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On Mania and Spirituality
Aug. 31st, 2015 02:53 pmThought this was an interesting article:
http://www.ibpf.org/blog/mania-spiritual-experience
Mania is an experience that is kind of impossible to describe. You react very strongly to everything, are constantly convinced of your own rightness, and everything suddenly takes on entirely new meanings that they didn't take before. Some common symptoms of mania are recklessness, excitement, irritability, delusions, hallucinations, and bizarre behavior.
When I experienced mania during my last episode, I became convinced that people were watching me and trying to communicate secret messages to me via things like my music and my social media. I became convinced that everything was a secret message to me, written in code, and that unseen people were trying to speak to me in my daily life.
The thing is, these people were not always a negative influence. Sometimes they were very encouraging (though they could turn sharp very quickly).
I mentioned this to my mother, and she said that sounded like a spiritual experience. She said it's natural to feel like someone is watching over you. She gave one example from her own life: She was in the car at a stop light. The light turned green, but she didn't go immediately. She paused. To this day, she has no idea why. Just at that moment, a car came speeding outward, running a red light. If she had gone immediately, the car would have hit her, and she'd have died on impact, and I wouldn't exist.
The way my Mom put it, she became convinced there was someone watching out for her that day. Someone stopped her from hitting the gas pedal. And she thinks I have the same thing. I've lost my grandmother, for example, and my Mom is completely convinced she is out there somewhere and fighting from my corner, helping me out.
So now the real question is: Are spiritual experiences a kind of mania, or is mania a spiritual experience?
http://www.ibpf.org/blog/mania-spiritual-experience
Mania is an experience that is kind of impossible to describe. You react very strongly to everything, are constantly convinced of your own rightness, and everything suddenly takes on entirely new meanings that they didn't take before. Some common symptoms of mania are recklessness, excitement, irritability, delusions, hallucinations, and bizarre behavior.
When I experienced mania during my last episode, I became convinced that people were watching me and trying to communicate secret messages to me via things like my music and my social media. I became convinced that everything was a secret message to me, written in code, and that unseen people were trying to speak to me in my daily life.
The thing is, these people were not always a negative influence. Sometimes they were very encouraging (though they could turn sharp very quickly).
I mentioned this to my mother, and she said that sounded like a spiritual experience. She said it's natural to feel like someone is watching over you. She gave one example from her own life: She was in the car at a stop light. The light turned green, but she didn't go immediately. She paused. To this day, she has no idea why. Just at that moment, a car came speeding outward, running a red light. If she had gone immediately, the car would have hit her, and she'd have died on impact, and I wouldn't exist.
The way my Mom put it, she became convinced there was someone watching out for her that day. Someone stopped her from hitting the gas pedal. And she thinks I have the same thing. I've lost my grandmother, for example, and my Mom is completely convinced she is out there somewhere and fighting from my corner, helping me out.
So now the real question is: Are spiritual experiences a kind of mania, or is mania a spiritual experience?
