On Madness, Hallucinations, Being Wrong, Magic, and Belief

People frequently ask me, “How come I can’t perceive spirits/energy/Gods/ghosts?” Others want validation that what they sense – whether it be visual, audio, tactile, or even smell and touch – is “real” in some way. Some see the way I move in the world, where I take for granted that the things I perceive, including things that aren’t easily sensed by our everyday senses, and beg me to teach them how.

You (yes, you) are already seeing things that aren’t there. You’re already perceiving things that your intelligence can’t easily explain. The problem is, it’s happening without your conscious will for it to happen. The things I’m thinking of happen whether you want them to or not.

Let’s start with the most basic. Every person has a “blind spot”. This is a place where your optic nerve passes though the retina, which prevents visual processing. But it’s not like everywhere you look there’s a small void of nothing that follows you wherever you go (unless you’re Eeyore). Instead, your brain fills that space in with whatever else you’re looking at. This means that if you’re in a crowded city, like say Times Square in NYC, your mind is actively creating tourists and cars that don’t actually exist. Unfortunately, you’ll never know which of the annoying slow-walkers is imaginary, because the sense is fleeting and by the time you focus on that spot, you’ll no longer be perceiving an image your mind created so as to “fill in the blank”, but what’s actually in the spot you’re looking at.

When most people think about this, they truly start to wonder what is “real” and what is “imaginary”. They see the two categories as binary opposites, with no spectrum in between. But as any good optical illusion can teach you, there very much is a middle ground, for even when you already know how the optical illusion is created, your brain continues to perceive the illusion. It’s using adaptive technology that we evolved to interact with our world better, but in this limited instance that technology refuses to stop engaging.

Here’s another example: when you drive away from a building, it seems to get smaller and sink into the earth. That’s a literal translation of what your eye is signaling to your brain. However, we have learned in both intellectual and evolutionary ways that the building is exactly the same size and has not (tragically) collapsed into the earth. Objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are.

These sorts of perceptions are the very beginning to accepting the idea that not everything you see or sense exists in an objective “reality” that you share with everyone else. Tell me you’ve never had an argument with someone over the exact shade of a color – you demand that they see peach, but all they can see is pink. Does that mean that the shirt exists somewhere in the middle of pinky peachness? Or does it mean that in your reality, the shirt is obviously peach; but your friend is living in a different world that only has pink?

The crossroads of all of these odd human mind tricks is something I’ve done a lot of thinking about for quite a long time. It’s about the idea of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Humans (as we know) love boxes rather than Jackson Pollack paintings; they want easy categories that separate fact from fiction. But this is a lesson you can happily learn from your friendly neighborhood madman – that there is a world (or more than one world) that exists inbetween anything that we perceive as “real” and “imaginary”; and that just because something is “real” doesn’t mean that it’s “right”, and just because something is deemed “imaginary” doesn’t mean that it is wrong.

Have I completely lost you yet?

Madness can impart some pretty awesome life lessons if you only give it a chance. Stop fighting it for a moment and let it give you unique insights into the shapeshifting fog that surrounds us. Where perceptions feel so objectively real that to question them is to automatically be “wrong”. Yet we crazy folk know that sometimes what we perceive, either with our senses or with our emotions, can sure feel real to us in the same way a chair or a balloon is real.

Let’s start with the most obvious. You don’t have to be mad to hallucinate (but it sure helps, and it is sometimes cheaper!). Hallucinations can be brought on by extreme physical exertion, or fever, or from drugs like LSD or DXM, or even just from skipping a couple of meals. Heck, minor mirages (like seeing “black ice” on a highway or water in a desert) don’t require doing anything weird to your body or mind. And even if you’re fully aware that the thing you perceive is “not there”, your eyes and brain continue to do it’s damnedest to convince you. This also happens to people who hallucinate because of a mental illness or neurological problems – they see things that aren’t really there, and most of the time they know full well there isn’t a giant purple horse in their living room but yet they keep seeing it. It’s not like Tinkerbell, where if you don’t believe it will die.

Now here’s a thought: most of us think of some hallucinations as being fertile ground for ecstatic spiritual experiences. Many of my ordeal clients have pushed their bodies to a point where they have a breakthrough, and come to some grand spiritual conclusion about how we’re all connected or objectively feel something they couldn’t bring themselves to feel before. Other friends have had faith-altering experiences with entheogens (legal and not so legal), where they saw things and allowed themselves, for the moment, to believe in its realness because, well, that’s the point in taking them to begin with most of the time. And when people write or relate these experiences, we generally accept them as being “real” in the sense that they changed their friend’s mind, or revealed to them a spiritual truth they didn’t understand before.

