Hallowe'en 2023 - results of the Baphomet costume...

Well - here it is: the Kawaii Magickal Girl Baphomet costume.  It turned out better than I thought, though I entered a costume contest last night, and didn't win.  It still had its fans, who got it was basically like satanic Lisa Frank stationary come to life.

I am feeling a bit more mellow as of late, less anxiety.  Now, it's less about fatigue, more of a relaxed state that borders on being a bit spacey.  I am still trying to take it easy, mostly.

-Saraƒin

Contemplating mental health services...

One thing I have concluded about mental health is that the wrong idea in one's mind about themselves can make unnecessary psychological suffering inevitable, and that is why I dislike the idea of the psychiatric diagnosis.  As someone who has been misdiagnosed over and over again, I can't have faith in the diagnostic process anymore, I simply must reject what a psychiatrist thinks is going on, because if I believed in it, it may become an obsession.  It is an art, possibly a lost one, to accurately assess and diagnose a person in mental health crisis, and my concern with most people is the idea that nocebo effect might take over and enforce patterns in the mind, especially with things like personality disorders.  So, I want doctors from this point on to focus on the fact that I do suffer, I have endured, and I wish to be known as one who suffers, and not as someone with these specific mental health complications, because I usually don't meet the criteria anyway, especially now, and especially if doctors were to observe every area of my life enough.  I feel betrayed by the last misdiagnosis, Schizotypal Personality Disorder, especially now that I know they simply invoked that diagnosis to give me ECT, which I no longer want.  This can't possibly be scientific, but it flies anyway.  I am bored that I can't have an honest, safe discussion about psychological differences without some irrelevant label becoming attached, I am bored that I perhaps might even be interpreted strangely because I'm an artist.  The danger, as I have said, is not only the nocebo effect, if I chose to believe in the diagnosis, but also how others might interpret me based on what my file says.  No thank you, I'm aging, I have to consider these things as I get older, especially as a woman - women are often not listened to as much as men are by medical professionals.  I demand the bare minimum when it comes to labeling, I think psychiatrists often overanalyze so that they may enforce a medication regimen.  I believe the root of most mental health disorders is trauma, and I bet Dr. Gabor Mate would have a lot to say about this.

My fear with psychiatric intervention at this point is facing unnecessarily high levels of drugging, or something else, that can't possibly help me with my situation, but will definitely give me side effects, and I haven't found anything better than Latuda, but they would want to change the drug again anyway if I had a bad day - and then I would be back in side effect city.  Their reasoning is absurd, they seem to think side effects should be tolerated by the client, and one should just get used to things like weight gain, fatigue, and tachycardia.  I look at conventional psychiatric medicine, and all I can think is it's like going to McDonald's for a nutritious meal - fast and easy, fills your belly, but not good for you.  This is what happens when you try to treat a heart with sciences that can't prove to be scientific.

There are some things psychiatry can't treat - it can't treat social injustice, it can't treat the effects of a troubled world on humanity because of things like climate change, people simply are feeling stressed for legitimate reasons that are not of the brain, and yet the brain is still treated like it's sick when this happens.  Absurd, lazy medicine.  One must be strong because they have no choice.  I am just tired of the lies, but I'm sure many don't know what else to do.  I understand a doctor wants to help, I just suspect they're often not doing it well.

I think my medicine worked from that time in March, when I wasn't well - I took time off, focused on diet and nutrition, used marijuana, and did esoteric practice.  Because of all of that, things seemed to level out again, I avoided the ECT.  Community helps, friends were great.  I am learning that it is the hospital that makes me sicker, and I must stay away.

-Saraƒin

On anger...

There was a strange tension, a rage in my gut, that felt not of my own mind, that left in August.  It was really unsettling, and made irritation unbearable, I had full control of it so that it would not affect my life in ways it might have, other than perhaps the releasing of my temper into a private rant here and there, just to get it out of my system.  Because I was in full psychological control of it, I suspect it was metaphyscial pain, perhaps related to karma, and when it left, it was like something releasing in the lower chakras.  I suspect my Manipura was suffering greatly - there was a concentration of this pain around the navel, and I have wondered about the Enteric Nervous System and what it feels coming out of what I endured, if it's suffering psychologically in a way that mental health services don't know how to treat.  I am not sure what other possession sufferers have felt in the navel area, but there was such darkness and pain that I felt like I was dying - bedding down for the night was like being on a death bed, and rarely did I feel safe when trying to get to sleep.  I am convinced something is better in this centre now, because the feeling of release continues.  Looks like holding on, and everything I have been doing, paid off.

I know this irritation has influenced my writing and art - much of it has been heavy, sometimes bitter, and I have felt compelled to clean up my act and seek a finer tone, one that is gentler and what I really want to feel and present.  I can't say I know exactly what has happened in me, there was a strange narrative to it, but I know it to be something that I conquered, and I suppose it's all about personal rehabilitation now.  I feel rather stoic being in the situation I am in, where this might have cost me things I don't understand (if I had been a weaker person), but I fought it, remained alive, and simply have to deal with a mental health care system that doesn't get spiritual emergency, and how it is related to mental illness, can coincide with it, but is not literally the same thing.  I simply have had to find the strength within me to tolerate being misinterpreted, and how that might affect me medically.

