I ask you to remember a few things when reading this. First, this is intensely personal to me. These are things I have a hard time speaking of with my wife, due to the extremely serious, emotional, solemn, and sometimes incredulous tones of the writing. This is all subjective experience, but I feel it is important for people to know my testimony. This is the defining moment of my life - I view my entire life worldview as pre-October 2010 and post-January 2011.
May the Lord bless us all, and God bless you for reading. Be easy, for I am not a good author by any stretch of the imagination, so bear with me.
Without further a due...
I AM
On or about October the 15th, 2010; I was staying in a psychiatric unit for yet another combined Drug Detox / Suicide watch stay. This was a unit in Nashua, located downtown, Keystone hall, there were many drug addicts in the city at the time, and they had a detox unit that was constantly full. After about 5 days of detoxing and increasing problems with the staff, I ended up leaving the psychiatric unit early, against medical advice, to go and abuse drugs and be with a female whom I met in the Unit. I ended up leaving and walked to the bus stop a mile down the road, and ended up meeting up with her because she had given me her number on the unit. I went to her house, and used drugs and alcohol with her. After spending the day with her becoming intoxicated, we retired to her quarters – a basement with a mattress and a bathroom about 20 feet away off to the side. Within a few minutes of retiring, we decided to get intimate.
After a period of time, I got up to go to the bathroom and relieve myself. I was on opiates so urinary retention is a somewhat common side effect. I couldn’t urinate and I shrugged it off to being on the opiates and didn’t think much. But this went on over the next few hours, I would try to urinate, but couldn’t, and I started panicking. And finally, after the beer from earlier and finishing sexual intercourse, I had to pee badly enough and could not that I began suspecting a problem. I became extremely panic stricken and I was starting to sober up, and I had always told myself I would NEVER EVER have a catheter in me, and told her we had to go to the ER and walked to St Joseph in Nashua NH at about 3am. Interestingly St Joseph is the first Catholic Parish I ever seriously got involved with and where I attended RCIA, where I was confirmed, and where my wife Sarah and I had our vows of Holy Matrimony. So to me, this is just another of many small sign of Gods Providence. Back to the story, I ended up in the ER, and was admitted in pretty quick, I must have looked pretty distressed, plus I was urgently telling them I felt my bladder was going to burst.
The doctors promptly proceeded to give me a once over, strip me and get me in a jonnie gown. This is when the real torture started, the trauma of this procedure along with my mind being clouded by drugs and alcohol combined with an unfamiliar situation and being tired after being up all night, I remember things after this point in a fuzzy way, but I remember certain things very certainly, vividly. Up to this point, my memory and cognizance had been nearly perfect, if slightly inhibited from the various substances I had ingested. The ER staff tried a regular urethral catheter directly into the penis, much to my dismay. I was screaming and crying and they had about 6 nurses holding me down while I screamed at the top of my lungs. The pain of something being stuck in my penis was worse than I ever imagined, it was truly traumatic. The catheter was not going in; there was something in my urethra clogging the way, so they had to do something much more painful and disgusting. They told me the urethra wasn’t working, so they were going to insert a ‘suprapubic’ catheter. It even sounds scary. They gave me a small amount of local anesthesia, cut a hole above my bladder, and inserted a catheter directly into it. Without too much disgusting detail, when they did this, I literally “popped” and urine went flying everywhere. However, I was very relieved. Thanks be to God. At one point the doctor said "I’m surprised you’ve been able to urinate at all for a while!” I wasn’t because I had been having no problem peeing at all. This was a completely sudden and random occurrence, so I have no idea when or how the blockage got in there. There were so many irregularities and odd things that happened and I can look back and see how God orchestrated everything, even though at the time I was 22 years old, agnostic at best, mostly atheist, and living as if I saw nothing of Gods Providence in the world, and in my life. The Doctors gave me an IV of a sedative called Versed, and then a general anesthetic and put me under for surgery – I was given emergency surgery because they had to remove the massive blockage or I’d be in big trouble, and the sedative combined with the anesthetic along with the remnants of the substances in my body was very hard on my body. I don’t remember, but apparently I almost didn’t make it through the surgery - I had somewhat of an adverse reaction to the anesthesia. This is when I have bits and pieces of a memory of an NDE, seeing bright lights, but this could just be my imagination so I’m not including it as anything other than a footnote. My witness is meant to be a testimony to Truth.
