There actually is a plus side to being unpopular

The upside to the fact that only two people read this blog (and only seven have read my book) is that I can be really straight up forthright for real about what's happening, whereas if I have an actual audience I'll tend to cloak and edit stuff to appease. I started doing this Mood Gym thing on the recommendation of a friend. Click here to read more about it. It's actually pretty good. But finding things out about my shithead way of thinking can also invoke anger at times. This anger tends to be internalized.
My co-author did that a lot to himself in life. But he had no way of knowing that events triggered his unhealthy way of dealing with things. He was intelligent but in a strange way very sheltered at the same time. His ways of dealing with things struck most people as bizarre.
He (his protector personality, at any rate) was looking over my shoulder while I was doing this. When I decided to call it quits he said "so what they are saying is that I killed myself because of my fucked way of thinking?"
"Pretty much," I said.
He got extremely upset and if he were a physical being my wall would have a new hole. (I've punched a few in it in my time before I found my friend Lithium.)
"Shit!" he said.
There was something in the realization that he couldn't just be labeled "nuts." That's a bit too easy. The self hating ways of thinking aren't one's fault, they're learned through having to deal with bad situations and not having anything else to compare the thoughts to.
There are times when I've wondered why he hasn't tried to find a more charismatic co-author. He jokes that "Stephen King has wax in his ears." Then he says in all due seriousness that most mediums just try to send him to the light when he isn't ready and that while there are others who can hear him and would be willing to listen (and listen raptly and worshipfully to boot) that prolonged/repeated contact with him would actually screw them up worse than they already are and he won't be responsible for that. (What a shock--I'm not the biggest mess on the planet after all!)
He's frustrated too but the idea of posthumous fame doesn't bother him as much as it does me. Because, to quote, "In my case, what other kind is there?"
And that's a big reason why I like working with him. The wry wit sets very well with me.
Blessings,
Lily and the Spectral Friend

Hallucination vs. Communication

Merry meet!

I know that I'm going to encounter the type that believes that because I have bipolar disorder, my spirit communication is nothing but hallucination. But I only hallucinate when I'm

a) on prescription pain meds

b) tripping on psychotropic drugs

c) really tired

d) really sick and have a high fever.

I try to avoid a) because the hallucinations that these cause are almost always bad, such as demons and red-eyed giant bats with blood dripping from their fangs. Medical professionals don't want to believe that people can hallucinate from these medications. When I was hospitalized after having my son via c-section 17.5 years ago I had to argue with both the nurse and the doctor that Darvocet was causing me to hallucinate.

"It doesn't do that," the nurse insisted.

"Well, that's fine," I said. "At least now I know that the huge bat with the red eyes and blood dripping from its fangs is real."

Not for the first time, I was dubbed a "smart ass" and a "trouble maker" by medical staff.

I haven't done b) in 25 years. Except for the time I was certain that my tongue was trying to crawl down my throat, the types of hallucinations I had while indulging in psychotropic drugs were invariably very bright neon colors and included a field full of poinsettias (feel free to hit me upside the head--I was driving while tripping when I saw this) colorful insects, small animals such as rats, cats and dogs, but obviously not rats, cats and dogs from this world; and UFO's. Not aliens, just UFO's. I watched a donut turn into a UFO one time and take off into the sky. Great fun!

I never once perceived a human spirit while tripping. I would sometimes perceive either angelic or demonic presences. The barrier between ourselves and such beings is broken down by the use of such drugs, but that is a discussion for another time. I don't think most human spirits are able to break through the mental static that I generate when messing my brain up this way.

When I'm c) very tired, I again tend to see animals. They aren't glowing or neon, they just don't belong. Penguins and snakes are a favorite and once I saw a gigantic rooster. Last week when entering a state of complete exhaustion I chanced to see a face on an oven fry. I didn't eat that one!

When d) feverish (like I was tonight) I might see animals or mythological creatures. Tonight while burning up with a 102 degree fever (food poisoning is such fun!) I looked over and saw a small gargoyle sitting on the table nearby to the couch I was resting on. Sometimes with creatures like this, I believe they might really be present, I just can't see them without the veil between worlds being eroded a bit. Some of these hallucinations may actually be elemental beings. The gargoyle, whatever it was, had a friendly presence, so I didn't dismiss it.

One thing that these states of mind do not help with is spirit communication. Everything that my spectral co-author attempted to say to me during this time (while extremely exhausted and then having the fever) came through as static. I had to fight to feel if he was present and he had to fight to make his presence known. Since we've been working together for 2 years now, we're pretty well in tune to each other's vibration. Once he was able to say anything again he said it was like trying to talk to somebody using radio communication and getting a lot of static, and also like trying to walk through a very dense fog to reach the person.

If the boundaries between worlds become very eroded, i.e. if a person is deathly ill, they will be able to see spirits and creatures such as angels, demons and elementals more readily because the sick person is preparing to pass into that world.

The thing that I've found in my life is that there is no one truth. Some visions are true hallucinations, produced by brain chemicals that are temporarily or permanently whacked. Some things that appear to be hallucinations aren't. One has to learn to judge and to realize that sometimes the answer won't be clear and to just accept that they are seeing something that may or may not be real.

Another time I'll discuss my view on psychosis and illnesses such as schizophrenia.

Merry part until we meet again.

Lily