between those two experiences.

i've never experienced negative/positive spiritual experiences, but your negative one sorta reminded me of how i felt when i had sleep paralysis. the sounds, the feelings were alarming for me so i can see how that must've been alarming for you.

talking to your counsellor defs sounds like a good idea though, maybe talking about it early on might help you process and manage those triggers better? @supermodel

thanks for sharing those positive ones too, appreciate your vulnerability 💙

also just wanted to let you know that i've had to edit out a couple details & add some content warnings just so it upholds our community guideline around 'limit detailed descriptions'. if you're not happy with the edits - feel free to reach out and we can fix that up.

@rav3n

No worries rav

I wasn't sure if it was all appropriate but eventually had to get the point across lol

Stay well!!

I really loved the way you expressed it. @supermodel

You were restrained but unpacking it as you went. I also love the title of this thread.

Made a lot of sense to me. With Schizophrenia it seems important to be careful how we describe spiritual phenomena so that it doesn't get written off as delusion.

I think fear and anxiety can return to haunt us sometimes at night. I am guessing you have heard lots of mindfulness and distraction techniques... We can only do our best...I do hope the spirit world can appreciate that