Last Sunday I tried out meditation. I asked a relative, who is a meditation instructor, to explain what he does, and then I had a go.

I was just doing the opening part of that meditation which involved a certain visualisation and I immeditaely had some kind of hallucinatory/mystical experience, which I will not describe here. At the time i was quite euphoric about the thing. I noticed afterwards i became very credulous, I was reading a story with talking animals and such and I believed it was all true. I think i could have believed anything anyone said to me at that time. The following day I had a complete about turn and became obsessed with the thought that I could not know where or who the experience came from and that maybe it was something dangerous. So I repented of the whole thing and decided not to do meditation again. For several days I was in a kind of state of supernatural alert. During that period I noticed that much of my usual brain fog was gone and even though i was quite agitated i could concentrate better and also be more sociable. Also my handwriting, normally poor, was neater.

Immediately that the hallucination occurred i felt a buzzing in the top of my head. This slight pain continued on and off for several days. It reminded me of when i took lexapro some years ago, how i could feel the receptors changing/activating in my brain.

So I am thinking that probably i have a whole part of my brain which was dedicated to religion/mysticism/superstition, with lots of receptors, which has lain dormant since i stopped being religious, and which lit up like a christmas tree when i did the visualisation (I was really hoping that meditation would help me unlock my mind somehow, and so i guess i got what i was after :-/). The feeling of supernatural threat was very strong. I was waking up in the mornings with my guts all tied up in knots. So i have decided that it is better for me to stick with the brain fog and apathy...

My brain used to work. I was always bad socially, and when i was a small child I was almost mute around everyone except close family. But my brain used to work OK. I could study for long periods of time, I could be reasonably optimistic.

When I was in my early teens I used to wonder sometimes if I was some kind of monster, at night when i was laying in bed trying to get to sleep. But I sort of shook that feeling off. When i was doing my undergraduate degree i had a group of close friends. It was the first (and only) time that I really had a social life or friends. It was a very insular group of people who had a lt in common. But I always felt some kind of disconnect. I could never initiate, never be spontaneous, always an observer.

After that I have been very solitary. These days I have no friends where I live, although there are some colleagues who i like.

My mind feels like it is shot to pieces. My executive function is poor and i am always forgetting things. Also I am having extreme trouble with acting according to my goals, I have become a creature of instinct.

I have been trying to pursue my dream career. But now i start to feel the dream may be coming to an end. I am clutching at straws trying to get back the discipline. It is tricky without much meaningful interaction with people. There is not the stimulation.

I have often been lucky in life. I had a reasonably happy childhood. There were problems of attachment, due to various factors, so my relationship with family is not exactly an emotionally gushing one, but i was supported in my "life decisions". And I have had luck pursuing them. When I had my breakdown, i quit my job but my then boss invited me back.

But at the same time i feel like i have been wandering in the wilderness somehow. It always seems to be so precarious, hanging by a thread.