MHM Magazine

have been my body’s protection mechanism because if I was feeling what I was thinking I probably wouldn't be here today. As human beings we live for the feeling of things, everything is about how you feel and once that’s taken away from you there’s not much left. I could have the best day ever and am not able to appreciate it because the feeling isn’t there, just emptiness. The same happens when tragedy strikes, like the passing away of a loved one, where I’m unable to grieve that loss as I’m just numb. The only emotions that do pop up are anxiety, fear and depression. Somehow over the years, during all this turmoil I’ve held the faith and kept a positive attitude an am of the firm belief that I’ll get over this and eventually fully heal. I’ve learnt some big life lessons I wouldn't have learnt otherwise. One big thing I realised very quickly is that I’m not my thoughts, and even with the really dark, intrusive and outright insane thoughts that perhaps would shock others, they just come and go and I pay them no mind. Most people identify with the way they think, when in reality we are the ever expansive consciousness behind the thought that’s observing the thought which is what I’ve learnt to identify with. The other lesson has been to really appreciate emotion and the feeling of things, something that most take for granted. Even on the very rare occasion where I perhaps feel excitement or joy, even it it’s at a 5% level, I truly savor those moments. Even feeling sadness is a beautiful thing to me, it helps me feel human again. So there is beauty in my situation even if it seems horrific at face value. Initially diagnosed with “kind of” schizophrenia, perhaps because of a lack of hearing voices and having hallucinations, I wasn’t institutionalised. That changed at the end of 2022, when after months of lack of sleep I did start to hear voices and that coupled with a fractured,scrambled mind was a recipe for disaster. This resulted in me completely going off the rails and getting lost in delusion, landing me in a government mental institute for the first time. I was completely lost in psychosis, utterly disconnected from reality. I gradually came back to reality and was in the institute for two months. I was initially really glad to be discharged but about a month later I was institutionalized again. However the second institutionalisation was different. For weeks prior to this, even though I was in a psychotic state I was solely working and focusing on my healing. Even though I didn't sleep and barely ate I did a lot of meditating and journeying into my own psyche and disentangling aspects of my mind, as well as a lot of subconscious and energy work. As a result I did I get “bumped up a level” in terms of my mental state and actually healed significantly. In other words, now my mind is not as intense as it once was, and I have a little more relief from the incessant bombardment of thought. This has given me more hope that if I could achieve that, I can achieve more and heal from this condition, a true light at the end of the tunnel. One thing I have learnt over the years is that as difficult as my life has been I’ve learnt to completely accept my situation, it is what it is and I’m doing the best I can. And there is much to be said about experiencing spiritual experiences during psychosis as well as delusion. As lost in delusion as I was during my psychosis I do believe I experienced some deep spiritual truths as well. In fact a lot of the time a spiritual awakening can be confused as psychosis; it's just the person is tuned into other realities in an ungrounded way and in our modern culture there are no shamans or wise elders to help guide the process and it’s something that modern medicine doesn't understand so it’s purely labeled as psychosis. As I started off saying, life can hit you with the unexpected in a multitude of ways, that is pretty much a guarantee as part of life on planet Earth. Everyone has a story and it's about how you deal with these different challenges that test us and once you overcome them you will be glad you went through what you did as it would have taught you so much and left you wiser and more resilient. And whilst going through it, it's about the little wins - embrace them, even if they seem insignificant and hold the vision of brighter days steady. No matter what you are going through you’ve got this. The dawn always returns even after the darkest nights. Wishing you all the best on this profound journey we call life… References available on request. MHM | 2025 | Volume 12 | Issue 3 | Living With MHM 30 | MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS | 2025 | Issue 3 H