Schizophrenia and Its Benefits

[Spideymon77]

At first, schizophrenia was obviously detrimental. It made me question my reality to the point of no return. It made me see myself in every fucking thing I could imagine. It made me think a demon was coming after me and I had to run to a different state entirely to protect myself. After I lived through the entirety of 2020 with nothing happening and getting medicated, my fear of being harvested by a demon started dying down and I realized it was all in my head. I also realized that me questioning my reality and starting to believe things like the multiverse and really considering the what if scenario of the multiverse was a good thing. I always had that thought of the multiverse being real but I didn't give it an intellectually honest thought. I also believed that when the universe dies, it just comes back again. From the void, into the void, and back again. I also didn't give this an intellectually honest thought. I just believed these things like it had no consequence whatsoever.

Schizophrenia made me actually consider my beliefs and gave me an honest look at them. Ok, if the multiverse is real then you're inside of everything. You're in that movie, that video game, that TV show. You are your parents, your siblings, your friends, and even strangers. The universe comes back again proves the multiverse. Everything is actually happening all at once. These thoughts drove me crazy at first, but now I'm understanding them a bit better. I've realized things like I am God of my own reality. I may not be able to flap my arms and fly, but I'm able to write on a forum and impact someones life, whether it be passively or profoundly. Life being an illusion conjured up by my mind was the hardest thing to get over. I couldn't possibly live if everything I know and love is a dream. Now, I consider and believe it just like I consider and believe that I like music. Everything is a dream and this is actually a good thing. I can do anything my heart desires with a push of a button. I am in control. I am God and you are God and God is reality itself.

There is no beginning and there is no end was also hard for me to understand. How is this possible? It's simple, it didn't happen. There was no beginning or end, that is impossible. I assumed that beginnings and ends were the only things that make sense but I was wrong. Beginnings and ends are not possible.

I thought I sounded crazy at first until I found Leo's videos. His videos helped me understand my own thoughts and reasons that I was starting to believe in these things. I will admit, these are still crazy thoughts to me, but I actually believe them and it's impossible for me to go back to who I was before. I no longer see reality the same way I used to and I like it. This isn't a bad thing, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

[Spideymon77]

When listening to music, schizophrenia warped the meanings of the songs. For this song in particular, Beside You In Time, I thought the song was about holding your breath in order to see an infinite number of yourselves all waking up at the same time. You discover that infinity is real and that you will never die. All of yourselves are also other people as well, you are them and they are you. This remix that I made has a swirling sound that goes in and out of sync with the music, implying the dissociation when coming to that realm.

For an idea on what I mean by seeing an infinite number of yourselves, let me explain. Above, below, to the right, and to the left of you are you. You look exactly the same as them with the same clothes and everything. You all wake up at the same time and look around, seeing the infinite amount of yous that are there. This is what my mental illness told me I needed to see in order to wake up from this dream and forget about everything it taught me. I didn't want to forget so here I am now, making music and enjoying my life.

Because of my illness, I enjoy Nine Inch Nails now because I get some of their most abstract songs. For example, I enjoy listening to Beside You In Time, The Line Begins to Blur, Dear World,, and The Idea of You.

[Spideymon77]

TRIGGER WARNING

One of the worst moments of my life was when I started getting into repressed memories. Oh boy, that was not the territory I should've partaken in. Mediation showed me that I was apparently raped at a young age. Meditation then showed me that because of my rape, I had sex with random women in my life and just forgot about it. I apparently got a blow job from my friend's girlfriend in a public bathroom. When she realized I didn't remember what happened, we had sex to prove to my friend that I couldn't remember sexual encounters.

Apparently, there was also a demon who raped me and the everyone in the city that I live in. We were all slaves to this demon and there'd be points where we would suddenly wake up and realize this demon is real, so we'd end up being raped by it.

I no longer believe in repressed memories because of this even though many people believe them to be true. A part of me feels like the rape happened, but that was it. But surely it could be possibly I have more repressed memories. What if my brain is not showing me things because I'm not ready for them? What if I'm being raped every hour of every day and I simply don't know it because my brain is repressing it? Whatever the case may be, repressed memories can easily be manipulated. They can warp into something far more dark and twisted then you may initially think. I remember reading about how someone had repressed memories of an alien abduction. That's about as absurd as me having repressed memories of having sex.

