Did I have a religious experience, psychosis or what?

7 years ago there was a period in which I was suffering from major depression. I remember failing all my classes in the first semester. I remember feeling lonely. I had no friends. I didn't talk to anyone, not even my parents. I was extremely tired and I was doing nothing. i felt sad or irritable nearly every day.
I started to take an interest in religious, althouth I was previously a convinced atheist. I did it because I felt helpless and I need someone, a god perhaps, to help me feel better.

So I studied all there was to know about christianity and islam, I studied the differences between the two systems. I studied both the bible and the quran. At first it was just curiosity, I didn't believe in anything yet. I quickly became obsessed with all that and even though I lacked concentration, my motivation to learn allowed me to keep reading. In the islamic text there were descriptions about angels and demons, and I started to believe in them. My atheist self told me, what...why are you engaging in this nonsense?

But my pain was strong and I desperately needed to believe in something. So I started to talk to angels. I knew they were listening to me, because I thought I was special. I thought I was one of the few unique beings who could interact with angels. I felt their presence everywhere I went. I even thought they were talking to me through the radio or through my schoolbooks. I didn't hear their voices, but somehow I new that the random presenter on tv was talking directly to me, and that angels put their words into their mouth.

Then I became interested in demons. I once tried to concentrate and to talk to one. The demons in the islamic tradition have different names, I don't remember which one I talked to.
Anyway while I was asking him to show his presence to me I heard a voice in the room, which sounded like a man with a deep voice. He talked for five minutes in a language I didn't understand. I don't even know if it was a language or just random sounds put together. I heard that voice for a couple of minutes.
That was the one and only time in my life I've heard a voice that came out of nowhere.
I didn't go out much, but when I walked to school I kept feeling a malign presence following me. So I became paranoid, because everywhere I was the demon was with me.

I thought he could read my mind, so I tried to block every thought in my head, and to think about silly stuff like what's in the fridge this morning? My obsession with angels and demons lasted for 4 months.

Then my mom found out that I was studying the quran and she slapped me, because she was a catholic.
Then I started to feel sad. I thought that I should stop showing that I was obsessed about this stuff because it made her feel bad. Then I thought about my health: it wasn't good for me to obsess about something so much, it wasn't good that I was paranoid, that I thought demons read my mind. I started to question the validity of my beliefs. Were they real or not? It took a lot of self-convicing to show myself that it wasn't real. I meditated to get read of unwanted thoughts, and after more than 5 months I started to feel better. At that point I questioned my sanity.

I don't know if what I experienced was psychosis or I was just thinking like a fanatic, or if really supernatural beings exist. I'm an agnostic now.
What I know is that that was a dark period in my life. I will never read a religious book again, that's for sure. What I experienced was definetly phatological even if there could not be anything written in the dsm 5 about all that.

What do you guys think happened to me?

Hello sarac: I'm sorry I am not able to suggest what this might all have been about. Anything I would suggest would be simply a guess. I think to come to a genuine understanding of what was going on here, you would need to seek an opinion from a mental health professional. I noticed, however, this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral! I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

Since you mentioned this all started with major depression, here are links to two articles, from PsychCentral's archives, on the subject of psychotic depression. I don't have any way of knowing if this is what happened to you. But it may be one possibility:

https://psychcentral.com/encyclopedi...ic-depression/

https://psychcentral.com/lib/psychotic-depression/

I can't answer for you if your experiences were religious or psychosis, but I did notice some symptoms of schizophrenia here:


Feeling like one has special access to angels that no one else or few other people could possibly have fits into a schizophrenic symptoms. Also feeling like one is being talked to through the radio and the TV presenter talking directly to you also fit within this sort of thought.

Hopefully that will be helpful in some way at least regardless of if you had a religious experience or not.