How to distinguish between Mental Health Issues and an Awakening?

I was recently asked this question.

After thinking for a second, I had replied “It is hard to answer”. At that instant, I could only think of my own awakening journey years back and how lost I had felt going through emotional intensity never experienced before.

I let the question sink in and marinate in my subconscious for a day. Then the answer came just before I was about to fall asleep – I remembered what was different.

But before I delve into that realisation, an important question needs to be answered:

What exactly is an Awakening?

I for one, do not subscribe to many of the complex, over-the-top spiritual explanations which fall short of satisfactorily explaining in simple terms, any deep psychological changes.

The way I understand it is this:

An awakening is an expansion of the mental state of an individual which leads them to follow a path to learn deeper truths about life. Through that journey, they embark on the process of becoming a more compassionate, empathetic human being.

I do not subscribe to any particular religious ideal, but accept the presence of an energy field within which all life exists. To me, an awakening is an act of grace due to a shift within that energy field.

A very, very small minority of the population is fortunate enough to experience this act of grace that is an awakening. For some, including me, most people wrongly “diagnosed” it as a mid-life crisis – long before I even reached mid-life! This process however, has no specific age boundary to set in – I have noticed this happening more and more with a lot younger people. I have met some brilliant, intelligent young people in a situation where they have become disenchanted by what they are told to believe and come out of their sheltered existence seeking a deeper meaning. But very often, most of their relatives, friends and peers who are blissfully unaware of the depth of their internal upheavals, label it as a mental health issue and ask them to seek medical support. As such, they feel confused, lost and unsupported.

Imagine how the situation would be if a son or daughter from a farmer’s family decided to become a scientist one day because of an inner drive to know the truth of how things work! Of course everyone around them would try to dissuade them based on what they know (which is farming!) and try to brush their inner drive off as madness.

An awakening is also a search for the truth – the truth within.

While there may be similarities between some mental health issues and an awakening, there are distinct differences. During an awakening, there is an indomitable wanting to know the truth – even at the expense of all the comforts of the conditioning that we had been subjected to since childhood. There is a definite conviction about there being more to explore in life than what one has been made to believe throughout.

This push often results in the shunning of many of the things that we subconsciously held on to create an identity to belong to a socio-cultural communal setting – dogmas, blind beliefs, rituals and even religion. This can also lead to a rebellious attitude towards parents, elders and people in authority as the individual tries to etch a new identity of their own choosing. However, this intense breakaway from the long-held identity and all that is familiar has its consequential side effects.

When mental structures which had been defining an individual for so long are disconnected in an instant, the psychological space that those structures occupied experiences a void. Until wisdom fills up that emptiness, there is a high probability of experiencing an identity crisis.

Added to that, the shunning of long held constructs may cause rifts in relationships with family and friends who may not be accommodating of such a radical, liberal outlook. This can, in effect, put further stress on an individual already going through intense inner upheavals.

The combined result of feeling a lack of identity, seclusion and marginalisation from known circles can cause a sense of hollowness and trigger a deep questioning of whether this process is indeed a mental health crisis! But from my personal experience and that of the others who have shared their journey with me, I can say that it is far from it!

An awakening is a deepening of the connection with oneself. It is a voyage in which an exploration of the deepest, innermost sanctum of the mind is set in motion. The journey to the deeper depths can only begin when one eschews the safety of the shallow depths.

Truth seeking is not easy, neither does it have any set timescales. And did I say it is not easy? Let me remind that yet again! My favourite quote on the journey of a seeker is by the renowned 16th century French philosopher and polymath, René Descartes:

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”

René Descartes

Nearly a decade ago when I was going through my own upheaval, I personally did not know anyone who could explain what I was going through. Having been through intense depression a few years before then, I knew it was not depression and there was no associated anxiety or panic. It was overwhelm to the senses exacerbated by a lack of understanding of what was happening in my inner world. Then as if by providence, I kept on coming across books and resources which helped me understand the process I was going through. Randomly, people would just appear who pointed me in the direction I had to go. That led me to find my path of inner exploration. It was challenging to say the least! At times I wished it was easier. But the experience of going down into the deeper emotional rabbit hole has made me more humble and accepting of myself and others.

If I were to be asked for any word of advice by someone going through the experience themselves, I would just quote from the movie “The Matrix”:

“Buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, ’cause Kansas is going bye-bye!”

Cypher to Neo after he took the red pill ~ The Matrix (1999)