Psychosis

Vincent van Gogh’s 1890 painting

In 2018, My family thought I was crazy because I was destroying stuff. What led me to do that is I had a mental illness, psychosis; I was strapped to the moving hospital bed and was loaded into the ambulance. My eyes were closed the whole time. All I saw were beaming bright lights like the lights from heaven were shining on me. As the ambulance drove, I saw nothing but whiteness. It was a real vision.

For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.” – Matthew 25:14

Having psychosis in the past felt terrible; I was living in constant fear and paranoia; I saw many scary and beautiful images at different times. If it wasn’t for this mental illness, I wouldn’t have the ideas to paint my two paintings.

My relatives would tell me to forget about it and to not focus on it. I don’t dwell on the past, but I remember memorable memories of Jesus manifesting himself to me. This is something most people don’t understand. When God manifests himself to us, we need to remember who he is and his greatness; we should never forget that he cares about his sheep.

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” – John 10:27

Lastly, I want to thank the first buyer of my first ever acrylic painting. It means so much to me. I appreciate the support and that first payment was spend on buying more art materials. It was a huge encouragement; difficult to explain in words how grateful I feel. I’m so thankful she found me.

The nicest super kind lady with uplifting words.
I made sure my painting was packaged properly. She makes me so happy! Thank you, thank you!!

An Artist With Hallucinations And Visions

Images: Anders Beer Wilse; Edvard Munch/Wikimedia Commons

The first time I got started on my first painting, I felt scared and uncertain. I have never painted using acrylics on canvas. The only time I ever got to work on real art was when I was young in elementary school, high school and college. 

In 2017, God showed me a lot of beautiful visions. I saw Jehovah when my eyes were closed. He was in white and gold; the light surrounding him was shining on me. The visions I saw were so pretty, it was an unforgettable, wonderful, and meaningful sight. That truly led me to want to create art, but at that time, I never did.

Prophetic painting “Jehovah’s Calling” By Pam

My mental illness used to be severe. I would hear voices giving me instructions and telling/guiding me what to do. My mother would call the ambulance to pick me up and get me admitted into the hospital; I was hearing voices and I didn’t sleep. They were some hallucinations. Relatives tell me to ignore all of those visions; they didn’t understand that those visions inspire me to make works of art.

I don’t believe they were all hallucinations. I believe it was God manifesting himself to me and showing me a glimpse of his kingdom/heaven. 

Image By Yongsun Kim “REJOICE IN HIS LIGHT”

Many of the world’s most famous artists suffered from mental illness and hallucinations, so it wasn’t an entirely bad thing to have it. Now that the days of hallucinations are over, I have strange dreams instead.

“Vincent van Gogh likely struggled with a range of mental illness, including depression, bipolar disorder, and hallucinations.” –  Ali Berman

I don’t view hallucinations as necessarily a negative thing. If it wasn’t for the mental illness, I wouldn’t be creating prophetic artwork. Many years of hallucinations led me to have ideas for my future paintings. I can name having at least six images I’ll be creating in the future.

“Edvard Munch credited his mental illness for inspiring many of his creative works, including his most famous painting, ‘The Scream.'” –  Ali Berman

“My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder … my sufferings are part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art.” – Edvard Munch

“Illness, insanity and death were the black angels that kept watch over my cradle and accompanied me all my life.” – Edvard Munch

What are your thoughts about hallucinations being an inspiration?

Taking Action Mindset

Be inspired. Learn. Take action. My biggest inspiration and motivation came from watching Tila Tequila aka Tornado Thien on YouTube. She goes live multiple times a day talking about God, world events, and painting. She’s a YouTuber who inspired me so much, which led me to take action for the first time. That action was to create artwork.

How do we take action?

Watch YouTube videos of someone famous who is already successful. Learn about what they do and model after them. Recognize your talents and passions. Search “How To” videos for ideas and methods on anything and everything you want to do. Follow YouTubers who teaches about your focused subject. Apply the methods to your own life.

Practice and work on your passion daily. Look at examples and tutorials. Pay attention to small details. Try to memorize skillful techniques. These are my personal methods that actually works, that changes my mindset.

What are your methods for taking action?

I Painted My First Painting

“Jehovah’s Calling” acrylic painting by Pam

“Jehovah’s Calling” acrylic painting, 30x30cm, July 5, 2019.

One day I was sleeping in the daytime, my eyes were closed completely. I was very sick. I saw a vision of heaven, there was Jehovah sitting on his throne with others sitting next to him. He was calling out to me. He taught me that his righteous standards are high and I should always look above and know that his standards are high. This was in 2017.

Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. – Matthew 5:48

Do you like art? What do you enjoy creating?

Why I Didn’t Quit

I thought about giving up on blogging. My reasons were that I didn’t know if anyone was going to read it, but I have decided to resume anyway.

I thought, “How is my content valuable?” 

