Awaking in the Florida Keys

by Tony
(Pennsylvania)

I was on an annual bike trip through the Keys and half way there I got into an accident with one of my buddies who fell in front of me. I went air-born head over heels and then something miraculous happened. Rather than falling hard to the ground I landed in the middle of the street and it felt like I was placed back on the ground. I did not have a scratch on me nor was I sore or hurt in any way.

When I came back home I wanted to share this experience with my family but there was no way to adequately express what had happened to me. I was of the mind-set that from this point forward I was speaking the truth about what I felt and no longer pulling punches. This scared friends and family. I did not care because I knew what I was saying was the truth. I found out that people are not ready to face the truth.

I was hospitalized and medicated and told that I needed help for this mental illness. To this day I believe that I needed help and understanding but not a medical assessment of insane/bipolar II.

Ben's Response

Help, support, empathy and understanding are unfortunately often missing, or sorely inadequate in our system of care in this country. In contrast, the mental health system in Finland is perhaps the only industrialized society in the world where there is a community-based, recovery model of healing and care for "mental illnesses." Something like 2/3 of those who enter that system recover and return to fully functional citizens, with jobs and independent lives - without medication. We should all be looking to that as a model to follow when it comes to handling extreme states, altered consciousness, and emotional or spiritual crises.

Glad you landed so gently on the ground, and lived to tell the tale.