do I have spirits?

Other counselors would say I am. But certainly there would be enough difference of opinion to create a doubt - in the end it probably depends on a judge's personal bias, which is not a reliable factor to bet on.

I believe that there are human beings who are communicating with me telepathically. This is the unadorned truth. I also believe that these human beings are secretly conniving to do certain things to me and to affect my life in certain ways. This belief definitely borders closely on paranoia.

This is probably your strongest point, and this is one of the approaches I took with yet another counselor. The bottom line is not what I believe, but how I behave. Still, my history is definitely not clear-cut in this area, as you yourself have noted - I lost my job as a result of following my beliefs. Yes, my history since that time has been quite a bit more exemplary, in mainstream society's eyes, but my fall from grace is still fairly recent.

I need to point out now that my description of my wife's behavior, while absolutely true, is also very one-sided. I was trying to show you what kinds of abuse I suffered from her. However she has another side. She comes across as an outgoing, friendly, caring person. And frankly, much of the time she is. It's just that you don't want to cross her, because she WILL make you pay... Our kids love her, and in general she's a good, loving mother - though I agree that she tends to be domineering and overly restrictive about some things. Anyway she's no longer a fundamentalist Christian - actually at this moment she's enrolled in a seminary course that compares Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, and she has met and struck up a friendship with a man who co-authored a book with Deepak Chopra. Her judgmental tendencies are related to personal insecurities, and don't currently manifest in religious fanaticism. The bottom line here is that she has done very little that could be stretched to fit a classification of "abuse" toward any of the kids. I don't see any judge being convinced that she's an unfit parent, and I wouldn't want to play that card unless I had a very good reason for it, because in general I think she's the mother our kids need. And such controlling tendencies as she has inflicted on our kids has taught them to use some of my own strategies for asserting themselves, which is actually a good thing.

I don't blame you for your statements about my wife - you were just going on the information I've given you. I appreciate your efforts to try some different perspectives on me. I think it's best to not pursue a divorce at this point in time, and even if I wanted to, there's still the financial hurdle, which is currently an immovable wall.

It's a nice idea, but it wouldn't work. When she's not open to alternative views, it does no good to write them down. There is no compromise with her on certain issues.

Again, I appreciate your efforts. And you've come up with some very good thoughts - just not anything that will make a difference, I'm afraid.

Yes, of course - WANTING to take that viewpoint is always the trick.

Yeah, most of the time I do.

I agree.

I'm seeing the same forces I've faced in the past continuing to manifest in my current day-to-day life. My approach to them has changed, though. The novelty of relationships with "mind-readers" and my obsession with pursuing them has dramatically reversed. If I feel I'm being treated badly or abusively, I simply will not have anything to do with the offending person. This is probably an effect my "spirit guides" are purposely trying to instill in me. I'm stronger than I used to be - not so needy.

But it still pisses me off, dammit. Sometimes I can handle it and be joyous. Many times I can't. It's entirely up to my guides and the universe to decide whether these experiences continue - nothing I do makes any difference - and so far it appears they have decided the travail will continue.

But it helps to talk - and I appreciate your active and concerned listening, Gib. Thank you.

 

I know. I just thought you could bank on the difference between the truth and how you tell the truth. I don't think the interpretation I offered is an outright lie, do you? It's just that if there's any flexibility in how you argue your case to others (without blatantly lying), this can make all the difference in the world in how they regard you. This reminds me of a joke I read once - right here on the hipforums as a matter of fact - it's a sort of dig at Christianity. It goes:

"Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree... yeah, makes perfect sense."

What's delusion to one man is just a mundane religion to another.

Wow! Really? So she's capable of change. It's always an advantage when you're dealing with someone who's flexible in their beliefs and style of thinking. There may be some hope for you yet .

I know. It's the same with my wife (although, at least between me and her, there seems to be a mutual desire to make our relationship a happy one - even though we differ on a LOT of things). But I still write things down for other reasons besides persuading her to my views. For one thing, if it's written in stone so to speak, I can always refer back to it and say "I said THIS!!!" (misconstruing what I said, or even fabricating things I do or didn't say, is often a theme that comes up with her). Writing things down also helps me clarify my own position and to clarify it to her. That way, I can be totally honest with her (which is important) while at the same time be very careful not to choose the wrong words. Arguing verbally often leads to inadvertant offenses and saying things that aren't exactly true although I'm trying my best to be honest. It also leads to making promises out of pressure and guilt, promise that I later regret making. Writing things down gives me time to think about it more carefully - having time to think is important. Does this work to persuade her to my views? Sometimes yes but other times no. What it is really effective for is avoiding misunderstandings. Writing things down is the best way to be clear and precise. And as long as I remain diplomatic, keeping the insults and resentment aside, then I know I'm doing the right thing - I know that if there's anything she's still upset about or disagrees with, I've done everything I can and I'm not the bad guy in the situation.

