Mother Mary Helps with My Schizoaffective Disorder

 

Mother Mary is a very profound figure for me spiritually and mentally. “Look at Mother Mary” is even written down on my Safety Plan for when I’m feeling like hurting myself.

I was raised Catholic. But, for a while, I worshipped the Goddess. Then I felt that the Goddess wanted me to worship Her as Mother Mary, so I came back to the church. I really feel that Mary is the Christian incarnation of the Goddess figure of so many cultures.

Mary helps me with my mental illness because She fills me with peace. “Gentle woman, quiet light,” as one of the hymns to Her goes. Mary isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. When I worshipped the Goddess, at first I thought I wanted to be a fierce warrior manifestation of the divine feminine. But that turned out to be a poor role model for my mental health.

I don’t mean to dump on the sacred feminine and ritual magic. It really works for a lot of people, but, honestly, for me personally, it made my schizoaffective symptoms worse. Especially in that I started relying on a lot of magical thinking. Magical thinking is when you think an action completely unrelated to something else will cause that “something else” to happen. For example, you might wear a certain ring because you believe that ring will prevent rain. Using lucky charms is a form of magical thinking. Now, I know Catholicism can do the same thing for a lot of people. I used to wear my Immaculate Mary Medal for protection. Now I simply wear it because I love Mary. I don’t know why Catholicism works for me and goddess worship didn’t. Maybe it’s because I was a Solitary Shaman and I let everything get into my head too much. Maybe I should have sought out a group. But it’s more likely that Catholicism is just a better fit for me.

Mary is helping me a lot with accepting that Donald Trump is going to be President again. My sister even told me to “lean in to” Mother Mary. I’ve been wearing my Immaculate Mary Medal every day since he got elected, and I’ve been texting my family pictures of Mary.

Looking back on it, it seems silly, but in 2016 I said a rosary every day so that Trump wouldn’t get elected. Talk about magical thinking! It didn’t work but it brought me peace.

I have been feeling a lot healthier since I cut out the magical thinking. I think being in the Intensive Outpatient Program(IOP) helped with that. I am not a shaman, and I am not a psychic. I simply happen to be religious, and I love Mother Mary.