Schizophrenia or Wicca?

Hi, my name is Bernard. I'm a 30 year old South African male, I have lived here my entire life. I have a story to tell that sounds out of this world and would like some feedback.

About 3 years ago my life took a turn for the worst, I had survived a major accident that almost took my life. About 2 years after the accident I started experimenting with hard drugs. I started taking drugs everyday and after about 6 months I started hearing voices. The voices told me they loved me and wanted me to stop taking drugs. At first I thought they were out to get me and someone had bugged my room (because they responded to me when I spoke out loud). After a while I figured out that they could read my mind and I went to see a doctor. I stopped taking drugs and was put on anti-psychotics.

The voices stopped for a while, but started again. They started telling me about things that were going to happen in the future. I dismissed this as schizophrenia... Until the things they told me started to come true.

I eventually made really good friends with them. There is a male voice and some female voices. The male voice is quite hard on me (in a good way) and the female voices are nurturing (tell me to put shoes on when I'm doing things like changing light bulbs etc). One night I was listening to music and talking to them, the genre was deep, dark house music. I started looking at the ferns growing outside my room and thought how beautiful and spiritual they looked. I told the voices that darkness can also be beautiful and how pagans believes in the beauty of nature. They were taken aback. At this point I didn't know that Wicca was a neo-paganistic belief system, I had no idea.

A few days later I was talking to the female voice and she said something to me and I asked her how she knew this and if she was a witch... "So what if I am?". I told her that I knew witchcraft isn't evil and there was a group of people that practice white magic. She said she was Wiccan. Until this time I had very little understanding of Wicca, almost nothing. She told me about Mother Earth, I went online and found Mother Earth was a Wiccan deity. I was amazed, they called it "shock and awe". I am still somewhat in shock.

They speak to me everyday, they told me I was a Wiccan in a previous life. At that point I had no idea Wiccans believed in reincarnation. I went online and found the saying "once a witch, always a witch". This stunned me even more.

When I lie in bed I can feel a presence lying next to me at times. Sometimes my legs start moving without me moving them. I have dreams about purple laser light in the shape of a pentagram and hear voices so loud they hurt my ear drums (in my sleep). When I'm awake sometimes the voices tell me I will feel love right now and am overcome with emotion so powerful that I am overwhelmed. Sometimes they tell me they feel sad and tears stream down my face without me crying.

I did a lot of research about schizophrenia and found that there is almost no chance I am schizo. The voices keep quiet when I am doing something important, if I ask them to leave me alone they do. This is a luxury schizophrenics lack. My life has started to take a turn for the better since this started happening.

There is so much that I've left out, I'd appreciate any feedback that anyone has before I talk about them. Thank you for your time.

I have to say when i started to read this i was a little worried but your connection with the voices sounds amazing. The way you initially described the voices points to schizophrenia and sufferers can become very attached to the voices. They become and integral part of their life. However you describe a presence lying close to you in bed? Which makes me think it might not be..Or a mi of both. The paranoia was also a little worrying....

Does it worry you?! If it does go back to your doctor but the fact you seem perfectly at ease with them, that they leave you alone when you ask them to and you can manage it seems like you are doing all the right things and that it might not be...Im kinda stumped if im honest. Im a student nurse and havent had huge amounts of epereince with schiz but spent some time with people who have it and i have to say it was amazing. It can make you think all sorts of things. The thing is though just because the doctors think the voices are a medical problem - who is to say these voices arent your guides?

Also your leg moving without you wanting it too is nothing to worry about - its just your brain doing it and making you legs twitch randomly dont worry :)

I have never heard voices and if i did i think i would be worried, but i have had similar things happen in regards to things coming true. i.e. having a gut feeling about something, or having an idea pop into my head and then it happens...very odd..but lovely.

I feel like i have been no use or shattering you beliefs in what these voices are, i am just sayin air on the side of caution and dont jump in head first. Meditate and ask them for names, ask them if they are your guides. If you are concerned see you doctor and stay off the hard drugs :)

The fact you are happy with the situation and that you have ways of coping and in some respects you dont seem worried makes me feel that your fine and this is something truely spiritual and that you have very vocal guides :) Who knows! i hope i havent offended or upset you in any way.

Thanks for the feedback :)

What really intrigues me is that I knew almost nothing about Wicca before they told me the ways. Everything they have told me about Wicca I have found out only afterward online.

The one time they told me to make my friend go to the doctor because he was very sick. I made him swear to me he would go to the doctor and I paid for his visit. When he got there they found he had TB and diabetes and was admitted into ICU. He told me they told him if he had waited one more day, he would have died.

Once when I was listening to music, they told me to turn it down because my brother was studying. They said he was coming into my room and at that exact moment he came into my room.

They told me once my aunt's dog had died, later that day I found out the dog had died.

There are countless examples of this happening, if I had to go in depth this post would be very, very long.

[norseman]

Bernard, while in a meditative state I often get instructions from Mother Earth. [ do this, do that, do the other - such a bully at times ].
Schizophrenia or Wicca or Left/Right brain stuff - as long as the "voices" are positive and helpful, does it matter ? We all have an Inner Voice/Guide. Listen and apply two rules.
1. Does it make sense ? [ Logic ]
2. Does it feel right ? [ Emotions ]
If the answer is yes to both, go with it !

I actually agree with Norseman :) If they arent telling you to jump of a bridge or to harm yourself or others then go for it. They clearly arent worrying you and if they are your guides then that is one of the lovliest things ive heard :)

[norseman]

"I actually agree with Norseman" - worrying sign that, LostGirl. []

I know! We should just forget all about it and all will be fine once more. Phew!

The thing is that I hear the voices all day long, not in a meditative state although through mediation I pick up feelings against my body and can almost see them touching me and hugging me. They only really tell me positive things that help me out like: "get back to work!" and especially: "don't take drugs!".

They never tell me to hurt anyone else or myself. They told me that the best thing you can do in life is to help others.

The most profound thing that has happened to me is, before they revealed themselves to me as Wiccan, they told me they were Angels (I have a Catholic upbringing) because I kept on asking them how this was possible. I listened to an essay about Angels on the radio once and the person there said that when angels visit, they sometimes leave behind white feathers. I asked them to prove their existence by leaving me some white feathers and would often joke with them that I was waiting for my feathers. One night I was lying in bed speaking to them and they told me to look next to me on the bed and there were white feathers everywhere! This I swear to you ON EVERYTHING I hold dear! I collected the feathers and placed them in a container. Every few days I would check on them, eventually about a week later they disappeared.

It sounds like the drugs opened the higher nerve centers throughout the neo-cortex, in some this does cause mental illness. This does not appear to be the case in what you are describing but you opened them a bit prematurely. Now you are going to have to work very hard to understand them so that you do not fall into illness.

Do not believe everything you hear even when it is coming from inside. Learn to discern through writing and recording what is going on, day to day. Write a journal with: dreams, events, feelings, voices; see where it leads.

I suggest a course of study with a few who have experienced some of the same events. Look up Carl Jung and see where it takes you. What resonates should be studied. One specific suggestion: The Unknown Self by Carl Jung. That is the voice which said "Help others".........it always says that! Finding your own way to be of help is entirely between you and YOU(Divine Self).

[Spiritlite]

I really don't know what to say. Do the voices intefere with your life, ie can you have relationships with real people, can you work, etc etc. Can you do the basics of life. If not I don't think shizo is the issue. And yes the voices are telling you the truth about Wiccans, I consider myself a little bit of Wiccan.
Maybe do some reading about the Wiccans will help you
Spiritlite
PS I was born and raised in SA until I was 14 I'm now 35 I was born in JHB