Against The Grain

Ever since childhood I have never quite felt like I belong, as though I was a stranger in my own skin living in a world that has always been difficult to understand. My brothers would joke with me and tell me I was adopted, and they would also tell me that I was placed here by aliens, due to the fact our interests were miles apart. I always had a sense that I for whatever reason which I was placed on this earth, it had to be of importance, but that reason was something I could never fully place.

When I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia, (unspecified) I was honestly not one bit surprised. I felt a deep sense of longing for a place I did not know, but would find myself often looking up to the sky and feeling as though I was having non verbal communication with something I could not see, but could always feel. The communication took place on a level that is hard to fully explain aside from the fact it was energetic and visceral. Once I hit my teen years, I began having premonitory dreams that would come true and while this was new and the dreams were sometimes unnerving, it didn't scare me, it made me that much more curious as to what my purpose here was. My father would tell my brother and myself stories that he learned magic from the old man on the mountain, and I never questioned it, I had a sense that perhaps what he was relaying as learning such things, could perhaps have been an energetic exchange of non verbal communication not unlike that which I experienced.

My brother and I would be hanging out with our friends at night, walking around town, he always led the group and I always stayed in the very back with an internal sense that if something was to come up from behind us, it was my duty to protect the group. My brother was a natural leader, in which he took great pride, and throughout my childhood I would always follow. Once my brother left this earth, my instinct to follow him was lost, for I was not willing to fail this test of life to join him.

After I received my diagnosis of unspecified schizophrenia, following the passing of my wife, I was so shattered inside that I could not bring myself to go into public places, due to the intense anxiety and fear that it induced, for without her, which was another person I trusted enough to also follow. Without my wife and without my older brother, I felt truly lost and had no family around that was of my own blood which I could, at that time place my trust in with which I could feel safe enough to follow their example.

One night a friend of mine invited me to leave the place that I was staying, which was at my father in laws, and get out of the house to help reintegrate me into the outside world. We drove to a nearby gas station to get some coffee and we sat there and talked, not just as friends, but a term we would use for one another was Thera-Friends. I opened up to her about all that which had been going on with me, the deep despair, the incredible fear I felt, and I was able to find comfort in the fact I had one person with which I could truly confide in about the challenges I had faced, and was currently facing.

While we were sitting at the gas station I vividly recall a very intense mental state fluctuation where I was observing myself, not as a fear filled individual, but as someone who possessed great confidence, as well as possessing leadership skills that I never felt I had within. I can not fully describe how impactful this experience was for me, but the person I saw myself as, was the person I deeply yearned to become. The next thing that took place was the hunt to find a therapist that I felt enough trust with which I could begin the journey to get from where I was, to where I knew I needed to be, and spent 2 years working through the challenges which were psychological in nature that would lead me out of a life which had been up until that time, mentally and physically destroying me, to one that allowed me to thrive as the person which lay dormant within my spirit that god graced me with the vision of that fateful night.

It has now been 6 years since that occurrence, and the man I am today is the same man I was blessed enough to witness myself as possessing the potential I had within my spirit to cultivate and transform into.

Life brings us challenges for a reason and while we may not fully understand what that reason may be at the time, if we learn to trust not only our higher power, but ourselves, which are in essence, one and the same, there is no telling what each and every one of us are capable of becoming. I now live each and every day of my life in pursuit of becoming the best possible version of who it is I know I can become, and have learned to view challenges as opportunities for growth as well as conscious expansion.

I am writing this to inform anyone who may be struggling with their own shadows, you have what it takes to make the change from or who you are, into who you wish to be.

It all starts with a choice, to be a victim, or to become the hero of your own story.

Brightest Blessings.