Past Lives and Mental Health

[kore_wa_sensou]

Originally Posted by sea-dove

There is situational depression and there is what my doctor calls true depression, depression caused by low serotonin. If serotonin is low a person can just suddenly be overcome with intense sadness for no reason at all. This isn't at all uncommon with depression and being hormonal, not linked to past lives.

That being said, past lives may cause depression esp if they are coming up for cleaning (the energy of the other lifetime surfacing). Many people will know if they have something like this going on. If that is the case some very good psychic healers could probably tell you while helping to clear it.

Depression from a past life situation... I'd think probably would have likelyt triggers to it.. eg a person may get depressed for no reason at all known to them, whenever they think of a certain another person or get sudden depression every time they hear about a certain type of disaster (one they were in another lifetime) etc . Past life trigger..Depression will often relate to something which isn't making sense for this lifetime.

I know when my past life stuff comes up, it usually has triggers to the past life emotions and the triggers are usually obvious that something has triggered the the emotional response eg one day I flipped out (sudden immense fear to the point I actually started shaking) on a friend handing me a drink .. I suddenly was scared of him and that drink and suddenly wanted to flee him and his house (turned out he'd drugged me by a drink he'd made me .. probably juice.. in another lifetime way back in a tribal time!). This is what I mean by often obvious past life triggers which then go on and lead to an emotional response.

Interestingly he'd made me hot drinks all the time but I never had that response to him, only when he this one time he made me and brought me in a "juice". Anyway, strange stuff like that can give clues that it may be another lifetime coming up esp if a person often has past life stuff affect them and coming up for clearing.

Anyway, sudden sadness for no reason is normal in depression and not usually related to past lives. If your depression is related to something "not making much sense" eg if I look at the sea Im depressed all night.., it may be worth looking into if it could be a past life.

phobias though.. most of those which aren't related to this lifetime are probably related to other lifetimes.

I'm aware of the different types of depression, unfortunately. Mine is chronic depression (dysthymia) so it's always there, just more intense on some days than others. And what you said makes a lot of sense. I know a lot about depression, but I was just curious if certain things carry over from one lifetime to another. I don't have weird triggers. Just looking at the stars and feeling a huge hole in my chest. But that's the only thing. I still want to read up more on past lives though.

Asrai: I don't plan on doing a past life regression (at least anytime soon) but thanks for the tips everyone. I will definitely keep that in mind. I appreciate it. I am very curious about my past lives but I honestly want to just focus on this life and get everything together first, haha. Thank you.

[kore_wa_sensou]

Originally Posted by Asrai

I believe that all lives are happening at once and if something traumatic happens in one life, it might affect the other lives at the exact moment.

This is so interesting. Can you please elaborate on this for a bit? Do you mean like...parallel universes or something like that? Sorry if I'm way off the mark, I'm still learning about these topics.

[Asrai]

I'm talking about all of our lives happening at once in different time periods. When something very traumatic happens in one life, you might feel it in this life as well as the others.

For example, say you were kidnapped in one of your lives and bound by the wrists and ankles and gagged. You might experience this in your lifetime as a new phobia that has just surfaced seemingly out of nowhere. You now panic is someone holds your wrists or ankles in a certain way or you can no longer hold anything in your mouth or you will gag.

My self-esteem issues surfaced when I was 5 during the time I was experiencing in the medieval plague where I became a street orphan and everyone shunned me and treated me like a rat.

I became extremely depressed when I was 16. Not sure if the reason for this stems from another life but I felt extremely trapped and homesick. I believe it stems from my awakening and remembering where I came from. I am allergic to depression medication though so I had to deal with it on my own. It eventually goes away but it's easy to resurface when I get too involved with this world. I have to stay away from the news and try to focus on the positives rather than the negatives in the world. A level of detachment is required for me to stay sane. It is hard though when the world is feeling something strongly because I can't help but absorb it.

Maybe that's what you are feeling. You are probably an strong empath! (as am I) You pick up others collective energy and it affects you. If this is the case for your depression, you will need to learn how to protect yourself from others energies and learn to recognize if what you're feeling is your own.

[Scribe of the Sky]

After reading all of the discussion, I can only tell you from my own experience and that of others that past lives can definitely effect the mental health of your present life. Throughout my whole life I have had glimpses of some of my lives and there are residual characteristics or situations that seem to have passed on to me in this life. For example, there is a reason I never liked turtlenecks or anything around my neck too fitting. There were also things that I just knew without having learned about in this life.

There were tragedies and there were amazing and joyful moments I have had in past lives. Of course I didn't realize this until I was older and able to put the pieces together. We might also reconnect with people or animals in this life from other lives. I came to this thread because I am dealing with some of it now. I don't know if it is making it any easier to deal with. But if it helps to answer your question, then that is good.

Also, as Asrai was saying you may feel a certain way if you are empathic, which I am also. For example, I worked at a psychiatric hospital and when I would walk onto the units, there were many times when I became overwhelmed by a feeling of being heavily drugged. That's the only way I can describe how I felt. I never felt that way before, and only when I walked into the hospital units. I also sometimes feel physical pain someone else is experiencing. But it doesn't happen often. However I do feel like I am constantly aware of the general feel of the atmosphere. So, I feel physical manifestations of energy around me. Some empaths feel mostly emotional energy around them. I don't get that as much.

Anyway, what I am dealing with now is a separation that has happened in other lives. I don't know why I am reliving it, but it really hurts and is depressing. It's part of the reason I joined here, just a few days ago, hoping that it might help to deal with it. But also because I have been wanting to expand the circle of people I know to share things that I can't otherwise share with others.

As someone else had said, it really helps to connect with other people when you are depressed, or for whatever reason. Though I have people in my life, it helps when I am alone to come here or other places and just say hi, or distract myself with the amazing stuff that people put into these threads. I hope you feel better, I am right there with ya, trying to get through this. It just takes time.

[Serrao]

Originally Posted by kore_wa_sensou

So, I was wondering if there was a link between past lives and present mental health. Say, for example, your previous past life was filled with one trauma after another. You had a very difficult life. Can that sadness transfer into your present life and be a cause of your depression or anxiety or your phobia or etc.?

I agree.
The soul has memory beyond the current incarnation.
Subconsciously you remember past lives too.
The emotions related to those subconscious memories can make you feel depressed.

[Sojourner2013]

Hi Kore,
I believe that some issues can be residual issues from previous lives, but ultimately you determine which ones to bring forth that will help you develop your spiritual growth and chosen life path. Example: ADHD is very common disorder, but I believe that the person chooses this disorder for various reasons, such as developing patience, developing listening, etc. because the ADHD would make this difficult to do for such a person. The ADHD could stem from a previous life as a war soldier who had to maintain a high alert about everything in a stressful environment.

And to jump on Asai's thoughts about simultaneous lives, a good read on that theory is Jane Roberts. I call it the Pringle effect. If you imagine all your lives stacked on top of each other like a stack of Pringles, then take a needle as a point in time and shove it through the stack of Pringles (imagine, of course, they don't crumble)-- that point in time (needle) will effect/experience each lifetime. I hope that explains a little more. We, on the earth plane, tend to think in linear time, so our "past lives" tend to be from previous times and our "future lives" tend to be about "unexperienced" times, as yet. Roberts talks about all the lives occurring simultaneously.

I hope this helps.

[Asrai]

"simultaneous lives, a good read on that theory is Jane Roberts."

Thanks for posting Sojourner. I will also look into this info!