168: What if you believed you were Jesus Christ?
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This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode and for more information about support services. Everything that you've known, everything that you've known about yourself, everything inside me just shattered. It's like you've lost yourself completely and you're basically left in a million different pieces. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein.

You are listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 168. What if you believed you were Jesus Christ?

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My childhood was really happy. I was a very socialized kid. I was such an imaginary child. I loved to explore things. I loved playing with my sisters. We would always create all sorts of games. When I was young, I thought my parents were a normal couple until I reached about eight years old when I realized that things were not right.

My dad worked nights a lot. He was an ER nurse. I didn't really have a tight relationship with my father because he wasn't around. And not only that, I always preferred my mom's attention because she was a lot more fun, open, she would play around with us. And when it come to punishment, I always preferred my mom to punish me because my dad would just be borderline physically abusive.

I started realizing things were going south when one day I wanted to go inside and my friend wanted me to invite her into my house. And I was standing outside and I heard my parents just screaming. That's when I found out that my mom had found out that my dad was cheating. And my dad was pleading with my mom, like, let me just hold you. Let me just hold you. And my mom said, get your hands off of me.

It made me feel so unsafe because my parents were not in a good place. And that's when I felt like anxiety started to bloom within me. I felt intense insecurity. I felt intense fear because I looked at my parents as security, like I could always trust them. But when this was happening, all these emotions started flooding into me like, what's going to happen now?

I just started to feel intensely sad and ashamed. I didn't want to talk to anybody about it, and I did not want to talk to my friends about it as well. So it created a lot of a sense of shame, anxiety, feeling like I was unsure of what was going to happen next. And most importantly, I was extremely worried for my mother. There would be moments that she would just be so upset and she would just be crying. She would get angry with us.

Whenever she was in a good mood, we were all in a good mood. But if she was in a bad mood, we were all in a bad mood. So I was mostly in a state of uncertainty. Like when I would come home from school, I had no idea what I was going to walk into. My parents continued to fight and my hope started to just fall apart.

One morning when I was 11 years old, I was in sixth grade at the time. I woke up like normal, poured myself a bowl of cereal and my dad says, well, I'm going to take you to the bus stop. And once we got to the bus stop, he turned to me and told me, I'm going to be moving out. I am leaving your mother. I still love you. I can still see you. But I just wanted to let you know that when you come home, my stuff is going to be gone.

And I remember my first period, we had these planners that everyone had to fill out. And I remember writing on the top, dad left. All day long, my stomach was in knots because I had no idea what I was going to expect when I came home. And when I came home, my mom lost it.

She had these little figurines, precious moment figurines that my dad would give her. And I later found out whenever he would cheat or feel guilty, he would go and get these figurines. So my mom had a whole case full of these. And I remember coming home from school and my mom had a baseball bat and she just started smashing everything.

At that moment, I realized that my dad was never going to come back and that me as the oldest sister, I would have to step up to the plate. And that right there really was a pinnacle moment where I felt like I did change. I was so angry at my father. I can't even explain it really. It was just this anger and shame. So I started to really internalize things.

not being motivated, feeling depressed and down. And I started to become very secretive.

We lived in a pretty good neighborhood. There was a lot of upper middle class individuals, but we were lower class, almost poverty level. So I already felt embarrassed that I didn't fit in because I didn't have the right shoes, the clothes. I was overweight as a kid and I felt like this was just one thing that I could not tell people and just started really internalizing a lot of dread.

How I reacted to it is that I started to really delve into books because I wanted to be anywhere else besides living the life that I was currently stuck in. I was going to school regularly. I was a top student. I love schoolwork because it was something that I control. So I delved into schoolwork because it was a distraction.

And one day in the middle of October, my mom said, we're moving. We're moving in two weeks. We're moving to Florida. I was upset. I was mad. I did not like living in Florida. I felt like I did not belong there. I felt like I was taken away from my home. I was taken away from things that were familiar to me. And I was an outsider.

Once we moved down to Florida, I get a letter from my dad saying that he was going to marry this woman. And I felt like my dad was like, I can go marry the person that I've been cheating on with and just leave you guys behind. Like my dad just tossed me aside. That really, really brought on my depression. That's when I started to dabble in self-harm.

