I grew up as a Southern Baptist. My experience with religion was not very enjoyable; my church played video clips of the Rapture happening where pure Christians were taken and saved while unpure individuals were left behind during the apocalypse. My dad, a Sunday school teacher later turned serial abuser and molester, made us listen to CDs of the "Left Behind" evangelical stories detailing the suffering of those who stay on Earth following the Rapture. I remember as a kid the first time I saw clear rays of sunlight coming from behind clouds and believing the Rapture was here and I hadn't become worthy yet. Pretty traumatizing experiences to say the least.
In college I learned about my dad's awful behavior and soundly rejected Christianity and was left in limbo. I also started to dabble with psychedelics. My roommates and I went on quarterly "spiritual journeys" with LSD, mushrooms, or eventually DMT, where we would trip in the presence of each other with music and nature documentaries. These experiences led me to "spiritual awakenings" where I had tangible personal confrontations with "God", "universal consciousness", being "one with the universe", and mostly came out of the trips with profound positive findings that I was able to assimilate into my day to day living. I began to practice daily meditation, and although I had gone through a hellishly abusive childhood, managed to make a life for myself, exceed academically and build myself up as a leader in my chosen major. I very much so became the best version of myself and was on track to a successful future.
When it came to graduating, a masters degree and internship was the next step, and I applied to only two programs: my current school's, and the program at the university in my hometown. I unfortunately got into the hometown program, and that meant I was moving back home. While my father was no longer in the picture, my remaining family was completely broken. To spare the details, they were traumatized and displayed signs of narcissism and schizophrenia. To this point I had dealt with addiction in a tamer sense; my mom taught me how to "cope" by using weed and alcohol and this continued from age 14 to the present time, but I had managed to not allow it to interfere with my academic success, and it truthfully helped me succeed socially as well.
Unfortunately, moving back home, combined with the start of the COVID pandemic, triggered a severe trauma response that I attempted to bury with weed smoking and, primarily, binge drinking. Sparing details again, I entered my first bout of mania at the beginning of my 2 year program, and by the end of my program I had manically threatened peers who "slighted" me, pushed much of my network away, but still ultimately graduated and enrolled in a PhD program back at my undergraduate school. I had endured the return to my abusive home and the pandemic and was able to escape back to the place where I became my best self. Unbeknownst to me, I was still in the thralls of severe binge drinking and extreme mania.
I lasted a semester and some change in the PhD program. It started with delusions of grandeur, thinking of myself in false high regard because faculty knew me and what I had accomplished in undergraduate, compared to my peers who were highly qualified, but "strangers" to the department. I completely disregarded my academic studies and responsibilities, and instead focused my attention on New Age spirituality. I was determined that it was possible to experience that "oneness with the universe", "God-consciousness" that I had experienced with psychedelics, and experience it in my day-to-day life, as long as I could "think the right way". Keep in mind, I was not sober, but binge drinking to the extreme once I was home from classes. Right as the first semester was ending, my mania became psychosis, and at night while binging I began to have closed-eye hallucinations of angelic entities stating I was one of the chosen, and jumbled spiritual edicts prompting me to become a politician that I frantically wrote down when I opened my eyes (I wish I still had these notes).
At the same time, I was reported to campus police for public threats on social media towards high school enemies due to disagreements in politics. This was right after I had met with my faculty advisor during my first panic attack, crying and sobbing about my past while begging for her to recognize my potential despite my complete lack of work to show for it. A few weeks later, I was gently ushered out of the program and strongly encouraged and guided to get psychiatric help. I continued to spiral after somehow convincing a psychiatrist that I was asymptomatic, and created more chaos in my personal life. Eventually I correlated my drinking to my sudden loss of "momentum", and I stopped drinking while also admitting to another psychiatrist my issues, and subsequently started psychiatric medication. Very quickly, I exited the psychosis and mania and was forced to look back on the scorched earth of the past few years in disgust.
Previously a very outgoing, motivated, and goal-driven individual (before my mental crisis), I immediately converted into an isolated, anxiety-ridden, deeply depressed mess. I could and still recognize that the combination of drugs/alcohol and a desire for spiritual experience was a recipe for disaster, and led to my demise. I was in mental health limbo, scraping by in my first career job but slowly making progress in healing as I stayed sober for 2 years. Unfortunately, last year in 2024, I relapsed on drinking and entered another, shorter manic episode with notable paranoia, but without the spiritual aspects, however still with societal and career repercussions.
I was forced into an intensive outpatient program (which I am now extremely grateful for), and towards the end of the program I began working with Alcoholics Anonymous for after-care treatment. I am currently 7+ months sober now, but I am even more now riddled with existential anxiety and depression. A major part of AA is making contact with a higher power and having a spiritual awakening; however I have found myself completely petrified by the idea of reconnecting with the spiritual world that caused me endless pain and loss. Albeit, this time would be sober, I am still terrified to reintroduce myself to the subject that led me to the shattering of my mind.
This has completely frozen any ambition for growth or positive progress. Outside of work, I spend my days isolated in my apartment, constantly reliving my psychosis, mania, and the fallout in my mind, and trying to run from this evil feeling in my heart, a creepy and ominous feeling peering over my shoulder. It is like a heavily, elastic biofilm covering me, that small bouts of motivation can stretch, but I am ultimately swallowed by. AA would say that only a spiritual journey can free me from this evil grasp, but my previous spiritual experiences are components of the film. I am working with a skilled EMDR therapist to combat my trauma throughout my life, but only just now did we discover the root cause of my petrification.