I realize that if the brain does repress memories then it can repress anything. It can repress entire conversations with people, it can repress powerful moments in my life, and it can repress the worst kinds of pain. Life doesn't have many dangers if I'm just gonna repress the worst of it. Plus, I really can't tell if I am being raped everyday so why dwell on it?

So, any benefit to this? The biggest benefit I can think of is that I'm realizing how badly I warp reality according to my fears. This can be extreme like thinking I'm being raped everyday or something less extreme like worrying about if the girl I have a crush on has a crush on me. I can warp what our potential conversation is going to be like and end up not asking the girl out. I can worry about what other people are going to think of this post and how negatively they'll think of me or I can realize people are going to think what they think and their opinions don't really matter to me. My fear warps everything and seeing this happen to the extreme helps me see it happen for less extreme examples.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Spideymon77
Added trigger warning

[Spideymon77]

This post should be less trigger inducing.

Before my schizophrenia took shape, I tried getting back with an ex of mine. I loved her. I was head over heals for her. The problem was, we never really dated in the traditional way. We only dated via texting. She was the first girl I ever sexted, which made me love her even more. However, this relationship was extremely damaging to me because all I could think about is what could happen if we just interacted in real life. What would happen if she talked to me face to face? What if we hugged each other? What if we kissed each other? So many questions, so little answers.

Years later, we actually talked to each other face to face and I asked her if she wanted to date me. She said we'd have to wait and see if we're compatible and that was that. A couple of days later, I sent her a picture of me with my shirt off and she liked it. Things could not have gone any better, I thought.

I ended up doing something I would later regret.

I tried rushing things and that made her not want to consider me a potential boyfriend anymore. The reason I did this was because she dated my best friend a while back and I was jealous that she dated him right away but not me. I kept thinking about my best friend when thinking about her.

So, what does this have to do with schizophrenia?

A couple months after that whole incident, I was knee deep in schizophrenia and I found the song Somewhat Damaged by Nine Inch Nails. That band plays a huge part in my story. The ending lyrics were "How could I ever think? It's funny how everything you swore would never change is different now. Like you said, you and me, make it through. Didn't quite. Fell apart. Where the fuck were you?" These lyrics gave me disdain for my ex for abandoning me when I needed her most. She wasn't there when I was going down the spiral. These emotions were immature of course, so I didn't really feed into them that much. It was just a heat of the moment thing.

My schizophrenia told me that I saw my best friend leave a public bathroom with my ex but it hurt so much to see that, I just repressed the memory. I couldn't believe it. It hurt so bad, I didn't know how to deal with it. This is how insane the jealousy gets.

So, what are the benefits?

Well, all the emotions I had were bullshit. I fell in love with her because she was the first girl I ever sexted. I hadn't felt that much intimacy before. I fell in love with the idea of her. We never met face to face until later on and that's enough proof for me that I fell in love with a lie I made up. I only realized this after I got schizophrenia. It's almost as if I got schizophrenia for a reason. I got this illness to show me the lies I conjured up throughout my life and how easy it is to make up more lies and get too deeply involved in them.

I also realized that I can't love someone I can't trust. I can't love my ex if I'm worried she's gonna go back with my friend. I can't love her with these jealous thoughts. Maybe I can't love her and maybe I don't really love her. My jealousy showed how I truly felt. I was more obsessed with her than I was in love with her.

[Spideymon77]

Are my actions my own or someone else?

Am I really typing this or is something typing it?

If my actions aren't my own, do any of my actions mean anything to my daily life? How can I grow if it isn't even me who grows?

I can feel myself type. I am moving my hands to type this right now. I am actively changing what I'm saying as I'm typing. I'm doing everything as if I have control so maybe these questions don't really matter. Maybe my have been predetermined but so what? I can't predict the future and I have no idea what's about to happen. If my actions are predetermined, this shouldn't stop me from trying. I still want to try and be better. I still have optimistic thoughts of the future. Maybe these questions don't really matter in the long run. Maybe some questions are just gonna be me constantly running around in a circle trying to answer it but never really answering it. Maybe I just haven't tried enough psychedelics or done enough meditation to find the answer. Whatever the case may be, it feels like I'm in control and if I'm not than this illusion of control is ok.