The first time I had self-harm was with one of those eyebrow shaving things. And I just put it to my wrist and just dragged. And I was just so fascinated with the feeling of it was painful, but yet releasing. It was very odd because that was all I could focus on. And it took my mind off of things just as a distraction to try to

feel pain elsewhere other than what was going on in my heart. Unfortunately, it ended up turning into an addiction. I would just cut my arm up, cut my wrist. As the years continued into my adulthood, that's when I would take more serious measures. There were two times that I had to be taken to the ER because of my wounds. So it turned into a pretty nasty addiction.

I hated myself. I absolutely hated myself because I felt like I just couldn't fit in no matter what I did. I always felt different. I've always felt like that because I'm biracial. My mother is African American and Native American. My dad is German and Scottish, so I am white and black.

And growing up in Michigan, it was very hard because nobody would think my mom was my mom. And so I already felt alienated because I didn't know anyone else like me. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want them to know how broken I was inside. I didn't want to tell them about my family history.

It's very hard for people to identify me because I do have fair skin and I could pass for Latina, white, all sorts of different things. So I didn't fit in with the white girls. I didn't fit in with the black girls. I would even tell people, well, I'm biracial and they would tell me not to say that. I feel like it was just a constant battle of trying to find my identity. And it was almost like I was being told to pick a side.

I completely internalized everything. And it's almost like I was stuck in my own head. I couldn't escape my thoughts. And that's when I would really get into cutting when I would feel so hopeless and anxiety ridden. Another thing that had happened was that my freshman year of high school, my mom met my stepdad.

I did not like him, but my mom just really, really wanted someone to love. So in the middle of my freshman year, we moved in with my stepdad, even though I told my mom, I don't think you should marry him. I don't think he's a good person. And so I was then placed in a household that did become hostile again. When I was in high school, my depression and anxiety just intensified.

My freshman year of high school, I was dead set on going to art school in New York. That was my main goal. I was going to be a photographer. And all this dread that I was feeling, this self-hatred, this hopelessness, I believed would all go away once I moved out of the house. I was accepted into art school.

My second year of college, I was 19 at the time. I was at my friend's house, and that's when I received a phone call from my mom saying that she had breast cancer.

That right there made my depression so much worse. And I felt so ashamed that I was up in New York taking pictures while my mom was going through chemo and radiation and surgery to get a double mastectomy. And things really started to tumble down. My roommates at the time did not like me because my mind was all over the place. So I couldn't properly really clean. And I just felt like they were out to get me. I started to get paranoid.

A lot of my friends that I had in college started to separate themselves from me because not only did I not have money to go out, I was a hermit. I would just stay at my dorm room, utterly depressed, cutting myself, wondering why was I even here? What was the purpose of my life? My fantasies of going and living in New York and school were just crashing down. So I decided to move back home.

Things started getting progressively worse. My parents were always fighting. There was drama going on between my mom and sister. They were always butting heads. And I just needed to get out. I needed to escape. I wanted to just take any means necessary to get out of there.

I had a friend that lived in North Georgia, up in the mountains. So I decided to go up to visit him and what a contrast. It's just farmland. I didn't see a single person of color in sight. Out of a whim, I said, you know what? I'm moving to Georgia. My friend came down and I loaded up the car and we drove off. So at this time, I'm living in North Georgia. I ended up working at a Home Depot as a cashier.

My anxiety was through the roof. I was having regular panic attacks. I could not sleep without trying to take a smoke of something to try to get myself tired. I had a lot of insomnia. I wasn't eating well. I had gotten promoted at Home Depot and I was doing really well at my job. And at this time, I was also going to school online for psychology.

As my depression and anxiety gotten worse, I decided to go to a free clinic. I did not have insurance at the time. So I decided to go to a free clinic to get diagnosed. And when I was there, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. And I was given medication.

However, I was not taking that medication regularly. I would do it only if I remembered. I could go a few days without taking the medication and then taking it again. And I was very inconsistent. I wasn't going to therapy. My self-medication was just smoking a joint and just taking my mind off of everything that was racing. I would lay down. My body was exhausted, but my mind could just not go to sleep.