What are these forces if you don't mind my asking?

Well, I'm glad I'm doing something effective. We really should go far that beer

 

Yes, I saw where you were going with your approach. It wouldn't work in court though, because my wife knows very well the ideas going through my mind at the time of my transgression, and there would be no way to gloss it over in any convincing way.

Actually my best approach would probably be to tell the truth in excrutiating detail, as I did with the one counselor who concluded that I'm not delusional. That way my weird, far-out beliefs would be offest by the careful, scientific thinking process that led me to those beliefs. Even so, it's hard for lots of people to set aside their biases even in the face of evidence, so I'm not willing to bet on a judge being that reasonable. Furthermore, one counselor who was playing devil's advocate with me pointed out that he had experience with some psychotic clients who said that certain things happened, even though witnesses who were with them at the time presented contradictory accounts of the same events - so if I have no witnesses to back me up, how can I say for sure that what I thought happened really did happen? If you start out with the assumption that belief in telepathy is crazy, there is really no solid evidence I can present to the contrary - all I can say is what I experienced. From the societal viewpoint, "reality" is determined by consensus. And it also depends on people trying to be truthful, as opposed to purposely lying...

She DID change, over a period of years, in large part because of my influence. When she was exploring Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism I told her, "I can't wait until you get into Hinduism." She looked at me like I was crazy, and said, "Why would I have any interest in Hinduism?" A year later Hinduism was her favorite religion - and still is.

So - is there still some hope? It's possible. I don't see it working out, but I could be wrong. Obviously I'm not going anywhere for some time to come, and things could change. However in order for there to be any hope, the major requirement would be for her to accept the idea of me having mental romances with other women...in fact, any woman I have a relationship with would need to be able to live with that. The only kind of woman who could probably deal with that would be another telepath like me, with similar experiences to mine. So maybe I'm just not an easy person to have a relationship with.

Now you have another major piece to the puzzle.

I do sometimes write things down for my own benefit, for the reasons you mention. It helps me to keep things straight in my mind when my wife twists facts and events to suit her own purpose.

Mind-readers messing with me is a big one. For example, I've gotten a bit friendly with a couple of the check-out women at the local cafe where I get my yogurt and coffee in the morning - both of whom are native Spanish speakers. Two days ago I waited and waited for the one checking me out to finish a conversation in Spanish (about business) with the other one before she finished checking me out, and I was feeling a tiny bit impatient, though I didn't say anything. When she finally handed me my bag I said, "Thank you," and she remarked sarcastically to the other woman, "Se dice 'Gracias' con la boca" (translation: "He says 'Thanks' with his mouth"), and they both laughed. They apparently knew I was impatient, even though I gave no outward sign and neither appeared to be paying any attention to me. And she knows I know some Spanish, though the other customers in line behind me probably didn't know what was being said.

Actually this example isn't bad - actually it's a sign of loosening up, though I was pissed about it for a while just because I was in a black mood that morning and I felt I was being excluded. Thinking back now, it seems much more friendly, and I'm grateful for it. If my Spanish were better and I wasn't so surprised, I might have come back with a humorous comment in reply. So maybe you're right to some degree - maybe there are doors opening that I'm viewing in the wrong light or not seeing.

But then there is the woman I'm attracted to at the train station, who seems to be playing weird games with me - trying to get my attention, speaking to me and flashing me a big smile sometimes; other times making a blatant effort to avoid meeting my gaze - this is very similar to the way my "spirit guides" Dani and Mia behaved with me years ago, before I turned to Emily, and smacks of deliberate attempts to manipulate me, which I resent.

Then there is the fact that Emily is actively present in my mind 24/7, yet continues to treat me like unwanted dirt externally. This is the source of most of my anger and depression. And in some ways I would still like to have the kind of relationship I had with her in the beginning, but the universe is not bringing forth any other woman to do this with me. Sometimes I feel that there is no other woman, or at least very few women, with whom I would want to do that as much as I did with Emily - our interests were so close in lots of areas.

