Mental Health and Spirituality

For most of my life, I have lived with undiagnosed “mental illness”. I had been treated for depression since I was 17, on and off various anti-depressants for over 20 years. I went through several bouts of severe depression and then other times, I was simply being the wild, eccentric, high strung “normal” person so many people know and love. I would go for days on minimal sleep and have so much energy and excitement. I bounced off walls some days and couldn’t stop crying other days. The depression was far more noticeable than the manic, since manic was my outward personality.
I have always had a close connection to God, the Father, Son & Holy Spirit along with other entities, I refer to as my Angels. From as early as I can remember, angel guides, Jesus, Mary and God have “spoken” to me, either through words, signs and both ethereal and human angels. I was visited by spirits of loved ones who had passed, beginning with my Grandma Sylvia in 1986. I have always relied on this connection with the Divine and it has gotten me through many tragedies & human “situations”. I never thought of these entities as “voices” or “hallucinations”. The things I have known all my life as that God is real and his mystical ways, that we don’t always understand, are truly Divine. God answers all prayers, even when we don’t like the answer and God works in God’s time, not mine. God is in everything and everyone. There is one creator and this is the God of Love. God loves each of us unconditionally and has angels watching over us at all times.
In the Baptist church, growing up, there were no real discussions of angels, only the Holy Spirit & the various Biblical angels that appeared in that history. I was touched by the Holy Spirit, “saved” and baptized, when I was 15. I remember the alter call and the song that was playing… “Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling…”. I accepted this call and became a Christian, but my heart knew that the Baptist church didn’t have all of the answers I needed, so I became a member of the Kolkmeier family church, United Church of Christ as a young adult. What I liked about Friedens UCC was the fact that there was no fire and brimstone preaching by a pulpit pounding preacher. In the UCC, I found a Minister who calmly gave sermons. There was no alter call, only a group confession & profession. This was my church home for many years to come until I got pregnant at 29 and was very single. The gossip & judgment from my fellow Christians was more than I could take, so I quit. I quit church and I quit Christianity. I still had my close, personal relationship with Christ, but could not understand how his followers were so unChrist-like.
I spent the next several years praying and meditating on my own. God spoke to me clearly in whatever means I needed at that time. God remained consistent, even when the church was not.
I had always had a fascination of other religions, especially Catholics, since I was raised at the other end of the spectrum as a Baptist. I was told things, in whispers, about the Catholics. The main thing I remember was that Catholics are welcome to participate in the “Lord’s Supper” in the Baptist church, but Baptists are not even welcome in the Catholic church. This made it seem like an exclusive club to me. I had to learn more about it. I went to several masses at a few different churches, as well as non-denominational Christian and Lutheran churches, looking for something to fill my craving for the Truth. Something I have spent my entire life seeking. I could talk to God and God always guided me in the direction I needed to go. My creator is also my best friend and confidant, but at every church I went to, He seemed so limited. I knew better than that. God is limitless.
In 2002, after severe mood swings, irrational outbursts and deep depressive episodes, I was diagnosed as a rapid-cycle bipolar with generalized anxiety and panic disorder. This put some things into perspective for me. I began taking mood stabilizers, antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications. These helped for a couple of years, but they made me feel disconnected from my spiritual connection, so I stopped taking them.
In the summer of 2004, I walked through the doors of the Center for Spiritual Living – St Louis and met Rev. Marigene DeRusha. I went there to check out the metaphysical bookstore and walked out with a job as their new Office Manager. I had no idea what I was in for, but I knew God had led me to this point and I had to follow where He led me. I loved my job at CSL. I loved the people and spirituality of each of the people I met there and I loved learning about God in a new light. I stopped seeing God as the “old guy in the sky” and began seeing God as the omnipotent, omnipresent source that He/She/It is.
I learned so much in my new trans-denominational spiritual community. I learned from Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Jews and everything in between. God sent me so many angels & messengers through those years and those were the days I learned more about myself and my connection with God than any other period of time. I realized my enlightenment and I lived it. I realized the power of my word and the power of my faith. Everything I had ever learned spiritually finally all came together for me. I was happy & free. Free to be me and free to love me, through Christ.