For example, the first hook pull I ever experienced was not in a space one would think of as “conducive to spiritual breakthrough”. I was in a gymnasium at a summer camp, surrounded by people trying out different kinds of kinky play for the first time. To this day, I don’t know what lead me to ask my friend (and later mentor) Captain to pierce me then; it just seemed like the right time. So I had two eight gauge hooks put through my chest and was attached to some scaffolding by paracord.

I couldn’t honestly tell you anything else that happened in that gymnasium. Someone could have been crowned King Of All That Is and I wouldn’t have known a thing. I was lost in my own trip. During the actual pull, I kept feeling that if I leaned back, I would just fall to the ground lightly, as if in slow motion. There was a point of tension where no matter how hard I was pulling, I didn’t feel anything in my chest at all. It allowed me to have a wonderful experience of feeling like my body was not an immutable boundary between me and the rest of the world. I was the hooks, I was the person with the hooks, I was the hardwood floor, I was the trees outside and connected to all the people inside. What I took away from this was that my body was no longer a limitation, which for someone like me is a pretty big chunk of thinkydo that changed me forever.

When the pull was over, I went outside into a summer’s twilight. I looked up at the sky as stars began to appear, and I literally saw bands of bright blue light that pulsed between all the living things – the trees, the individual blades of grass, the people in the distance, the stars above. I posted a short recording to my journal that makes me sound like a blissed out hippie.

When I facilitate similar experiences for people, I tell them that whatever they eat or drink once the ride is over, will be the best XXXX they ever ate or drank. For me it was bread. I craved bread like a bread-craving bread craver. And even though the bread was slightly stale and unremarkable, to me it was like experiencing the manna that the Jews in exile were given by God. It was the King of All Bread-like Products. I ate slowly, mindfully, treasuring this odd experience of having the best bread I’ve ever eaten.

Objectively (whatever that word means), all of what I related about my experience is “wrong”. I was not literally a hardwood floor. There were no blue beams of light. The bread was pretty damn mediocre. But at the same time, every time I tell that story no one jumps up at me and demands to know if anyone else verified that I was a hardwood floor. No one feels cheated when I tell them it was the best bread ever (and that they’ll never taste it because, well, I ate it all). They can accept that since these things were perceptionally true for me at the time, and that I am not actively trying to deceive them by inventing experiences I did not actually have, that the story is not only true, but spiritually signficant.

Things change when we start talking about hallucinations brought on by means that don’t have the spiritual trappings to it, or if the hallucinations themselves aren’t of a spiritual nature. Once, when I had a very high fever, I was convinced I was not actually laying in my bed, but was hovering over it by such a small distance no one could see. I can still recall the sensation in both my mind and my body, and yet most of you are ready to dismiss this as being false, not true, not spiritually significant, because it was a) brought on by fever and b) isn’t inherently spiritual (at least to them).

Entheogens are a grey murky ground. Most, but not all, people can understand that some have spiritually significant experiences while ingesting certain herbs or chemicals. But I bet you’re already thinking to yourself that LSD can be spiritual, but DXM (sold over the counter in most cough syrups) cannot. Or, coming at it from another perspective, that if I tripped on acid and spent an hour looking at the tie-dyed head of one of my drums (I will not confirm or deny…), that was likely not spiritually significant. (It was.) But if I tell you that smoking a cigar made my skin feel the warmth and breath of a dead person who smoked cigars, you’d probably agree that it was “real”, or at least “significant”.

People who deal with deceptive perceptions – that is, crazy folks – get to live in a quagmire where it can be difficult or impossible to create such clear distinctions over what is “true” and what is “false”. When I am depressed, I feel like my life is made of all things sucky and no good at all. Even if, at the same time, my lovely boyfriend is over for a visit and is showering me with affection. I just can’t access the part of my mind or soul that sees that as a good and life-affirming thing, because depression tunes all our senses to “worst case senario”. Maybe I told myself, “He’s just doing that because he likes having sex with me”, or “He’s just being nice because he wants me to do something for him”. Let me tell you, even clothing that I usually love to wear can become scratchy and uncomfortable when I’m depressed.

Maybe that’s not as grand an example as a schizophrenic who hears voices, but I wanted to go for the lesser extreme and more relatable example.

Now, how does this all relate to seeing ghosts and talking to Gods?