And I miss sex a lot, and there doesn't seem to be any way to change that for some time to come, if ever. I can always imagine doing that with Emily, of course, and she gets into it with me in my mind when I do...but I always have to return to the external reality in which she is treating me like dirt, with no sign that the situation will ever change. And it's not the same as having a warm body present, is it?

And so on, and so forth...

Yeah, I'm still thinking that would be a great idea.

 

Yeah, I can see that being a very sticky issue between you and her. Hmm... makes me wonder if this has something to do with her antagonism towards your psychic abilities. I mean, if she were to believe it was real, that means the other women in your life are real. You think?

I can see this being a catch-22 though. Without feeling loved by her, and seeing your relationship going nowhere, you're bound to look for love elsewhere, and if you've got a direct psychic connection with other women who have affection to give you in return (despite the cruelty they may have shown you in the past), then there's really no reason not accept that affection and reciprocate it. But perhaps if you were to sever such romantic connections, your wife might feel more secure in offering you love and affection. But I don't know what a psychic relationship is like. Is it something you can sever? I know you've said they can be intrusive without giving you much control. Is it like starting a new relationship with a woman but telling her that she's got to accept your previous partner in the relationship 24/7 because it's literally impossible to end that relationship?

That's just women

It could be perfect, then, that you're writing this book. I wonder if you have this already in mind, but I would suggest putting all that pain and hurt into the publication of this book. That is, allow the publication of this book to symbolize the vindication of your hurt and anger towards Emily (and anyone else you feel this could work on as well). I mean, you may never get an apology or an explanation out of her, but at least if this is published, your story will be told and others will learn about what you've been through - what they've put you through. See, there's two ways that repressed anger and resentment can be purged - by directly avenging yourself against the one who hurt you, or by gaining the sympathy and understanding of others after telling them what you've been through (a shoulder to cry on, so to speak). If you can do this, it might be the perfect event for letting go of all that baggage. (Incidentally, I'm trying to do something similar with my website - I'm trying to let go of something, which I can tell you about later).

Now I wouldn't make it strictly dependent on your book becoming a number 1 best seller all across America - it might be, but you should bank on something more realistic, something that stands an almost certain chance of coming through. I'm not trying to say that you're book is going to suck - I'm sure it will actually be quite good, and I hope you'll let me read it - but common sense says that only 1 out of 1000 or so (I don't know the statistics ) become world renowned successes. Hell, you already have one person you can count on to read it (me, of course).

Finding the right woman is always hard - even when you're a young sprite between the ages of 20 and 30. I wouldn't call this the universe working against you, I'd just say that's ordinary life.

One thing you might want to check out is online meetup sites. Like this one I just found recently on shamanism and reiki:

http://www.meetup.com/

This site's good 'cause it narrows down your interests to specific groups in your specific city. I looked up psychics for you, but I couldn't find one for Boston, MA (am I remembering this correctly, or do you live somewhere else?). Incidentally, the only psychic group that came up was right here in my home town of Calgary (but that might be because I'm signed up as a Calgarian - you might want to try it with your own account). I might check them out sometime (and thus Emily's prediction that I'll meet someone in the material world might be fulfilled!).

So I think taking a more active approach might be good for you.

On the other hand, you've got to consider whether your current marriage is worth salvaging. As happy as it might make you feel to find another woman, it would be ashame that your current marriage which you've tried so hard to work on and which took up so many of your years is all wasted. There's nothing more beautiful, in my eyes, than a marriage that's recovered its spark after so many years of lifelessness. But you be the judge. You should find your happiness either way.

 

LOL

This was one of the first thoughts that occurred to me when this scenario first started playing out. She went from being a psychic believer to accusing me of psychosis in almost the blink of an eye.

Gib, it is SO good to talk about these things with someone who is so perceptive and analytical. Yes, you are nailing the situation beautifully. And the reason I started having these relationships to start with is because in my mind, the woman (the first one) was encouraging it. Once I went for it, of course, she started messing with my mind...

I have tried to "sever" psychic relationships. It's like trying to stop thinking. It's like having your eyelids removed and trying not to see anything.

I used to have a little joke with Dani. In the evening when I could hear her in her cubicle preparing to leave the office for the day, in my mind I would tell her, "Good bye - I'll miss you!" One time after I did this, I heard her explaining this joke to her boss, and her boss laughed loudly.

