Religiosity/Spirituality and Bipolar

My first manic/psychotic episode was very religious focused. I was not much of a religious person before that and I'd say I'm an agnostic (maybe/maybe not a God) leaning towards atheism (God doesn't exist). I also got philosophical and nihilistic (life has no meaning) when depressed. Anyone else have similar experiences?

Yes many times...I don't want to type about all of that at this moment. I totally relate to you though...
Okay, I'll share one thing.

I am not religious but I got very romantic in my head over Sufi Islam. I was also going to wear a full burka on my days off work. I believed a mystic was talking with me online & playing tricks on me.

I have a religious experience entirely. Back before I was medicated, I thought I was the son of a god (a demigod), and I thought I was put on earth to conquer it, and hone it was my kingdom. I saw messages in television and movies, read notes to me in classical literature, thought that John Lennon's "working class hero" was a message for me to kill a certain group of people.

Once I got hospitalized and was put on medication, this pretty much all disappeared.

Yes yes.

My spiritual realm doesn't change my borderline personality and if it does it actually enhances it. My religious views are very different from the norm however something that never changes is my belief in a higher power
I actually have myself convinced I know exactly what God is doing with my life and why. For this reason I don't try to change the course of my Journey. I know my purpose and content knowing it is between me and God.

This seems to be very common in people with mania. But I'm agnostic, and still agnostic during my manic episodes.

It's been about a decade, but I used to have a number of manic moments involving religion. I believed I could talk to angels, demons, the dead, and I had some sort of purpose, though I don't recall that ever actually becoming made clear. Probably a simple case of teen from a boring religious background wanting something interesting to happen, so became a special snowflake in her mind.

During one of my “big episodes” I got obsessed with religion as death. Even had very vivid Jesus dreams before I crashed hard. Never been to church in my life but felt a very strong need to research as much as I could about different religions, then figured the Baha’i ideas fit me best at the time..... but then I spiraled into a very bad yearish long depression. Like the snap of a finger I woke up and the religious fixations disappeared. Weird stuff.

-- Thu Oct 12, 2017 10:13 pm --

During one of my “big episodes” I got obsessed with religion as death. Even had very vivid Jesus dreams before I crashed hard. Never been to church in my life but felt a very strong need to research as much as I could about different religions, then figured the Baha’i ideas fit me best at the time..... but then I spiraled into a very bad yearish long depression. Like the snap of a finger I woke up and the religious fixations disappeared. Weird stuff.

Holodeck wrote:It's been about a decade, but I used to have a number of manic moments involving religion. I believed I could talk to angels, demons, the dead, and I had some sort of purpose, though I don't recall that ever actually becoming made clear. Probably a simple case of teen from a boring religious background wanting something interesting to happen, so became a special snowflake in her mind.

Haha that sounds very familiar. There is a recent movie out called The Three Christs about three schizophrenic patients at a state hospital that all thought they were Jesus. They put them in group therapy together. I haven't seen it yet.

I can relate to some extent at least when it comes to the obsession of learning about religions and spirituality. But in my case I think that these religious topics becomes objects for Hypo-investigations by coincidence rather than some internal "trigger" that is disconnected from what is going on in my life at that moment in time. When I read the previous posts here it is not clear to me if you who get manic in in some religious /spiritual way end up there due external circumstances that trigger this focus or if you just end up in such states without any particular external trigger.

The external triggers that make me end up in some religious hypo-focus vary. Many times I get affected by discussions with other people that at that moment in time are into the topic of religion at the time. For example . last winter I was going to learn all about historical development of Islam, read the Quoran, learn Arabic etc. that hypo-focus on Islam was triggered by discussions that I had with a friend who is studying international politics and was at that time reading about the revolution in Iran and how Islam spread in Saudi Arabia. So I just got into reading his course literature and went on from that. Downloading loads of books and articles about Islam and went further and further into the topic until I started to side-track into something else.

Previously I got into reading all about esoteric religious cults because of another friend who was writing about those in his PhD thesis. The Sufi mysticism also became a topic for a time (caused by another person who was deeply interested and affected by the Sufi ideology. From there I went in to digging in to Ethics and moral theories.

This religious focus and obsession has occurred many times . Directed towards digging into Buddhism , paganism, satanism (read the satanic bible and analysed different lyrics directed towards such themes. ) When travelling in Indonesia last summer I was going to learn all about animism and downloaded loads of texts on the topic.

It is only during my teens that my beliefs and views of reality got affected and that I had some special abilities linked in with any type of spiritual, mystical, religious themes. I was doing tarot readings, was into astrology and thought I could communicate with spirits and so on. Was analysing different symbols related with different religions.

But as I have become more sceptic and distanced -cynical and critical regarding the power of ideologies over human beings I am more into learning about religion and spirituality than becoming religious in some sense. For example I was into learning all about people getting caught in sects - I was during one such period watching dozens of documentaries about sects,sect-leaders and trying to figure out the circumstances and reasons why people get caught in such contexts)

I got more of a hypomania critical approach. At some point I got the brilliant idea ( I thought it was brilliant anyways) to infiltrate myself into Scientology ioganization and do undercover investigations (which my friends did not encourage at all). But I was obsessed with this idea and made plans, was learning about Scientology (again days and nights watching documentaries and YouTube videos about the topic) looking for information about local Scientology centra. Having plans to approach those people performing some special "tests" with a strange machine in the centre at times.

In this sense religion has been a recurring topic throughout many hypo-manic periods. I also think that whether one become affected religiously or obsessed with religious aspects in life - religion become the central concept that one associate with all aspects of life that take part in all lines of thought that pass through ones mind in ridiculously long association chains. In a sense religion become a sort of "base" for associations and one can recognise religion in all things in life and and where many things in life are understood in the religious light.

It is also during those periods where I come up with plenty of ideas for articles to write about different topics through a religious lens. (Of course most of those half finished drafts lay around in different folders in the computer). Now I get reminded that perhaps I should create a religion folder where I collect all that I have written during those different periods

As others have said, this is pretty common with mania. I believe it was my first manic episode when I became weirdly fixated on Judaism, and now whenever I'm manic I become really really into Paganism and Wicca. I'm a practicing Catholic, but I never become more into that for some reason.