Many people walk the path of sobriety. Some are alcoholics, members of AA. Or gamblers, members of GA. Overeaters, OA. Drug addicts, NA. All these "anonymous" 12-step groups. Networks of former addicts, helping other addicts overcome their addictions. A buddy system. A system of caring, compassion and support. The serenity prayer: God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Serenity now.
I consider myself a former addict as well. But my addiction does not have a support group. There is no network for me to consult for advice or assistance. I have no sponsor. Even the serenity prayer is rendered useless, from a certain perspective.
What the hell addiction is this?
...
RELIGION
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SPIRITUALITY
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THE ESOTERIC
...
For many years, I felt that my mental illness was due to a spiritual deficiency. I was depressed because I had bad karma, and was being punished for it. I had delusions because there were spirits from past lives haunting me. The continual relapses that prevented me from holding a job... it was all some spiritual trial that served to punish me. And I deserved that punishment, because I knew deep down that I was fundamentally evil. You can imagine that this notion is absolutely frightening. Not only does societal stigma deem me "demonic" or "inferior" due to my illness, but the voices in my head said the same as well. Is it possible for our voices to stigmatize us? Is this self-stigma, or stigma inflicted by the spirit world?
This question is irrelevant.
For many years, I felt cursed. Why me? Why do I keep losing jobs? Why don't I have a boyfriend? Why am I fat? Why am I sad all the time? Why do I keep getting hospitalized? Why do I take meds? Why don't I have friends? Why can't I smile? It was unfair. Others didn't seem to have these problems. They had all these things I didn't have. And I wanted it more than they did. I just knew it.
I experimented with different spiritual practices and perspectives. I first started by meditating with a group that had a guru in India. When I started, I was "only" clinically depressed. After a year and a half, I had developed voices, winning the "schizoaffective disorder badge." My doctors told me to stop meditating, which was good advice. But I still felt cursed. I consulted psychics, palm readers, tarot card readers, astrologers... I needed this illness out of me. I was haunted. Stifled. This shit was not me. It was outside of me. I spent thousands of dollars worth of credit money to pay these people and follow my spiritual impulses. A trip to India. A bag of glass aquarium stones that cost over a thousand dollars. A trip to Denmark. My future was unknown, and I needed comfort. I needed to know that it would be "ok." Psychics... they told me my spiritual deficiencies. My future. They shed light on my past. They all contradicted each other, but no matter. Each psychic was better than the last one.
After becoming thoroughly confused with all this New Age mumbo jumbo, I became saved by Jesus. Evangelical Christians say that, upon salvation, the demons leave a person. Yes! I was cured. Church. Bible study. Skirts. Pure love from the congregation. I say this in earnest. The people I prayed with were some of the kindest and most genuine people I have ever met. I still feel guilty for abandoning them, in the sense that my leaving made them sad.
But I had to. The "voices" told me I had to. Whatever the voices told me to do, I had to do it. With every spiritual experience I had, the voices in my head had more and more "information" to twist around. Pure mental kryptonite, tailor-made for me, Neesa Sunar. I returned to tarot cards. I'd do spread after spread, asking questions ranging from my karmic future, to why I found Glenn Beck sexy. And crystals. Each stone told me something different. But, unlike the psychics, nothing was contradictory. Every inanimate object that spoke to me seemed to follow this coherent logic, albeit twisted. That was what made it all so believable.
My need for spiritual validation ended with one little miracle: Clozapine. After titrating on it during a two-month hospitalization, the voices became less commanding. For the first time, I became stronger than them. And so, they no longer had a mystical, spiritual quality. Biology triumphed over spirituality. Over religion. Over magic. Over prayers. Or maybe not. Perhaps my prayers were answered. Or a single prayer: Dear Lord, please fix me so that I don't ever need to pray again.
So my addiction... what would you call it? The need for a spiritual "fix." To indulge in a religious practice in order to understand the voices. To consult a psychic to reassure me that the man I currently have a crush on really likes me back. To pay a healer to say prayers for me over crystals to ensure that I am no longer cursed. Never again will I pay money for all this. Never again will I put my faith in mere people. Or mere deities. And although I have some experiences that point to the fact that there is an unknown force, I remain an atheist. I remain a realist. Just because something has not been scientifically validated, it does not mean that it does not exist.
Sometimes, I buckle. I have a pendulum, a pointy stone attached to a small chain. Even now, I ask it questions, and it swings back and forth. Depending on the direction it swings, it tells me "yes" or "no." I dabble, thinking it is no biggie. Will I get that job? Will I always live in New York? The spiritual junkie in me has to know. The suspense kills me. But really, this pendulum is as toxic as a Ouija board. In the sense that, perhaps, it is my own imagination that drives me over the edge. Is it worth it? Do I have to know my future?
NO. Why should I know the future? Would I pick up a book, start it just enough to know the main character and his/her premise, only to flip to the last chapter and see what happens in the end? Is the suspense so bad that I need to read the end before the middle? Maybe. In our lives, we read many books, but we only live one book. Don't read the end. Doing so makes the middle so uninteresting. We don't need to know "what if?" or "why?" or "how come?" Just live. Break the addiction of needing to know the future. Break the addiction of ANXIETY. How? I can't tell you. For you, it might be a pill. A mantra. A friend. A job. Even religion could work for you, even though it doesn't work for me. And don't lose heart if you make mistakes in trying to find your own personal "cure." I did it. I'm sober... (mostly). Every time I walk by a store-front psychic, I turn the other way. I feel the pull, but I just keep walking. I fight this addiction every day. So can you.
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