Something that's always been there potentially strengthening?
Hey guys! I am new to this subreddit and am honestly looking for some advice.
Since I was very young, I have always experienced spirit. It's always felt like a meeting when it happens, like I recognize the entity, and then I can feel it recognize me. It's always been a quiet nod, never anything that speaks to me. Outside of that, I have felt things touch me, mostly my hair, head, and arms.
I also feel like my background matters, so I will go into it briefly. I grew up in a very domestically violent household and was bullied at school into a psychiatric hospital at 12. By 10, I was self-harming, and that lasted until I was 25. I also dabbled in and did hard drugs due to emotional pain for years when I was a teen until I got clean in my early 20s. I've been homeless the whole 9, but suffering weirdly has had a positive effect on me after I got well, and I feel like purified in some weird way. Like I've been dipped in fire, and everything excessive just burned off of me.
I am now in my early 30s, almost mid 30s, and I have worked in psychiatric care for 5 years, helping children and adults in emotional distress. I have also worked in ABA as well as in Dementia and end-of-life care, and recently been thinking about doing death doula work. I am also about to go into a master's in Cognitive Neuroscience because I have a strong pull to work in consciousness studies. I am a very forward-thinking acutely curious person, lol, and I am also very open to both science and spirituality, being one because I think they complement each other.
Last year I met my partner, and his mother does a lot of shamanistic practice and dream interpretation. She's a very cool lady and is very in tune. There have been times when she has asked me something that was on my mind before I even brought it up.
I've also been a Mahayana Buddhist for years and have had an extremely strong spiritual pull lately to start reading more about religious figures and saints. From all walks of life. I have a lot of religious trauma from going up in a private Christian school, so I usually avoid that religion entirely, but something has been telling me to specifically read the writings of Mother Theresa. So I ordered the book Come Be My Light. I know nothing of her yet, just that she suffered greatly. I don't think I am supposed to know until I read her own words, so I haven't even looked up previews.
So, the story that has led me to this post. The house we live in currently is my partners grandmas house, where she passed away. I have seen her, but it was the same nod we both acknowledged, and then it's gone.
So, 3 weeks ago, I noticed something very, very weird had happened. I have seen animals in the past as well, but this presence was STRONG. I mean, I couldn't ignore it. I kept catching glimpses of a small animal. I couldn't exactly make out what it was visually, but my brain every single time said "GREY FEMALE CAT," and in true me fashion, I'm like LOL, I'm being crazy. So a week ago it became much more, but this time I couldn't stop thinking about Knoxville, Tennessee, every time, and I am like okay lol this is weird and makes no sense. I am from a town close to Knoxville, but I never think of it; it's really got no significance to me either way. I didn't spend much time there. But this keeps happening. I got up for work this morning at 5 am, and I saw her again in the doorway, and AGAIN my brain said FEMALE GREY CAT KNOXVILLE, and I'm like, bro, what is happening, so I finally asked my partner and his sister about it.
She had a cat that never lived here that was Grey. That was a female. AND WHOSE NAME WAS KNOX. I am shaking while typing this because I have physically gotten information for the first time in my life.
It was not a voice; it was like a knowing, like information was being downloaded to my brain that I could not ignore. I feel like she wanted me to tell her she's still here.
I am looking for information of any kind.
Has anyone had abilities "awaken" later in life?
Will this happen again, and how do I control it and fine-tune it more?
When I was a kid, I was terrified, and I think I shut it off on purpose, and I am willing and open at this point in my life and maybe that's the shift?
Anything helps, thank you!