It's ok to not really be in control. It's ok for my actions to be predetermined. It's out of my control. This gives me so little stress, I could hardly care about it.

It's ok.

Without schizophrenia, I would be so caught up in trying to do the right thing I would've never guessed that I already am doing the right thing from the get go. I've always been acting according to how I want to act. Whether this means predetermined actions or not doesn't really matter at that point. I will flow in the direction the universe wants me to until I'm back to being one again.

[Spideymon77]

I have provided links to articles to better help my story's validity. Please don't do what I do in the story and smoke an excessive amount of weed unless you're already spiritually open minded. I was not ready for what was to come. It took me a year to get back to some normality again.

Weed is the reason I have been enlightened. Weed is the reason I started questioning my reality. Weed is the reason I'm a better person.

Weed unlocked my schizophrenia.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/health/marijuana-schizophrenia-study-wellness/index.html

I'm not saying weed was the sole reason I got schizophrenia. I was already seeing things out of the corner of my eye before this. I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye all the time but I never thought anything of it. One time, before I even knew what weed was, I was trying to sleep and suddenly I saw a silhouette of a boy from the corner of my eye right next to my bed. Needless to say, I couldn't sleep that night.

Weed more or less caused schizophrenia to be more active but it did not create it.

After smoking as much weed as I possibly could (me and my friends shared 8 grams), I thought I was having a heart attack and I passed out. I felt a swirling in my head and then had a dream that I was convinced was reality. During this dream, I asked one of my friends if I should worry about what just happened but my friend waved his hand to signal that it was fine. However, I ended up seeing something small that encompassed me and I started seeing visions of my "repressed memories." After this dream happened, I woke up and continued hanging out with my friends as if nothing happened. my schizophrenia was unlocked however and the next day I started having delusions. I thought my friends put a bug in my ear and I actually heard a bug die inside of my right ear. Getting checked by the doctor showed me that there was no bug in my ear. Despite this, I continued to believe these delusions.

Looking back at it now, I'm glad this happened. My delusions helped me see reality for what it truly is. My delusions were so real to me that I was completely left in an entirely different realm of reality. It showed me how easy it is to forget where you are and how easy it could've been for me to commit suicide and die. I could've lost my life. Hell, a part of me believes I did die.

I took almost an entire bottle of ibuprofen during my psychosis. Once the pills started effecting me, I thought I was definitely going to die. I thought that I was going to come back to the year 2020 starting all over again and I believed everyone was going to know about my death and hate me for hurting my family and friends. Instead, I had vivid dreams. I had a dream that I stared at my window and suddenly the light shining through got brighter and brighter. It encompassed me and made a very loud noise that I cannot possibly describe. The reason I'm saying this is a dream is because the pills started effecting me at night, there should be no reason light would be shining through my window.

Whether or not I actually died that day, I cannot possibly tell you.

Now, back to the weed. I continued smoking it even though it caused my delusions to get worse. I had no idea these were delusions however, so you can see how dangerous this could be.

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/there-link-between-marijuana-use-psychiatric-disorders#:~:text=Marijuana use has also been,as the drug wears off.

I had all these irrational fears about being sent to infinity and being trapped behind the eyes of an infinite amount of beings. Eventually, I smoked so much that my existentialism started crashing down like a house of cards. I got so high, I decided not to care about my inevitable doom. All the things I tried doing to stop this doom, like scraping earwax out of my ear or holding my breath, I have failed in accomplishing. I realized that I have to wait. I'm too focused on it. All I'm doing is stressing out about it. I'm not actually accomplishing my goals. I'm not in any danger right now so I will wait until I believe the time is right. Funny how weed magically made me change my trajectory from going down to going up.

Of course, the story ends in victory as I realize all of it was just in my head.

Benefits?

These things I believe are real are only real because I made them real. I can make them real just as easily as I can make them disappear. Reality itself is a dream so there's no point in adding extra stressors to this mysterious complexity that I see before me. I may have opened a can of worms and started eating it but there's no point in opening more cans and eating more. Are the things in my imagination real? Maybe, but I don't think it matters right now. I am here and I am now. My consciousness is my reality. What I see in front of me contradicts what was being told to me in my head. There's no point in worrying about things anyways. The universe is essentially water and it will flow where it will flow. I can help guide my flow into the unknown without getting attached to stories in my head. It's ok not to know, I will know later when I'm ready to explore consciousness a bit further.