I find that the most difficult two blocks most people face in this endeavor are things that most humans hold dear and aren’t ready to relinquish, even if it means having “super powers”. The first, and most fundamental, is the idea that they could be wrong. That at the moment of their death, completely convinced that they’re going to Valhalla, swept away by the Valkyrie, because they died from injuries in a streetfight over a woman’s honor (let’s say). But then the machine makes it’s long, unended beep, and then nothing. Nothing. No Christian Heaven and Hell, no wandering meadows of Summerland, no Longhall and hangouts with Odin or Freya, no River Styx or seventy-two virgins. You just cease to exist, the end, thank you very much.

I use that example because it’s one most people struggle with but rarely talk about. We all want there to be something more than this, either because we can’t handle the idea that our unique characteristics and funniest stories can disappear and the world keeps turning, the Universe doesn’t even notice. But at the same time, unless you’ve experienced something that you can accept as being a “ghost”, a remnant of someone who was once alive, it can be hard at times to hold onto the belief that there’s a world NASA can’t pilot to where all the dead people ever are hanging out and maybe boffer fighting or playing some damn good harps. (I think if I end up in Christian Heaven – like the Pope says I might – I am going to lead a rebellion to change harps to banjos. Or maybe Ukuleles.) Even some people who’ve had near death experiences eventually doubt what happened and contribute it to random synapse firing.

So having a belief – whether that belief is Valhalla or that you’ve been abducted by aliens – also means facing the feelings that come with being wrong. And our human society tells us that being wrong is a bad, terrible, awful thing. It makes you eat everything from your hat to your shoe, which doesn’t sound like the Best Bread Ever. It removes an illusion – disillusioned – that you had before. It makes you feel as though you want to die or vomit. It may turn out that there are no purple horses in your living room, and it may also turn out that although you lived your entire life as a Godspouse only to find out that the Mormons were right and all us crazy Pagans were making shit up.

Now, most Pagans (well, especially Pagans, but other people too) carry around the concept that I can believe with all my heart that Loki is my spiritual Dad and that when I die I will be welcomed by Hel into Niflheim; but if you believe that, upon death, your soul will go to the Summerlands and frolic with dryads and faires for all eternity, that’s totally cool. Even though the underlying language means one of us – probably you, because if all eternity is frolicking in a meadow I want to live forever, is wrong. But we consider it anything from impolite to downright heresy to declare your spiritual belief to be wrong or misguided, no matter how much personal experience we may have that says that you are. People who believe their religion is right and everyone else is wrong are either fundamentalist Christians or Islamic terrorists, right?

So if the first block is pushing forward with your spiritual beliefs and experiences with the full understanding that you could be 100% wrong, the second block is even harder. You will have to accept that nobody experiences the same reality as you. We could have a scientific debate about whether that statement is factually true, but since I’m totally okay with being 100% wrong (at least most of the time), we’d probably be wasting precious time we could be masturbating or something. When I teach magic (as opposed to spirituality, as I believe the two are fundamentally separate things), I tell people that the first step to doing magic is believing it exists and then going out and seeking proof of this. Whether it’s smoking a cigar with the intent of summoning your great-grandfather, or seeing the delight in a child’s eyes when you become the “dragon” that their little cardboard swords attempt to slay, it doesn’t matter how you approach magic or how you want to define it. But there’s no skipping the step of becoming totally invested in the belief.

And this is not some halfassed silly excuse why some people do “spells”, or even “curses”, and don’t get a result and others do. I’m not the kind of dude who’s going to judge your failed attempt by saying, “well, I guess you didn’t believe in Tinkerbell quite enough”. At the same time, we all know stories of mothers who have lifted cars off of their children, even when they’re elf-sized and need help carrying groceries. Because in their terror, they only saw one option to save their child, and in that moment the belief that maybe, just maybe, they can do something, excited the neuropathways of the mind and the body began pumping her full of adrenaline and other hormones, and before she can stop herself and say, “Waita minute, I am not the Hulk!”, her child is no longer trapped.

Another thing I frequently teach about magic is that, to me, it is only 50% metaphysics. Yes, there are some tried-and-true ways of doing magic that yield results, like the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (google it if you don’t know what I’m talking about). I could blather on with different metaphysical theories, but I’ll save that for some night when we’re both drunk and want to talk about metaphysics. The other half of magic, the part that needs you to believe in purple horses and cigar-summoning rituals, is psychological. In the same way that if I tell you seeing Elephants means you’re going to win the lottery (yes, I’ve used that example before) you’ll start seeing Elephants where you didn’t – if you do a spell to help you find a job, you’re also going to notice more job-getting opportunities, listen to conversations and notice when someone mentions their business is hiring, and you’re more likely to peruse job sites on the Internet. Whereas if you just keep thinking to yourself, “I should do a spell to help me find a job”, you’re likely going to only notice how hard it is to find anything you might be qualified for, and your friend’s conversation about zir’s business will sound like ze’s droning on about how great the company ze works for is, again.

