What is the line between spirituality and schizophrenia? How do you delineate the nuances between what is a spiritual occurrence and what is a schizophrenic symptom? How do you negotiate new age beliefs such as the aura and beliefs such as near-death experience, telepathy, psychics and more? Do you find your illness of a spiritual nature? What is your spiritual practice?
I have been struggling with these questions. It is difficult to tell whether I am being sent a message or my mind is playing tricks on itself over and over again.
I think all the people can have spirituality, while not all of us are schizophrenics. Anyway, spiritaulity is important for some of us - it’s like seeing romantic beauty in spirit-wise. And I wouldn’t determine certain symptoms being sz-symptoms. In the end, nothing is nothing, but you want to succeed in your life. I was enlightened to understand, that I ORDER myself to be normal. I am normal enough anyway, so I stopped ordering myself. But all the aura, telepathy etc. that you listed have their own place for us. But yeah, I don’t think we Sz’s have to deal with these differently than the rest. I know we all try to find solutions for us to succeed or to find a cure, but I failed to find it from a spirituality. Spirituality is still good in my book and everything, but I found my inner peace from not aiming to convert myself to something I’m really not.
It would seem that schizophrenics are generally not allowed to believe in, say, ghosts, whereas normal people are. One reinforces a symptom and the other is harmless because there are no symptoms.
I have learned/am learning the the line is drawn where a belief becomes damaging to myself or anyone else. It falls into the area of delusion if it’s harmful, or if I start thinking it’s a special message or power/responsibility given just to me, etc.
Otherwise, I personally don’t think it’s healthy or necessary to throw out every spiritual/religious belief. Some of my beliefs are comforting and uplifting and give me hope. I keep those.
Not really. I kind of used to watch Gaia tv to try to learn about those things. I have read books about people’s experiences. Most of my family does not have an interest in such things…
Probably spirituality is not ‘friends’ with schizophrenia (b.c. part of definition of schizophrenia (from wiki): is: Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by disorganized thinking, abnormal speech, and an inability to understand reality.) and ‘spirituality’ might veer into ‘inability to understand reality’ part even further along as far as it seems.
