Trying to make sense of the last few months

[RSF424]

Hello all,

I am new to the forum and have in the past considered myself to be apathetic to things of a spiritual nature and life more generally, always feeling as if I existed somewhere far away from this body. But something changed in me in December of 2018. I had a series of experiences that rekindled my connection with this body and broadened my perspective on the complexity of this reality in general. I won't tell the entirety of my experience or what triggered it here as it would only serve to further confuse and would be of little use in understanding the core of the experience. It suffices to say that with this newfound perception came the release of a great deal of negative emotion that often felt as if it was not my own. On 16th I felt a profound sense of paranoia and fear that permeated my surroundings and felt as if I was being dissected and prodded around my spinal chord where the days previous to that I had felt a profound connection to all things and the desire to share that with anyone I met.

The paranoia I felt was mirrored in the people closest to me. I called my cousin that night who I had not been able to talk with for a while and he was relieved as he was feeling the same sense foreboding that I was. I went to work the next day and had what would be considered a mental breakdown. I felt that I needed to tell people about the connection to life that I had discovered regardless of the repercussions. I was received positively by some but some said that such conversations should be had in private and tried to dissuade me from speaking. But I physically couldn't do as they asked. The pain in my spine paralyzed me and only abated when I was able to communicate the full extent of my thoughts without inhibition. There was also something extremely bizarre about some of the peoples reactions. I was by all accounts making quite a scene but there where several who people near my who did not turn from there work and had bizarre smiles of content on their faces. Eventually the police were called and I was sent to an emergency hospital where one of the security guards approached me and told me that I was not alone, that others had awoken and life would continue. He told me to visit a temple of the freemason's and there I might find a community to belong in.

From there I was transported to a psychiatric facility where once again the people running seemed strange. The staff was entirely uninterested in their patients and had the same bizarre smiles and affect I had encountered at work. Furthermore their eyes where dilated and when they spoke it felt as if something else was communicating through them and I felt the same hostile presence in the air that I had the night before. I busied myself with getting to know my fellow inmates. Some seemed aggressive and belligerent and some where full on catatonic, not able to communicate or look at anyone for more than a second. One patients was called Nathan, and I immediately felt a connection with him as if we were brothers. He told me, by way of introduction, that this reality exists in a finite band of energy, too much energy and the system collapses and that that was why we were here. That we were two halves of a coin intrinsically connected. I was less than certain that he was correct but was willing to entertain the notion.

My encounters with the other patients was much the same, always seeming like the entity I was speaking to did not reside in the person in front of me and that the communication was some sort of test. We had several group therapy sessions a day. There were two occasions that stand out. In one we were asked to make a collage out out of words cut from magazines. I would randomly grab one piece and then the next and gradually a message would form. I cannot remember the exact phrasing of what emerged but it was something to the affect of: 'I have not abandoned you, I am still with you always'.
The other was a group collage where everyone involved was assigned a quadrant of a large piece of canvas to fill with whatever they desired. I ended up drawing the the earth and a miss-shaped moon, although that is not what I intended when I started out. When I had completed the piece i ran a pastel along a crease in the table tracing out line bounding the earth and half of the moon to the left side of canvas. The attendant commented that she liked that I had made an imperfection in the table a part of my drawing and one of the patients who had not even looked at me before told me: "forgive me, I didn't know who you were". I don't know exactly what to make of this or who she thought I was, but these strange interactions continued even after I was discharged. Whether I was on medication or off the same sense of ominous presence or divine light followed me wherever I went with whoever I talked to for the following 3 months. It has gradually faded to what I would have previously called normal but the traces of it still remain. I have no idea what the true significance of this was, but I now feel that there are at least two and more likely four, competing forces that I must continually deal with. The two that I am directly aware of are of control and chaos. I feel that I am in someway an intermediary between the two as I find I attract people of both types with equal affinity.

There is much more that I have omitted from this what I have already disclosed seems confusing enough. I would welcome any thoughts on what I've experienced as I am unable to put it away, and feel I cannot go on living the same life I was before, although I see no other way to continue.

Thank you,
RSF