A lengthy explanation of my journey and current issues (seeking advice)

[ArcaneHuman]

I will begin by explaining my primary struggle: Sometimes (about once a week on average) I am overwhelmed by a solipsistic waking nightmare in which i am the only conscious entity and all the suffering in the world is my fault. It happens mostly in public places but sometimes it strikes at home. When i am hit with it I feel evil and pathetic. In it I am being given a choice. Accept the "knowing" that I am evil and punish myself or opt out of remembering my own lowliness and inherit a greater punishment.

The idea behind it is that by sustaining my existence i am sustaining the horrors of this world. As an American i am dependent upon fossil fuels and plastic packaging and hegemony and cheap foreign wage slavery and what not. By destroying myself i would magically destroy these things. A lot of times there's white male guilt involved. Every time it happens it feels like the very end of the line. Yet It seems to one up itself every time. The sense of "knowing" i am evil is beyond disconcerting. This has been going on for arguably three or four years but i also had a similar theme about 8 or 10 years earlier in my life.

In the earlier stages i was completely susceptible to it. I wasn't on anti-psychotics like i am now. I call it the condemnation narrative, though i used to call it "the shroud of pain". One time, In the earliest stages i was being told by some kind of entity to spin around in circles until my reality became hell itself. I'll never forget the one time when gripped by terror i started spinning clockwise and an entity of some kind ordered me to spin in the opposite direction. It was just like... NO. THE OTHER WAY. It was very important for some reason to do it widdershins (counter clockwise). I was so unaware of my surroundings that I literally fell through my father's glass coffee table putting a deep gash in my palm. I was bleeding everywhere. There's so much to tell about my journey... it's impossible to encapsulate it. But i will try to highlight some important moments.

It probably started with a love triangle of sorts and FOOLISH power seeking. I was dating a woman and a male shaman she met introduced her to a ritual in my absence. She showed me the ritual one day. In it we both took off our shirts, sat cross legged before one another. Placed sage smudge ash on our foreheads and heart center, placed the flat of our right palm over each others hearts and stared into one another's eyes. We were to do this until we saw each other's face shift and blur and become that of our primary animal spirit totem.

When i got home i did a version of the ritual in a mirror with myself. I began it by challenging the male shaman (stupid, ego driven, foolish). I saw the reflection of my face change into that of an angry wolf (the shaman's primary totem) looking back at me. My face in the mirror also changed into the woman i was dating and i watched as she got ripped away from me into another dimension. It also changed into a red faced demon who said "it's going to be hell for you". It felt like all the life energy had been sucked out of me after i was done and I passed out and woke up the next afternoon to literally 30 or more missed calls from the woman i was dating. She was going to visit her home country Azerbaijan for a lengthy time and was trying to reach me to change her mind. By the time I reached her it was too late. She had indeed been ripped away from me as i saw in the vision.

I neglected to mention that After the ritual i felt like i was being followed by Something that did not have good intent. i also felt like i had a fox's ears and heightened sense of hearing. but the sensation of being followed by a specter was very real. I had other symptoms. i felt totally off. I got so bogged down by negative energies that eventually this all led me to go cross country to New Mexico via greyhound in search of a shaman. I had no plan or anything. I was just hoping it would fall into place by the grace of the universe. Which it kind of did... but definitely not like i'd imagined.

On the way to new mexico i randomly got off the bus in a small town named Easton, Pennsylvania to return to my home in new york. but when i called my father he told me i couldn't come back. that if i really wanted to be a vagabond to try it out for "i don't know... a week or maybe a month". Anyway... i ended up running into a shaman woman one night in that small town. I saw her walking into a bar. I'm regularly quite shy about pursuing women... but this woman was glowing with white light and her aura was like... 20 feet tall like she was being followed by archangels. I NEEDED to talk to her. This woman became very important to my life. She introduced me to the moon blood mysteries and the goddess and eco feminism and shamanism in general.

I also met a few brujos in New mexico when i finally got there about a month later. I'm not sure what they did to me, but at least one had targeted me. I have to leave a lot of details out unfortunately. there's just too much to cover. I also met an indigenous man there who told me "You're a spiritual warrior. You'll see the sky fill with demons. And you'll beat them but don't fight them." He said this to me about 50 times while we were holding eachother's wrists with our hands. He seemed like he really wanted to drill it into my mind and soul.

But in california i hooked up with a shaman woman i found on the internet and she was excellent. She introduced me to a more benevolent power than what i was caught up in. It brought me to tears. I saw ganesha in a vision and i/she/we unblocked my svadisthana chakra and a river flowed up my spine. it was so beautiful. Words cannot describe the vividness of these healing visions.

