| Psychology and Mental Health Forum | |
https://www.psychforums.com/blog/bipolarjane/index.html |
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| Author: | bipolarjane [ Sat Feb 09, 2019 6:46 am ] |
| Blog Subject: | My story |
Last year I was diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder with signs of psychosis. How I found out is that at 41 years of age, I started hearing voices. At first these voices were supportive. I had been praying a lot and the voice came to me as Jesus reminding me of all my great gifts. Telling me I was a fantastic actress, why don’t I act anymore? Reminding me that I used to love to swim, why don’t I do that anymore? Telling me I should get back into these habits because they would bring me joy and by doing these activities, I would be being true to my inner spirit. I had dreams where I was on the stage in front of a cheering crowd or at a swim practice with familiar faces from my swimming days. It all seemed to me like a message from God. After all, people in church would always say, “God spoke to me” or “God laid this on my heart”. They would speak of dreams that sent them messages, so maybe this was my message from God. As I continued my new walk with Jesus, he began to talk to me of the habits in my life that I needed to break. I needed to quit smoking, drinking and eating meat. He said that this was necessary for me to walk with Him. So I complied. After all, I should quit smoking, never did much like drinking anyway, and could sacrifice eating meat if it meant pleasing the Lord. While I complied with these demands, my dreams, always unusually vivid and memorable, would be pleasant an inspirational. I would be accompanying Jesus at church service in heaven seated amongst a group of nuns or amongst a group of churchgoing patrons helping the poor. Quitting smoking is a hard habit to break, however. And when I mis-stepped, I would have dreams of hell and witness depraved acts or be subject to an attack from swords or blades. Mind you, I am a lucid dreamer who has hypnogogic hallucinations resulting from Narcolepsy. So, I can feel these blades. They are numbed of course but the impact was intense. Soon, I found myself at the mercy of these demands that had been placed on me. The message was clear: If I did any of the things I was asked not to do, I would be punished. So, I fought to keep these habits out of my life if only for the sake of having peaceful dreams. But the dreams, however peaceful, engaged me in a way that made me feel sleep deprived in the morning. I was beginning to feel run down and had a hard time focusing on my day to day activities. It was around a week or two into this pattern when I received even more demands from Jesus. I needed to cut out caffeine and sugar because, as it was communicated to me, these were keeping me from reaching my spiritual potential. As was the case from before, I would be punished if I did not obey. The exhaustion from my active dream life and the pressure to comply with these demands began to take their toll. And what do smokers do when it all becomes too much? They smoke, of course. I was devastated that I had failed the Lord but also terrified to go to sleep and suffer the wrath to come. I would have dreams where people in heaven would chastise me and Jesus would tell me that he was sorry, but I was not allowed in Heaven anymore. If I wanted to please God, I would need to continue to cleanse myself (no smoking, drinking, eating meet, no caffeine and no sugar) and I would now also need to read the Bible for seven hours a day. Then things took a turn for the worse when I was told by Jesus that I needed to kill my sister and her family in order to please the Lord. I said no way, grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a beer and said a big “Sayonara” to Jesus and his demands. The dreams that night were brutal. I was sexually assaulted and I was attacked again with swords and blades. But I didn’t care. I was not killing anyone not even for the Lord. It was at this time that I began to question the source of these messages. I remembered Abraham and his test to kill his son and thought, is this what this is? The ultimate test of faith? I didn’t care, I ... [ Continued ] |
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