We are witnesses.
Darkest darkness, lightest light.
We have been and lived.
Demons scratch our backs,
gargling innocent blood
right next to our ears.
We received our wings;
Wisdom showed herself to us
and raptured again.
-theothersid3
All potentials for evil doing are there. What shines very bright also casts very dark shadows.
I gave the key to light, not darkness. Darkness had quite a crack at me in Park Place in 2003-2004. I hold the key now after God hands me what I can handle. That key had the power to unlock very dark doors – and my demons tried to force my mind, hand, and spirit. I chose not to go there and that is the saving grace that led me here, free of the need for an exorcism.
The shadow’s potentials do exist. My demons try to twist me into the shadows. However, I am not my shadows. I simply cast them.
-theothersid3
During those timeless moments of pulling the God string, borders ceased to be. Everything seemed to converge on one point. One. God. The foundation of our very existence. The same unseen now.
I see what our subconsciousness sees through the veil on the other side, then look behind me. There sits my empty vessel, writing pen to paper away all my problems without a soul to see in it. A computer bot could have written those words down on that paper, except it was my handwriting.
Our plane is the crest of every wavelength, the physical realm, the world of atoms. Our world is much, much deeper and more expansive than atoms.
-theothersid3
There is a direct line to God. It is what I call the “God string.” Give it a pull and you see the world from your own eyes the way God intended us to see the world, in that particular moment or bigger time periods. How did I pull the string? I asked God to do his will, not my own. Then, after my eyes were open, I was dead and born again.
-theothersid3
My inheritance…
Their generational sins,
mouth and hands alike.
Darkness seeps through me,
cracks in my subconsciousness,
dark energy’s Wombs.
My words, actions, are
in ways just like my father’s,
just like my mother’s.
The bedrock walls of
my mind turn to ashes; I
cross the veil as One.
A tri-braided cord:
Trifecta of love, God, us –
a gift from heaven.
We swallow, it binds.
Devour bitter, little scrolls,
forbidden knowledge.
Dark puppet strings pop:
severed from our mind-hearts; we
take up wings and fly.
-theothersid3
Where Mad Hatter dreams,
the sharpest minds become blunt;
here, I cross over.
Between light and dark
lies lucid experience:
demons, Diety.
Both ravage my flesh,
state of living death; lost here,
in the asylum?
-theothersid3
I met the faces of wisdom and folly during my first psychotic break at age 17 on 12-25-03 in Orlando, FL. I experienced the faces of good and evil with my entire being during this vision.
At first, I was with wisdom’s embodied spirit. She gently pointed me to my then unknown wife, by name on that Christmas morning, 2003 in Orlando, FL.
Folly, wisdom’s shadow, appeared after wisdom left, the one who helped make my life a standstill for 6 years. She tied my soul to another woman, my obsession, via black magic. She snuck her spirit in to guide me to darkness every step of the way and shut out God’s light.
I experienced a couple of spectacular organic, drug-free trips down rabbit holes which ripped my mind-heart-spirit from my body. It reached the point where I physically looked down on my body, an empty vessel on autopilot.
The first trip was immediately after my vision on 12-25-03. The second trip was 6 years later at age 23 starting on 6-16-09 the first day of my second hospital stay.
The next step both times was to climb back out. I was lucky they ran their courses safely back to reality both times instead of being stuck in a state of perpetual psychosis afterwards.
The next step is to recover from this profoundly intriguing, devastating trauma. 17 years later, I am starting to wrap this up. For me, this involves developing the lens of my worldview after having such intense spiritual experiences, making peace with them, and gleaning the good from them to take ownership of.
I did everything I could do short of physically dying in the face of evil after folly put a spell on me. Mentally, my spirit was broken in 2003 and began to heal in 2009. I held onto the experience I had with wisdom to keep myself together during those 6 years.
6-16-09 marked the first day of my second hospital stay and the second trip down the psychotic rabbit hole, which was book 2 after book 1 being the first trip. When God laid his hands on my spiritual heart and brought me back, he shattered the twisted black magic from my own folly and folly’s.
7 years later on 6-16-16 marks the first day of my third hospital stay. I did not go down the rabbit hole, but I learned what the darkness and the light and everything in between sounded like in my head. I learned discernment during that stay.
The face of evil leaves behind the darkest shadows that none can pluck. They haunt me and I learned to shut them out. It is so personal and potentially destructive, I cannot acknowledge these shadows in the wake of wisdom. They come from the darkest cesspool of Gehenna, where the filth and bodies are burned.
With the light of wisdom in the world comes the shadow of folly in the world. Both go hand in hand. I choose to pursue wisdom as best I can. The light brightens the more I pursue wisdom and love.
Decades later, I have a deeper connection with God as a result. I also have a connection with darkness I have learned to manage. The darkness is my shadow, not me. The brighter I shine, the smaller and darker the shadows become.
I am still building myself up at age 34 in 2020, 17 years after age 17 in 2003. My wife embodies that spirit of wisdom I encountered at age 17. My wife is a person of God and formed from my rib, the one wisdom indicated by name. I experience God through her.
The shadows stay in my little black box I made for them in my mind.