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This Is Actually Happening is sponsored by ADT. ADT knows a lot can happen in a second. One second, you're happily single. And the next second, you catch a glimpse of someone and you don't want to be. Maybe one second, you have a business idea that seems like a pipe dream. And the next, you have an LLC and a dream come true. And when it comes to your home, one second, you feel safe,

And the next, something goes wrong. But with ADT's 24-7 professional monitoring, you still feel safe. Because when every second counts, count on ADT. Visit ADT.com today. My panic attacks were increasing. I was starting to kind of just lose track of time, and I wasn't eating properly. But I brushed it off. I thought, okay, once I get some weed, it'll be okay. Like, I'll just be able to go to sleep.

So I remember texting my friend and saying, hey, you know, have you got some? And he's like, yeah, I got some. Do you want to come over and smoke? Okay, great. That night, I was hanging out at his place and we were just smoking. Everything was fine. And he showed me some videos. And I remember I could not stop laughing.

We were having a deep conversation about something and I was just staring at him and I felt this huge urge of, oh my gosh, you're my brother. I love you so much. This is amazing. I get home. I have no idea how I got home.

I was cleaning up like usual. I was hanging out with my roommate. He was showing me some funny videos. And still, I was laughing like a hyena. I've never laughed like that before. That's when I decided, okay, I'm going to lay down and try to go to sleep or something. And I could not sleep.

It was like my mind was racing. And all of a sudden I was just like, okay, like, you know, maybe I kind of need to throw this stuff away. Like I thought that the weed had made me feel weird. So I was like, okay, I'm going to flush this down the toilet. And something in me told me, hey, maybe you need to get rid of your paraphernalia as well.

I went outside. We lived right on a hill. So the back of the house was just pitch black. And I remember tossing my pipes into the woods. And that's when I started to hallucinate. I began to notice that shapes were darting back and forth in the woods. I could see eyes, red eyes. And it was almost like creatures that weren't anything that I've seen before.

And they were rushing back and forth and I felt this presence that was in the woods that was staring me down. I knew deep down in me that there was something there that was staring me down and it was pure evil. So I was throwing all of my paraphernalia away while yelling at the woods, you can't get me. I refuse it. Get away from me. No.

I get back into the house and I'm, you know, I threw everything away and I decide to lay down to try to go to sleep. At this time, I begin hearing voices. The voices I believed was God and Jesus talking to me.

The voices began to explain that men have completely distorted the image of God and Jesus and that Jesus was actually like a really chill dude. And I was having this conversation and I was laughing because I felt like God was talking to me and I was like, wow, this is really cool. I can't wait to share this.

Next morning, I go to my roommate. And so I started rattling off nonsense details. And my roommate's looking at me like, okay. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, you know, it's totally cool. I'm so excited. Who I thought was Jesus was giving me these revelations of, hey, you know, there's going to be a flood coming up. Remember Noah's Ark? There's going to be another flood coming up. And I'm telling you, because you need to be prepared and you need to tell people.

At this time, I was in a writing community online. And that's when I got on my computer and I just started typing nonsense. God is going to flood the world again. Like we need to go to a country with high altitude so we can stay there until this is all over. And everyone's like, why it?

I was having all of these fabricated thoughts that my writing group friends, they were talking behind my back. I confronted them. I sent out all these messages saying, I know I've never belonged to your group. I know that you guys have been bad mouthing me, dragging my writing. So I'm done. And I get all these frantic texts back saying, what are you talking about?

We didn't do anything. Can we talk? Like, what's going on? I ended up blocking all of them. And I remember going to my roommate laughing because I did this. And my roommate was just like, are you okay? I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. My hallucinations and paranoia are getting worse by the hour.

At this time, I started developing thoughts of grandeur and I started to believe that if Jesus was talking to me directly, I must be really, really special. As the day goes on, I'm trying to talk to my mom, letting her know that I told my roommate about what Jesus told me. Her being the religious woman she is, she was like, that's not Jesus.

That's not how it works. You need to go in and apologize to your roommate because what you told him, that's not from God. I'm like, hey, you know, I'm sorry for what I said. I was out of it. Don't worry about it. I'm fine. I'm fine. As the night progressed, I am feeling even more paranoid.

I felt fearful. And there was this moment that I was sitting in my room and I had this globe that would change colors. And I was just sitting there in the dark with this light on and I had my cat in my lap. And all of the sudden the light stopped at red. And I looked to the corner and there's this presence of just darkness everywhere.

