Mental Illness or Mystic Awakening

The Final Test: Traversing Madness, Medicine, and the Spirit Realm

I used to think I was broken.

But now I know I was open.

Not just sensitive, but spiritually attuned. And in this society, those two qualities (sensitivity and expression) are not only discouraged. They are pathologized.

I learned this the hard way.

Not through a book. Not through theory.

But by waking up in a mental hospital after a regression retreat cracked open my access to other realms. Realms I wasn’t taught how to navigate.

No one told me what to do with that much dimension.

No one taught me how to walk between worlds with my feet still on the ground.

Instead, I was drugged. Restrained. Told I was delusional. Told that the things I saw, the love I felt, the patterns I perceived, were all signs of illness. Not insight.

But here’s the thing. It was love. And it was real.

It still is.

And I want to be clear. I wasn’t floating through some enlightened dream. I still had my human parts online.

I did things that scared people. I believed I was being watched. I acted in ways that, from the outside, looked unstable, because I was unstable. I was dancing back and forth between my humanity, my spiritual ego, and my higher self, without any map or anchor. And I hurt people in the process. I confused them. I confused myself.

And I hold space for all of that. For the people who were affected. For the ones who couldn’t understand what I was going through. For the part of me that needed grounding as much as it needed guidance.

Because here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud:

You can be both.

You are both.

A spiritual being with access to high realms and a human being still learning to walk.

Both sacred and scared.

Both powerful and porous.

I’ve met many souls in psych wards and rehab centers. Every single one of them was sensitive. Every single one of them was tuned in, sometimes too much, sometimes without guidance, but never crazy. Some of them numb their gift with substances, trying to survive in a world that tells them their perception is a threat. And maybe it is, to systems that feed off disconnection.

There’s a reason alcohol is called spirits.

It mimics the feeling of connection to the divine, without the clarity. Just enough to remember, not enough to embody. Like catnip for the soul.

But true spiritual connection, through meditation, through deep inner work, through prayer and silence and surrender, opens a different kind of channel. One that isn’t always comfortable. One that shows us everything we tried to bury. One that must be walked with support.

And if there’s anything I wish I had been told in those early days, it’s this:

You are not broken.

You are not crazy.

You are remembering.

We are the ones who came with a different map. And that map doesn’t make sense to a world still obsessed with flat surfaces and straight lines.

I am no longer afraid to speak this truth.

What we call insanity is sometimes initiation.

What we call symptoms are sometimes the signals of awakening.

But it is not romantic. It is not always beautiful.

It is terrifying when you’re alone. And it is dangerous when misunderstood.

That’s why I’m speaking now. Because I have walked through every shadow my mind could conjure. I have faced every nightmare I was programmed to believe. And my final test was this:

To believe in my spirit, even when no one else did.

To trust my inner knowing over their diagnosis.

I no longer fear being labeled.

Because I have earned the right to call myself whole.

And if you’re reading this, if any of this sounds like you, know that you are not alone. The web has connected us. We are here to midwife a new way. One where imagination is not punished. One where love is not feared. One where spirit is not a symptom, but a birthright.