Here’s the point I’ve been frolicking around in my blog meadow, making long-ass paragraphs along the way. If you sincerely want to have psychic experiences, you need to simultaneously believe that whatever you may psychically perceive is 100% unprovable by any objective means, and that sometimes you’re going to be 100% wrong. Whether you try divining for the first time, or think that Anubis wants you to wear black lingerie on every other Saturday, you need to do your best to invest in the idea that you’re right about that, at least in the moment, and do whatever you need to do to bolster your belief in your rightness. But, with a bit of cognitive dissonance, you also need to accept that you might be totally bonkers, or just outright wrong, or that ghost you see of your dead business partner might be a blot of mustard.

When I hear Gods, I know that there’s a chance that it’s not actually a God at all. It might be my own inner voice, my intuition, sounding more removed than normal. It might be another spirit masquerading as the God I’m trying to reach. Or it might be a God, but not the one I thought it was. For example, I’ve had a few cases lately of people thinking that Loki wants to marry them, only for me to discover that it’s not Loki; however, because there are lots of Loki’s wives on the Internet, some of them are disappointed and don’t want to be the only Aegir’s wife or Angrboda’s husband on the web. They wanted to join a community of people having similar experiences, and so they were doing their damndest to believe that voice was Loki’s. On the other hand, who the fuck am I? I mean, I can talk about how long I’ve been doing this spirit work/shamanic thing, or give you references to many people for whom I’ve helped them with their relationships with Gods, or whatever, but in the end, you either have to invest your belief that I am actually talking to Gods and can tell which God is which, or there’s no fucking reason to ask me in the first place.

I tell people all the time, that for the first three years I was working with this mysterious spirit who showed up in the looney bin, I thought Loki was Talesin, a Celtic hero. I had an altar to Talesin, read stories and other research about Him, made offerings and prayed to Him. I have no idea what Talesin thinks of all of this, as I’ve never actually talked to Him (even after making the differentiation and wanting to apologize). All that time, Loki knew I was wrong, and He was okay with it. He didn’t punish me or abandon me or break me; He just waited for me to figure it out. I can’t promise all Gods will have the same reaction, but that’s not why I tell this story. I got it wrong, big time, for three years.

It happens. Part of spiritual evolution is figuring out when something you believe in doesn’t serve you any more, or isn’t as true as you thought it was, or is downright wrong. I do not believe in the divinity of Christ, but I sure did when I was 18. After some reflection and thought and feeling myself out on the matter, it just didn’t make sense to me anymore.

I want to make sure I credit the book I’m currently reading, which lead to this diatribe. It’s called “Being Wrong; Adventures In the Margin of Error”, by Kathryn Schulz. I definitely relayed some of her ideas and examples, but did not actually quote the material. It’s an excellent book, and if this did anything for you, or if you want to understand how being wrong doesn’t have to be as bad as wanting to die, I highly suggest you take the time to read it.

Belated: National Suicide Awareness Day and Thoughts About Suicide from your Friendly Neighborhood Madness Shaman

This isn’t going to be easy to write, so please bear with me.

I have a long and complex relationship with suicide. When I learned that yesterday was National Suicide Awareness Day, I felt I wanted to write something to encourage those who may be contemplating suicide to get help if they can. Y’know, one of those posts that lists a bunch of hotlines and websites where you can talk to someone if you’re thinking about killing yourself.

I couldn’t bring myself to write it, and at first I didn’t know why. So I meditated about it, and eventually the truth began to come out of the confusion. I wouldn’t be able to write an essay about why you should get help if you’re suicidal because I am in the midst of a depressive episode, and it would either be, or feel an awful lot like, hypocritical if I gave a blanket “suicide is never a solution, get help” sort of message.

I’ve written extensively about the fact that I have mental health issues. They used to be a lot worse than they are today, but I was never “cured” or “in remission” or anything like that. I just found a place between “so crazy I can’t have a conversation ” and “stone cold sane” and started building a new life in that place. Most people know that it involved a shamanic crisis. Some people know that part of that process was me trying to kill myself, only to have a talk with Loki and wake up a little groggy, but otherwise okay.