You can't make out the figure, but you know somebody's there. And it was just darkness emanating evil. And I knew that I was not safe.

It was like a dark shadow. It wasn't the corner of the room where you see, you know, dark because of the shadows. There was an actual presence there that I could not make out with my eyes. And my body and my spirit knew that that was not right. It was evil, complete evil. I felt paralyzed. I felt just completely hopeless in that I needed to run.

I felt like if I stayed in that room with that presence, I was going to be attacked and killed. All the color drained from my face. My heart started pounding and I was terrified for my life. It was just a fear that just settles into your bones. And all of a sudden your body's like, get out of there now.

What really got me is when I looked down at my cat and I said, that cat's not mine. This is not my cat. It was just bone chilling. I'm getting goosebumps right now because it was such a horrible, dark, sinking feeling. Anything was just sucked out of me and replaced with just complete dread.

To this day, besides all the other hallucinations I have, to this day, I know for a fact that that was real. I knew for a fact that the devil was in my room at that moment. And all of a sudden, the panic set in immediately.

I put my clothes on. I grab my roommate's keys and I'm like, I need to get out of here. There's something in here. I need to get out of here now. And my roommate's like, what the hell are you talking about? Before he can really finish his sentence, I'm out the door and I'm driving down this long, curvy mountain road. And the sky was red. It was raining. And it just felt like Armageddon in a sense. I was freaking out.

So I ended up calling a coworker that had a bit of a crush on me and I call him and I'm like, look, I need a place to stay. I can't stay at my house right now because there's something, there's a demon in there. The devil's in there. Like I need to get out of there. Can I please stay at your house? And he's like, um, no, are you okay? What's going on? And all of a sudden something in me was like, you know what? The only thing that will stop this is if you get married to this person.

So I'm on the phone driving frantically, crying on the phone, be like, look, we need to get married. Please, please just marry me. And my coworker's like, no, no. Like, what are you talking about? Are you okay? What's going on? And I hung up the phone. At this point, I'm calling my mom. I can't quite remember the nonsense that I was saying at the time, but I was saying lines of, you know, I'm your only daughter. I need help. I don't know what's going on. Like,

I don't know if I need to go to the hospital, like something's not right. And she told me to go home. So I'm driving home. And I was terrified to even go back there. Because in the back of my mind, I knew that there was something wrong with me. But I also believe that something was really in the house. And that was pretty conflicting. Absolutely conflicting.

So I go back into the house and my roommate is like, what the hell is going on? You took my car, you ran out, now you're back here. And I'm like, I can't stay here. And this is when I started to have intense pain in my leg. At the time I was prescribed Celexa and doing my Google research, I found that one of the severe side effects was deep vein thrombosis. I felt just pain searing through my leg.

I told my roommate, I need to go to the hospital. And he was like, you know what? I think you just need to go to sleep. And I'm laying in the bed and I'm like, no, you don't understand. Like my leg, it's burning. Like it hurts so bad. He was like, just go to sleep. It'll be okay. I just felt existential dread. I felt like this deep vein thrombosis was going to kill me. I was going to die that day.

My roommate had a bottle of pills that he took for neuropathy. He was diabetic, so he lost a feeling in his feet. So he had these pills and I thought, I can't do this anymore. So I ended up taking a huge handful of the pills. I laid down and the pain started to go away and I was completely fine with dying right then and there.

It was like just so normal. I was okay with dying. I thought, well, tomorrow morning, my roommate is going to find my body. My family is going to be devastated, but I'm okay with that. When I closed my eyes, I saw a blinding white light and I thought, okay, this is it.

I heard my name in a voice that I can't even, I can't even explain what kind of voice it was. But I heard my name and I heard something tell me that you've passed, you've passed. And I thought, okay, yeah, I'm going to heaven. And that's when I just black out.

When I see this blinding white light, I also saw the faces of those that I lost. And hearing my voice in a voice that I can't even explain, I thought, okay, like I made it to heaven. You know, everything's going to be okay. When this voice tells me you passed, I thought I passed the test. I passed the test of life and I can go into heaven now.

This is how it feels to die. This is how it feels to just slip away and go into a different reality. And I felt just peace. I felt complete peace at that moment.

