Stop Romanticizing Your Spiritual Psychosis
Soooooo, we need to talk about something that’s been bothering tf outta me for a minute now.
There’s this thing that’s happening in spiritual communities where people are calling literal mental health crises “awakenings” and “dark nights of the soul” when really, they just need to see a therapist. Or a psychiatrist. Or fucking both.
And before you get your panties all knotted up in your kewchie, I’m not saying that spiritual experiences aren’t real. I’m not even saying that psychic gifts don’t exist, or that you can’t have legitimate supernatural experiences that look a lil’ bit wild from the outside. I’m an energy worker, remember? I know what’s possible.
What I am saying is that not every breakdown is a breakthrough, and acting like it is can get people seriously hurt. It has gotten people seriously hurt.
Wanna know how to tell the difference? Let’s yap about it.
When you’re having an actual spiritual experience, there’s usually some kind of coherence to it, even if it’s intense as hayle. You might be receiving information that’s hard to process or going through an initiation that’s uncomfortable, but there’s still a thread of meaning in there somewhere. You can communicate what’s happening to you in a way that makes sense, even if it’s strange. You’re still connected to reality—you know what day it is, you’re eating, you’re not putting yourself in danger.
When you’re in psychosis, that coherence disappears. You’re not receiving downloads, you’re spiraling. The “messages” have no through line, they’re just your brain misfiring and trying to make meaning out of the chaos. You might think that you’re god, or that everyone’s conspiring against you, or that you have to do something dangerous because “spirit told you to.” You’re losing time, forgetting to eat, saying shit that doesn’t make sense to anyone— including yourself, once you’re lucid again.
What really pisses me off is that there are SO. MANY. PEOPLE in these spiritual spaces who will actually encourage you to keep going deeper into psychosis, either because they’re also in psychosis and think that it’s some kind of shamanic initiation or ego death or whatever tf, OR they know full well what’s going on but don’t care, because you’re way more likely to keep giving them your money the longer you spiral.
They’ll tell you not to take your meds, to just “surrender to the process,” to trust that you’re exactly where you need to be. That shit is soooooo dangerous, omg.
People have lost their jobs, relationships, housing, their entire fucking lives, all because someone convinced them that their mental health crisis was a spiritual gift that they needed to lean into. I’ve seen people outright refuse treatment, because they thought that seeking help would “block their gifts” or “interrupt their awakening.”
And you know what’ll really blow your mind? You can be psychic AND mentally ill at the same time! They’re not mutually fucking exclusive! You can have legitimate spiritual gifts and also need medication to function! One does not cancel out the other!
I say this as someone who’s neurodivergent and who works in the spiritual realm every damn day: if you’re suddenly neglecting your basic human needs, if you’re a danger to yourself or others, and/or if you’ve lost touch with consensus reality entirely, that is nottttttt enlightenment. That is a motherfucking crisis, and you need different support than what a tarot reader or energy worker of any kind can give you.
There’s this idea floating around that “the system” just wants to drug us into compliance, and that psychiatry is evil, and that if you’re ✨really✨ spiritual you shouldn’t need any of that Western medicine shit. Look, I’m the last person to gargle the dick and balls of the American healthcare system—especially as it pertains to mental health, and ESPECIALLY as it pertains to Black and brown people who have mental illness. It’s far from perfect.
But, goddammit, sometimes people need medication to not be in hell, and that’s just the truth. Sometimes therapy is the thing that actually creates space for your spiritual gifts to come through clearly, instead of being all tangled up in trauma and delusion.
Your spiritual growth should make your life better, not worse. If your “awakening” has you losing friends, losing money, unable to hold down a job, isolated from everyone who cares about you, and convinced that you’re the only one who sees the truth, it’s time to consider that you may be unwell, my darling.
Please do not think that I’m not saying any of this to be mean, or gatekeep, or to make anyone feel bad. Or do, but that’s not the case. I’m saying it because I care about you sluts. I want y’all staying safe, housed, ALIVE. I’m saying this because the spiritual community has a responsibility to not feed people’s delusions just because it sounds magical.
Real spiritual teachers—the ones who actually give a fuck about you—will tell you to handle your human shit first. MAINTAIN THE MEAT SUIT. Get therapy. Take your meds, if you need them. Eat regular meals. Sleep! Then we can talk about developing your gifts.
How can you do any type of deep, meaningful spiritual work if your foundation is shaky as shit? You can’t! You can’t channel clearly if you’ve been starving yourself for a week. You can’t receive accurate messages if your brain has been throwing it in a circle for 36 hours straight.
Please, if you’re in crisis right now, if you’re reading this and something in you recognizes that maybe what you’re going through isn’t actually a spiritual experience, please get help. Call a crisis line. Go to the ER. Reach out to someone you trust. Take the meds. See the therapist.
Your gifts will still be there once you’re stable, I promiseeeee. And they’ll be so much clearer and so much more useful when you’re not just trying to survive your own mind.
This work is real. The spirits are real. Your intuition is real. But so is mental illness, and you must know the difference! Always pretending that it’s something mystical does a disservice to everyone involved.
Stay safe out there, babe. I mean it. ❤️
