Spirituality and mental illness

[vulprix]

Hello all!

 

I hoped to maybe learn a bit about experience that some readers may have with spirituality complicating mental health issues (or vice versa). It’s a heavy topic, and I could not find a thread that exists on it yet. Please feel free to point me in its direction if I am mistaken.

 

To be transparent about it and open up the conversation, I was diagnosed with OCD some years back now. It has affected my life greatly, but I have had the help of a wonderful therapist who pretty much saved my life. However, my mental health has been a major challenge for me when practicing my spirituality. I feel kind of paralyzed a lot of the time because I have my guard up.

 

I read a post somewhere on the vast glorious internet that said something pretty close to, “‘Witches’ are just people with magical thinking who are further deluding themselves.  Practicing ‘magick’ is dangerous and feeds into the sickness.” I read it some time ago, but the skeptic in me, the concerned person, sees where this is coming from. Magical practice, prayer, and ritual are a lot like compulsions, in my experience.

 

Religion and religious experience has often been attributed to mental illness, or even mental or spiritual exceptionalism. But it’s a huge part of my life, and I am determined to work out in this lifetime where the healthy medium is 🙂 In my experience, therapists can only be so much help because of the bounds of their practice and their determination to help the issue they are *trained* to deal with—the mental health issue.

 

Does anyone out there have similar struggles, insights? Obviously, this is not a thread meant for medical advice—on the contrary, I hope that spiritual hope can be found here. 🙂  Thank you.

Edited February 18, 2021 by vulprix

[ilweran]

For me it helps - up to a point. Meditation certainly helps overall with the anxiety, though I still need medication these days to manage it which I didn't used to take. Given that I believe the anxiety has been severely exacerbated by hormonal changes (after having an ovary removed) I am finding that a more feminist and goddess oriented spirituality is helping me self-manage a lot of it because it gives more of a framework which modern, western culture lacks.

 

Really it's difficult though. I couldn't do anything like that, no tarot, no meditation, nothing on anti-depressants and I felt pretty awful on them, but I won't deny they helped, it's just the help came at a cost.

 

What it doesn't help with is the random panic attacks when in a shop, or crossing the road, or whatever that have no discernable trigger at all, but I'm ok at managing them. 

[Anabiyeni]

I have never been diagnosed with anything, but a counselor once told me she thought I might suffer from mild anxiety. It runs in my family, so she was probably right. She never did whatever people do to formally diagnose it, though, and mostly I can handle my stress levels on my own. Aside from that, I also suffer from hallucinations and flashbacks.

Most of the time, the hallucinations (visual and/or auditory mostly) don't bother me, but for a while, I was prescribed a drug that stripped my ability to discern even the weirdest hallucinations (a sparkly unicorn sipping tea on my kitchen table, for example) from reality, and that was especially terrifying because I was conscious of the fact that I had no idea if the unicorn (that I knew shouldn't exist) was really there. I got off that drug as quickly as I could. Someone else posted a form of meditation/reading where you imagine yourself inside an image, experiencing the scene. I'd love to try it, but then I recall the time I thought my hallucinations were reality, so in that sense it limits the reading methods I can use.

 

I think Tarot helps me deal with some of the root causes of the flashbacks and some of the stress. In general, I think a lot of it is knowing my own limits and what I can safely try, and never feeling compelled to do anything that makes me feel concerned for my health.

[Anabiyeni]

36 minutes ago, vulprix said:

In my experience, therapists can only be so much help because of the bounds of their practice and their determination to help the issue they are *trained* to deal with—the mental health issue.

I forgot to add that this has been an ongoing frustration for me. I have sometimes found spiritual counselors more helpful because I think they make an effort to (1) be more holistic and (2) articulate their own limits and when the person should seek professional/medical help.

[vulprix]

16 hours ago, ilweran said:

For me it helps - up to a point. Meditation certainly helps overall with the anxiety, though I still need medication these days to manage it which I didn't used to take. Given that I believe the anxiety has been severely exacerbated by hormonal changes (after having an ovary removed) I am finding that a more feminist and goddess oriented spirituality is helping me self-manage a lot of it because it gives more of a framework which modern, western culture lacks.

 

Really it's difficult though. I couldn't do anything like that, no tarot, no meditation, nothing on anti-depressants and I felt pretty awful on them, but I won't deny they helped, it's just the help came at a cost.

 

What it doesn't help with is the random panic attacks when in a shop, or crossing the road, or whatever that have no discernable trigger at all, but I'm ok at managing them. 

Thank you for sharing your situation, ilweran. I hope your hormones regulate and recover soon 🙂

 

Do you ever find yourself too anxious to meditate, or freaked out by meditating in and of itself? Or is it a pretty steady go-to for some centering?

[ilweran]

Just now, vulprix said:

Thank you for sharing your situation, ilweran. I hope your hormones regulate and recover soon 🙂

 

Do you ever find yourself too anxious to meditate, or freaked out by meditating in and of itself? Or is it a pretty steady go-to for some centering?

 

Thank you, it appears to have thrown me into peri-menopause, so could be having this for a while. The main difference it's made is that I used to be able to manage it myself, now I need help with that.

 

Yes, sometimes I can't meditate because I'm too wound up in that vicious circle anxiety can trap you in. But that's where the medication steps in, I can take them when I need them and they just cut out the physical reaction to the anxiety, which helps stop it escalating any further and then I usually can meditate if I want to, or I might just feel worn out and read a book instead. Or just sit quietly for a bit.

[vulprix]

1 minute ago, ilweran said:

 

Thank you, it appears to have thrown me into peri-menopause, so could be having this for a while. The main difference it's made is that I used to be able to manage it myself, now I need help with that.