I had had suicidal attempts in the past, but there was always some part of me that said, stop, you're not doing this. Think about your family. Think about this. Think about that. But at that exact moment, it was so surreal how okay I was with dying. All of a sudden, it was daytime. I opened my eyes and I was just shocked. It was like, holy crap, I'm alive now.

I'm alive right now. I'm alive. I can't believe it. Like Jesus saved me. I'm alive. I'm alive. I had called my mother at the time who was still living in Florida. And I called her. I said, Mom, like I almost died last night. But Jesus brought me back. She was like, I can't do this right now. I gotta go. I can't do this right now. And she hung up the phone.

So I come out to the living room and my roommate's just out and about. And I'm like, hey, you know, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm really hungry. Do you mind going to McDonald's? He was like, yeah, sure.

During this time, I start texting straight nonsense to my friends and to my co-workers. Hey, you know, I just want to let you know that Jesus has saved me and I feel like I'm the next Messiah. Like, I feel like I came from death, like I was resurrected and now I'm alive. And I feel like I need to have 12 disciples. But at the time, I called them 12 homies. Like, I have 12 homies now and you're one of them.

While my roommate is gone, I start getting this revelation that I needed to kill myself again because I needed to be reborn as this new messiah. I was pacing around the house and something in me told me, "The only way that you can be reincarnated is if you set yourself on fire." So I had to be reincarnated so I could become the next female messiah so I could change the world.

I locked all the doors, all the entrances, and then I went into the bathroom, started barricading the door, piling things up and up and up so that it would be really, really difficult to have anyone come in. I started dousing all the stuff that I had piled up, all these toiletries, paper towel, toilet paper. I started dousing these with bleach and

For some strange reason, I thought that was just going to ignite. So I had lit a candle and I laid it to the side thinking that the flames are going to start picking up and things were going to be set on fire. So I got into the bathtub. I ended up plugging in a curling iron.

I had it on the floor next to me, but I didn't quite put it in the bathtub with me. So I got in the bathtub and turned on the shower and I'm starting to feel the fumes of all the bleach. Before that, I had poured out a lot of my shampoos, conditioners. So there was a lot of chemicals going on in the bathroom. And in my head, I started having these visions of becoming more beautiful and

Having this long, beautiful hair and everyone would love me and I would love them and I would show them true salvation. I'd be able to preach the good word and save lives. But the only way I could do that was if I died so I could be reincarnated into this new creature. While this is happening, my roommate comes back home.

And I just start hearing pounding at the door. And I'm just screaming like, no, no, no, don't come in here. Just let me be. And he saw me and he pulled me out of the bathroom and he said, you're going to the hospital. So we get to the hospital and my roommate is trying to tell the lady at the desk that I tried to kill myself. There's something really wrong with me. She needs to be hospitalized.

I then butt my head in and I said, no, he's just mad because I found Jesus and he's he doesn't believe in God. So he's just pissed off about that. I don't need to be hospitalized. At this point, my roommate's like, you know what? No, goodbye. So he leaves me at the hospital. Nobody comes out. So I'm just like, OK, well, let me just go ahead and I guess walk around and see if I can try to find a phone.

At this time, I'm completely delusional. I'm like walking around asking people if they believed in God. And I was talking to this one dude who I thought looked like Jesus. And I was like, oh my gosh, I just wanted to let you know that I tried to kill myself last night, but Jesus brought me back. And I'm so amazed. I'm so happy. And like this older couple next to me, like the man started crying thinking that, you know, I had this amazing testimony.

So at this point, I wander outside the hospital. And since it's such a small town, the security officer recognized me from working at Home Depot. He's like, hey, what are you doing out here? And I said, well, I'm trying to get a ride home or to work. Well, actually, can you take me to my job? And he was like, oh, yeah, no problem. I'll take you to your job right now.

So he takes me to Home Depot. I'm dressed in pajamas with slippers and I wander into the store and my manager sees me and she's immediately taking me to the back office. And she was like, what is going on? And I started to just tell her the whole story. You know, I woke up, I tried to kill myself this morning, but Jesus saved me. And I know I'm the female Jesus Christ. Like here I have text messages. This is what happened.

You have to believe me. And there were tears in my manager's eyes. And I thought that she was believing me. I thought that she was like, wow, I'm really sitting in front of the new Messiah. The store manager comes in and I tell him the story. And he's asking like, why are you trying to kill yourself? You're such a wonderful person. And I told him, I said, I'm trying to kill myself because I hate myself. I hate it. I hate it.

