How do you know if you have any psychic ability at all? And how do I know what's part of me being mentally ill and what's not? Do you have any advice or words of wisdom? -@sapphicbabywitch

I am both Bipolar Type 1 and well versed in my personal psychic ability, and I can assure you that this question has haunted me before in the past as well.

Some of my Bipolar side effects are random bouts of psychosis and I am very familiar with intrusive thoughts, swinging moods, etc. But these symptoms, I have noticed, are very different from when I connect with the nonphysical world, be it through psychic ability or astral travel.

I think, personally, one huge identifier is the energy behind each. I’m going to use personal examples from my experiences with empathy v. mood swings, and hallucinations v. seeing spirits.

Empathic Ability vs. Mood Swings

When I’m having mood swings, I can feel it in my head. I feel unbalanced, and something will tick me off and I can snap from serene to angry, or happy to anxious, but often times a thought or external stimuli is linked to this switch.

In contrast, my first experience with empathic ability that I could first identify as emotions that were not my own was related to the death of my pet rat. I was in a classroom of people not talking to anyone and nobody was paying any attention to me, and my heart sank to my stomach. There was no stimuli for this emotion and I was feeling very level headed mentally that day. I came home and found my rat had passed and identified the feeling as guilt. This trend continues when I pass someone and feel their anxiety, though I’m not anxious, or someone enters my home and I become overwhelmingly sad despite my love for this person.

So, from this, we can conclude

Hallucinations vs. Spirits

During a hallucination, my personal experience is often visual. It feels like a dream and doesn’t make sense, and will often shake away when I make a quick double-check. Now I realize that not everybody who hallucinates will have this experience, and it can often be quite worse, but I can only speak from personal experience.

I remember being at a concert and I felt anxiety and dissociation trying to take a hold of me. Pretty soon a cockroach appeared on the person’s shoulder in front of me. It startled me due to its large size and dissimilarities to any cockroach I had ever actually seen, and when I made a double-take, it was gone. When I drive after a long and anxious day at work I will sometimes see headlights pop up where there weren’t any before. Even really bad experiences like seeing a man outside of your window in class shooting you in the head. After it happens, I know it’s not real, despite the fear it brings in the moment. These are hallucinations.

Doing spirit work, however, elicits a different response. I will feel the spirits energy when they are around or I’m talking to them, and I can feel their presence. It will come to me in body tingles, smells, emotions, colors, feelings, emotions, and general “vibes.” Hallucinations are hollow. There’s nothing connected to them.

When astral traveling and seeing spirits in the astral, because I lack the ability to see them when not in that mindset, I’m actively summoning or pursuing the spirit. Psychosis is not something that is often sought out.

So, in short:

My experiences are not universal. For example, some people experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs may actually be looking for hallucinations. Also, not everybody hallucinates the same, and I recognize my experience with it is mild in comparison to some others with problems with mental health. I also realize empaths don’t feel everything the same way. Again this is all personal experience.

Above all the most important thing is getting mental health in check. Even if you have never had a mental health diagnosis, be aware and conscious of symptoms, and talk to a therapist or psychologist as needed. The easiest way to distinguish between your mind and the nonphysical is to first be able to identify what’s going on in your own head, what are your thoughts, and how to identify them.

Thank you so much, @sapphicbabywitch for your question!. If you, or anybody, has any more questions please do not hesitate to ask! I will always answer to the best of my ability.