I woke up from surgery and it was evening... I know anesthesia and drugs can
wear your mental state, but I’ve experimented with hallucinogens of all kinds
and I can distinguish between Salvia, Mushrooms, DXM, Ketamine, Marijuana and
Ecstasy vs GOD. Entheogens cannot
produce the same things the Mighty Theos can produce. Entheogens can open channels in your mind
which allow you to perceive things that exist around us. I am not writing a book on psychedelics or
pharmaceuticals, so no more talk of entheogens, hallucinogens, or any
pharmacological substances aside from what is pertinent to my testimony.
The most astounding event that I recalled, and I
believe this happened around 8pm the night of the surgery, the surgery I believe having taken place around 5am. On this first night after my recovery, I was laying in my
hospital bed, thinking of how I’ve got catheters in my pubic region, catheter in my urethra, my wrists, IV’s and all kinds of monitors, and thinking about the
events which brought me here. I was
bored watching television, just trying to relax in a tense environment. As I stated it was around 8 pm, maybe 9 by now, and I decided I’d try something
I didn’t believe in. I prayed. I prayed a very simple prayer. “God, I don’t know if you’re there or not,
but I need you and please just show me whether you are real or not.”
Nothing happened.
I knew God was not real. I
continued watching my television, and being disappointed, wishing I knew what
to do to change the circumstances and paths my life had taken thus far. All of a sudden, ‘like a mighty wind rushing
in’, and looking back this is where I believe an Angel of God / the Spirit of
God entered the room, because the air got thick, I felt a presence, and the
television screen, which worked normally all night, was malfunctioning in
bizarre ways, the color was changing randomly, and it seemed it was having
interference. I asked a nurse who was
checking up on me if they could see the television acting strange, and they
said they saw nothing and that it was normal, she looked at me kind of funny
because I must’ve seemed odd, she probably just thought I was loopy from meds
or something. However, I was not
loopy. At this point, I was the most
lucid and clear minded as I’d been in a while.
While the television looked normal to them, but to me it was not normal,
the voices were changing from slow to fast, the picture was changing colors,
and the television was acting bizarre, along with feeling a bizarre heavy
feeling ‘presence’ in the room with me.
There was a commercial on, for what, I do not know. This infomercial stuck out to me because the television stopped acting bizarre, and it was a clear picture. Something inside of me said “call the number”. I got an idea when I saw the hospital phone next to me. I figured, call this number. I have no idea what I was trying to achieve, or why I did it, but this is what happened next, to the best of my recollection. The number rang a few times, and I got through to an automated voice, you know, the pleasant automated lady voice that every bank and infomercial and call center on earth seem to use. It was normal at first, and I was just answering the random questions, (press one for English, press one or two for this or that, etc.)
There was a commercial on, for what, I do not know. This infomercial stuck out to me because the television stopped acting bizarre, and it was a clear picture. Something inside of me said “call the number”. I got an idea when I saw the hospital phone next to me. I figured, call this number. I have no idea what I was trying to achieve, or why I did it, but this is what happened next, to the best of my recollection. The number rang a few times, and I got through to an automated voice, you know, the pleasant automated lady voice that every bank and infomercial and call center on earth seem to use. It was normal at first, and I was just answering the random questions, (press one for English, press one or two for this or that, etc.)
After a minute or two of normalcy, normalcy became
far from normal. My Reality and Truth
which I know today was changed I believe in the moments that followed. This remains the most astounding, profound,
sublime, incredible, ineffable thing I have ever experienced or seen - this is my personal "road to Damascus". And I’ve not been sheltered; I’ve seen some
stuff in my life. This blew them all out
of the water, times one hundred.
This is where my story gets truly bizarre. I know I sound crazy and this story sounds
crazy, the doctors thought I was crazy and family thinks I was crazy. My wife thought I was crazy when I first told
her (I met her about two years post-experience), and I still sometimes think
maybe the doctors and everybody was right, I’m just nuts. But I experienced this. I know what happened. I remember the feeling I had. I had never been psychotic or suffered
schizophrenic or psychotic symptoms before, EVER. I
believe now this was no psychosis, this was beyond what man, in our finite
understanding of the world around us, can explain.
What happened
was after I had pressed a button, the automated voice continued talking, but
the subject had changed. The voice said,
“Do you believe in God” press 1 for yes, 2 for no. I couldn’t believe what was happening. I thought I may have misheard what the voice
said, and my hands began to shake. What
in the world is going on? I thought I
was crazy so I pressed 2, No I do not believe in a God! (remaining defiant to
the Deity even when He’s on the phone with you, now THAT’s rebellion! – just think,
Lucifer dwelled with God in paradise and rebelled, so why would a sinful man be
any different?) The voice repeated, the
question, “Do you believe in God? Press
1 for yes, 2 for no. This time I pressed
1, because I had no idea what was going on.