I had days where I feared I would become a terrible person, because of the strain, if there was a "straw that broke the camel's back" scenario that pushed me in the wrong direction.  Mary and Sekhmet both seem to have helped me maintain my heart while I felt this miserable tension - it was taking its toll on me sometimes, I also worried I would simply collapse one day and die.  

There are things I still feel like avoiding - I don't want to go to school (I might take a course here and there, it depends on what I find), there's probably no way I could drive, so my hearse ownership idea might be dead, no pun intended.  Really, I am enjoying style, art, and decorating, and that feels healthy.  I don't mind living small, I might change my mind later, but right now, having less responsibility feels appropriate.

-Saraƒin

Well, if it isn't another glitch in the matrix! *hands on hips*

Ok, so another miracle might have happened, and it's with an extremely awkward product I bought from the internet: a light up psychic sign which I purchased out of delight for its kitsch value as a decoration in my living room window.  Here's a pic I snapped right after I bought the original item:

There probably is no way of proving this event happened, some might accuse me of doctoring things, no matter - I have to discuss this because it's wild and that's really all I care about at this point.

At a gathering I hosted, I was entertaining when the colours began to bleed together into a purple haze, ruining the nice crisp neon quality it had when it was first plugged in.  A bit grumpy because it wasn't exactly cheap and I don't have tons of money, I rolled my eyes, cast a little magick to fix the sign with offerings to Sekhmet as a joke, and decided to make peace with what it became, instead of returning it.  Here's a pic of what it looked like after the party:

Recently, the red looked like it was trying to make a comeback - no way, I thought:

And then - tonight, I turned it on, and it was restored, so I shot this video clip:

I know some would say this is bullshit - accuse away, I know people will, this is probably really weak proof... perhaps it's even possible these signs sometimes restore on their own, although it really looked screwed up at one point.  The rosary incident was real too, and now maybe I am getting the Goddess' sense of humour with this one.  (This is like something from a Neil Gaiman comic, I love it.)

My psychic career is dead, but the magic continues.  Let's channel that into some art.

-Saraƒin

Frustrating feelings...

I have been contemplating my feelings on the subject of love, and they are complicated.  Something about this subject really triggers tears for me, and it's as though I have cried so much over pain I have seen in my soul, in my life, that I can cry no more without getting bitter about it, so crying over love and its failure to protect me in the past makes me bitter, not wanting to shed any more tears about anything.  Sometimes, I am moved to tears by the simplest of things, but even that kind of crying is exhausting, because I am so sick of tears at all.  I do not see these tears as a sign of depression - I don't actually meet the criteria for a diagnosis of depression, it is as though I am shedding grief from a long suffering that was strange.  There is still great fatigue in me, the kind that comes from having endured something incredibly awful - having not fully found my second wind from it, I am in a daze, and often have to lie down.  I consider myself a victim of torture because of the entity, a kind of torture many would discredit, and so I am lonely in my pain, having few to talk to, but at least I found those few.  Because this type of experience is often rejected by Western civilization, I no longer fully feel like I belong in Western civilization.  The spirit that hurt me twisted my psyche in such strange knots that the mind gave out from it, like it was being throttled for years and couldn't take it anymore, I was at the mercy of a living nightmare, and all I could do was a tightrope walk of trying to keep order in my life.  Now that it is gone, my mind rebuilt out of it, I am absolutely exhausted, and can't imagine how I might ever take on something like a 9 - 5 work schedule, or ever go back to school, it's simply too much for me, I must collect disability and work part time.  I worry about money sometimes, but I try to be wise with what I have.

I am growing to like Toronto a bit more again, trying to dissociate my home city from the dire services it offers in mental health care, and of course in police services.  I love Kensington Market, there are little areas I would miss if I moved, and I have many great friends in the city.  One of my goals is to be more positive about everything that is right, and I must say my situation with housing is better than it is for many, because of subsidized rent.  I am focusing on rediscovering what I loved about Toronto when I first moved here, and am trying to forgive the tone that I got when all went wrong.  I may still joke here and there about this city, because it is one that is obsessed with big business, and other things I simply don't care about, but there are some very interesting things to be found, and neat people to meet.  Services are probably awful everywhere, and things are complicated because of the times.  I need to avoid these services to avoid trouble.  I have decided the psychiatric hospital is no place for me in a crisis, because of repeat gaslighting, so if things get negative again, I will try to simply take time off and ground at home.  I still take my physical health very seriously, and would never shy away from a general hospital if I need medical attention, but I have lost complete faith in mainline psychiatry as a healing measure, at least in my case, so all it can be is enforcing bad ideas and loading me up with drugs.  No, thanks.

I have an endoscopy lined up for next month - I hope it is not too much for my psyche to go through, although everyone is saying that they are not a big deal.  (I also really hope my condition with the choking is nothing serious.) I am back on an antacid to try curbing it, something that I was taking in the past, and I am really trying to knuckle down on thorough chewing before swallowing, when eating.  I have a few quirky little health problems, and I hope I can avoid anything really serious for a while, with the horror I am still recovering from.