I thought about giving up on painting when my artwork didn’t come outright. I thought I made a mistake with the choice of colors, then I feel discouraged. But I thought of a way to solve the problem. Wait for the first acrylic layer to dry, then apply another layer. That was all I had to do.

“Take risks. If you succeed, you will be happy. If you fail, you will be wiser.” – Russell Brunson

I also thought about giving up on writing a book. Books are valuable knowledge and information you’re sharing with other people. I still think. “How can I write a piece of resourceful information?” I haven’t start and I was going to quit, but I decided to put in my list of things I want to accomplish. It might not happen today, tomorrow, next week, next month, but it’s a project and I’m going to name it “a hobby.”

“All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.” – Russell Brunson

Losing followers on Twitter discouraged me yesterday, but today I’m gaining some. My solution is to not give up and keep doing what you love.

“Take care of your dreams and they’ll end up taking care of you one day.” – Lewis Howes

Are you doing what you love for a living?

How Do We Get Inspired?

Michael the Arch Angel 8×10 triple set painting by Tila Tequila

My inspirations come from artists, authors, YouTubers and entrepreneurs. There are some days I hardly feel inspired. Creating content can be difficult when you’re faced with running out of ideas or you don’t think your content brings in traffic. But we should never stop to create.

“Consistency is harder when no one is clapping for you. You have to clap for yourself during those times. You should always be your biggest fan.” – Dean Graziosi

My latest inspiration comes from watching a YouTuber who speaks about her Christian faith and she also paints many paintings. She calls them prophetic and she never took painting classes, but she knows how to paint very well. She managed to get more than ten of her paintings sold on Etsy.com. This is an example of an inspiration.

What motivates you to keep doing what you’re doing? Let me know in the comments.

Writing At Night Is The Best Time

The best time of the day to write, for me, is mostly at night. Ideas come to my mind when night approaches. The nighttime is the best time to work on anything; it’s quiet and the weather is different from the morning; the wind is soft and cool. There are no external distractions. There is no noise from the car engines. No kids and adults shouting outside. I live in a neighborhood that sometimes gets noisy during the daytime when kids get off from school.

There are many benefits of working at nighttime. Well, I’m not actually really working. I mostly try to write every single day, but during the daytime is the hardest time to think, focus and jot down ideas. I’m also very sleepy during the daytime. I’m mostly a night owl. 

The best time for creative ideas is when you have nothing left to do because you’ve already done them in the morning and in the daytime. My daytime tasks consist of cleaning, watering plants and organizing. My nighttime is spent on the computer, not having to worry about daily routine tasks.

I don’t like to turn on my computer too early and wait for inspiration; it usually doesn’t happen. Inspiration comes to my mind when least expected. Ideas don’t happen in the morning.

Do you like to write at night? Feel free to leave some feedback.

What Is VampireFreaks.com?

Screenshot by Pam

VampireFreaks.com is a gothic-industrial subculture social networking website similar to Myspace and Facebook. But it seems to target punks, goths, and freaks. The site is created and founded by Jet in 1999. Programming / Design was done by Jet, also.

Signing up on the site allows you to create a profile, upload pictures, add friends, message people, write journal entries, comment on profiles, join groups called “cults”, add musicians, rate profiles, like images and participate in forums. Using the site is free and it also has a paid premium option that you can upgrade to for additional features. The site has been around for 20 years, but it was announced recently that it will be shut down on Feb 1, 2020.

Screenshot by Pam

VampireFreaks also has its own clothing store that will still be up after the site gets deleted. They also run a convention, Dark Side Of The Con. In the site’s about section, it was written, “With over 16 years of experience throwing events such as Cybertron and Triton Festival, they have booked high-profile bands from across the globe and are a top player in the underground scene.”

Here is the actual update from the website:

RIP VF Social Network [Featured Site Content]

I’ve been running VampireFreaks for 20 years now and it’s been a great experience.
So many ups and downs, and the website has brought so many people together. It’s been a lot of work, but hearing stories about people finding their spouses / loved ones on VF has always made it worthwhile.
VampireFreaks has always been a labor of love. Recently, running the VF social network just hasn’t been enjoyable for me anymore. 
I’ve always taken pride in being part of a community of weirdos and freaks that can relate to each other and be supportive of each other. To be honest, it’s just lost its magic to me. The internet isn’t the same place it was 15-20 years ago and I’m not the same person I was either. I’d like to have our website be remembered as being a great inclusive community. I just don’t want to live my life online anymore, I like having my privacy.

So I’ve decided to take down the VampireFreaks social network starting on February 1st 2020. This gives everyone over 6 months notice. If you have a premium member subscription, I recommend cancelling before this date, but we will be cancelling any subscriptions once the site is taken down. Effective immediately we are not allowing any new account creation.
VampireFreaks will still exist as the VampireFreaks Online Store and as an event promotions company and you can still follow us on social media. The VF online clothing store continues to flourish and you can always find us for your wardrobe needs. Our flagship event Dark Side of the Con has been doing amazingly well and growing by leaps and bounds every year. We have Steampunk Con this weekend which is a big 3-day steampunk convention in NJ. Our NYC club nights have been doing very well. I’m also a freelance website programmer and I’m always trying out new projects and I just have too many things going on. VF will continue to bring people together, but in real life at events such as Dark Side of the Con. I know this limits us to only people in certain areas, but it’s more fulfilling for us and we hope to expand to more areas. I’ve spent so much of my time online and I’ve realized that nothing compares to just spending quality time with your friends and loved ones, interacting with the real world.