At this time, they finally get my mom on the phone and they put her on speakerphone. And my mom goes, oh, my God, get her to the hospital now. A cop car comes to the back of the store and I am escorted into the cop car. But instead of them taking me to the hospital, the cop, they took me straight home. And he said, OK, well, you're free to go.

So I go back into the house and my roommate is like, what the hell are you even doing here? And I was like, yeah, you tried to get me hospitalized, but they believed me. So I'm here. As the night progressed, the day progressed, I start becoming extremely, extremely paranoid.

My roommate had brought over his niece to try to clean up the mess that I made. And I am in the bedroom with a sheet wrapped over me and I'm hearing some banging outside, kind of like packages being dropped off. And I was certain that they were gifts because I felt like word had spread that the new Messiah was here and that they were giving me gifts.

But while this is happening, I'm growing increasingly paranoid and I start to be convinced that my roommate is going to kill me. I start thinking about Jesus and how everyone thought he was a fraud and that how he was killed. And I believed that my roommate was going to kill me because he was an atheist. So I started becoming completely freaked out.

At this time, his niece comes into my room and she's like, what's going on? What's going on? And I'm like, I feel like you guys are going to kill me because that's exactly what happened to Jesus. And so I kept saying that I needed to go to the hospital. I really need to go to the hospital. The sheriff is called. I finally get to the hospital and I'm just completely out of my mind at this point.

While I'm in the waiting room, my mom comes in. I did not expect her to come in. And I say to her, I'm not your daughter. I'm not your daughter anymore. All she had to do was look in my eyes. She's a health care worker. She turns in and she says she needs to be monitored because something's wrong. Something's wrong with her.

And that's when the cop comes out and he thinks that my mom's the issue. My mom's African-American up in a rural town in Georgia. So immediately she was discriminated towards. So that was the last time I saw my mom for a good three weeks because then I was taking into observation room where I was there for 24 hours. During that whole entire time, I was hallucinating like crazy.

I was hallucinating that the nurses were telling my story. I thought they were whispering to each other like, oh, that must be the next Messiah. Oh my gosh, is this real? Is this real? As I'm in this room, I'm thinking that the gifts that were being received at the house were probably all toys that I can give out to the children. So I was convinced, absolutely convinced that this truck was outside the hospital.

So I was finally allowed out the room after 24 hours and the security guard said, OK, well, you're going to come with me around the hospital and I'm going to have to tell you something. So we're walking around and I take a look out to the parking lot and there's no truck. In my mind, I'm already like, what? This is supposed to be here. What's going on?

The security officer takes me outside and he sits me down and he said, look, you're going to have to go away for some time now. We have to send you to a facility a couple hours away so they can take care of you. And for some reason, I started crying. Those gifts and the truck out there full of gifts for the children. I knew, I knew, I knew it was out there, but it wasn't. So I was starting to get kind of antsy about that.

I felt like my mind was starting to fight. So I get in the car with the police officers that were going to take me to the facility and

When I get into the facility, they gave me the mistake of giving paperwork when I was under psychosis. My judgment was severely impaired, so I'm filling out this paperwork, and I put it to where nobody can contact me. Nobody can contact me about my whereabouts or anything, which was really, really difficult in the long run.

I go into intake and that's when I am being analyzed. And that's when I started to get even more paranoid. And this man named Moses came in and handed me a clipboard to fill out the paperwork. And I got so angry and I was like, get away from me, Moses. And I had like some sort of weird biblical connection. And I said, you're not going to be anything anymore. I'm the new Messiah.

So they make me sleep out in the unit because I was a suicidal risk. So as this is going on, I'm starting to develop some relationships with these patients in acute care. And most of them are going through psychosis themselves. I'm pretty sure I triggered a lot of patients in there because there were several times that I had to be put in isolation room.

I was talking to this one woman who thought I was so nice and she announced to everyone in the room that I was an angel. And for me, that validated it. And quickly they got her out of the unit because she was only feeding my delusions at the time. A lot of the patients were aware of my condition. So a lot of the patients like to play around with me.

One patient told me that she worked for the FBI. And I thought, what? That makes total sense. Everyone's undercover. You know, I'm part of this operation too. I was believing every single thing they were feeding into me.

