I’ve read of people thinking it’s happened to them. My personal opinion is that like a muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it gets.
But years of neglect or not using it at all, one can forget how to use their gift. I don’t think they lose it.
Unless it was given to them by a deity or spirit, and they took it back because of being insulted badly, or some other reason. Or that their devotee left them.
What do you think? In your experience, or from hearing about it from others.
No you don’t lose an ability.
Let me qualify that by saying this: do you permanently lose the ability to walk after a leg has been in a cast? No. It gets weaker and needs to be exercised to regain its strength so the person can walk stably and safely without tripping or falling due to an imbalance of strength between the former cast leg and the leg that never had 1 on it.
People THINK they lose ability but what really happens is disuse weakens the ability it doesn’t remove it from you.
If you let it get weak enough from disuse it may seem you lost the ability because seemingly nothing happens when you then try using it after a period of disuse but that’s wrong thinking.
If you haven’t used it in a while trying to use it or force it to work after disuse it’s like a person who never even lifts a 10 lb sack of potatoes suddenly trying ti lift a hundred pounds. They can’t do it but not because the body is incapable of lifting the weight but because ti do so requires working up ti the weight by practice and use.
Psychic gifts can similarly weaken from disuse but the potential is never lost if they had it to begin with.
Do you understand?
You can’t lose a gift but you can let it weaken by disuse to the point where it seems you lost it. I say seems, because it’s like you’re suddenly trying to do the equivalent of lifting 100 lbs when for say an entire year of more you’ve never lifted more the 5 lbs. you aren’t able because you are out of practice not because the ability or potential to lift the weight is gone poof and no longer exists in you.
The ability remains but can be weakened to the point where it seems it’s lost going vanished but if you had the ability the potential to regain it exists. All it takes is working back up to it, using it a bit at a time til it’s back to the former level (assuming you didn’t let it weaken because you were afraid of it and wanted it gone or wanted it gone because you wanted to be like everyone else not be different, because then even though it still exists in you you’ll be fighting against yourself when trying to use it in which case you’ll be self sabotaging the result subconsciously).
Add: as to forgetting that depends on how much they used it. If they used it enough that it became second nature (before letting it slide and weaken) then they won’t forget how though it may take a bit of trying to remember to recall how they did it.
It’s Sort of like how A musician has muscle memory from use they don’t forget how to play their muscles remember how to do the moves and if you hang them the instrument the can play something from muscle memory (even if they forgot a specific song like Beethoven’s 5th they still remember how to play the instrument).
I don’t think this should be a problem. Spirits can give you powers and stuff, but I’d say the skills themselves are more yours just like any other skill. If you don’t like a spirit, there are many others. You can be forever haunted by fear and believing the spirits are more powerful than you, or you can relax because you are the one in control.
Certain interpersonal psychic abilities, just like any other skillset, kinda seems to me like it can get in there deep enough that you have a kind of baseline, but if you actively practice to improve and do that well for like a bit you can improve rapidly and get back to where you were before and then learn like normal.
People. So fun!