Making this discovery gives me a glimmer of hope, albeit extremely small. I am still drowning in self-loathing and existential dread, and I desperately and urgently need a path forward, or else I fear I may soon surrender and succumb to this spiritual crisis.
In college I learned about my dad's awful behavior and soundly rejected Christianity and was left in limbo. I also started to dabble with psychedelics. My roommates and I went on quarterly "spiritual journeys" with LSD, mushrooms, or eventually DMT, where we would trip in the presence of each other with music and nature documentaries. These experiences led me to "spiritual awakenings" where I had tangible personal confrontations with "God", "universal consciousness", being "one with the universe", and mostly came out of the trips with profound positive findings that I was able to assimilate into my day to day living. I began to practice daily meditation, and although I had gone through a hellishly abusive childhood, managed to make a life for myself, exceed academically and build myself up as a leader in my chosen major. I very much so became the best version of myself and was on track to a successful future.
When it came to graduating, a masters degree and internship was the next step, and I applied to only two programs: my current school's, and the program at the university in my hometown. I unfortunately got into the hometown program, and that meant I was moving back home. While my father was no longer in the picture, my remaining family was completely broken. To spare the details, they were traumatized and displayed signs of narcissism and schizophrenia. To this point I had dealt with addiction in a tamer sense; my mom taught me how to "cope" by using weed and alcohol and this continued from age 14 to the present time, but I had managed to not allow it to interfere with my academic success, and it truthfully helped me succeed socially as well.
Unfortunately, moving back home, combined with the start of the COVID pandemic, triggered a severe trauma response that I attempted to bury with weed smoking and, primarily, binge drinking. Sparing details again, I entered my first bout of mania at the beginning of my 2 year program, and by the end of my program I had manically threatened peers who "slighted" me, pushed much of my network away, but still ultimately graduated and enrolled in a PhD program back at my undergraduate school. I had endured the return to my abusive home and the pandemic and was able to escape back to the place where I became my best self. Unbeknownst to me, I was still in the thralls of severe binge drinking and extreme mania.
I lasted a semester and some change in the PhD program. It started with delusions of grandeur, thinking of myself in false high regard because faculty knew me and what I had accomplished in undergraduate, compared to my peers who were highly qualified, but "strangers" to the department. I completely disregarded my academic studies and responsibilities, and instead focused my attention on New Age spirituality. I was determined that it was possible to experience that "oneness with the universe", "God-consciousness" that I had experienced with psychedelics, and experience it in my day-to-day life, as long as I could "think the right way". Keep in mind, I was not sober, but binge drinking to the extreme once I was home from classes. Right as the first semester was ending, my mania became psychosis, and at night while binging I began to have closed-eye hallucinations of angelic entities stating I was one of the chosen, and jumbled spiritual edicts prompting me to become a politician that I frantically wrote down when I opened my eyes (I wish I still had these notes).
At the same time, I was reported to campus police for public threats on social media towards high school enemies due to disagreements in politics. This was right after I had met with my faculty advisor during my first panic attack, crying and sobbing about my past while begging for her to recognize my potential despite my complete lack of work to show for it. A few weeks later, I was gently ushered out of the program and strongly encouraged and guided to get psychiatric help. I continued to spiral after somehow convincing a psychiatrist that I was asymptomatic, and created more chaos in my personal life. Eventually I correlated my drinking to my sudden loss of "momentum", and I stopped drinking while also admitting to another psychiatrist my issues, and subsequently started psychiatric medication. Very quickly, I exited the psychosis and mania and was forced to look back on the scorched earth of the past few years in disgust.
Previously a very outgoing, motivated, and goal-driven individual (before my mental crisis), I immediately converted into an isolated, anxiety-ridden, deeply depressed mess. I could and still recognize that the combination of drugs/alcohol and a desire for spiritual experience was a recipe for disaster, and led to my demise. I was in mental health limbo, scraping by in my first career job but slowly making progress in healing as I stayed sober for 2 years. Unfortunately, last year in 2024, I relapsed on drinking and entered another, shorter manic episode with notable paranoia, but without the spiritual aspects, however still with societal and career repercussions.
I was forced into an intensive outpatient program (which I am now extremely grateful for), and towards the end of the program I began working with Alcoholics Anonymous for after-care treatment. I am currently 7+ months sober now, but I am even more now riddled with existential anxiety and depression. A major part of AA is making contact with a higher power and having a spiritual awakening; however I have found myself completely petrified by the idea of reconnecting with the spiritual world that caused me endless pain and loss. Albeit, this time would be sober, I am still terrified to reintroduce myself to the subject that led me to the shattering of my mind.
This has completely frozen any ambition for growth or positive progress. Outside of work, I spend my days isolated in my apartment, constantly reliving my psychosis, mania, and the fallout in my mind, and trying to run from this evil feeling in my heart, a creepy and ominous feeling peering over my shoulder. It is like a heavily, elastic biofilm covering me, that small bouts of motivation can stretch, but I am ultimately swallowed by. AA would say that only a spiritual journey can free me from this evil grasp, but my previous spiritual experiences are components of the film. I am working with a skilled EMDR therapist to combat my trauma throughout my life, but only just now did we discover the root cause of my petrification.
Making this discovery gives me a glimmer of hope, albeit extremely small. I am still drowning in self-loathing and existential dread, and I desperately and urgently need a path forward, or else I fear I may soon surrender and succumb to this spiritual crisis.
