I Will NEVER Consult a Psychic

TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of Suicide

Hey! To each his own. I am not one to judge. But paying a psychic is something I will NEVER do.

Numerous friends and relatives of mine have consulted psychics. (Randomly, I can’t recall any males admitting to the experience.) I have watched numerous episodes of Life After Death with the young and handsome medium Tyler Henry, and I believe he is legit. I believe in reincarnation, and I believe that relatives who have passed away have reached out to me.

When I have questioned my relatives who paid for psychic readings, I was NEVER impressed. The readings they received were vague to the point of being meaningless. My friends and relatives grasped upon threads of sketchy information to validate their experience. Sorry! I’m just not convinced.

Are there legitimate psychics out there? I’m sure there are. In my younger days, I made random and weird predictions that came true. None of them were particularly profound. I would mostly announce who was going to be on the phone or ringing the doorbell. Simple stuff, really. But, still, it kind of freaked me out, and I didn’t pursue the calling. Possibly for good reason.

I am suspicious of people who put out a shingle — often in tourist sectors — to do psychic readings. While everyone has got to make a living, I feel like truly psychically-gifted individuals are not out hustling the gullible public. They have found a better way to share their gift.

The real reason I have not consulted a psychic is fear of the truth. If at age 16, a psychic had warned me of the life challenges I would be forced to endure, I may have prematurely terminated this life. Like others, my hardships have been many: loss of a sibling, death of a parent, poverty, physical and emotional abuse, divorce, ugly shared child custody situation, continued poverty, another parental death, shattered kneecap, husband disabled with a rare neurological disease (RSD/CRPS), and a child diagnosed with a brain tumor. In addition, I was adopted into a non-tradition, dysfunctional family with a mother who was probably bipolar, a father who was involved in criminal activities, and a brother who died from heart failure stemming from Muscular Dystrophy when I was nine and he was 23.

To be fair, this current life has had many positive elements: loving family members, educational achievements (two Master’s degrees), a charmed career as a world history teacher, and the opportunity for world travel. However, due to the emotional pain I have endured, I would NEVER choose to relive this life.

At times, when I was engulfed in particularly dark places, I have entertained suicide. I can’t say that I have contemplated suicide, as I never made an actionable plan. However, I have often wished that I was never born into this life.

By my early teens, I had lost a cousin and a friend to suicide. I came to believe that checking out by suicide does not solve the problem an individual is facing — it merely delays it. Whatever challenges life dishes out must be worked out. If we bail out via suicide, we will just have to face the issue again in the next incarnation. So, my attitude has been to suffer through it now, do my best, and get it over with.

The older I get, the more my adversity to suicide becomes a real concern. As someone in the “highly educated” category, my biggest fear of getting old is acquiring dementia and losing all that knowledge. I do not want a life where I no longer recognize my loved ones as my financial resources get wasted away in a memory-care facility — I would rather die of cancer. Yet, if that diagnosis came, I would want to spare myself and my children of enduring that decline. I understand and respect the extreme measure that Robin Williams took when he was faced with his tragic diagnosis.

My friends and relatives who have sought the counsel of psychics have all seemed to enjoy the experience and have been comforted by it. But, is seeing a psychic supposed to be a feel-good experience that validates your way of life and chosen path? While the advice of a genuine psychic may advance an individual on their life’s journey, following the lead of a false prophet could be counter-productive or even hazardous.

What could psychics have done for me? If they were legitimate psychics and truthful about the extent of my future suffering, I would not have wanted to move ahead in my life. If they were truly gifted enough to know my future and not shared it, they would have been as fraudulent and dishonest as fake psychics.

In the end, I will progress along on my journey in the dark — clueless concerning why I have endured the hardships I have faced and clueless concerning the nature of my impending demise. Undoubtedly, more personal tragedies will confront me, as that is the way of the world. But when adversity strikes, I will strive to make sound choices, without paying a stranger who claims to have insight based on their reading of tarot cards, their examination of the lines on my palms, or their divination from staring at a crystal ball.