Plus, reality is fallible. It could all be real, just as real as I made it to be. It could also be fake, as fake as reality itself is. I can choose what to believe.

So fuck believing in a Hell that is impossibly worse than any Hell I can imagine. I don't really care about it right now because I'm not there. The only here is now anyways. This is the present moment and this is what I believe in. This is God, I am God, and this is God's presence. I don't need anything else but God.

[Spideymon77]

I saw Leo's video on free will and it really freaked me out because I made a post about the subject matter in this journal. I really understood what he was saying though and it completely flipped my perspective. My idea of being controlled like a puppet was an illusion. The idea of a separate thing controlling me, like my brain for example, is false. It's one. There is no separation. It recontextualized when I was having psychosis and I thought I had completely lost control of my own body. I was walking around and talking like normal but in the back of my mind I was screaming for help. I couldn't control this thing.

A lot of the things I did was a reaction to the insane things I was doing. I was continuously trying to scrape hard earwax out of my ears for months and when I supposedly lost control, all I did was buy something to drink, play video games, and even threw the device I was using to scrape earwax out of my ears away. It's almost like I started taking back control of my life again. I was forcing myself to stop scraping earwax because I was sick of it. I was sick of wasting months trying to get this hard earwax out of my ears and bleeding as a result. I was sick of it so I stopped doing it. I stopped myself.

Schizophrenia taught me that at the worst of times, I'm still here. I'm still God. I didn't lose control, I gained control.

[Zigzag Idiot]

I really appreciate your journal and relate quite a bit to a few things you have written about. You express yourself well. if this is a closed journal, let me know and I'll hide this post.

[Spideymon77]

@Zigzag Idiot

Hi, thank you!

No, this journal is not closed but it is almost finished.

[Spideymon77]

My entire reality has been blurred. What I used to think was scientific evidence is now just as falsifiable as religion.

"You don't actually know shit about reality." it tells me, "Your cry out to God and Him giving you no answer was just scratching the surface. Your appeal to rationality and reason was even more of a step back than you thought it was. Now with your views right in front of you, all you see is perspective. You don't see the "evidence" anymore. There is none. This barely explains your Earth let alone the universe at large."

Now I can't see it any other way.

Leo explained it well in one of his videos. He asked the question, "why does everybody have so many different perspectives and think they're perspective is the right one?" I asked this question myself. Why did I think I was right this whole time? Why is it easy for me to fall down rabbit holes like science? Why am I not still an atheist thinking my psychosis was merely just that? Why do I feel like there's something more to this than just psychosis? Is it possible to learn things from this psychosis? Why am I open minded enough to question the nature of reality? WHY AM I ASKING SO MANY QUESTIONS!?

If the lines of reality can be blurred to the point where I don't even know what's real anymore, my psychosis can be blurred the exact same way. It no longer becomes psychosis but instead, it becomes thoughts. Thoughts that I can actively choose to believe or not. At first, these thoughts scared me so badly they just had to be true! Now that these thoughts don't scare me anymore, they no longer have control over me. Just like fearing Hell when being religious. When you're no longer scared of Hell you realize your idea of God was a dictator and then you realize he was imaginary to begin with, making you completely break free from your shackles. You might end up putting on different shackles however but this is natural. It's only after seeing right through the cracks do you understand just how far down it goes.

As for why I had all these insane thoughts, it's because it was trying to teach me I had insane ideas about reality to begin with. I'm sure I explained this earlier. I'm still actively trying to work this into my life however. After all, you can't have several moments of enlightenment in a span of a few weeks and expect to immediately incorporate everything you learned, fix your life and gain nirvana.

Only recently have I adopted these beliefs to help a specific problem, my addictions. For example. I'm so worried about being addicted to tobacco, I didn't ever stop to think "Why am I worrying so much?" It's gonna fucking kill me, that's why I'm so worried about it! But all this worrying just caused me to think about it more and more until I became enticed and ended up smoking it. All that worrying got me nowhere. Today, I was sitting in the garage which is where I smoke and instead of being worried about smoking I told myself it's more simpler than it seems. This is simply a yes or no answer. Are you going to smoke, yes or no? It didn't feel this way for the longest time but once I saw the line of addiction blur, I realized the line was only in my head. I carved in stone, "I'm addicted" and then I was addicted. It's only after recognizing that it was ME who carved this stone did I realize I can throw the stone away and be done with it. I sat there in the garage with cigarettes and a lighter but instead of smoking, I walked away. I didn't even smoke a puff.