I was positive I was going crazy and I was going to call the nurse in
but I felt compelled to continue. Again
the voice asked the same question, but this time the tone became different from
the regular automated voice, the voice spoke with authority and as if it had a purpose.
The voice changed from the regular automated lady, to a stern, serious,
monotone, gender-neutral otherworldly sounding voice... This time also another difference,
the voice now used my name, “Jason, do you believe in God?” Now things were getting scary, I was
sweating, I was shaking, I was feeling like I was losing my mind, and I had no
idea if I was crazy or if God had in fact answered my prayer in a wild, totally
bizarre and unique way. We are talking
about the God who spoke to a Prophet through a Donkey, we are talking of the
God who spoke to St. Paul the Apostle in a blinding light on the Road to
Damascus, we are talking of the God who spoke an entire Universe into
existence, we are talking of the God who spoke from the sky, booming with a
voice like thunder, we are talking about the God who spoke to people for 33
years in the flesh on earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Why would this Omnipotent, Omniscient,
Omnilingual, Immanent, Transcendent, Unique and Ubiquitous God not speak to His
creation in whatever way He very well pleases?
When the voice now said, “Jason, do you believe in God? Press 1 for yes, 2 for no. I couldn’t believe
what was happening, I was shaking and I wanted to hang-up, but I couldn’t, I
started to believe I may actually be speaking to GOD, on the TELEPHONE no less! Finally I pressed 1, yes, I believe in God. The voice went silent, and I’d think to
myself, I’m going absolutely crazy, what in the world am I doing? Hang up the phone. When I’d think this, the voice would come
back, and repeat, in ever more solemn tones, “Jason! Do you believe in God? Press 1 for yes, 2 for no.” I pressed one, and the voice stopped – as long
as I didn’t doubt. As SOON as I started
thinking “I’m crazy, this isn’t happening Gods not real – anything of the sort,
the voice would return, and repeat the same question, in a more solemn and
profound tone. Again, when I started having
doubts, the voice would continue in a more solemn, more urgent voice, “Jason!
do you believe in God? Press 1 for yes, 2 for no", and this went on for at
least 10 minutes. After I had pressed
one, and kept saying in my mind over and over again I BELIEVE IN GOD, because
if I started doubting, the voice would come over repeat His question, and He
was sounding angrier each time, like, “Jason, I’m God and I’m on the phone with
you, why are you doubting?”, it’s like Peter, seeing Jesus walking on water,
and doubting, and Jesus saying Peter, stop doubting for goodness sakes! This happened for a while, over and over and
over, until I believed in my heart and mind, and then when I was repeating in
my mind over and over I believe, I believe, I believe, the voice stopped. I couldn’t stop repeating in my head “I believe
in God, I believe in God, I believe in God” because at this point I was
scared. I was scared because I realized
that the OMNIPOTENT GOD TRULY EXISTS! It
was an absolutely TERRIFYING realization.
I think I drove myself crazy by saying I believe in God over and over so
much, and the religious ecstasy that this experience brought on contributed to
it, along with the spiritual warfare happening in the background. I now was a believer. I now believed in God. I hung up the phone.
I could not believe what had just happened. God exists.
We are not alone on Earth. God
actually truly exists. When the
Scriptures say “God spoke in various ways in times past to prophets, and speaks
to us today by His Son” they don’t lie.
None of the Bible is a lie. God
is no lie and Jesus is His Truth, anyone who says otherwise is absolutely
foolish, because I was ignorant before this point and knew not God through the
Scriptures. Since reading the Scriptures
since my experience though, it has become blatantly obvious Jesus Christ is the
Truth, and the Church has been teaching the Truth for over 2,000 years, but
people don’t want Truth, they want darkness, not Light. God can speak to us in a thousand ways. He can speak to us on the phone. He can speak to us through people. He can speak to us through situations in our
lives. He can speak to us in an audible
voice. He can speak to us through the
voice in our conscience, the Holy Spirit saying “I really shouldn’t drink, or I
really shouldn’t be angry” but since God gives us free will to choose, we can
choose to ignore His Good inspiration, and give in to our own will or the will
of the devils. He can speak in dreams,
He can speak in visions. He can speak to
you right now through this writing. God
is the LIVING GOD. His Word is
alive. Jesus Christ speaks to you every
time you hear the Gospel. We must learn
and understand this.
