This friend of mine had a bad experience almost thirty years ago and he doesn't want anyone to know about it because he has about 15 more years before he retires. : ) It took him about four or five years for him to work through his problems but after that, he was able to find a vocation and has been working ever since and he has been at his last job for some twenty years now. The stigma of having such a problem as that is a little much but he wants to tell his story as he is no longer afraid of any kind of reoccurrence of the problems that he had even though a lot of memories of those hard times are coming back.



I would like to read his story.
Dave
Yeah, I don't have his notes with me right now but when he was about 22 years old, he was feeling stress from having dropped out of college (Bible school) and working away from family and friends. He got angry with his bosses and quit. One day it all seemed to culminate, the good and the bad seemed to be at war with each other in his mind and he was unable to sleep for three days straight. There were voices and he could see in writing what the voices were saying. He looked in the mirror and the figure in the mirror became very angry and suddenly began to arguing with him. He became engulfed in flames that would not go out. He began to see only tunnel vision because of the flames and so he put his head down so the blood would rush to his head but that did not do any good. Slowly the flames retreated but they were always present. This went on for days. He couldn't eat but his roommate insisted that he eat something so he ate some bites of food. After three days, he slept a very fitful sleep for like an hour or so. He thought the world was coming to an end and was afraid to go outside. Eventually he got the courage to go outside. Nothing happened so he kept walking hallucinating as he went. There were things like spiders in his mind and there was sort of a control panel that he was seeing. There were also several personalities that he would converse with. Leading up to this event, he had been doing various "signs and wonders" including various prophetic signs which had aggravated his immediate boss. The "miracles" continued but he was beginning to wonder whether it was such a good thing or not. At times, there were very loud noises like explosions. Eventually, his roommate consulted with some people at the church what they should do so they did what all "good people" do. They tricked him. First they asked him some questions and at the time, he was saying all kinds of irrational things. So they said that they were going to take him to somewhere nice. He was hurting for some affection so he gladly agreed but when they arrived at the "nice place" it was a hospital and they said that he had to go in to see the doctor. He was very angry but he complied. The doctor asked him some questions and looked into his dilating pupils as he told the doctor all kinds of crazy stories. The church people gave him an ultimatum after that, either be treated by the doctor or go home. My friend said that is not a choice (because going home was the only reasonable choice). It took something like five full years for him to recover completely from that experience and he did it all on his own. He didn't even know what it was until he found himself in England in the house of a friend some years later watching a documentary about szs and he could hardly believe what he was seeing and he recognized that is what had happened to him. By that time he had made considerable progress but he still kept it all a secret to this day.