In fact, I have found that when I make an effort to ignore them, they make a special effort to bug the hell out of me. They'll make comments in my mind, they'll give me the attention-getting body sensations continually. If I think about sex, they'll make my genitals tingle...you get the picture.

It's not - it's just one woman so far, with shades of another woman, and both of these women were psychics who were trying to mess with me. I haven't seen enough of this sort of thing from the woman on the train to know this for sure, but I've seen enough to grab my attention, and to keep my guard up.

These thoughts have occurred to me, of course. Yes, the book can potentially serve multiple purposes.

An interesting note: At one point, when Emily was emotionally slapping me around big time, she told me, "I admire someone who sublimates their feelings." In other words, she was encouraging me to channel my frustrated emotional expression into creative pursuits. Part of me sees the value in that, and part of me says, "Screw you." LOL The difficulty is that so much of the time when I'm trying to think about my life in order to write about it, I get too pissed off to write.

However it has been helpful relating some of my life to you in this thread. It's helping to take some of the sting out of some of these events in my life...I dunno if it will make a significant difference, but we'll see.

I'm realistic about my chances for success. But I do believe I have a story that has a potential for a lot of interest - it has psychic stuff, which is immensely popular, plus complicated relationship situations, which is what most great stories are about, plus my journey to hell and back via my screw-ups, which is what great plots are all about. I just need to find a good way to write about it.

I don't believe that things "just happen," with no particular reason other than luck. It's not just that I can't find the right woman, it's also that I've had women who seemed like good candidates mess with my mind in weird ways. It's too weird and blatant to be mere coincidence - the universe is making a concerted effort to avoid letting me find what I'm looking for.

I've tried sites to meet someone, with mixed but mostly discouraging results. Still, I'm not totally giving up, and I might give that link of yours a try - thank you!

I understand and totally agree. And it's especially hard to think about starting over at my age, when I should be resting in the security of a years-long marriage. But as you said, I need to be the judge. Right now I don't see any way of having a fulfilling relationship with my wife. So even if I can't find anyone else, I can at least entertain myself by looking - and who knows? Life is funny, and you just don't never know.

 

Eerily, this was my wife's exact reaction when she learnt how often I was smoking pot/spice. Before I spilled the beans completely about how often I would do it and when and where and all that, she thought I did it only once in a blue moon and knew only vaguely about the details. Not that I outright lied to her (I always admitted that I did it but was secretive about where and when and how often, but I did tell her once that I'm secretive 'cause I'm afraid of what she might say), but as soon as she found out how often I did it and for how long (about 6 years behind her back), she felt so betrayed and lied to that she turned a complete 180 and became totally anti-drug. I even remember her saying, before that, that she was OK with pot and that she might even be willing to try it if we ever went to the Netherlands or some place where it was legal. I was starting to feel she might be OK with my drug use until this incident happened.

Yes, you've told me about how she does this. What did she say when you confronted her about it in person. I don't mean in your mind, I mean in person. Like, suppose you were to walk up to her and ask her "Why do you treat me the way you do when we're together?" I'm just trying to get a sense for the way she talked to you in person. I know you've described a difference in the way she treats you in person vs. in your mind, but what about the way she talks to you and the kinds of things she says (at least, when you were alone together)?

Oh, I'll contend with you on this. I won't drag it out, but I'll contend. In all my experiences with women, which isn't much admittedly, they all seem to play a push/pull game. When you're not giving them the attention they want, they'll give you signals that they like you, but when you act on those signals, they'll push you away as if they're not interested. At least, this has been my experience, and it was my experience in my teens and early twenties... before I met my wife. So it might just reflect the way teenaged girls act - and it might reflect they way they acted towards me. I do have a few theories about why they do this though, but I'll leave that for later.

Do you not feel you can channel this anger into your writing? That's sort of what the book is for, isn't it - or do I not understand your purpose in writing it? Maybe you need a punching bag beside your writing desk .

You got that right. Those are the keys to a juicy story.

I think I need to understand this "messing with your mind" a bit more - or do I need to wait for the book?

