Only a few weeks before, I’d been a devote Yogi, with daily spiritual practice of Qi qong and taoist centred meditations. I thought I’d find God in these practices alone, for seven years I’d pursued them with an obsessiveness that only an autistic can.
Then came the 2 weeks from hell. ( or perhaps… from God?) A little more than 14 days of zero relief from the barrage of things that can and often do go wrong when you live in a 3rd world country.
I was nearly mugged, 200m from my house. My spidey senses saved me, but the incident really shook me and shattered my naïve sense of safety.
A transformer blew up near our house and our whole neighborhood was without power for nearly a week.
My boys and I contracted malaria and a co-occuring parasite at the same time, leading to countless blood tests and treatment protocols, none of which really worked till 3 weeks in.
Malaria is extremely dangerous in children under the age of 5. My boys are 4 years old. They take a daily dose of prophylaxsis, but over the course of 6 months I’d missed one or 2 doses. ( my frantic and not often fully present Autistic and ADD brain to blame…)
So on top of the stress, I carried a heavy burden of guilt, shame and frustration.
Misdiagnosis and incorrect treatment protocols are, unfortunately, pretty commonplace here. I did not know who’s opinion to trust, and my BPD/CPTSD mind is given to catastrophizing…I was convinced that the were going to die because they hadn’t received correct treatment and I would have to fight to save them.
My little boys needed blood test after blood test…some clinics insisted on drawing from the vein. This experience was traumatic for them, by the end of it they were pretending to be healthy so as to avoid seeing another doctor.
It was a real trial for me as well, and I was losing the fight against my triggers. Being an autistic mother who is very sensitive to sound in general and the sound of her children’s screams in particular, not to mention the stress and frustration of it all…I was having meltdown after meltdown, (ie: autistic overwhelm.)
Eckhartte Tolle speaks about the pain body. When it is activated, your sympathetic nervous system is on overdrive and your thoughts and emotions are impaired and compromised. In someone with Autism, CPTSD and BPD, overwhelm can be a very scary thing. (Which is why it is my life’s mission to heal my brain, so that my children are not impacted by my trauma as I was by my father and mothers trauma.)
And then… the straw that broke the camels back…
I got a bad haircut.
Like, a really bad haircut.
People can be, and many often are…assholes. Before anyone tells you to not care about what people are saying about you (and your bad haircut)think about this…
We DO impact each other. Not only our actions or the words that we speak but also our thoughts and feeling’s towards each other. Autistic people are super sensitive to all kinds of energies. Which is why I have zero self esteem and have sufferred most of my life with debilitating depression. Instead of denying the impact we have on one another, would it not be better to ask that we start being kinder, to each other, to ourselves? Just a thought. I digress…back on topic.
At this point my mind was in full catastrophizing mode. My pain body was fully activated and my heart closed, I had no patience, kindness or time for my children. I hated myself and my mind and the body that assailed me with the unbearable sensations of heightened anxiety and dread.
And then a thought came to me.
(Actually, this same thought had been coming for awhile…a few months…whenever I was in the grips of a powerful BPD episode the voice would come…)
And the voice said…
“This is not only trauma. This in NOT only mental illness. This is a demon.”
I’d dismissed this voice before, but the time had come where I was desperate enough to heed it.
So I googled “demonic possession”. The first article which caught my eye resonated with me, was surprisingly scientific and practical. It spoke of demons in terms that I could understand from a psychological perspective.
My next step was to you tube a prayer, to “release yourself from the grips of demons.” I was still incredibly dubious at this point, but like I said… desperation drove me.
I prayed to a God I’d shunned and laughed at, for 15 minutes straight, repeating the words of the prayer along with the you-tube bot, letting my mind focus only on the prayer, pleading for relief from my “demons”
And the relief was immediate. A peace settled on me that I cannot remember every feeling. I carried this peace with me for the next few days.
I was still in my time of trial, things were still going wrong, we were all still ill and my book launch was coming up and technology was failing me…but I had peace. For the first time in my life, probably.
So now I believe in demons and “open doors”. I believe that I have been wrong about many things. I am not ready to shun yoga and maybe I don’t have to, but I do see now that I can no longer enter into any spiritual practice lightly.
Yoga gives power, it is undeniable. But nowhere in all my years did any teacher or scripture mention demons or how important it is to protect your mind and body from their influence.
There is alot more to know. I continue to pray for direction and correction when and where needed.
fromtheedgeofsanity.com 