Also, my hygiene was not good. Apparently, I was urinating on myself a lot. I had also started my period and I completely bled through my pants and I just wasn't taking care of myself. I looked crazy. My hair was all over the place. I had raccoon dark circles and I am just stuck in this psychosis for a good five days.

During this time, my mother was calling frantically to the hospital and they said that she could not talk to me because I put down on my sheet that I did not want anyone to speak to me. She had to contact a lawyer and, you know, I talked to my mom. I was asking her silly questions like, oh, yeah, did you and my roommate hook up and everything? And she's like, what?

So that's when she talked to the doctor and they ended up giving me a different type of medication. So five days has gone by and I take this new medication, this one particular drug, Saffras. And the next morning it was like the blinder from my eyes was lifted.

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And the first thing that hit me was the intense shame, the intense shame of finding out that everything that I thought was real was not real.

Everything that I imagined, everything that I thought was completely and utterly true to the core, every fiber of my being told myself that I was the female Jesus Christ. I was. So that morning was like being hit by a truck. I felt completely ashamed because I never noticed my own symptoms, even though ironically I was going to school studying the mind.

I felt horrible for what I did to my mom, my friends, my roommate, the people at work, people at the hospital. So I was then moved up to the next group of patients that are getting ready to be discharged. But we have to learn a lot of like life skills, how to handle stress. And we were also presented with our diagnosis. That was when I was diagnosed with bipolar type one disorder.

Finding out my diagnosis, a lot of things started to flood back. A lot of my behaviors as a teenager, my impulses, me just going out of a whim and doing something crazy, it all started to make sense. But I just felt so defeated. I felt completely depressed and I felt disgusted with myself that my mind had to attack me.

I felt like I couldn't trust myself anymore. I felt like I was broken. Everything that was going through my mind about me being the next Messiah, it was my truth.

If someone had told me, no, you're not, I would have fought to show the truth. Like, this is my reality. This is real. Everything in my body is screaming at me that this is real. This is what's going on. This is my reality. So when you have that shattered in front of you, it really tears your world apart. Everything that you've known, everything that you've known about yourself, everything inside me just shattered.

It's like you've lost yourself completely and you're basically left in a million different pieces. I couldn't trust my thoughts anymore. I felt like I couldn't trust other people anymore. I felt like that was it. That was the end of my life. Everything that I worked for, all my goals and stuff, gone.

I didn't even know where to begin. I was afraid to even leave. I was afraid to go back to life because I thought, what if this happens again? Am I always going to be hallucinating? And I felt like I had nobody. You know, I had my family and stuff. But at that very moment, I felt completely and utterly alone.

I was there for an additional five days just so you can take our classes. They are monitoring us, making sure that I'm being sociable, coherent, that my mind is right.

My care plan when I left the hospital was that I would have to go back to living with my mother and my stepdad, which was not ideal because they were planning to get a divorce again. And that was the last place I wanted to go. So I was really upset about that. But I had to start packing my stuff up and move down to Florida. During this time, I was still pretty manic.

Still very stuck in euphoria, very chatty, coming up with all these weird thoughts, especially signs and symbols I would see. And that happened for a good six months or so until I was able to get on the correct medication. I still struggled a lot trying to find good medication, not only that being diligent, because people with bipolar can be pretty notorious about not taking their medication, but

So it was a lot of trial and error for the next couple of years. And there was one time I decided that I didn't need my medication anymore. I didn't have bipolar disorder. It was a lie. So I stopped taking my medication.

And of course, to put it lightly, shit hit the fan. That's when I realized that, okay, I really do have bipolar disorder. I need to be on medication. I need to go to therapy. I need to get my life together because I cannot keep living like this. I can't keep living with not knowing how I'm going to feel when I wake up.

I was just so sick and tired of being depressed. I was so sick and tired of hating myself. And I knew deep down inside that life's not supposed to be like that. I was placed on this earth for a reason, and I don't think I should be suffering this whole entire time.

I did kind of struggle with that for quite some time until I finally started seeing a psychiatrist about two years ago and getting on a regular medication, going to therapy and really just trying to work through some of these deep seated traumas.

I started to realize that my father and my half-brother both have bipolar disorder. So I knew it was something that I didn't do because for the longest time I thought I did something to deserve this, but it's hereditary.