Yes, life is ever changing. Your wife, apparently, is ever changing as well. Who knows. One day, she may find herself in a place that makes it easier for you and her to get along. Well, that's wishful thinking anyway. But I think what you need is for your life to be mobile - to change more readily. So far, it sounds to me like you feel yourself to be stuck in a rut. You want to be in a specific place - some other place - that's way too far from your rut with all sorts of obstacles in the way. I don't know why, but I'm just going to call it a "sense" that you need to allow yourself to change in a more free spirited manner rather than a goal oriented manner. That is to say, I think (and again, this is just a "sense") that the issue the universe might be having with you is your fixation on certain goals and the rigidness with which you are determined to get to them. It might want you to be more flexible and open to whatever experience it has in store for you. It might be that it has good things to offer you but your paying too much attention to the specific goals you want for yourself that you can't see the other opportunities that are lying in wait for you. To be open to change in the free spirited manner, you need to just explore new things that you never thought you'd see yourself doing, just for the sake of trying something new - for example, go paint some pottery, go study how television sets work, go attend a meeting at the closest butterfly catching club - you know, just something random - you choose. And I sense that if you explore new avenues like this, you will become more mobile in such a way that you all of a sudden you see a new path to the goal you originally wanted to begin with, a path you couldn't see from where you were positioned in your rut - or better you, you might suddenly discover a new and better goal. But like I said, I'm just taking a shot in the dark here - trying to express this "sense" of what the universe might want for you. Who knows, maybe I'm nuts.

 

Well I was having a mental romance for approximately one week behind my wife's back before I told her about it. I told her because Dani told me to in my mind. She said (in my mind) "Trust me." So I did, and then all hell broke loose. STARTED breaking loose - hell was loose for a very long time, and still pretty much is. I don't trust any of them anymore. Actually I had resisted doing that with Dani, but finally got fed up with my wife because she just didn't seem to have any time for me anymore. Before I spilled the beans, my wife was interested in possibly trying to learn telepathic communication. She hasn't been the least bit interested since - hell, she doesn't even really believe in it.

The funny thing is, she has had experiences...not long after I spilled the beans and she screamed some obscenities at me, I went to bed one night while she was awake, and as I was lying there drifting off to sleep, I suddenly had a vivid picture of my wife standing over me, and she plunged a knife into me. I immediately got out of bed and went to the living room, where she was sitting on the couch. As soon as she saw me she jumped to her feet and looked at me with the expression of someone who's been caught with their hand in somebody else's pocket. I should have told her what I saw in my mind...as it is, I just turned around and went back to bed. So she probably to this day thinks it was just a coincidence - I've never confronted her with this. If I did she'd probably just deny it - speaking from experience.

You're confused about who I was talking about - I was actually talking about Dani, not Emily. But I really don't want to go into the whole Dani episode at this point. I will tell you how Emily reacted. I tried once to tell her in an e-mail that I had gone to wait for her outside at break time because in my mind she had agreed to meet me, but she had never shown up. Her e-mail response said something like, "Well that's very sad, isn't it?" Further on, as time went by, as I've mentioned in earlier posts, if I ever tried to ask her a serious question like this, she would be similarly nasty, sarcastic, terse - or even just ignore me.

I can think of a few reasons why a woman would act this way, and all of them spell "bad news." At best, the woman is just shy or unsure of herself. At worst, she's playing nasty games. And there are probably several degrees of in-between possibilities. Bottom line for me is: If a woman behaves this way with me, she is not the sort of person I'm interested in getting friendly with. Well okay, fine - if it really does seem like a simple case of shyness, I don't mind getting friendlier on a gradual basis, but I don't think of that kind of woman as being a serious friendship possibility. I prefer a woman who can walk without support most of the time. And I must say this: I had two girlfriends in high school, one girlfriend during college, the odd date here and there, and two wives, and the kind of behavior I described was NEVER part of my experience until I met Dani the Mind-Reader at the age of 45. And I let her do that to me, and then I let her friend Mia do it to me, and then I let Emily do it to me - because they had something I desperately wanted, and thought I might not have another chance to get. They pretty much cured me of desperation. Sometimes I think I don't want that at ALL anymore.

My main purpose in writing the book is to tell a really amazing and complex story that people will think about for a long time after reading. But channeling anger into it...I had never really considered that. I've channeled anger into my poetry on occasion...maybe I'll think about that.

I think I covered that earlier in this post.

Yes, that's how I generally see it.

This is actually very good advice, Gib, and it's the same advice I've given to other people. It's not easy advice to follow, though. I'm just so tired of being slapped around by life - it's been so long, and I've been through so much hell, I just want it to stop. That's the reason for my rigidity. I suppose this is just an excuse. But sometimes I really just think that if the universe wants me to lighten up after all it's done to me, the universe can just damn well kiss my ass. How's that for rigid? But I'll take your suggestion under advisement, and maybe it will bear some fruit...thank you.

