*A Note to My Readers
As I share this blog series, ‘Reflections and Revelations,’ reflecting on the pivotal moments that have shaped my life, I want to acknowledge that these posts include sensitive themes such as bullying, self-harm, depression, anxiety, promiscuity, and substance use. These topics are deeply personal, and while I share them with honesty, I encourage you to proceed with care. If at any point you feel triggered or overwhelmed, please prioritize your well-being and step away.
I also want to clarify that while my stories may at times sound like I am blaming or accusing others, this is not my intent. With time, reflection, and growth, I’ve come to understand that everyone was navigating their own challenges and doing the best they could with what they knew at the time. I do not hold resentment toward anyone mentioned; in fact, many of these relationships have been healed through understanding and time. For this reason, I have changed or omitted some of the names in these stories. This series is about exploring how these moments shaped me, not about pointing fingers, and I hope it inspires others to reflect on their own journeys with compassion and courage. I never set out on a spiritual journey. In fact, if you’d told me years ago that I’d end up practicing Reiki, reading angel cards, and hosting women’s circles, I probably would have laughed. But life has a way of leading us where we need to go, even when we don’t understand it at the time.

My Paranormal Experience
It was a normal day at work. Meetings, time with clients, office work, the kind of day where everything felt routine. The office was quiet—just my co-worker Tina and me. Our other three co-workers had gone home for the day and the building was locked. We’d always joked about the building being haunted. We’d laughed off the whispers and footsteps we sometimes heard alone. The moans and creaks? Just an old building settling, I told myself. And yet, when I was alone in the building, I always kept my office door closed… just in case.

That day, Tina and I were chatting about an upcoming event when we heard the sound of a dripping tap begin down the hallway. She froze; her eyes wide. “It’s the ghost,” she whispered. I laughed and trying to be brave I said, “Someone probably left it on. I’ll go turn it off.” I marched down the hallway, Tina close behind. But then, something happened. Something I still struggle to explain.

It was like I’d walked into a thick wall of grief. A sorrow so heavy it knocked the breath out of me, my legs nearly giving out. My heart pounded, and tears filled my eyes. Tina didn’t seem affected, and she overtook me and reached for the bathroom door. Gripping its handle, she attempted to push the door open, but something pushed it back, hard. She jumped away, eyes wild with fear, but I was too overwhelmed to react. The grief swallowed me whole. I stumbled back to my office, collapsed into my chair, and sobbed like I never had before. I wasn’t just crying, I was grieving. But for what? For who?

Tina had never seen me so distraught, and honestly, neither had I. I sat in my chair, dazed, as a low hum vibrated through my body, my ears ringing and warbling noise like I was underwater. I barely registered Tina’s voice as she spoke to me, her concern growing with every passing second. When I finally calmed down, we locked up the office and left. Shaken, confused, and terrified.

That night, desperate for answers, I called my Reiki master. I told her everything—the invisible wall of grief, the door that pushed Tina back, the sobbing I couldn’t control. She listened calmly and told me not to be afraid. Instead, she said the spirits may not know they’d passed away and that I could help them by telling them it was time to move on. She also recommended sageing and speaking over the office to cleanse it of any ‘bad’ energy, and to leave a ball of Reiki energy telling them they could use it to transition to the other side.

The next day, I woke feeling incredible depleted and run down. I’d developed a tight chest and nasty cough over night, but I knew I couldn’t let Tina go into the office on her own after everything we’d experienced the night before. Tina and I saged the entire building, speaking softly to whatever spirits lingered and explaining they had passed and it was time to move on. The moment we finished, the building seemed to come alive. Lights flickered. The walls groaned. We heard footsteps in the empty halls and in the office. Leaving our offices we decided to stick together and make sure another employee hadn’t arrived, and as I peered down the end of the hallway my heart leaped into my throat. A dark figure stood staring at us. Fear raced through me, and we both ducked back into the office. Tina explained she’d seen the same figure before and had convinced herself it was just her imagination. I’d never seen anything like it, and as much as I wanted to shrug it off as the pareidolia effect and my imagination, I couldn’t ignore what I’d seen. I quickly formed the ball of reiki as instructed by my reiki master and we left the office.

My asthma worsened overnight. The next morning, I couldn’t go to work and booked an appointment to see a doctor. When I messaged Tina, she told me the activity hadn’t stopped, in fact, it was as though we’d stirred it up and made it worse. The doctor gave me medication for asthma and the following day I forced myself back to the office. The moment I entered the hallway I was hit once again by the crushing grief. My legs trembled and felt weak, forcing me to lean against the wall. My throat tightened. With the help of Tina and another co-worker, I made it outside onto the footpath where I removed my shoes and stood on the small strip of grass. The grief slipped away, and I could catch my breath again despite my tight chest. Confused, I wondered what I’d done wrong? I’d followed my reiki masters’ instructions. I could see the accusation in Tina’s eyes, ‘This is your fault. You made this worse not better.’