Not sure if I mentioned this already of not, I have been using THC as a smokeable again (over vaping), simply favouring it in that format as a medicine, it feels more powerful, more spiritual, if smoked.  Probably, people will think that's bullshit, but there is science that suggests that higher heat releases more of the medicine.  I also simply suspect that when smoked, it works in a deeper way than sciences have figured out yet.  Not amazing for the lungs, but also something I plan on quitting once I get my mind to a certain level.  I will simply cut back, for now, if it feels a bit raw.

-Saraƒin

New plateau observed in healing...

I mentioned that August seemed to be a healing month for me, and I am getting the sense that I was correct to believe that at the time.  Since around the 5th of August, I felt a release from intolerable tension, and now I just feel a little bit stunned, sleepy, like I'm coming down from old pain, rather than feeling immersed in it.  I am hopeful, calm, haven't self-injured in months (again, this would be light self-injury, not cutting or anything permanent - I haven't done that in many years) - it was as though a great rage in my heart that didn't feel like my own finally went away.  It's bizarre how I would feel anger and irritation so easily, but rarely would I act on it, except to vent somehow... I was able to keep it under control in my relations.  Perhaps there is a sorrow that remains, I suspect it's temporary, and probably from feelings of uncertainty.  God seems to promise me beautiful things, and I don't know what to make of it if it's untrue, and I just believed it and it never came, but because meds don't shut it down, and because it feels like it's coming from a place of love, I choose to honour it as relevant, but to also try not to obsess about it too much.

I saw "The Exorcist: Believer" with a friend who has also had mystical encounters with both dark forces and archangels (we laughed over that at the theatre) - I don't feel like writing a movie critique of this one, I wasn't nuts about it, but it was better than some horror movies, just not as good as the original, but how many sequels are?  There is a strong message of Protestant / multi-faith deliverance techniques from the lay person that I am sure some Catholics might sneer at, but I liked it, having gotten myself out of diabolic spiritual emergency, without a priest to help me.  I guess, in a sense, my Christian side is truly Anglican, because I do a lot of stuff like the Catholics do, but I take it to God directly as the lay person, and that's very Protestant.  There is of course other stuff I do that's outside of regular Christian practice, but it seems to work under Christ, which is interesting, and I am sure is quite common in folk practice.  So, because there's a suggestion of African / Caribbean style practice with exorcism in this movie, I kind of liked the message that deliverance can be done in many ways... not a bad one.  I approve, even though the movie wasn't very scary or even that particularly well written on the subject of possession.  The two girls were great in it, though, and Ellen Burstyn, who played Regan's mother, had a cameo.

I have cut down a lot on alcohol, am experimenting more with anointing oils, and am still using THC for trauma.  I have lost weight to the point where I am about what I weighed in my early 30s, so the cooking-meals-only diet is working.  Things are much better than they were for a while, and because it's October, there is a lot to do in the city around Hallowe'en.  With the strange feelings of horror gone, I can enjoy life more now, and really delight in all things spooky, the way goth kids do, without any strange paranormal worries attached.  

It still stuns me that I survived what I did.

-Saraƒin

Spiritual updates...

I think I am getting somewhere with Sekhmet:

Back in the spring, recovering from my hiccup in mental health, I did a series of rituals with Sekhmet by consecrating alcoholic beverages and making offerings to Her.  There was a turning point where I felt a renewed strength come over my presentation, lioness-like, even, and from that point on it was easy enough to go back to work.

I have used anointing oils, which I have felt lovely reactions to, like gorgeous, glowing shivers down my spine, both with Christian sources, but now also with Sekhmet, and with Her it has a passionate strength to it.  I have felt this sensation in other ways, it suggests Spirit reacting.  There is a greater calm that has come over me, and my life, since these sensations began.

One of my friends suggested they felt something when I asked if I could try touching their forehead with an oil, so I am wondering if this is real.  I am in a stage of my life where I am convinced that dedication with these methods at least leads to positive mental health results, for whatever reason, but if another party feels something too, is it now religion?  It's a mystery to me at this point.

I sometimes feel a bit like Sam Lowry at the end of the movie "Brazil", because I receive messages from God, promising me lovely things that sound so lofty, having lived the life I have, that I worry "God" is a psychotic delusion that medication can never shut down... that was one reason I ran to CAMH for ECT.  But when 120 mg, too, did not shut down God either, I decided to go back down to the dose of Latuda that felt less horrible on my brain, and settle with that.  (BTW, none of these drugs ever shut down God, and I have tried 5, more if you count my medication past before any of this began with the evil spirit.)

Because the beautiful experiences are enriching, and because I can't shut them down anyway, I choose to live with the intention to solve my mind, like a puzzle, and just pray that the whole experience flows as smoothly as possible.  I use both conventional and alternative medicine to support the process.

I just wish I knew who to talk to about all of this.  I tried talking to a Catholic priest and although he was friendly, I realized I wasn't sure what I was looking for, and burst into tears over my past.  I really wish I had a spiritual director.

-Saraƒin