 

Well, I guess in a way, you can't take it personally. Women get jealous and resentful when their man is having romantic affairs with someone other then themselves (whether in person in psychicly). And I know, it's still a really shitty situation for you, but at the same time normal.

Hmm... but she (they) still treat you with respect and affection when you're communicating purely psychicly? Sounds like they really want to cut off all interpersonal relations in the concrete world in favor of relations in the psychic world. In fact, this seems obvious (to me, at least). It's like getting rid of Old Yeller by making him feel unloved and unwelcome while really it's because of love that his owners get rid of him. Yet they still won't explain to you the reasons behind it. What do you make of all this?

Yeah, well, I just figured the story is about you - your life, your thoughts, your soul - so why exclude the emotional side? That's part and parcel, right?

Your welcome, but I just pulled that out of my ass. It's something I want to practice more, and I plan on doing so when I'm done my website. For me, it's a part of following the Buddhist-like path that I seem to be on. It has to do with detaching myself from worldly desires and, more importantly, rigid value systems. Ultimately, I wish to make no demands whatsoever about how my life SHOULD be and instead accept whatever comes my way. Easier said that done probably, but I think I could stand to be much more like that than I am now.

 

Sure, I get jealous and resentful, too. I know that it hurts like hell. However I don't consider it my right to scream obscenities, and I consider the possibility that there might be something I could do to supply whatever the person went looking for elsewhere...and I wouldn't consider it my right to try to control what the person thinks about, or take her to counselors to try to get more control...but hey, that's just me.

I knew this question was coming. Actually they don't ALWAYS treat me with respect and affection in psychic communication. For example...one time Emily kept flashing me a mental picture of a guy in our office. She was being very forceful and insistent about it. I kept mentally telling her to stop, and she just did it even more. Finally when I saw her at break time, I said out loud to her, "Why do you keep flashing this guy's face in my mind?" She denied doing it, but she looked and spoke like she was pissed at me, and then she related a story about how she had once caught this guy putting garbage on her car. She confronted him, and he said he was doing it because she had parked in a handicapped space. She said she parked in the handicapped space when her arthritis flared up and made it hard to walk. So I tried to figure out what all this had to do with me, because I was used to her giving me messages by indirect implication, and I decided that she was telling me I was like this guy because I thought negative things about her. But the reason I thought negative things about her is that she kept treating me like shit! Whatever. Communication with her was problematic, to say the least, as I've shown before.

I confess that I used this same technique on her another time. I was pissed at her because she kept ignoring my e-mails. So I started repeating some childish, immature name to her - I don't remember what, let's say "asshole." I kept saying it to her telepathically every time I remembered to. Later I went outside at break time. Emily wasn't there, but I talked to other people. Eventually Emily came out. She avoided me - went around me to talk to some other people - kind of circling around the periphery of the group, like a shark - and I kept up my mental harrassment. Finally everybody went back inside except a married couple, Emily, and me. Emily came to stand right in front of me, but still did not address me directly. Then the guy was saying something about getting gray hair from too much stress, and I said something about Emily's hair, which was pure black, and she turned on me like a snarling dog and snapped, "LEAVE. ME. ALONE." I knew what she was pissed about, but I pretended I didn't, and turned it into a joke by grabbing some of my hair and saying, "Leave ME alone." After a few more words she went back inside, and the man and woman were both saying, "What was her problem?" I said, "Oh, she's probably just having a bad day." LOL

As I've been typing this story, by the way, Emily has been laughing her head off in my mind.

What do I make of all this? Damn, sometimes I don't know if I'm coming or going. Sometimes I just think they were immature assholes. I thought that this morning, and so Emily's response has been to try to prove to me that she knows what she's doing - like a while ago I was trying to find an error in a program, and I thought, "Oh, maybe it's this..." and in my mind Emily said, "No..." And sure enough, she was right, it was something different. It's all for some reason, to get me to do certain things or to give me experiences that will lead to insights...apparently. They are not forthcoming with answers. Sometimes, in some moods, I feel like I understand, and it all makes sense. But those moods are rare.

Oh, I see what you're saying. Well sure, I'm certainly including my emotional responses in my writing. In fact I have one chapter so far that describes my angry feelings about the chapter I had just ended, and also describes Emily's telepathic response to my anger.