That was not my first suicide attempt. I tried to kill myself four times while I was growing up. I never told anyone and did not get help. I was already in state-mandated therapy for other reasons, and I knew that if I told the therapist the truth, my life would change drastically in ways that would not, in the end, really help me at all.

I have a general policy now, that when someone tells me they’re going to kill themselves, I will do what I can to keep them from doing it. Most of the time, it comes down to me calling their local police department and having the police pick them up. I have learned that although this policy has saved the lives of people I cared about, it had two completely unintended and, ultimately, heart-wrenching effects. One was that people who ended up in a hospital because I called the police not only didn’t take the therapy seriously, but also stopped talking to me and in one case, killed themselves later on without talking to me. The second effect was that when two of my friends decided to kill themselves, they purposefully didn’t tell me. In one of those cases, the person was killing themselves in order to end their life with dignity rather than suffer a terrible illness, and many of my friends knew about the person’s plan but didn’t tell me because they were afraid I would call the police.

It puts me in this terrible position that I don’t know what the answer to is. I understand at a heart-level what it feels like when there are no other solutions, and I can be a really good ally to have if you want help finding solutions that can’t be seen when you’re in the thick of it. I know a lot of really good mental health programs, and therapists who could give a rat’s ass if you’re poly or kinky or queer or trans or “alternatively spiritual” or whatever flavor of freak you are. It is an important part of my madness shamanism to be able to enter into another person’s point of view (that is tainted by their madness) and help them get to where they want to go from inside the madness, rather than most people who are staring at you from the outside and can’t really get deep in the trenches because they just don’t see why you feel the way you do, or why you’re making the choices you are. I can do that, and I’ve helped a lot of people that way.

On the other hand, I am obviously not a medical professional. I’m just some dude who lives in the suburbs who has had a lot of experience with being a mental health patient and general crazy person; but this does not qualify me as a person who always knows what to do when a stranger, friend, or family member tells me they want to kill themselves. Sometimes it can be hard, because I have to push past my personal relationship with this person and the emotions that well up because of it, and put on my “work hat” – and I’m not perfect at that.

In addition, sometimes getting into the muck with someone means that I push them out, but I leave myself behind. I’m still someone with multiple pysch issues, and I’m not free from triggers. My life is far from peachy, and it only takes a split second for me to let the muck suck me in.

That’s not why I’m depressed now, though.

It hit me last week, as I was reading a memoir. I read a single sentence, a passing mention of something that had happened to a family member; it said “{family member} had not recovered from their divorce.” (Emphasis mine.) It hit me like a medicine ball to the stomach. I literally stopped breathing, started trembling, and broke down and cried.

A literal shit-ton of jarring life experiences have happened to me in the last year and a half. It’s been a year since my marriage fell apart and I had to move out in a matter of a week. I’ve had friends die. I’ve been in the hospital and had multiple surgeries, one of which I almost didn’t survive. My financial situation changed drastically, and things I hadn’t had to worry about for years suddenly became life-shaking realities. My diabetes, which had been mostly controlled by diet, got much, much worse and is contributing to my overall health. I had to move three times. I walked away from parts of my life that meant a great deal to me. I moved far away from most of my friends and it’s not as easy for me to go to social stuff and no one lives close enough to just “drop by”. I spend a lot of time alone. I don’t drive, so I am always relying on the kindness of friends to help me do simple things like go to doctors or run errands. Not very long ago, I didn’t have enough gas to get me to the ER, nor could I afford it (I went anyway, but the way I got the money was not easy nor did it make me feel good about myself or my life).

I’m not writing this because I want people to sweep in and start solving my problems. I frequently don’t post about problems in the day-to-day because I don’t want people to think I’m walking around with my hand out. Or people whom I could help – something that makes me feel good about myself and my place in the world – decide I am too engulfed in my own shit and ask someone else. I also know that there are people who celebrate (publicly) when I am depressed or sick or just not doing well; there are others who think I’m making it all up, or just trying to get people to give me money/attention/pity/etc.