One of the most powerful things I ever heard was when I was in outpatient. Someone was talking about how they quit tobacco and when asked about it, they responded with something along the lines of "I'm not gonna let this thing take control of my life." I thought it was powerful and was thinking about it ever since. It's only until today did I gain the courage to say the exact same thing and mean it.

And no, I'm not falling for that trap of having just one more cigarette.

"As I lie here and stare the fabric starts to tear. It's far beyond repair and I don't really care. As far as I have gone, I knew what side I'm on but now, I'm not so sure. The line begins to blur."

[Spideymon77]

So I failed once again letting go of addiction. I go about my life and then something triggers me to the point where I become paralyzed. I'm left broken and confused, feeling that the next day I will go to prison and be raped for the rest of my life. Days later, the paranoia continues and I go on about my usual business, still stuck in my addiction. I smoke and then... peace.

What? Peace? What the fuck just happened? I'm writing this just a couple of hours this peace encompassed me. Is this enlightenment? Was the enlightenment experience I had false and this is the true enlightenment? Has my brain grown tired of torturing me??

I'm no longer scared and I don't know why this has happened.

[Spideymon77]

50th post on the Actualized.org forum!

I watched Leo's video on how to realize you are God and I was left with something completely unexplainable.

When I first watched the video I was left scared so I immediately stopped. The next time I watched the video, the beginning of it was not scary but actually, it was boring. Yeah yeah, I get it. I don't know how I got here, my past is an illusion, I already know these things. Still, I kept watching because I might learn some things. I'm glad I kept watching because Leo said something I never thought of. "Time does not exist." It was one hell of a thing to realize. Everything else started falling into place and I started entering into a different state of consciousness. I felt a lot of something that I simply just cannot explain with words. Every time I was thinking about me in an alternate universe or me going to prison or anything negative, I'd simply realize that's all just fantasy and I would immediately return back to the present moment. Because of this, I realized myself as God more powerfully than I could've ever imagined.

At the end, Leo said something like "if you aren't sure you realized you were God, you didn't. You'd be real fucking sure if you did." I smiled because I knew exactly what he meant. This is it, this was what I was looking for. I might lose this state of consciousness but I know I can always watch the video again and return completely to this state or maybe only partially. Whatever the case may be, realizing you are God only once in your life is better than not realizing you are God at all in your life.

I'd like to say this was the planned ending for this journal but this literally just happened to me today.

I didn't know what the Hell I was doing watching all of Leo's videos and joining this forum. All I knew was that my mental illness was more than just a mental illness. Leo was really speaking to me. However, even after months of watching Leo's content I kept going up and down over and over again without any hope in sight. A part of me felt like I wasn't even ready for this work. I even became discouraged and cried at one of Leo's videos talking about how some people just aren't ready. Still, I knew I needed this in life. No matter how insane it got, I knew this was the exact thing I was looking for. I was looking for peace in the present moment. Now, I am more than just at peace in the present moment. I am the present moment.

Thank you everyone in this forum and especially Leo for helping me actualize my life. I no longer feel like suicide is the best option and I'm willing to now embrace the moment, embrace the random, and embrace whatever may come. There's still many challenges left to face in life but I'm finally feeling like I'm moving up the ladder again.

Thank you crazy thoughts for helping actualize my life.

This is the benefits of losing touch with reality. These were the benefits of schizophrenia.

[River of Souls]

On 9/20/2021 at 2:47 PM, Spideymon77 said:

100%

 

I like what u had to say about this topic. I think "mental illness" is very misunderstood by the medical field.  Everything u said is spot on regarding our multidimensional awareness and how we are all god experiencing itself as everything. Thank u for sharing your experiences with us. 

[Spideymon77]

@River of Souls

Thanks for reading

It took me a while before I fully realized I was God experiencing itself. It's one thing to believe this but it's another thing entirely to seriously feel it.