Yeah, I see - I find I'm not very good at trying to be good. And sometimes when I try to be good, my mental "friends" start giving me shit in my mind until I lose my temper...I think trying to be good might be a lost cause.

 

I like your "immature assholes" assessment better. You sure they're not just ordinary human beings, warts and all, who just so happen to have a psychic gift? I mean, maybe Emily's just got some emotional issues and doesn't get along well with others. Sure she may be psychic, but maybe she's just using that as a weapon when she feels like taking out her emotional hangups on someone. Of course, she'd like you to think she's teaching you deep complex spiritual lessons, and you're looking up to her like she has a few to teach (I know I would if I were new to the psychic world and I met a seeming psychic guru), and maybe she even believes it herself (after all, we all think we have life lessons to teach others, don't we?). In short, maybe she's just an ordinary grouchy human being who so happens to be psychic... you think?

Can Emily read every word I'm writing? Is she pissed off about what I just said? Hi Emily! Sorry about the above, I'm just trying to get at zen's thoughts. If you're going to be so secretive, that's my only choice, isn't it?

Hmm... being good. What's your idea of "being good"? What's "being bad"?

 

LOL Yeah, I must say that using the term "immature assholes" felt very freeing and empowering.

This question is one of the biggies, all righty. It's one of the pivots in my story that will make the book intriguing - is he psychic, or psychotic? Are they enlightened spirit guides, or immature psychic assholes? It's a question that I don't entirely know the answer to. And maybe for purposes of this book, it's good to leave a question like this open-ended and uncertain - something for the reader to think about, and reach their own conclusion. They definitely are very good at ACTING like immature assholes, if acting is what it is. They are definitely in touch with their inner bitches. LOL

So...even though I'm often in doubt, when I think about all my experiences together, my conclusion is that they are in some way enlightened spirit guides. How enlightened? Not sure... The signs are subtle, but numerous. For me to explain my conclusion, I would need to type up a LOT of examples, and even then there is room for doubt. And really, that question might be the main crux of what the book is about, and it will require an entire book to provide an adequate treatment.

Better run and hide quick, Gib!!! LOL

Emily sees everything I see, hears everything I hear, feels what I feel, and knows my own thoughts better than I do. Plus she knows a hell of a lot that I don't via psychic knowledge. Is she pissed off? No, she was laughing when I read your post.

Yeah, they certainly can be scary to the uninitiated. I was talking to a woman online some time back who was very much into psychic stuff, and friendly with me. I gradually worked up to telling her about my telepathic relationships. Finally I sent her a couple of pieces I had written describing how Emily treated me externally, and how she interacted with me one time purely in the mental realm. Well, this was too much for my woman friend. She wrote back and said that Emily is a very scary person, and she didn't want Emily anywhere near her - and that was the last time she ever wrote to me. Emily is laughing again - she's quite proud of herself.

I'm talking about trying to improve oneself - trying to think better thoughts, be less rigid in one's expectations - anything along those lines. Emily et al revel in harassing the hell out of me whenever I try to do anything like that.

 

Have you looked into ways of perhaps blocking the connection? If it's as much hell as you say it is, I'm guessing you probably have. I wonder if anti-psychotics might help. It wouldn't necessarily mean you're delusional if they do work. It's just a drug that so happens to have a certain effect on the brain. Why it has that effect is more or less unknown. I can imagine that out of all the so-called schizophrenics who have had their symptoms mitigated by some anti-psychotic - let's say a bunch who hear voices in their heads - some of them suffered from a chemical imbalance but others really were psychic and were picking up thoughts from other people... but the drug works on both. It might be worth a shot.


If you don't want to go that route, maybe try talking to a professional psychic or spiritualist. If there's ways to tap into it, there must be ways to turn it off.

 

At one point I thought I wanted to turn it off. But I don't, really. The connection itself is not hell, most of the time. Hell, much of the time Emily is a wonderful, loving, and fun companion. I'd be lonely without her in my mind. What's hell is the way she treated me and the circumstances I've ended up in.

Back in 2000, at my wife's urging, I went to a psychiatrist. He tried not one, but two antipsychotics on me: Zyprexa and Haldol. I gave both a shot, for about three months apiece. Neither one made the slightest bit of difference. I also had all the medical workups--blood work, electroencephalogram, and brain MRI--everything was normal. And btw, Emily is a diagnosed bipolar, and she's on medication - it doesn't seem to have affected her psychic abilities, either.

