I’m sitting here listening to the jazz station, drinking tea, with a candle and incense lit. For all intents and purposes, I should be having a great cozy time here in my bathrobe, but I’m not. How in the world could I be having a good time when I constantly feel like I am disappearing? The world is covered in dark shadows, and I barely feel like I am holding on. My husband told me that God is always with me, but I can’t seem to be able to find Him in this awful place. He is nowhere to be found. How I wish I could believe my husband. When I tell him I feel like I’m sinking, he says, “Baby you’re ok, it’s just a feeling.” But it doesn’t feel like just a feeling, it feels like it’s really happening to me! How I wish I could believe him, he always tries to help me with encouraging words, but I need more than just words. This is turning into a physical problem, not just a mental/spiritual one. I frequently feel out of breath, especially when I lie down. Last night my psychosis was so bad that I had to lie down the whole evening.

It’s not much better today, I really don’t know how I’m going to get through the day. The bad voice says, “You’re not.” And, “You’re so stupid, Rose! You’re so stupid!” I feel like I’m disappearing! I can barely sit here and type, much less do anything else! Thankfully, aside from the usual chores, I have a free day today. But I feel so weird, so I can’t enjoy it! It feels like I am literally disintegrating, my feet don’t feel like they’re on the ground, and when I look about me, it seems like everything is pixelated, disappearing. I’ve never been so scared in all my life! The cars outside don’t sound normal, either, the tires go bumpity bumpity bumpity, a frightening heavy sound. It’s not bloody normal! I am praying and praying, and nothing is happening. It’s like God’s not there! How does my husband imagine that God is always with me, when everything is ugly and I can’t find God’s presence anywhere? Why is it just me that feels this way, when everyone else is going about their business like everything is fine?

Everything is most certainly NOT fine. The sun doesn’t look right in the sky, and the trees all look frightening, droopy and scraggly and dead. How in the world does everyone think that it’s ok?? Why aren’t people out in the streets freaking the f— out about how terrible everything looks all of a sudden? Well, it’s not all of a sudden, this has been going on for a few months now, with everything looking so terrible. I’m totally disoriented. How I wish my neighbors would move out already, the laundry room is such a mess and it’s all their stuff. I can’t wait for them to move out. They’re really nice people, but they leave the laundry area such a mess, always leaving their laundry in the dryer, and they park their cars up on the curb. I can’t stand it, and I can’t wait until they’re gone. I want a fresh start in the laundry room. I’m going to clean it up as soon as they move out.

I don’t know what the heck to do! I really don’t! I am still breathing, (the bad voice says, “Doesn’t it feel good to breathe?) and I can still see my hands in front of me as I type. So I must still be here. The bad voice says, “Not for long, motherf—er!” I’m so tired of feeling this way. I’m so tired of the bad voice, and the stupid song lyrics that he keeps playing in my head (the same song, over and over again, for months!) I feel like I’m bloody disappearing and I don’t know what to do! I just want to feel ok again, I just want to feel safe again. The red blotches on my hands aren’t going away, they’ve been there for over a week now, since I applied henna to my hair. Why can’t I feel safe? Why does everything look so terrible to my eyes? The bad voice says, “Because I’m the devil, b*tch!” I’ve been undergoing these insults and curses for months now, it’s becoming intolerable.

I’ve been putting tea tree oil on my hands, but it’s not helping the blotches go away. I don’t know what will help them go away. They don’t hurt, they’re just ugly. Like everything else in this godforsaken place. I don’t feel like I’m on earth anymore, as strange as that may sound. How can I be, when everything looks this terrible? There is no beauty anywhere. It’s all ugly, all frightening, and all disappearing. The bad voice says I’m in hell and that’s why I’m going through all of this, why the world looks so terrible, why there are orange cones everywhere (“You are not safe,” says the bad voice). When I am asked why this is happening, I usually respond, I don’t know, but the truth is I do know. The bad voice will remind me, “It’s because of Tom F—ing Christian, b*tch!” That’s the name of the grad student I had an affair with fourteen years ago, when God was calling me to be a nun. God wanted me to break it off with him and serve him as a sister, but I refused, and I refused and refused until the Holy Spirit left me. I actually heard wings flapping. It didn’t click at the time, but looking back I realize that’s what happened.

I would give anything to go back to that semester and get it right. I need a second chance, but it doesn’t feel like I’m going to get one. For one, I am married, and secondly, I have severe psychosis. But it boils down to me not being able to feel the presence of God, and now the world looks so terrible to my eyes, it’s like God’s not there at all. Four years ago, I was in a public garden downtown, admiring the dahlias, when a voice in my head said, “There is no God.” It sent me into a panic, and was the beginning of my illness that I’m dealing with now. I did have a mental breakdown fourteen years ago, when I realized I lost the Holy Spirit, but I got better and was fine from 2008 to 2016. In 2016 I started having anxiety attacks and severe depression, but the world was still normal around me. It wasn’t until that day in the garden in 2017 that things started to distort. I can’t even explain to you the frightening things I saw.

So the bad voice would have me believe that I’m in hell, and that’s why I can’t find God, and that’s why the world looks so terrible, and why I feel like I’m disappearing. Unfortunately, it all adds up. I committed the Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, unknowingly. That’s when you resist and/or lie to the Holy Spirit, until your heart is so hardened that He can’t get through to you, and then He leaves. I said, “No, no, no, no” until I heard the wings flapping. And that’s when He left me. It’s the unforgivable sin. And so now I’m here, in this awful place, feeling like I’m disappearing, with no sign of God to be found. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen. I don’t want to go over it again, I’d rather just forget that they even happened. But they keep running through my mind. Sorry that this is such a long blog post, I just had to get all this off my chest. Nothing seems to help me, not my medications, not therapy, nothing. I know I need help, but I don’t know whom to ask for help, because I can’t explain what’s happening to me. It’s like I’m imploding, literally. I’ve never been so scared in my life. I need Jesus, but it feels like it’s too late. But He must be here somewhere, because there are still priests and nuns and other religious people like my in-laws. So God must be here somewhere. I’m just locked out, it seems.