You know, from past traumatic stuff, I feel like I internalized it so much and I was not willing to talk about it. And I feel like it was just only a matter of time. I was going through a very, very stressful period of my life where I was having daily panic attacks and I just felt like it was bound to happen. So it wasn't my fault for the longest time. That's what I thought was that everything was my fault.

In retrospect, I look at it as something that I had to go through. I needed to go through that. The way my life was going in Georgia was just a downward spiral. I had no goals. I was running away from my problems. I kept trying to move and move. But it's almost like this experience had brought me back to where I was trying to escape from to begin with. So I feel like it happened for a reason.

I feel like if it didn't happen, I wouldn't be here today. The religious part of it still stuck with me. Like I knew after that I wasn't the Messiah, but I still felt really strongly about the presence that was in my room and the images that I saw in the backyard when I was throwing away my paraphernalia. Part of me knows that it was the bipolar disorder and the psychosis.

But the other part of me feels like I was fighting against these evil demonic spirits that were trying to kill me, like being told to kill myself, being told to set myself on fire. So I feel like it was like a spiritual attack.

I firmly believe in spiritual attacks. I firmly believe that that presence in my room was demonic. And, you know, I take from it that that was a spiritual attack that made me closer to God in a weird sense. I feel like God let it happen to open my eyes to a world that is beyond what we can see.

There are some components of my psychosis that I know, okay, there were some misfiring in my brain. I was taking medication I had no business taking. And I feel like me going to psychosis had opened up my eyes and it showed me that the spirit world is real.

People can call me nuts and say, oh, well, that's just part of your psychosis. That was just part of your hallucinations. No, I stand by it to this day that that presence that was in my room was the devil himself.

I do believe that those with mental illness are more vulnerable to spiritual attacks, evil forces, you know, even demonic attacks. Somebody might look at it and be like, well, no, that's part of my symptoms. And I completely respect that. But for me personally, I feel like the devil can get you when you are at your lowest.

So I really believe that the devil was speaking to me and saying like, yeah, you're definitely the next Messiah, but you need to kill yourself. But I thought it was God talking to me. It really made me hone in on my faith and solidified my beliefs and my

I really did not think that I could get over this because for the longest time I was having nightmares. I would cry. I was so ashamed. I didn't even want to think about it or talk about it.

And now I'm able to speak about it without getting too freaked out or too panicked because this could happen to anybody. And it really has just brought me a lot of just clarity about the world in the sense that it's not all just black and white. There's a lot more to it. I ended up getting a job moving out with my sister and I ended up meeting my now future husband.

Our second date, I actually sat him down at a Burger King and literally told him this whole entire story. I wanted to just lay it all out. I wanted to tell him, like, if you're going to date me, I have quite a few packed bags, a lot of baggage, and I want to get it out. And if you don't want to deal with me, I completely understand. But he held my hand through the whole time and was just so understanding. So he's just been really amazing and supportive and

I am getting married at the end of the year. So that's a good first step. I have a steady job. Thank God. I'm stable on my medication. You know, I have a doctor that I go to every month. I see a therapist. I'm making sure that I'm sleeping. That's a huge thing. Sleeping and eating is crucial, especially when you have bipolar disorder. So I've been taking steps to take better care of myself and

And trying to really just look at the world in a brighter light. I never thought I would be able to bounce back from this. I honestly thought that I was going to be just messed up and broken. I never thought that I could live a normal life after this. Yes, I do have to take like six different medications and check in with my doctors to make sure that I'm stable. But I am in so much of a better place now.

You can really have a good life despite having a traumatic event like this. And I feel like I'm just getting started. I feel like I'm making up for lost time of being clouded in darkness. I do struggle sometimes every now and then, but I'm happy. That right there is, I don't think I could have ever said that like in the past, but I'm happy. And that means everything to me.

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I'm your host, Witt Misseldein. Today's episode was produced by me, with special thanks to the This Is Actually Happening team, including Andrew Waits and Ellen Westberg. The intro music features the song Illabi by Tipper. You can join the This Is Actually Happening community on the discussion group on Facebook, or at Actually Happening on Instagram. And as always, you can support the show by going to patreon.com slash happening, or by visiting the shop at actuallyhappeningstore.com. Wondering

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