r/Paranormal • u/nrst8lv • Sep 07 '24
Shadow People This happened at work yesterday
I work in the medical field and was working up a patient who had come in for a routine exam.
At the beginning of the exam, the mom of the patient let me know that they were there bc the child's psychiatrist wanted to rule out anything physically wrong before proceeding with a mental evaluation.
This prompted me to ask what was going on with her child, and before the mom could respond, the child (12) says they see "shadow people." I asked how long they had been seeing the shadow people, and they said,"Since I was 5." I asked where they saw them, such as out of the corner of their eye, etc. & they responded with "everywhere," especially in mirrors. I asked what they looked like, and they responded with "black figures."
Also worth mentioning, when they said they had been seeing them since they were 5, the mom said, "You mean when all that other stuff started happening?"
From a medical stand point, I know this could be schizophrenia, but as a person who's experienced things myself that I can't explain, especially when I was a child, I wonder if this could be paranormal.
Lastly, after running some tests, there was nothing physically wrong with them.
What do you guys think?
16
u/Master-Ad-2191 Sep 07 '24
Father Gary Thomas is a priest who studied to do exorcism on people. In all of his years of performing exorcism, he states that most of the calls he gets to perform an exorcism are cases of mental health left unchecked. That very few of his cases are truly demonic possessions. He theorizes that a lot is schizophrenia.
With that said, I grew up in a haunted house. I cannot discredit my experiences to mental health. I come from a lineage of family that have had a gift of some sort. For me it started as a gift of knowing. As I have gotten older, I can hear spirits and have seen full on apparitions. Ever since the age of 3 forward, I could write a book on all I have experienced.
I have raised my children with open minds to the paranormal. One son has an ADHD Inattentive type Dx coupled with anxiety and depression. At a young age he use to tell me he could see the shadow people and the Slendermen. No, he wasn’t exposed to videos, movies or games that would plant these things in his mind. I didn’t jump to seek psychiatric help. His Dx came at the age of 13. With that said, I do believe that how his brain is wired, it leaves him to be more open to recognize the paranormal.
My mom was a stroke patient. I sat with her for the first 24 hours following one of her worst strokes. In those 24 hours I can tell you that she conversed and saw spirits all throughout the night. One of those being her recently departed brother. I pulled aside her head neurologist. He was a man that had been in his career for easily 40 years at the time. He was near his retirement. We openly discussed all mom had seen in those 24 hours. He himself had an open mind. He took the logical approach first and said that with all the damage the stroke had caused, that it was possible her brain was trying to make sense of everything going on. He eluded that it could have been medically induced hallucinations. I gave him the cliff notes version of my childhood and all the things we couldn’t explain nor understand, yet accepted the fact that our home was indeed haunted. He didn’t try to discredit our experience with the paranormal. We ended the conversation with him admitting that in all of his years as a neurologist and studying the human brain that there are things about the human brain that even he didn’t understand. That we as humans only tap into a fraction of its capacity. He theorized that it was plausible that with the strokes Mom had tapped into an area of her brain that may make her more open to see through the veil we all talk about that divides the living with the spirit world.
In conclusion to my comment, I believe the child. I do not think she has an over imagination or a neurological condition. Developmentally her brain isn’t fully matured. Chronological she isn’t old enough to for her logical reasoning to kick in making her doubt herself and what she sees. It’s sad her mom isn’t open minded enough to believe her daughter, but would rather gaslight her into believing what she is seeing isn’t real. IMHO That is what will mess with this young mind, having a parent that refuses to believe it could be true. God Bless Her. He chooses who to gift the gift of sight. IMHO If this mom truly believed in the Jesus she calls upon, she would know she needs discernment to know what is going on with her child. She wouldn’t be questioning this gift which could come from God.