To everyone who has supported VF over the past 20 years – Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’ve received countless messages over the years from members showing appreciation for the site. 
To the VF Admins and staff – Thanks for doing an amazing job, I couldn’t have done this without you.
I know a part of me will die with the closure of our social network. It will be a depressing time for me and it’s hard for me to even write this out. 20 years is a lifetime in internet years. We had a great run and I’ll always be proud of what VF was. I just don’t want to do the same thing for the rest of my life and I want to focus on what works for me. 
Much love.
-jet

Q & A written in the founder’s bio.

“Why did I create VF? It was something I just did for fun while I was in college, and I just kept working on it. It’s become a community of dark-minded individuals, a place where we can be ourselves without worrying about judgement, and also a place we can feel at home. VF has been around for a billion years just like me. One day the humans will catch on to my immortality but for now I will lurk among the normies.”

“Do you have to be a gothick to be on VF? nope but you do have to be a weirdo.”

What was the purpose of this site?

Meet like-minded people who share the same interest in fashion, music, movies and the gothic subculture. But in the present day, it has become a place for trolls. The site is no longer accepting new account creations.

VampireFreaks wasn’t the same as it used to be. I remember joining for the first time when I was 14 years old, which was a decade ago. The users were a different group of people. I would say they were more into the old school goth music. Now, the site became a completely different place. I get asked for my personal email and instant messaging username from people who don’t have a profile picture.

Why did I write this entry?

To bid farewell to the only unique Gothic social media that ever existed. After the deletion, there will be no more Gothic social media.

What are your opinions about a social media site targeting to a certain group of people?

How To Get Into Reading

To start reading a book, pick a time when you’re free from other tasks. Choose a comfortable chair and a quiet area to focus on your book. Set up a nice environment.

Pick up self-help books. Why self-help? Because they’re easy to understand and the ideas aren’t complicated. Self-help books are beneficial for gaining knowledge about bettering yourself and they’re easy to follow. The style of writing doesn’t require much thinking versus reading a novel or fiction books. 

In my opinion, novels and fiction books are harder to understand. For example, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children, the sentences and paragraphs were worded in a way that was difficult to understand. It requires a lot of thinking. The author used a lot of huge vocabularies. It isn’t a bad thing to read books like that but it could be overwhelming for someone who has just started.

Fictional books require a lot of energy and attention to detail. They require you to try to imagine or picture what was written. Self-help books don’t do that. I think non-fiction books would be a great start for someone who’s not into reading.

I’m not much of a reader, but I make it a habit to read a few pages each day. Reading blogs is also helpful because blogs are a quick read.

Do you agree with this entry? Let me know in the comments!

What Are Visions?

Jacob’s Dream by Vladimir Bibikov

Vision – An experience of seeing someone or something in a dream or trance, or as a supernatural apparition.

Visions are images, messages, dreams, and supernatural appearance, derived from God. What is having a vision like? From my experience, I developed a mental illness at the age of 23. I had many visions after violating my conscious. A flash of angry mob each holding a torch and going after me. Why did I have this vision? I did something wrong that goes against the Bible. I broke the ten commandments. Clearly, God was sending me a message. It was a warning, telling me to stop. To repent and stop sinning.

Afterward, I repented. God allowed me to experience a new mental illness I never had, psychosis. So, what does psychosis has anything to do with visions? Having psychosis allowed me to see and hear things. 

My psychosis story is long and it’s all related to having visions. To name some of the visions I had were seeing an angry mob, an 8 ft. spirit showed up in my darkened room, a path or stairway to heaven after being inside an ambulance, seeing a huge white cross next to my hospital bed, Jehovah’s calling while I was half asleep in bed, Jacob’s Ladder (seeing angels floating and disappearing on the stairs), hearing construction going on outside of the house (they were hammering nails onto the walls) making a maze around my house; it was an invisible maze, scary horror images that contains blood, etc.

“And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.” – Genesis 28:12

Jacob’s Ladder dream was biblical. Before having this dream, I never read or knew anything about Genesis 28:12. After having that dream, I searched on the internet wanting to know what that dream was all about. Then I found this Bible verse. So, I knew for sure it was a vision from God.

“Dreams and visions in the ancient Near East offered insights into everyday realities or provided opportunities to transcend them by connecting the earthly and otherworldly, the lived present and the unknown future.” – Susan Niditch, Prophetic Dreams and Visions in the Hebrew Bible

Do you believe in God? Do you believe that visions are real?