trip down memory galactic wormhole

sometimes i get all mixed up and question all my assumptions.

is up down? am i the only real human and everything else around me just some sort of made-up imaginary scenario? am i merely a test subject in some weird experiment? are the people i consider friends actually evil beings who have charismatically soothed my suspicions, lulled me into a hypnotic trust, only to twist my mind and bend me to their will? am i being unknowingly used for evil purposes? is god testing me? are meds the work of the devil? am i being fooled? taken in by the lies, lured by the promises of artificial fixes rather than facing my demons and battling them head-on? am i cheating? will i die without finding the real solution, when it was right there waiting for me to stop taking my drugs and feel what's real? am i failing? am i missing the entire purpose of life?

i've been asking myself these questions all my life. however, i was not especially concerned or worried about them until around age 16. ever since then, there has been an inescapable deep and constant fear that lingers backstage in me, a half-hidden abyss within, waiting for my inevitable careless misstep.

i believe the catalyst for this terror comes from my experiences while living on the streets, ingesting massive quantities of LSD (eating multiple tabs of blotter at once, drinking entire vials of liquid, getting "puddled" by the guy who sold it, etc.), completely aimless and defenseless, adrift in a sea of chaos. i was with all the street kids, my boyfriend's name was "cosmo" and he looked out for me. i did not love him. i was alone. i was not afraid. i was searching. i felt such an incredible longing for something but i didn't know what. at 16 i chose that life, i left a perfectly good and loving family to seek out a world without bounds.

on one occasion, i saw aural glows around people; individuals who were negative had very dim glowing auras, while more positive, spiritual beings had brighter, more vibrant glows. i could also sense the existence of a singular incredibly shining aura but it was far away.
then there was the time that i heard people's words before they spoke them. i could actually speak in unison with whoever was talking.
on another occasion, i encountered the gates to heaven and hell. i got to choose which way to go. i wanted to go to heaven, but couldn't figure out how to get in. i tried to die. i sped up my heart rate until it was nearly one constant beat, just an intense vibration, but i still could not get in. i figured it was because i was meant to go to hell instead. so i tried that. but that didn't work either. finally it dawned on me that the only answer there ever was is to take the middle path. and that's what i did.
i dissolved all the barriers of time and space, dissolved the division between myself and the boundless. i became infinite, eternal. i connected the beginning and the end so that all was one.

eventually i came face to face with my own existence. the meaninglessness of my aimless life was revealed to me. all of a sudden i was accountable for my choices. it became painfully clear to me that i had selfishly disregarded the magnitude of the pain i inflicted on all those who loved me. i had resented their concern and rejected their love, spit hatred upon them when i walked out the door, while they helplessly watched me drift into the uncharted chaotisphere, stubbornly bound for destruction and pain.

the vastness of these experiences can never be undone. it merely gets reinterpreted with every moment, every up, every down. i am human, i must be bound. upon returning home to make amends, i once again became confined to my body, my life, my experience. everything i experience must pass through my filter of understanding. and now i know all too well that my filter is not a consistent one. it oscillates in extremes.
after having expanded my perception to such an extent, i had a hard time adjusting to the confinement of the practical world. i used to hear, read, interpret everything to be direct messages to me, if only i could decode them. as if god were trying to get through to me, but i was so far away and so muddled in my mind and soul that everything had become scrambled into hidden messages instead of clear transmissions.
i recently came across the phrase "delusions of reference."
i think i understand what that means.

but am i truly crazy? can i fight this disease? am i making it up to have justification for my irrational life? am i taking the easy way out, blaming my inner weakness on a diagnosis? should i be trying harder to heal this sick mind and heart of mine? will i ever be whole, healthy, real?