I Figured Out Why My Mind Betrayed Me

What do you do when your mind is not your own and it’s pretending to be part of a horror movie? 

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In 2007, my mind crashed. Well, that’s what it felt like. I don’t know if it was a nervous breakdown, all I know that it was the first time this had happened to me, and it did not feel normal. I do not wish this experience on anyone. Explaining what happened to me in my words is not easy but here it goes.

It felt like my mind was a separate entity and it was controlling my thoughts. It thought whatever the mind wanted; I had no control. The bad part was that everything the mind was thinking was horrific.

I am sharing my story in hopes of helping someone out there who may be going through the same thing I experienced.

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Being scared and afraid from a young age I thought it was normal. Anxiety and depression had been an enormous part of my life over the years.

Except that ever since I was a kid, my parents always talked about a relative who was in a mental hospital back in the 60’s and was given shock treatment. So telling anyone exactly what my mind was going through  was out of the question.

My mind started showing me uncontrollable horror experiences, so vivid it felt like I was there, live. It’s like having a horror movie in your mind, and you’re the prey. Something like that. During this experience, you don’t know what to think. You’re very confused about why this is happening to you. But if I asked for help the first thing that came to mind was my relative who was in a mental hospital.

I did not ask for help because I was worried what other people would think. But that was stupid. If you feel something is not right, you need to ask for help. Don’t wing it like I did.

During this experience, the first thing that came to mind was, “I hope I don’t stay like this forever.” Since there was no sign of it stopping my next thought was, “I don’t want to live like this.” I knew if it din’t stop there was no way I could function. So of course suicide came to mind.

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I was so lucky that my mother was staying with me at the time. I’m very grateful for her presence and her love. She did not know what was happening to me, but she could see it in my eyes. That day my mother saved my life. The mother instincts are incredible, because the first thing she did was take her bible out and began to pray. I don’t want to get into religion, but that is what happened.

I needed that so bad it was like someone throwing a life jacket at me during the worst storm ever. Eventually, I felt better after the storm passed. But I did not want this to happen again so I began researching the mind and how it works. I’m no doctor, nor do I pretend to be one. But what I think happened to me is this:

The mind is exactly like a computer. Everything your eyes watch, your ears listen to, and your mouth says gets registered inside your subconscious mind. For example if you download five million of the same song from your favorite artist into your computer, what do think will happen? Your computer will crash because of lack of memory or too much of the same thing. Then you start receiving pop-up virus windows that are disguised as thoughts. Same thing happens to me.

When I was a kid, the only movies we watched were Friday the 13th, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street. I used to love watching those scary movies. Not knowingly everything was being recorded and stored in my subconscious mind. Here is a list of what I recorded during the years before my bad experience.

Being attacked by a child molester — luckily I punched him right in his face and escaped.
Being assaulted by my math teacher in front of the school faculty at the age of 13.
Watching all those horror movies, news, the night stalker, etc.
All the stress that comes with jobs, life and kids. Especially when my daughter had three brain surgeries when she was younger. (By the way, she is doing great today.)
Being arrested for hanging with the wrong crowd.

And much more.

My mind overloaded with negative information, and it crashed.

Once I made that connection, I started to download positive information to my mind. Here is the list of things I started doing which have helped me tremendously. I’m happy to say that I have never had that experience again

I started watching motivational videos.
I started meditating.
I started praying every morning and being grateful for another day of life.
I stopped watching the news. ( What’s positive about the news today?)
I started hanging out with positive people. ( You are the average of the five people you hang out with.)
I started exercising. (I was overweight at the time.)
I started eating healthy.
I started writing and helping others. ( Mostly journal writing.)
I began to volunteer and to make a difference in the world. ( Be the change you want to see in the world.)
I did not give up on life.

I’m going through an emotional roller-coaster writing this because I’ve come so far. I know the number of people I’ve helped and know that mental illness is more prevalent than you think. We need to get out of the stigma of mental disorder. I’m happy to say that I feel AWESOME. My mind is full of positive, healthy information. I did not give up on feeling better; I kept fighting, and I won.

If your mind is betraying you, or you are considering suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and #StopSuicide.

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