I am up late tonight. Luckily it is by choice today, not by pathology. I can only think of that pathology tonight. The places it has taken me, the things I haven't written about it that I am ready to. I was once told that the only things one can really write about are the things one has gotten over. I do not agree. Or, at least this is not the case for me, I write to get over things, to get things out.
I don't remember too much about April last year, and my first good descent into psychosis, into that state where my mind is not my own. I know I was scared. I know I was unprepared.
There were a lot of pills. I slept a lot. It is not half as exciting or dramatic as it seems. Movies about mental hospitals are always full of the endless war on the self. The problem is, this war is rarely fought where others can see. I do not know if someone who has not experienced such things can fully understand what it means when your mind and body betrays you so completely that your actions are not your own.
You think you own your body, that it is your last safety, it is a place of escape. When all else fails that there is some inner world where things are controllable and beyond the reach of...anything. That it is immortal, Spirit even. Or, I thought that. The part that is Spirit is more well hidden then that.
I have for so long thought that other people are different then I am, that they did not experience this lack of control, this feeling of frustration over their limitations and the lack of all the qualities they wish they possessed. This was deepest arrogance, I know.
You see, I felt geriatric at the young age of 21. I felt as though I had been betrayed by my body. I could accept that betrayal on some level because I still felt as though I had my mind when my body failed I could prognosticate endlessly, and my brain, so used to working overtime, would only sharpen and discern.
It's difficult to sort through the very nature of disease. Chronic pain and fatigue slowly sap your mental strength when you are constantly attempting to refuse them entry to the core of your being. The funny thing is the core of your being, Spirit, is never touched by these things anyway. All of your pain, mental and physical anguish, can be let through every imagined boundary...and never touch anything. It's funny, the very thing we do everything to resist isn't nearly as ad as we think.
It is late, and my mind wanders.
At 21I knew that I did not have terribly long to live, I thought I would die by 30. I do not believe that anymore, but I had every reason to think that was true. I would only know pain and pills and weekly shots and the depletion of B vitamins leading to more pills to restore some equilibrium. The daunting task of holding together and keeping a happy face. Toughing things out and being a Man. I did not think I could do it for long, to exist on only willpower is impossible for any great length of time. It is the feeling of not having eaten enough for days.
The thing I have always loved about my life is that whenever I lose faith (and, I think perhaps I use this word differently then most people would) there always comes something along to restore it. When I give up on the love of other people, that is when I feel the greatest love from other people. When I give up on being able to provide for myself, that is when I am most able to do things for myself. Maybe there is a secret in this giving up I've yet to learn.
I graduated college in 3 years. By the end of it I had a bachelor's degree and a chronic disease. According to a man I once met, they both last a lifetime.
People with rheumatoid arthritis have a higher then average suicide rate. This should be no surprise. As I said above, it is daunting. But, these sorts of mental illnesses are made no better by expectation of their eventual appearance. Mine, of course, was a whole different beast.
For me, the most important part of all of this is that I failed to have compassion for myself. Looking back I had not learned that I was just as worthy of my own patience and compassion as everyone else. I understand this better now, though learning it was a hard road.
More later.