I’m writing this because on National Suicide Awareness Day, I want to say something not just about suicide, but about the suffering and anguish that many people who don’t kill themselves go through. It’s one thing to tell them suicide is not the answer, but it’s a very long and intricate process to actually make other answers seem viable and attractive to someone who is that lost. It’s extremely difficult to remember that it’s not about you, or how much you love them, but there are years (or decades) of neglectful upbringing, or traumatic experiences, or biochemical imbalances (in some, but not all), or plain ol’ suckitude, that brought them to this place, and a single act of happy-making isn’t going to solve the problem, or in some cases it can actually make things worse. That no matter how strong and sane you are, the person likely needs a professional if they can get one. If not, you have to choose – are you going to put your arm around them and really commit to walking them back to a place where they are functional? Are you going to do the homework to find them a professional to talk to that won’t get sidetracked by their freak factor(s) (ask me sometime about the therapist who thought all my problems were because I went to Rocky Horror a few times a month!)? Can you be strong when they engage in behaviors you know are bad for them or are symptoms of their mental illness?

Writing love on your arms is pretty, but there’s a whole lot more involved if you want to help someone come back from suicidal ideation.

I feel like I want to say something about what it’s like to have a loved one commit suicide, and how I (and others) never forget, never really move on. Many suicidal people convince themselves that their friends and family are better off without them, or that they’re a burden rather than a blessing, and that once they’re dead everyone will feel relief. It is just not true. Even when I know that the person was truly in hell, physically or emotionally or mentally or all three, and that maybe now that they’re dead they suffer no more; it doesn’t make the grief any less, or the feeling of failure you feel that you couldn’t help them, or that they didn’t reach out to you, or that you didn’t fully grasp how bad it was.

On the other hand, I am a strong supporter of body autonomy, and in my case that includes the right to off yourself if that’s how you want to go. Not only do I support people with terminal or end-stage/uncurable chronic illness having the right to decide to die sooner rather than suffer through months or years of pain and suffering; I support the right of people who just want to control the way they die. Even when I’m doing well and mentally stable, the idea that I have to surrender my life in a way not of my choosing seems foreign and oppressive. It’s my life, and I should have the full right to do with it whatever I want, including ceasing it’s function. If someone truly and sincerely asked me to help them die, and they could make a cogent case as to why they should, I don’t know that I would say no.

Suicide is not a black/white thing, like everything else in humanity. It’s not all bad, all the time, no matter what. But frequently, it’s not the cure for mental illness, either. Even now, in the midst of a bad depressive episode, I know that I don’t actually want to die; I just want to stop feeling terrible and having terrible things happen to me or those I care about. I want a quick and easy answer to my struggle. Death is attractive in moments like this, but I know it’s not the right choice for me now. Doesn’t mean I don’t think about it, fantasize about it, or don’t allow myself to imagine a plan.

I also want to make sure people understand that there is a difference between thinking about suicide and actually wanting to kill yourself. The medical term is “suicide ideation”, which just means that you think/fantasize about suicide, and may feel suicidal, but either don’t actually want to kill yourself/die, or won’t go through with it. I won’t say everyone thinks about killing themselves at one point or another, but it’s a common experience. One of the ways I work with my mental illness is to remind myself that it’s totally okay to think about suicide, and a whole different kettle of fish to actually plan to kill myself. For me, it’s better if I let my thoughts flow as they will, rather than punishing or correcting myself if I’m thinking about something I “shouldn’t”. When I think like that, many of my compulsions kick into high gear, and I start doing very unhealthy things in the name of what I “should” be doing.

It’s also okay to call a suicide hotline even if you don’t have a gun to your head or a bottle of pills in your hand. These people want to talk to others, even if it’s just a friendly chat so you feel less alone in the world. If you have secrets you can’t talk about with anyone, it can be a big relief to call a stranger who doesn’t know your real name or where you’re from (and you can use many online programs to call from a number other than your personal home or cell, like Google Voice), and tell them your deepest darkest secrets. I first confessed that I thought I might be queer to a suicide hotline. I also talked to one when I thought my spouse was cheating on me and I didn’t want to get any of my friends involved. I called one not very long ago, for reasons I’m not going to write about here just yet. None of these times were moments out of a movie, with the caller literally putting the noose around their neck and begging the hotline volunteer to talk them out of it; it was more, “I’m feeling very lost and alone about this or that or all of the things in my life, and I’m not seeing many solutions or resolutions other than running away or killing myself.” There’s no meter or metric that you can measure your suicide ideation with to confirm or deny that you’re “suicidal enough” to call for help.

Hi, I’m Del, and I have multiple mental health diagnoses. I’m in a depressive phase and things don’t feel so good. Sometimes I think about suicide, but I don’t have any plans. I take medication for my depression, and I’m not afraid to say so. I know I will have to take it for a long time – it’s not a course of antibiotics that you take until you feel better. I have to take them until such time as situations in my life are more balanced and only then with the help of a professional – if ever. If I have to take them for the rest of my life, I would much rather take a few pills every day than ever feel as bad as I have in the past. I would rather take a few pills than go back to a psych ward. I would rather take a few pills and deal with a few side effects rather than spread my crazy onto all of my friends and loved ones.