Desperate to fix what was happening I reached out to a friend who was sensitive to energy. I wanted someone I trusted to come in and tell me what they felt, and what I was doing wrong? She agreed to visit and all I told her was that I had some stuff happen at the office. I wanted her to walk through and tell me if she felt anything. Part of me was starting to question the events from days before, had I been overthinking it? Turning it into a bigger deal than it had been? Was it all in my head?

The moment my friend stepped inside, she pointed to the hallway and the bathroom—the places where I’d felt the grief. She shared the intense energy she felt in those places, and I explained what had happened days before. She continued through the office and said she also sensed something in a small office we used as a storage room. During her walk, she also mentioned the name ‘Walter’ had popped into her mind. It didn’t register for any of us. But I thanked her, feeling better knowing it may not all be in my mind, and she left for an appointment. Desperate for answers, I dug into my bag of tricks I’d bought to work; crystals for protection which I gave to Tina and our co-worker, my angel cards, and my pendulum. After lighting white sage incense, I began asking questions. Was there a spirit in the building? Yes. Were there more than one? Yes. I counted up to ten and it continued to answer, Yes. Are there many spirits in this building? Yes. Is there a spirit called Walter? No. Had any used the reiki ball to pass over? Yes. Is one of the spirits connected to the boxes in the storage room? Yes. I held the pendulum over each box asking if it was the one it was associated with. Over a plastic grey container, it began swinging wildly. Opening the box, it was full of past client files.

At that moment, my phone dinged from my office. We weren’t allowed to read through client folders, so we decided the mystery was over for now and all of us welcomed a breather as we made our way back to our offices. Flopping into my chair I released a long breath and checked my phone. There was a message from my friend. “As soon as I left the building I heard a name,” she wrote. “Does the name Thomas mean anything to you?”

Sharing the message with Tina we made our way back into the storage room and opened the box indicated by the pendulum. The first file on top of all of the others in the box had the name ‘Thomas Walter’ written across it. The exact name my friend had heard. My throat tightened and my legs grew week once again. We closed the box and left the storeroom.

My stomach twisted. This wasn’t a coincidence. This was real. And we were in way over our heads.

We stopped digging. I got sicker, which meant I needed days off work to recover. We’d decided the more attention we gave whatever was in the building, the stronger it became. Tina messaged me daily saying things were still happening. I dragged myself in once again to sage, but it didn’t help. Desperate to calm what I’d stirred up so Tina could feel safe at work again, I asked a Christian friend to pray over the building. My asthma worsened and I spent Mother’s Day away with my family, coughing until I nearly threw up and having to sleep sitting up.

For Mother’s Day, my husband, Tim, surprised me with a tattoo appointment. I took my puffer with me and did my best not to cough as I was tattooed with a design I’d created; a dragon entwined with flowers, representing Tim, our children, and my late grandparents. As the needle buzzed over my left bicep, I did my best not to cough or to let the tattooist know if one was coming. One time I coughed, and a sharp pain jolted through my neck. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it would be another piece of the emerging mystery.

Over the next few weeks, the pain in my left shoulder grew unbearable. My asthma began to dissipate but the pain in my shoulder spread down my arm. My limbs felt heavy and achy. Then, one day, my legs just… stopped working. I had to drag myself to sit down. My left arm grew weaker, and my feet and hands would contort. Doctors had no answers. Every scan and every test said I was perfectly healthy. The experience at work was pushed to the back of my mind as my body betrayed me.

Spasms wracked my body, my limbs twisted and curled. I could barely walk. My independence vanished. I lost my job, my ability to dance, to create, to drive. It felt like I was losing myself.

Eight months later, a neurologist finally gave me a name for what was happening to me: Functional Neurological Disorder. (If you’d like to know more about my FND diagnosis, please read my blog post: From Pain to Clarity: Navigating FND)

During my decline and after my diagnosis, I threw myself into every tool I had—self-help books, coping mechanisms from my youth work career—but nothing could prepare me for the depression that followed. The sadness of losing control over my own body. At thirty-nine, I was lost. No one knew what to do with me. I had a diagnosis, but no one seemed to be able to offer me ways to heal that I could access in the rural town I lived in.

I quit my job, sold the guitar I’d been learning to play, quit dancing, and retreated to the room my family set up, so I didn’t have to go far to eat, drink and go to the bathroom.

So, I sat. Day after day. Watching Netflix. Scrolling through YouTube. I feared this was it; this was the rest of my life. Watching my family and friends live their lives while I rotted away in my room. Would my husband grow frustrated and leave? How long would it take for my friends to drop away and stop checking in? How many documentaries could one person watch? How many podcasts could I listen to?

And then, YouTube became something else. A door to something I never expected.

Ask for Help

If you or someone you know is struggling, please seek support. Here are some Australian helplines that can help:

• Lifeline: 13 11 14 (24/7 crisis support and suicide prevention)
• Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636 (Support for depression and anxiety)
• Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800 (For young people aged 5–25)
• 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732 (Support for domestic and family violence)
• Alcohol and Drug Foundation: 1300 858 584

You are not alone, and help is available.