 

Yes, sometimes I can't meditate because I'm too wound up in that vicious circle anxiety can trap you in. But that's where the medication steps in, I can take them when I need them and they just cut out the physical reaction to the anxiety, which helps stop it escalating any further and then I usually can meditate if I want to, or I might just feel worn out and read a book instead. Or just sit quietly for a bit.

I appreciate that 🙂 Meditation has been pretty foolproof for me. But there have been a couple of times where I kind of reached a bad frame of mind in spite of it, I think. The mind is a dangerous (but beautiful) place!

 

There are reports of folks going deep and actually going into psychosis due to meditation. I pray I never get that intense 😅 No time for that.

 

I am sending you good vibes with your hormonal troubles. Stay strong, sister!!

[TheLoracular]

This is a deep but important topic.  I'm going to write briefly only because otherwise I'd go on and on.  

I believe that a deep and sincere spiritual and/or magickal practice does help reduce emotional distress but I also believe that it creates a sensitivity that requires intentionally developing better emotional resilience.  

There is something in occult circles called "The Dark Night Of The Soul" and I like to think of is the result of what happens when "Lightning Hits The Tower" and the Tower = Us.  People fall completely apart emotionally otherwise as they are flung into life circumstances that will last for week, months, or years but they emerge from it with incredible spiritual and philosophical insight.   This happened to Elphias Levi.  This happened to Eckhart Tolle.   Without putting myself into the same category as either of those gentleman, I will say I've experienced this too.  

Learning to ground and center is fundamental to magick and spiritual practices.

Learning to Know Thyself and act with Wisdom, Knowledge and Understanding is fundamental to magick and spiritual practices.

Being prepared to face your inner demons head-on is fundamental to magick and spiritual practices.

Expecting things to get paradoxically easier and harder when it comes to tempering depression, anxiety and other conditions is fundamental to magick and spiritual practices. 

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by TheLoracular

[vulprix]

18 hours ago, Anabiyeni said:

I have never been diagnosed with anything, but a counselor once told me she thought I might suffer from mild anxiety. It runs in my family, so she was probably right. She never did whatever people do to formally diagnose it, though, and mostly I can handle my stress levels on my own. Aside from that, I also suffer from hallucinations and flashbacks.

Most of the time, the hallucinations (visual and/or auditory mostly) don't bother me, but for a while, I was prescribed a drug that stripped my ability to discern even the weirdest hallucinations (a sparkly unicorn sipping tea on my kitchen table, for example) from reality, and that was especially terrifying because I was conscious of the fact that I had no idea if the unicorn (that I knew shouldn't exist) was really there. I got off that drug as quickly as I could. Someone else posted a form of meditation/reading where you imagine yourself inside an image, experiencing the scene. I'd love to try it, but then I recall the time I thought my hallucinations were reality, so in that sense it limits the reading methods I can use.

 

I think Tarot helps me deal with some of the root causes of the flashbacks and some of the stress. In general, I think a lot of it is knowing my own limits and what I can safely try, and never feeling compelled to do anything that makes me feel concerned for my health.

I think I read that thread, too, when seeking a topic on the forum like this one. And it too made me feel a bit hesitant. I enjoy digging deeper into inner experiences but understand how dangerous it can be.

 

I am sorry to hear that hallucinations continue to affect your life negatively. I have experienced this myself, but not continually. Very scary stuff. I am glad your discernment and determination have kept you persevering!

 

Regarding your followup post—how did you go about finding a spiritual counselor who has been of help? 🙂 

[vulprix]

33 minutes ago, TheLoracular said:

This is a deep but important topic.  I'm going to write briefly only because otherwise I'd go on and on.  

I believe that a deep and sincere spiritual and/or magickal practice does help reduce emotional distress but I also believe that it creates a sensitivity that requires intentionally developing better emotional resilience.  

There is something in occult circles called "The Dark Night Of The Soul" and I like to think of is the result of what happens when "Lightning Hits The Tower" and the Tower = Us.  People fall completely apart emotionally otherwise as they are flung into life circumstances that will last for week, months, or years but they emerge from it with incredible spiritual and philosophical insight.   This happened to Elphias Levi.  This happened to Eckhart Tolle.   Without putting myself into the same category as either of those gentleman, I will say I've experienced this too.  

Learning to ground and center is fundamental to magick and spiritual practices.

Learning to Know Thyself and act with Wisdom, Knowledge and Understanding is fundamental to magick and spiritual practices.

Being prepared to face your inner demons head-on is fundamental to magick and spiritual practices.

Expecting things to get paradoxically easier and harder when it comes to tempering depression, anxiety and other conditions is fundamental to magick and spiritual practices. 

 

Thank you, Loracular. This is very much what I am talking about. 🙂 

 

I think the part where I feel stuck is, facing inner demons head-on just doesn’t sound great. I feel as though I have been there (like you are describing for yourself and others)—perhaps I’m feeling passive and hoping that growth will reach me on its own. But I’m more of a “doer” 🙂 and do not possess rose-colored glasses.

 

You’re right that it has gotten easier and harder at the same time. I very much appreciate your last point that this should be a continual expectation.

[Anabiyeni]

31 minutes ago, vulprix said:

Regarding your followup post—how did you go about finding a spiritual counselor who has been of help?

I'm Roman Catholic, so I usually start by feeling out the lay ministers (people who are not priests but are trained in church theology with some counseling background) within my parish, and if I'm actively looking for someone, I will ask other parishioners. I find that especially lay ministers attached to university churches tend to be supportive and open-minded. My friends who are lay ministers have also counseled non-Catholics and are happy to do so, but find non-Catholics are generally reticent to approach them unless introduced by friends.

 

If you are not part of a spiritual group, I think finding a spiritual counselor can be a lot harder.