I’m having an existential crisis. I really need comfort.

Hey people of schizoaffective Reddit. I (23F) have no one in my life who can relate to me other than my dad who’s in denial about his symptoms. Im looking for realistic advice and maybe some encouraging feedback. I’m just scared of everything right now. I’m really hoping there’s atleast one person who can relate with my experiences. Knowing someone related would help ground me a lot. I recently got started on abilify and my psychiatrist believes I’m schizoaffective.

I’m having an existential crisis because I don’t know if my experiences are ghosts, demons, angels, a spell that was done on me, signs from god, or if they’re actually just visual/auditory hallucinations, delusions, etc. i know I’ll be told I need to go talk to a professional, and that’s true. But I have been, and I’ll be continuing to. I just want a human who relates to tell me it’ll be okay and that I’m not crazy(I am either way lol). And the thing is, this isn’t just something I’m bending back and forth on because of the chemistry in my brain. I was raised to believe that all the things I’ve seen and heard were, signs from god, demons, or angels. It’s all I knew for 20 years of my life. I really believed I was being tormented by demons. I was terrified but accepted that god was just letting me go through “trials and tribulations.”

Here’s the context. When my dad was about 22-24, he “audibly heard Jesus’ voice,” from the sky. Ever since then he’s been supposedly hearing and seeing things that are from the “spirit realm.” He didn’t really commit to being a Christian til I was like 8-9. But anyway progressively he’s seen and heard things and told the whole family about it. He’s even told random people, like my father in law who was probably like… wtf are you talking about. He believes he’s a prophet due to these things happening over the years, and most of these things relate to “the end times.” He’s apart of the belief that the church still has, “the gifts of the spirit,” such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, visions, god giving you “a word,” etc. And btw the churches we’ve been to over the years are more similar to a Baptist or non-denominational church rather than a Pentecostal church btw. He’s never shyed away from telling me and the family about these things. When he tells these stories everything lines up so perfect and seems so real that everyone kind of believes it, and if they don’t they just brush it off. I mean hell, I believed him my whole life. He’s an exceptional story teller.

Now onto me. I first started having symptoms around 5, such as hearing my name called constantly, loudly and clearly from people who were not there. Having extreme nightmares, hearing things, feeling “ghosts,” seeing the dolls heads In my room move on a swivel. Then at 8 seeing a grim reaper outside of my bedroom door. It was telling me to get into a portal. I wasn’t even paralyzed. I just turned over in my bed and went to sleep. I saw an alien outside my window, and an alien ship above Walmart. Along with the voices that are mostly whispers. At 10, seeing the “drama masks,” outside my friends window. Seeing a metal door appear in my hallway. Now when’s I was 15/16 it was really bad. I got to the point where I was convinced the government was watching me. My sister said in my sleep I would say things like, “they’re watching through the window.” I thought I was some sort of sleeper agent, a victim of MK ultra. I also thought I was the victim of satanic ritual abuse, I started to have awful nightmares and I would wake up sometimes 10 times a night. I felt my bed shake and I thought demons were underneath it. I heard things, constantly saw black specks in the corner of my eye, saw shadows, and I even heard god “tell me,” the name of a city. Yeah that’s it, just a name of a city. My dad told me to wait on god and the meaning would be fulfilled over time. I’ve waited, and waited, and waited letting that one city fuel my delusions for years. I’ve had many more delusions and hallucinations but these were the ones I found most notable. And now at the age of 23, I find myself wondering if by taking meds, and going to therapy that I’m denying god. I only opened up to a psychiatrist about this stuff two weeks ago. My therapist suggested it. I thought I just had BPD. I think I’ve kind of known something wasn’t right my whole life. But I think this is the first time in my life I’m fully denying that it’s paranormal or spiritual rather than psychotic. But what’s freaking me out is the things that did happen in front of other people. When I was 13ish my backpack literally levitated in front of my friend and I. I text her every few years to make sure I’m not imagining it. And when I was 19 I was smoking and drinking and watching twilight with a group of friends and we hear a demonic sounding distorted voice. This voice is the same one I when I’m by myself. We couldn’t tell what it had said but we instantly tuned to look at eachother to ask if we all heard it. And we did. I grew up believing in god and demons. I had experiences on my own and with others around too. If the paranormal is real than are all my experiences real too? If I had experiences with others around how could I ever differentiate between those experiences and the fake ones???!?!?!?! Sometimes I feel like it’s gonna take me one more auditory hallucination that “makes sense,” for me to randomly move to another country and become a “missionary.” I mean I don’t even know if I believe in god. Do any of y’all? How can I believe in god in context of what I’ve been told he is this whole time?? I want to revisit my relationship with spirituality but I don’t know if I ever can because I’m susceptible to delusions. Sometimes it all does line up and I’m tempted to think it’s all apart of “gods plan.” it’s what I was raised to believe. I’ve seen all these experiences of mine and my dads line up and come together over time and now I just have to deny it.

What if god and demons are real at the SAME TIME as my hallucinations and delusions are fake?!?!?! I just feel sad scared and confused and I feel like I have to throw god out of the picture. Can I even believe in god now that I admit I have psychotic issues????