The next week was spent recovering in the hospital, and I thought constantly what happened to me, trying to make sense of it. I could sense the immortal Mighty Spirit of God dwelling in everybody around me, driving them. I never sensed people as being anything but biochemical highly evolved chimps. Now I felt they were imbued with an eternal spirit given by God and were each unique people made in the Image of God. And don’t take my comment to try and trump me up as a young earth creationist or any fringe Christian group I believe in the Big Bang (which a Catholic Priest formulated, by the way), I believe the Universe is about 13.8 billion years old, I believe the Earth is around 4.54 billion years old, I believe life exploded on earth during the “Cambrian explosion” and that about 2 million years ago hominids appeared in the fossil record. I also believe God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (the Paradise of Pleasure, in the Greek and Latin). Scripture does not teach science, science does not teach Scripture. Scripture and science should never contradict, they should only compliment. If they contradict, our finite and limited understanding is misunderstanding either God or His creation. I just wanted to clear that little fact up.
I felt as though God
was speaking to me through various people in the hospital. I ended up talking to the hospital chaplain
and telling him I talked to God – he was not the type of man who believes that
God can speak to people, he is a one of the new liberal types, the types who
believe that Moses didn’t write the Pentateuch, that Matthew and Mark didn’t
write their Gospels, or that Jesus doesn’t truly become present in the bread
and wine at consecration. Liberalism and
modernism are dangerous, and some of the biggest dangers our Church faces
today. Anyway, he told the doctors I was
making up stories and possibly hearing voices.
Against my will, because I felt perfectly sound of mind and normal -
They pumped me full of anti-psychotic drugs and I had yet another bad reaction,
and ended up in a full blown psychosis, at one point proclaiming that I,
myself, was Jesus Christ. I believe these drugs they pumped me full of, allowed
the spirits that were obviously surrounding me, a door to enter into my body,
and because of this, they made the doctors believe what they’ve made the world
believe – spirits don’t exist, demons, angels, don’t exist, heaven, hell,
purgatory are figments of the human imagination, and God is a byproduct of
human evolution which gave us hope for our loved ones and ourselves upon
death. Several hours (maybe days) were
spent handcuffed to a hospital bed, being pumped full of anti-psychotic drugs
and god knows what else, and fighting hospital staff because I was being
treated as a threat and given so many drugs which had significant negative
effects on my mind, body and soul.. The next week was spent recovering in the hospital, and I thought constantly what happened to me, trying to make sense of it. I could sense the immortal Mighty Spirit of God dwelling in everybody around me, driving them. I never sensed people as being anything but biochemical highly evolved chimps. Now I felt they were imbued with an eternal spirit given by God and were each unique people made in the Image of God. And don’t take my comment to try and trump me up as a young earth creationist or any fringe Christian group I believe in the Big Bang (which a Catholic Priest formulated, by the way), I believe the Universe is about 13.8 billion years old, I believe the Earth is around 4.54 billion years old, I believe life exploded on earth during the “Cambrian explosion” and that about 2 million years ago hominids appeared in the fossil record. I also believe God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (the Paradise of Pleasure, in the Greek and Latin). Scripture does not teach science, science does not teach Scripture. Scripture and science should never contradict, they should only compliment. If they contradict, our finite and limited understanding is misunderstanding either God or His creation. I just wanted to clear that little fact up.
Eventually, from what was told to me, the Hospital I was at had given up on me and having to handcuff me to the bed every day to keep me from beating the daylights outta hospital staff (reminiscent of the demoniac and the seven sons of sceva, I believe I was being heavily oppressed by demonic spirits). I believe there was literally a battle between angels and demons going on in that hospital room for my soul. They would influence people and things around me in ways that leave me 100% convinced me that spirits control the world, and since God is the Lord of the Heavenly Armies, it really is the Lord Almighty who runs all things. The police were brought in and I was handcuffed plus leg shackled and led to a police Van where I was transported from St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua to the New Hampshire State Hospital in Concord about the first week of November, 2010). When I got there, my psychosis had convinced me the hospital staff were all possessed by demons and I spent the next 4 hours literally in a padded room, at random times having 8 or 10 psychiatric nurses and mental health workers have to come in and tackle me (I’m 6' tall and 220 pounds, and strong, and when in a fully psychotic state believing I was being attacked by demons, possibly literally being attacked by demons - you can imagine what they head to put up with, I actually punched a couple of them – which led to “in-house” charges being brought before a magistrate, but nothing came of it because I was so obviously besides myself but they didn’t press charges), and shoot me up with psychotropic drugs.
