Personal Apocalypse

Perhaps there are times to temporarily narrow our view of reality in order to be able to eventually widen our understanding. In this harrowing tale, Joe Perez, author of Soulfully Gay, recollects his nervous breakdown. Joe was facing death from AIDS and dealing with a diagnosis of manic depression. He then experienced a prolonged euphoric state. But when he entered a treatment facility, Joe believed his psychologist’s view that his spiritual experience was merely a delusion. Because he believed this, and because he knew that he was suffering from mental illness, he began to repress his spiritual experience. Joe explains that this repression was a part of his journey back to a functional state of being. But after he was functional, and through extensive personal work, he uncovered what lay beneath those repressions: the spiritual insight that knocked him out of his life just a few years earlier. He brought it into awareness, teased out of the confusion and fear, and began to integrate his life.