Also i had a few bad acid trips while i was in cali. i saw a demonic extra terrestial type woman with a crown of flowers and interlocking fangs take up the entire sky and she hated me SO much, just staring me down with pure hatred and finally i said to her “if you hate me such much then destroy me”. my whole body was shaking and she disappeared and a wolf's head flew into my heart chakra I have no idea how to interpret it. Was the wolf totem my reward? Was it my enemy? I don't know...... i even saw her the next day while sober. a man i was talking to in San Francisco was carrying A LOT of dark tension on one side of his body and i saw her head circling his feet. I told him " i feel like you have an angel on your right shoulder". He pulled back his shirt to reveal a tattoo of his late daughter with angel wings. The demonic woman's face disappeared.

I met another powerful (very powerful) shaman while volunteering at Alex Grey's cosm. He didn't charge me for anything he did with me. Most notably he was holding my hand to "feel my nervous system" and his face was changing into ugly demons. Without me saying that i was seeing his face morph he told me "Whenever you see those i want you to say 'Those motherfuckers'. I asked him what they were and he replied "They're NOTHING."  At one point in the healing, the culmination of it i suppose, he placed the flat of his palm on my heart and rubbed it vigorously and i broke out into hysterical laughter as though i had just been told the funniest joke ever, though I had no conscious knowledge of what I was laughing at. He also called me a "Bad ass angel warrior of light". Once again i have to leave a lot.

I ended up meeting up with the woman from Pennsylvania again several years later and i set an intention to understand the blood moon mysteries of which she often spoke and it just totally blew me away. I wasn't expecting it to be so powerful. I saw it as peripheral but it turned out to be very central to my experience of her wisdom. At one point she told me i needed mothering and she let me lay my head in her lap. As soon as i said to myself "i  wish i could lay here forever" she stood up and said... "you need a stick" she went outside and came back in with a stick and it was literally glowing with intense white light. She handed it to me and said "this is your inner rod of light. No one can give this to but yourself........... you're welcome."

Another time i was staring at the word prayer in the gideons new testament and the text changed into an alien language, i was hearing people's prayers flood my mind and music so complex and layered and emotive that it could only be god's music and the entire room was shimmering with what i believe to have been the holy spirit. Words cannot describe.

So yeah... super complex path I've walked. I've only scratched the surface. A lot of dark. a lot of light. a lot of vicious entanglements. But my main concern now is how to be able to function in the world without being overtaken by the "condemnation narrative"…. When it hits it just feels so awful. To say it again... it feels like i am the only conscious entity. All of my friends and family are illusions. No one loves me. God hates me. i'm killiing the world and i have to destroy myself. the world is beyond saving. this happens mostly when i am out in public. i'm very sensitive to things like car traffic and anything that is killing the earth. I generally react to it by shutting down stimuli. I'll lay down in my bed and just wait for it to pass. Sometimes i'll remind myself of good things i've done like donating to sick children and all sorts of causes and i'll remind myself about some of the light filled moments i mentioned earlier. The affirmations i've been given that I am on a light oriented path.

But there's just so many ways i can relate to this condemnation narrative. I don't know how to approach it. I’ve been facing off with it for years but I don’t know how to approach it. I don't know how to heal.......... I really don't.

[ArcaneHuman]

I'm kind of realizing over the past few days that i might need to practice stalking a lot since my issues are so complicated... but what do i stalk? healing? is that too general? I could also stalk the source of the darkness but i think that could kind of end up in a bad way. like... searching for a needle in a hay stack and being surprised when you prick your finger. i used to practice stalking a while back, several years ago... and it's like i picked up where i left off. if necessary i can explain how i've been stalking but i will keep this one brief  because the last post was a tome.

[Stacey]

i finally got to read your post. self heal tom- be your *own* healer. : ) but start slow and take your time with it. please don't go straight to trauma again, don't go anywhere heavy yet as to avoid agitating wounds. you are a lot like me in your desperation to heal (if you don't mind me saying), so please understand this isn't coming from a place of judging. i started recapping all the current relationships and happy memories like a month in not realizing that was gonna make my home life even harder. but i was just so desperate to 'get over' all of it and detach from family so that it would stop hurting. and it hasn't ; ) so it's important to not let the desperation get in the way- let your intent guide *you* and you will get there.

also did you read the grounding stuffs i sent you. grab some rocks and stuff. put your hands in the dirt. remind yourself that the narrative will end. it will take time and hard work, but keep intending and it will get better