I finally calmed down halfway and one of the MHW's (mental health workers) convinced me he was just a person and not a demon or any supernatural being. I was let out of the padded room and given a regular room. I spent the night in a clouded, foggy haze, trying to put all the pieces together of what had happened to me over the past few weeks, and what was legitimate mental health problems and psychosis, along with what could have caused it, and also what spiritual things happened. (And now, years later, with much learning and wisdom granted me by God, I believe I spoke to the Angel of the LORD on the phone, I believe it was the same Angel of the LORD that spoke in the Old Testament and still speaks on occasion today. And I believe I had an NDE type experience, but the memory of that is almost completely faded, and only God knows if I will ever know more of it in this life, or will not know the truth of it all until I pass into the Heavenly Realm.
The next morning I woke up a shivering mess - I had a clear head and could hear people talking to me, but I was basically a vegetable - I drooled on myself, I shook from head to toe with intense tremors, I felt physically worse than I ever felt in my life, I could barely talk more than a couple words (ok, yes, no, love you - to my mom). This reminded me of the Gospels, when deaf and dumb spirits enter people, or “come upon them”, and before Jesus would cast them out, they would throw the afflicted person to the ground, and they would seize and gnash their teeth and hunch over into twisted positions. The naturalistic, secular, probably agnostic-atheist-apatheist doctors with all their PhD’s and degrees and wisdom of this world, could not figure out what was wrong with me. They tried various drugs and the drugs had no effect. Nothing they gave me made anything worse or better at all. I believe this was because a demonic agent was locked onto me and causing these ailments in my body. The Doctors suspected brain damage, concluded I may never return to my normal self and be left permanently a ‘vegetable’, and if I didn’t take anti-psychotic drugs such as Risperdal or olanzapine (Zyprexa) the rest of my life, I would surely go psychotic and have delusions and hallucinations. 6 weeks later I stopped taking all antipsychotic medicines, and I recovered fully and was fully back to normal by New Year’s 2011.
I stayed in the NHH for 2 weeks until I was declared sane enough to be released to a drug rehabs psychiatric unit in Brattleboro VT. I went there, and I refused to take the Risperdal (the anti-psychotic they had prescribed) anymore, because I knew I was not psychotic anymore and I was not in need of anti-psychotic drugs. Within 3 days of stopping the Risperdal, and starting a new medication called Zyprexa, I "miraculously" recovered and was once again completely normal - sane, lucid, not shaking or drooling, not brain damaged or brain dead, like the doctors had told my parents and scared them to death with, twice. The Zyprexa I believe did nothing for me, because I stopped taking it after 1 week on it, against doctors’ advice, they said I’d have delusions and hallucinations because I’m psychotic and need antipsychotics to not hallucinate or think delusional. Well it’s too bad religion isn’t in the DSM-V (at least not yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if the DSM-VI lists traditional religious beliefs – beliefs in angels, demons, heaven, hell, purgatory, God, Satan, the supernatural, miracles, Jesus, the Virgin Mary – will be classified as delusions – I believe this is going to happen because our society is systematically removing any and all references to religion and God and replacing it with “religious pluralism” and “religious tolerance”, saying “all religions are true” even though that’s an illogical statement because most religions, especially the big three Abrahamic religions, seriously contradict each other. Only one religion is absolutely, 100% true about God. That religion is Catholicism, the teachings of the 2,000 year old, 1 and ½ billion member strong religion that has ruled history and shaped modern history, the arts, literature, everything, is True Religion, and the reason why is because it is based on the True God, Jesus Christ, and the True Sacrifice He made, and the True Priesthood established by Aaron and continued down through to the Pharisees who trained the early Church in its theology and ecclesiology and the Apostles and Fathers inherited the teachings from Jesus and the Apostles and have faithfully passed them down to us today.
I ended up going to a 30 day in patient rehab program, and the entire time I was there I was encountering people talking to me through the Holy Spirit, I had several times where I would be praying to see Gods presence (I was a brand new Christian, and recovering from a lifetime of Atheism, remember this) and I would open my eyes, and see a homeless man standing there, close my eyes, open them again and he'd be gone. Everywhere I looked, I saw signs from God and I was constantly reminded that everything is determined and everything unfolds according to Gods Will - Not Mans as I had so believed my entire life. I prayed for God to keep reminding me of his presence and not let me grow from him. I did not comprehend Christianity fully and did not understand how Sin separates us from God and makes our hearts grow hard.
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