As I said, I'm not interested in turning it off.

 

Woaw! Now that explains it all! No wonder she's a bitch sometimes. It's not exactly an "immature asshole"; more like extreme moodiness. Still, you figure she was trying to teach you something? Well, I wonder if the two have to go hand-in-hand - the bitchiness and the spiritual lessons, that is. Maybe she's like a college professor who has a lot to teach her students but just gets extremely grouchy and mean sometimes. Maybe she pushed you away to keep you away from her darker side - that is, maybe she can control what side of her you see if you're only communicating psychically.

I'm not exactly known for my outstanding memory, but I think I remember you saying at one point that you're bipolar as well. Am I remembering correctly?

So overall, zen, given your shitty situation now (mostly the wife, is it? Or are there other things?), but also having (most of the time) a wonderful, loving, and fun companion like Emily (wonderful enough not to want to give up your psychic ability), would you say your life sucks or is it OK? I kinda gathered that you feel it sucks, but I also gathered that you might be taking this opportunity to vent your frustrations - so that I only hear about the darker side of your life in this thread.

 

I suppose bipolar disorder could possibly, partly explain some of Emily's behavior. But were Dani and Mia also bipolar? Seems unlikely...again, to get the full picture, you need to know a lot more about my experiences--more than is feasible to explain in an online forum. I might as well just write the damn book. There is so much more to say about all of this...it's a bit daunting. I'm reminded of the handwriting analysis Emily asked me to do for her...so many issues. I just need to write the book.

Nobody has ever diagnosed me as being bipolar. I might have said that I MIGHT be bipolar, but that's just conjecture on my part, and if I am bipolar I believe it's a mild case. Certainly the depressive phase is exacerbated by memories of the ill treatment I've experienced.

The "other things" are the memories of how Emily et al behaved toward me and my financial situation

To a large degree I have been taking this opportunity to vent. I HAVE been concentrating on the darker side of my life for this thread. My mood about all this has slowly changed as our conversation has progressed--when we started on this subject I really was having difficulty dealing with my depression over it. Right now, I'm feeling good about things, on the whole. Next month I may be depressed again. I must say that talking about all these things in this thread has helped me. I think this partly owes to having opened up about some things I really haven't talked about very much, except to a small handful of people. And it partly owes to seeing the positive side of my life in the midst of the shitpiles. So I think this has been good therapy for me, and I'm grateful for your dedicated and active attention, Gib. Have you ever considered going into counseling?

 

If I've been dedicated, it's only because your experiences are very intriguing. It's been a pleasure talking with you.

I actually have a BA in psychology. I would have gone and did my masters in it if I wasn't discouraged by the whole discipline. I opted instead to get a degree in computer science. Nine years of university education - I should have a PhD now! LOL. In hindsight, I kinda regret not applying to grad school. I now see that the world is so much more full of opportunities that I didn't see back then. What I should have done from the beginning is study philosophy of mind - that's really what I'm interested in - but a masters or PhD in psychology would have fit me into that mix of scholarly types all the same anyway. The website I'm working on now probably would have had a better chance of grabbing the attention of certain big wigs in the field. Just tacking a "PhD" at the end of your name can make all the difference in the world.

Anyway, I can't think of anymore questions I'd like to ask. Maybe we should take a break for now. Have any deep philosophical/spiritual thoughts we could grind our minds on? Or maybe you'd just like to take a break? I'm always good to go with conversations (gives me something to do while I'm slacking off at work ).

 

Yeah, this conversation has rekindled my own amazement about my experiences.

On the other hand, if your thoughts and ideas are especially good, original, and unique, you could end up with an honorary PhD someday.

I figure my psychic experiences are my field work, and my book could be my thesis--advancing knowledge in psychic/spiritual exploration. I don't know if there's even a degree that fits what I'm into--maybe I could create one. It's not strictly scientific, but it's not merely literature--if I had to be judged on my literary talents alone, I'm afraid I wouldn't have much of a chance. I'm just sorry that I didn't take more thorough notes. It's hard to see the forest for the trees sometimes.

I'll let you know if anything occurs to me.

 

Now that's wishful thinking! LOL

You know, something just occurred to me. Remember that idea we toyed with a while back, the one about life being a drama and our "lower selves" are just never aware of it? Well, you're life sounds like such a brilliant piece, you could literally write a story about it - and you are!!! The ends justify the means, perhaps.