It’s quiet without the nightly bullfrog concert at the lake. I’m visiting the cemetery for the first time in over a year to collect graveyard dirt and maybe visit an old friend (a tombstone I used to visit a lot). I’ve wanted to go but avoided it out of fear of repeating last summer’s weird prolonged episode of blackout/psychosis. I have fragments of journal entries to go off of, but I remember thinking I was possessed and maybe I was. I don’t know could have not cleansed properly after a visit. I didn’t want to risk mucking it all up again and spending a small fortune on the medical bills after. But enough of this self-fearmongering
I paid for a reading from someone I found on Etsy. I waited and decided it felt right, that I can trust this person, so I paid to get a better understanding of what psychic “gifts” I can work on or something. I learned I’m a medium, which I suspected but always doubted as signs of mental illness. In 2010, I was briefly misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, then later my psychiatrists changed my diagnosis to schizoaffective or bipolar. Even then though, I’ve never met another person with the same diagnosis that I could relate to. They’d also always question if I had the same mental illness at all / that there was another explanation. I’ve been taking heavy psych meds ever since.
Today I randomly opened up a page from my copy of EA’s Baneful magic and landed on this page. This excerpt describes that pervasive loneliness perfectly
As I accumulate more sober time, I feel lonelier, but also like my senses are opening more. I’ve never been this sober/clean from substances since I was 12. I remember seeing/hearing things others around me didn’t for as long as I can remember, but I always wrote it off as signs of being “crazy”.
There’s this memory I reflect on sometimes, maybe the only other time besides last summer that I felt so disconnected from my body or the world.
This memory was in college when I tried salvia. I’d used hallucinogens before (LSD, DMT) so I thought I could handle it. I don’t know what happened but I found myself in this technicolored world with endless patterns within patterns, so much detail. I didn’t have a body and my memories of this world started to fade quickly. I was continuously rolling out on this endless conveyor belt-like thing that had all these eyes, boxes of other versions of “reality” and a synchrony of little pipsqueak voices all around. There was a point I’d forgotten my own face and couldn’t recall my name, so I was scared, but there wasn’t anything I could do to come back at the time.
When I did return, after what felt like hours, it had only been 10-15 mins. I remember feeling like I fell back into my body from very high in the sky and felt the mattress under me sink as I fell hard into my body. The physical world around me fell into place in layers and I was relieved that I came back.
It was the weirdest OBE and I’ve never had drug induced experiences like that. Even today, I haven’t tripped as hard as I did that time despite that I’ve taken heavier doses of heavier hallucinogens. It’s something I fear- what if one day I don’t “come back”?
By then, my friends had somehow moved me to my bed and I stayed put. While I was in that weird colorful place/other world, in this world, my friends told me I actually fainted, but then suddenly sat straight up with angry eyes glaring at them. I don’t recall this but apparently I then attacked them physically, so they huddled around with a group bear hug to restrain me until whatever that was passed, so I wouldn’t hurt myself or others. At that time, they were my closest friends, but they had never seen that kind of rage in me before and although admittedly, I am a generally anger-prone person, it didn’t sound like something I would do. It didn’t sound like my own anger, but like it came from something else. They didn’t recognize my eyes.
I’ve always felt like I didn’t fit in, like I didn’t experience / perceive this world the same way “normal people” do. But now I think I’m grateful for it?
I am also very excited to use this paint
so I made it through my first year of the program
I will keep this updated until she’s back. I really appreciate your help!
