extraordinary experiences

Many people live with extraordinary experiences like voices, visions and uncommon beliefs. The clinical world uses words like hallucinations and delusions to describe these experiences and to assign meaning to them. The psychiatric community assumes that the most appropriate response to these experiences is to medicate them into nonexistence and even more damaging, discount the realness of these experiences to people who live with them.

What’s the alternative? After all, who wans to go around seeing, hearing and believing things that others don’t? The alternative is compassion. For those living day to day with voices and visions they are real and have meaning beyond the label of mental illness. But how are they real? Who gets to assign meaning?

I dare to say that these experiences are real. If a person who is hearing a voice that tells them that someone is out to kill them that person becomes afraid. The fear is real. To invalidate that fear is to act without empathy and compassion. So what if no one is actually out to kill this person. The sense of helplessness, desperation, and agony are real. So why not address the trepidation instead of getting bogged down with the need to correct that person’s perceptions?

If a person believes they are Jesus Christ and is responsible for saving every living person on the planet from their sins, the sense of responsibility for others is real. Instead of confronting the person with statements that invalidate their feelings, why not address how overwhelmed they feel by their perceived responsibility? If someone has a reoccurring vision of the end of the world and believes these visions are messages from God, why not address their anxiety about the state of our world and their future?

What about meaning? Who gets to decide what these experiences mean? I say the person going through it gets to make meaning of it. So many factors need to be considered like culture, race, gender, family dynamics, ethnic traditions, etc. When I was a child I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. She helped my mother raise me and my siblings. She believed that dreams could teach the dreamer things about their life and predict future events. We had a very specific dream vocabulary in my family. My dreams have always been vivid and full of symbols. I choose to believe what my grandmother believed. I choose to take guidance from my dreams and maintain a bond with my grandmother who is now my ancestor.

I choose. What harm is there in the meaning I make of it so long as it does not interfere with me living a life of my choosing? What harm can come from the meaning I assign to it as long as I don’t impose it on others or trample on the beliefs and rights of others?

There is an organization that supports this way of thinking. It’s the Hearing Voices Network USA. I support this organization by serving on its Board and facilitating support groups. So often when people try to reach out to doctors, family members and other supporters, they are met with worry. They are usually asked if they’ve taken their meds and the assumption is that they want the experiences to go away. Hearing Voices Network USA support groups don’t make any assumptions. What you will find at these meetings is compassion and validation. Meetings are weekly for about an hour in a safe and nurturing environment. Currently there is one group in Georgia that meets every Wednesday from 5-6 pm at the Decatur Peer Support Wellness and Respite Center. Anyone who is 18 or older can attend. Contact this writer for more information.