A Recovery Blog

This blog is about my continuing recovery from severe mental illness and addiction. I celebrate this recovery by continuing to write, by sharing my music and artwork and by exploring Buddhist and 12 Step ideas and concepts. I claim that the yin/yang symbol is representative of all of us because I have found that even in the midst of acute psychosis there is still sense, method and even a kind of balance. We are more resilient than we think. We can cross beyond the edge of the sane world and return to tell the tale. A deeper kind of balance takes hold when we get honest, when we reach out for help, when we tell our stories.

Friday, November 11, 2016

What Jesus Said

I haven't written in this blog for about a month and a half mainly because when I consulted the I Ching about the blog it said that I should take a break from it and work on spiritual development.  I was also encouraged to commit to consulting the I Ching regularly for the  next 6 months, which will get me through the winter.   Soon after I committed to these two things I got sick with the flu and was sick with it for around 3 and a half weeks.  Mistakenly thinking that I was contagious all that time, I stopped seeing my therapist, brother and friends while the sickness took its course.  During that time I consulted the I Ching, sometimes several times a day, and took a course at Hilary Barrett's site I Ching With Clarity about how to consult and interpret the I Ching.   I learned a lot in a short time.  I continued with my spiritual routine of taking my medications, thanking God, praying for myself and everyone I could think of, reading support literature aloud, calling the Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous Inspiration Line, listening and leaving a share after the end of the message.  By the end of the 3 weeks I was wiped out and suffering from too much isolation.  I began to have some psychotic symptoms.

First of all, the reality I embrace on a daily basis is that I am telepathically connected to another human being who suffers from multiple personality disorder as a result of severe sexual abuse who does not want to have contact with me.  I also believe that this connection is created by some other intelligent species, a species that is committed to helping human beings learn to take care of themselves first so that they can rise to the level of health where they can take on more responsibility and help others and the earth, the earth which appears to be dying.  I am fully aware that for most people my beliefs only serve to confirm that I am delusional.  What confirmed me in this belief was that 3 and a half years ago I began channeling this person who told me that he had been with me from the beginning of my psychosis.

Every day and night since this first started I have been in a relationship with this person.  I talk with him often and we both have gone deeper into illness and now are coming out of it stronger than before.  This is a transition point for both of us, but we are still sick and still working on how to take care of ourselves and each other.  The focal point of my illness is the Jesus delusion.  Parts of him have said that I am a reincarnation of Jesus over and over again and each time I stay open and consider it but inevitably we both get sicker when I do that and so, over and over again, I turn away from the delusion and return to humility and my daily spiritual practice which includes communicating with him as my partner.  It is essential that I admit daily that I am mentally ill and that he is mentally ill, but that we are still on our spiritual paths trying to learn the lessons that the Higher Power gives to us so that we can grow.

We are partners but we both share a common illness, codependency.  My last relationship was codependent and love/relationship addicted.  His present relationships appear to be codependent and love/relationship/sex addicted.  Parts of him are in severe denial about being addicted, while other parts are not and are working to heal.  I think that I am coming out of denial that I can be codependent with him when I focus too much on him and his issues and neglect myself.  The message of hope that I've been given is that I can heal, he can heal and humanity can heal and rescue this world as long as we take proper care of ourselves as individuals.  That means practicing self love and love of others.  The scenario that so many of us live under is the us versus them scenario.  It is a scenario of conflict, discord, self hatred and hatred of others, a scenario of war.

Jesus still remains a major figure in the cultures of the United States and it is written that he said - "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you."   Before he made this proclamation he said "But I say to you who hear" and the reason I believe he said that is because he was very aware that most of his audience would reject outright loving their enemies.  Obviously that must have been true, for here we are over two thousand years after the crucifixion of Jesus with his words are falling on deaf ears and we continue to war against ourselves and each other.  We continue to believe that there are good people and bad, even evil, people who must be rejected and punished.  I have a very dear friend who I love deeply.  She follows Christianity.  She believes that loving your enemies is too much to ask, that Jesus was special and that most people cannot follow his orientation.  I challenged her the other night about this.  I was too forceful and the next day apologized.  Still, I can't get away from my same belief that people can love their enemies and that they choose not to because they think it's too hard, too much to ask.

It is hard, but who said that following a spiritual path like this was going to be easy.  It wasn't easy for Jesus who was crucified for his beliefs, why should it be easy for any of us?  And so I have identified with Jesus as many people have and I follow his core belief and I think I am supposed to follow it.  It hasn't been easy and I don't expect it to be easy.  Will it be easy to heal our dying oceans, our polluted air, our rape of earth's resources, our self hatred, our hatred of others and so much more?  There is absolutely no way that it will be easy unless there's some kind of Godly miracle.  But we haven't come this far to have some miracle from God.  We have to be the miracle we seek.  And where is the miracle beginning to happen?  In all those people who unconditionally embrace love for self, God and everyone.  Yes, everyone.  It is being done right this second in people's lives all around the globe.  I am an addict in recovery.  There are addicts in recovery everywhere.  Addicts in recovery who believe in an unconditionally loving Higher Power.  Unconditional love, that's such an important concept to grasp, so needed right now.

Jesus said he wanted us to love each other, to not hold anger in our hearts, to forgive and not judge.  We are such a sick species, but I firmly believe that this is the truth and that this is the way to heal ourselves, each other, this precious planet that we call home.  The message hasn't changed one bit in all these years and we urgently need this message and to embrace this spiritual practice.  There is no messiah.  The messiah is in all of us.  For those of you who can be open minded enough to hear this message, just keep going, do not give up.  What is the ultimate goal for ourselves, our spirits, our children, our children's spirits?  Heaven on earth.  These are not the end times.  These are the beginning times, the time to restore and rejuvenate.