I finally had an understand of my empathic, intuitive nature and became more sensitive and open to the Christ energy in all people. I surrounded myself with like-minded people and was actually very happy & spiritually fulfilled, for the first time in many years. Even the suicide of my (then) husband, Albert was a huge spiritual experience for me, but I coped through it very well, with strength and grace, strong medication and a lot of alcohol. I was just becoming aware and learning about my empathic nature and still not sure how to handle all of the emotions I felt all of the time. I went off my meds to be able to “think clearly” without synthetic chemicals in my brain.
In 2007, almost exactly 2 years after Albert’s death, Anna Nicole Smith died. Suddenly, all these emotions and feelings of grief and devastation consumed my life. I left my job at CSL and spent the next several months having a complete nervous breakdown. I was visited by Mother Mary & Jesus at critical moments in my sorrow. Both cradling me in their arms and reassuring me that things are good and that I am safe & loved.
I got myself pulled together enough to go back to work and did ok for a few months, then the stress and demands of being around people took its toll and in March of 2008, I suffered another major breakdown and checked into the stress program as outpatient. I went for 6 weeks while I stabilized on my meds and quit my job. This was when God told me that it was time to leave the toxic city and start a new life. When people ask me, why I came to Manes, I simply say that God brought me here & dropped me off. I had prayed for an extreme life make-over in 2004 and by 2009, I had it. I went from the big city, where I had the safety of friends & family to a tiny village in the Bible Belt Ozarks, where I knew no one. I left everything I had known to follow where God led me and yes, my life has had an extreme makeover. Finally, now I can get a perspective on it all.
Even through the dark days of depression, the stress of anxiety and the human pain of Fibromyalgia, I know that God is with me as a constant. This is my truth. Now that I know that, I want to understand how this plays into my “mental illness”.
I have spent many hours researching the common factors of bipolar illness and spirituality and have found some very interesting theories and connections. I am not a medical person or a scientist, but I am an empathic, intuitive, eternal, spiritual being. I am a “feeler” not a “thinker”. Ration & logic are secondary to my spirituality. I live my life as an enlightened being as much as humanly possible. I try to only surround myself with positive influences and focus as much of my spiritual energy on God’s love and peace… nothing less.

I am empathic to psychic energy and I can intuitively communicate with spirits. Being empathic means I feel your feelings. I feel your deep energy related feelings, not the superficial ego feelings. Your words can say one thing, but many times they do not match the emotional energy that you are emitting. When this happens, I tend to shut down because I feel manipulated and deceived by the words that are being said. Your words mean nothing if your intentions are deceitful. This is why I have such a hard time in the human realm, trying to deal with people. Most people confuse me with their dishonesty or their attempts to manipulate of my emotions. This causes trust issues for me. Psychically and rationally, I have to ask myself what I did to attract this experience into my life, because it is all within my karmatic cycles. I also have to decide, experience by experience, if it is helpful or harmful for me to be exposed to the manipulations of others. Each “situation” is individual, but part of the whole. This is why I do not watch commercials or much TV for that matter and it is also why I choose to **POOF** some people from my personal “bubble”. I bless them & then I let them go. Releasing is such a cleansing and healing feeling, but there is usually a bit of sadness when I have to release people I have gotten attached to, but God fills all voids & I heal and move on.
The things I have learned both logically and spiritually connect several aspects of my life. “Bipolar” is a label. Some things I have learned are common in Bipolar people. Spirituality is a common “symptom” of mania. This makes me laugh, but it is actually connected, so I have to consider this fact. I believe the connection is in the pineal gland at the center of our brain, top of our spinal cord. I believe this is the physical link to our spirituality. It is the center of our third eye chakra and also directly under our crown chakra. This gland has several purposes and is know to release DMT (the natural chemical that is released during spiritual experiences and death) and it also controls our serotonin and melatonin.
I have also learned that there is a connection with Rhesus negative blood types, spirituality, red hair and bipolar. Interesting facts. The Rhesus blood type is the Positive or Negative after your blood type. My blood type is O and my Rhesus factor is negative. O-. Those with Rhesus positive share DNA with the Rhesus monkey in the evolutionary chain. Those with a negative Rhesus factor do not share DNA with the Rhesus monkey. That leads me to believe that there is another factor involved, the missing-link. At this point, I believe the different DNA is due to the God gene. People with negative Rhesus factors tend to be more spiritually connected, many are redheads and all are descendants of something other than traditional humans.
Over generations we have bred & mated so that the DNA’s have been mixed, but there are 85% less Rhesus negatives than positives and that is because the Rhesus negative mothers’ body tries to reject a Rhesus positive baby. Many of these pregnancies end when the mothers’ body attacks the fetus like a virus. What is it in our genetic code that makes this happen? Why is it that even with several generations of cross breeding some people still do not carry the Rhesus genes and that Rh negatives are less than 15% of the human population? What connection does this have with our spiritual nature?
These are the questions I ponder and still do not have all the answers. I am happy to be alive, in a time where science is so close to understanding God and not only will we understand God in a logical human way, but as a whole, begin living as the divine sparks of God that we are meant to be.
Whether you see the world through the eyes of a cynic, a spiritualist, or an agnostic, God is there. We are all simply spiritual beings sharing this human experience, while waiting to ascend to the other dimension where there are no labels and no mysteries. The blind will see and the meek shall inherit the earth. In the meantime, all I can do is be the best ME I can be and to share God’s love however I am led to. Blessings of peace and love on your journeys, my spiritual brothers and sisters!