-theothersid3
I became married to my beautiful wife a few months ago. The all-encompassing, loving force she has on my naked self is stronger than gravity. I mean my dreams, my mind-heart, my spirit, my soul, my strength.
There have been many shifts in me since I met her. She helps me see the path to my dreams more clearly, we quench our thirsty mind-hearts together, she provides joy to my spirit, invites God into our lives and relationship, and takes care of me to keep my strength up.
Bipolar I is now a small burden to deal with. Instead, life is sprouting from those decomposed wounds of the past, and bipolar now acts as an inspiration of many great potentials. Inspirations in my daily life, my worldview, and my outlook for the rest of my life.
My wife and I have committed to write the books of our lives together till death do us part. If there is a way to follow her into the dark, I will without a doubt.
With each other, we can proceed to the next contexts of life and enjoy each moment. Together.
-theothersid3
photo credit: mclcbooks Sunrise, Chatfield State Park, Colorado via photopin (license)
The effects of depression on perception are profound. Cognition and all of the senses are dulled, deadened, and darkened. While I have spiraled down the depression pit in the past, everything seems to turn numb, dark, and/or painful. I’ll give a short thought illustration of how the senses, perception, and cognition are affected.
_____________
A Moment of Depression
The clear, blue sky on a beautiful summer day fades to a light shade of bluish grey. I’m holding my favorite food in my hand, but I cannot smell it. I force myself to take a bite and it tastes like cardboard. My silky shirt feels faint, not even soft to my touch. I hear some of my favorite music from the past play, but it does not sound like it used to. It is not a matter that I’ve outgrown it. Instead, the song is darker, duller, void of emotion, and the notes muffled.
I trip over a pothole and tweak my ankle. I probably deserved that. I’m not worthy of any career I wish to pursue because I’m worthless and lazy, and can’t do anything right. A woman looks at me and smiles, telling me Hi. That’s just happenstance, and I didn’t deserve such a gesture. I deserve to die. Everything is my fault.
The world will be better without me. I’m a burden to everyone around me. How can I kill myself appropriately to escape this anguish? I can’t bring myself to do anything good, and going outside took all the effort in the world. I can’t touch, hear, see, taste, smell, love, feel, think like I used to. I can’t come up with any good ideas anymore. Nothing can cheer me up and all I get are glimpses of things that make me happy, if even that. All I know now is pain and loneliness. How about slitting my wrists so my family will be able to see my body when I’m dead and hurt them less?
_____________
If you or anyone you know is going through depression, keep in mind the world of someone struggling with depression is very different from a healthy mindset. Unless you have dealt with depression yourself, it is very difficult to understand it. One can’t always simply get out of bed and do what he or she needs to do to get ready in the morning.
The contents in the thought illustration (or a similar context) are lingering in the mind of the depressed person. Perception spirals down easily, faster and deeper the more the depression progresses. The thoughts/lack of senses stick in the forefront of the mind and take turns tormenting the poor victim. You can think of it as a giant trauma loop that will not go away.
The best thing anyone can do for a loved one with depression is to be there for him or her. Hear the victim of depression out, and have an open ear, mind, and heart for him or her. Most of all, affirm loved ones with depression and tell them how much you appreciate them and why. Write it down and hand it to them, so they can reaffirm your words and/or pictures later.
I hope the illustration may help shine light on what’s going on in a depressed mind, and that it may help.
-theothersid3
One may expect nothing good coming from completely losing one’s mind to madness, and dealing with the aftermath. I often heard the cliches about how I would be a stronger person as a result and I would learn so much through these experiences. However, looking back, those words of encouragement only spoke of the beginning of what I gained resulting from embarking on the recovery process.
I did a little bit of reflecting in my journal this evening about what I have lost and gained over the past fourteen years, since I was diagnosed with bipolar I following a psychotic break.
Here’s a small list of profound losses I experienced within the past fourteen years:
I still struggle hard with my physical health and my ability to adequately care for myself. However, in the past fourteen years, I’ve regained much about the other items on the list.
So, not only have I gained back most of the above list of losses, I’ve found the following:
During recovery, there are seasons and there are trends. It was pitch black for many years of my life. I had therapy nearly every week for 9 months after my first episode, often focusing on the reasons why I shouldn’t commit suicide. All seasons of recovery present their challenges. Over time, the light becomes brighter, and during the seasons, this light will fluctuate.
However, just know that the deeper my pain, the deeper my loss, the more constitutive my loss… the deeper character I gain, the more I find, and the more cohesive I become as a result of these experiences. I’ve reached a point where I have become someone that is beyond my wildest dreams or imaginations, compared to fourteen years ago.
I’m at a brightly blossoming point in my road to recovery. I still have a ways to go, but I’m making progress faster than I have ever before. The truth is… those cliche encouragements did help a little bit when I took them in good faith. The darker the valley, the harder it is to climb out and the longer it takes to climb out. I had faith in myself that I could get through when I was unable to call on God for help and no one could be there for me.
One thing is always true: have faith in yourself. No matter how bad it is, you can overcome.
-theothersid3
photo credit: Stuck in Customs Aurora Over The Valley via photopin (license)
theothersid3 