I’m only going to list a few resources here: I figure you all have Google and can find the more nationally-known hotlines and services. These are a few places to start if you’re in need of a therapist who won’t judge or pathologize parts of your life that others might.

Kink Aware Professionals: This is a list of all different kinds of services, from lawyers to contractors to therapists. It helps if you’re close to a major city, but there are some out here in the boonies. I also like that they encourage listers to categorize how hep to kink they are: “Friendly” means they generally know what an average citizen knows about kink, and won’t judge you on it. “Aware” means they’ve done some research and have some understanding of kink/power exchange, and “Knowledgeable” means they either are kinky themselves, or know enough about the lifestyle that you’ll find yourself not having to explain an awful lot.
I should mention that I refer a lot of people, kinky or not, to the KAP because you’ll find that a therapist or counselor who is hep to kinky stuff is much less likely to lose their shit about other alternative lifestyles, including spirit workers/shamans or LGBTQ folks.

Poly Friendly Professionals. A similar list, except instead of kink stuff, these people are either polyamorous or aware/non-judgemental about being poly. I find poly-aware therapists are usually open to non-traditional relationships of all stripes and colors, including Godspousery. (Again, not all, but most of the ones I’ve talked to or worked with.)

The Open List: This is another list of professionals of all stripes that are welcoming to all those in alternative lifestyles, with a focus on non-monogamy. What’s nice is at the bottom of the page, they list other lists that have similar foci, should you not find what you are looking for here.

Broken Toys is a website hosted by Raven Kaldera that has many essays about kink and mental illness. Although the full title says it’s about Submissives, the articles come from all sorts of people in power exchange relationships from the Top and the Bottom. It’s not a place to find a therapist, but it does have some great essays both on what to do when you/your partner is struggling with a mental illness, and also first hand stories/experiences.

Although it is geared towards teenagers, Kate Bornstein’s book Hello Cruel World is a wonderful list of 101 alternatives to suicide. If you’re depressed and web searching anyway, google Kate and listen/read/watch what she has to say on the topic; she and I feel very similarly about suicide. Her mantra is “Do whatever it takes to make your life worth living; anything at all.” She even hands out (and offers on her website) “Get Out of Hell Free” cards, so if your God(s) punish you for doing what it took to make your life better, she’s volunteering to do your time for you. Her only rule? “Don’t be mean.” Her book even has an app on Itunes, so if you can’t get the book, or if you need something right away, this is a good start.

Kate also has posted her own “It Gets Better” video on YouTube; it made me cry my eyes out in a good way.

I hope this terribly long and windy post helps someone, somewhere, to feel better even for a moment. Maybe posting this will help me feel better for a moment. Who knows?

Betwixt and Between: A Samhain Open House

We are opening our hearth and home to all those who are looking to celebrate the end of the cycle of the year with friends, family, and like-minded individuals. All people of all ages are welcome to attend (children under 18 must be a known quantity or be with a parent, sorry), and there is no faith-requirement. Yes, this is open to people who are not Pagan, including atheists and agnostics, if the activities seem interesting to them. All we ask is that you maintain an attitude of reverence, and an understanding that this is a religious ceremony for some or all who attend.

Here’s the specifics:

• When? Friday, November the 1st, starting at 7pm and lasting until sometime around midnight but possibly later.
• Where? Hagerstown, Maryland. Specific address will be given as a response to RSVPs. You must RVSP by October 30th to ravesblood at gmail dot com. As our place isn’t very big, we will have to cap attendance at 20 people; therefore, RSVPs are important, and we ask that once you RSVP, please honor your commitment. If you RSVP late, we will maintain a “waiting list” in the order people respond, so if we have a cancellation we will notify the next in line. We don’t know for certain we will reach our cap, but it’s likely, so RVSP early.
• Who? We expect most people will be local, friends and family who want to celebrate with holiday with us. We do have the ability to host a small number of out of towners, so if you’d like to come from far away we can give you a place to sleep (although if we get many, it may be a patch of floor here or a bed at a friend’s place). We should be clear, however, that we have set plans that Saturday afternoon, so although you’re welcome to stay the weekend, we’ll be gone for most of Saturday.
• What? Samhain is a holiday from the agricultural “wheel of the year” (the literal reality of which we can debate another day, but it’s what’s been adopted by some NeoPagans) that marks the end of the harvest, a time when the veil separating the living and the dead is thinnest, therefore making it easier to feel and hear the presence of our Honored Dead. It’s one of my favorite Pagan holidays, and as Rave and I are at loose ends for a group to celebrate with, we figure there are others who might be as well. You don’t need to ascribe to the Wheel of the Year to take some time to think about and grieve our dead.
• How? The evening will have three parts. From 7pm to 9pm, we will have several people practicing various forms of divination (and yes, if you’re a diviner, feel free to indicate whether you’re willing to read for people, and what kind of set up you’ll need.) As I have a strong ethic that you pay for skilled labor, but also an understanding that this is a special occasion, I have decided that all readings will cost $5, or you may attempt to enter into a barter agreement with the diviner of your choice – but of course, the diviner has a right to turn down barter they don’t want or need. If you wish to attend only to avail yourself of divination, you are welcome to RSVP thusly, but the reading will cost you $10 (to give people an incentive to stay the whole evening).
• The second part will be a dumb supper, which Rave will be organizing. A dumb supper is somewhat a Samhain tradition; people cook various entrees and desserts that were favorites of a dead relative or friend (or something the person is just really good at cooking), and bring them potluck-style. When we clear the room from Part 1, a bell will be rung, and at that time all speaking will cease. The moving of furniture, the setting of the table, the meal itself, and a short time afterward will all be held in silence. The idea is to invite our Honored Dead to eat with us, and there will be a plate in the center of the table where people can share a portion of their dinner with the Dead. We eat in silence so we can be better able to feel the dead’s presence, or hear their whispers. When the meal is over, the offering plate will be placed outside and a silent prayer thanking the Dead for attending will be said. If your Dead want a certain kind of drink, or (as in my case) for you to smoke tobacco, you must bring those things with you (and you don’t have to share if you don’t want to). When it is time to speak again, a bell will be rung a second time. There will be a short period of re-adjustment before we move to Part III.
• Part III will be a Sumbyl. This is a Norse tradition, but is accessible to people of all faiths. We fill a drinking horn with some form of alcohol (probably a hoppy beer, or cider) and it will be passed around as we make three rounds of toasts. The first round will be toasts to Gods of the Dead; it can also be to Death itself, or even a Concept or Archetype of Death if you so desire. The second round will be to your Honored Dead – people who have had a good influence on you, both intimate and not, so you can toast Aunt Tilly and Jim Henson if you want to. The third toast is usually a boast, but it is the only part of the ritual I’m keeping close to the chest. At a sumbyl, it is always okay to skip a round, or to libate the alcohol instead of drinking it (or kissing the horn), so none of it is mandatory. If the feeling in the room is to open it up after the last round, allowing people to make further toasts, we will continue until the hosts decide it’s over.
• We ask that attendees plan to be at all three parts, but obviously we ask that at a minimum, you be present for parts II and III, as we can’t predict how long the dinner or the sumbyl will be.
• Also, we can set aside a space for those who may not have been able to get their reading before the supper, to do so during or after the Sumbyl. Of course, it is up to the diviner as to whether or not they’re willing to work later on, so I can’t at all guarantee that it will happen. If someone comes and isn’t able to get a reading, I will offer them a reading at the same cost sometime later on,either via email/skype or in person.
• Why? Well, the short answer is “because my Gods told me to”, but that isn’t really satisfying for anyone other than me. We feel there is a dirth of Samhain celebrations in the area, and since death magic and the dying/decomposing part of the cycle of life is something I work closely with, it seemed like a no brainer. I also felt that having a ritual where people who aren’t sure where their faith lies, can still come and take a little time to mourn their dead without having to swallow a bunch of thoughts about what the afterlife is like or that Uncle Harry is “smiling down on us” or whatever.This ritual is meant to be built in a way where it is primarily internal – your reading is confidential between you and the diviner, the dumb supper goes without saying, and you can always offer a toast without telling anyone why, or the circumstances that lead you to. (Of course, you can choose to share if that helps you.)

So, again, you must RSVP to ravesblood at gmail dot com by October 30th if you want to attend. If you aren’t a known person to us, letting us know how you found me (fellow Lokean, blog fan, friend of a friend, etc), will make us feel much more comfortable letting you into our house. Also, keep in mind that Part II only works if people bring entrees and desserts to share (plan to share with 10 people), and we’ll be supplying plates and tablecloths and such. It can be store-bought if you’re not a cook; it’s more important that the food have some meaning for you or your Honored Dead.