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
Veil of the unseen,
Veil of God, my instincts scream;
Veil was conceived blind.
Blind in numbed darkness,
Blind to all worlds imagined,
Blind spot is the key.
Key to comprehend
Key to my deity’s soul.
David’s Key unlocks.
Unlocks earth’s heaven,
Unlocks true sight in all worlds,
Unlocks God’s wisdom.
Wisdom sees through me.
Wisdom comforts, coddles me.
Wisdom shrinks the veil.
-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
A lot has shifted in me since I met her seven to eight months ago.
Instead of the ever painful “where is she?” I constantly asked myself in the past, it turned into “This person is right in front of me… I more than love her to death, and her me.” That, right there, changes a man. I am loved completely like that and know I love her just as much.
I can tell you there are ways that are very basic that it changes me, as well as ways I do not yet understand.
This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.
“Mutual Lovers”
Deep in the darkness,
Demons rode our shoulders; Now
possessing God’s Light
God’s Light is frying our demons of the past. All of what we went through was worth it for a future with each other. God has turned a lot of darkness into light in our lives through each other. We found each other in the dark. Thank you, God.
-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)
Dear God,
It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to you from the heart, let alone written from the heart.
This journey is a lonely one and I’m in the middle of a piercing darkness. The light of your son is there in Christ Jesus, and it keeps me going, but it does not satisfy my here.
Thank you for showing me the Beyond, the Heavens, and Hades through my psychotic breaks. Without these visions, I would be more empty, fragmented, and lost.
Continue to show me the way you intend for me, and continue to give me the strength to push forward.
I know I will end up falling astray and will inevitably miss the mark of truth. God, I pray you show me truth and the way to shalom, for myself and those around me.
Keep me humble and malleable. Don’t let me lose perspective. I pray that all areas of knowledge, such as the scientific, philosophical, religious, and the spiritual may one day be united. I pray I may be an instrument in this process.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
-theothersid3
photo credit: tamaralvarez Helping Hand via photopin (license)
theothersid3 