I've been awash in mental illness the past two years.
Not my own (though i have been touched by minor depression and PTSD).
No, i've been coping with the mental illness of others...a parade of close associations with very unbalanced folk . Moreso than at any time in my life, by far.
But when talking about mental illness, i have a different understanding. In this culture of fear, alienation, and touch deprivation, mental illness is the norm. You never have, and never will, meet a humyn untouched by some form of depression. Every one of us is, to some degree, a sociopath. Even the medical/psychiatric establishment fails to grasp the fullness of this. I was recently reading a study about how stress affects sleep patterns. The baseline comparisons assume the existence of sleepers who experience no abnormal levels of stress.
I assure you, such people are mythological as unicorns.
Science's inability to grasp the fullness of this means that most of our clinical understandings of "normal" humyn behavior are a little (or a lot) off. We are all damaged...but most of us manage to rationalize or deny it, for what other choice is there?
Many, however, stumble over that line where we're able to control or hide how broken we are. And when we slip, we often go FAR.
It started with a tree-trimming client, who lived alone. I worked for her several days a week for a couple of years, eventually doing all sorts of handiwork. I became her largest source of humyn contact, something we all need to keep us sane...but this culture makes us all so damaged and needy, that the very thing we require to live (love and unconditional support) is corrupted. As a result, the obvious cure for loneliness can be a pill as poisonous as staying alone. In our last year, i became more and more aware of a bipolar disorder in her. There were weeks when she was a joy to be around, but other times a darkness would descend. She would become paranoid and condemning. Some days, i knew that nothing i'd do would be right. I abided it, because i knew how much less caring and understanding my replacement might be...but those of you who have known such people, will probably understand what i mean when i talk of stomach-hollowing stress.
Then i had an almost-romance with a womyn who had PTSD (and was well-aware of it). Her mother, sister, and the love of her life (and his replacement) had all died within a few years of each other. Even though she was aware of her condition, she couldn't control it, of course. Fortunately (or tragically?) i held back from consummating our intimacy. I feared her demons, and knew we didn't have deep compatibility. Yet even with that, she became unhinged and wrathful, so much that i feared she might try to hurt me, or worse. One night there was a fire across the canal, and i awoke with a nightmare, fearing she had set my home ablaze.
After that, my first (temporary) home in CA was with an obsessive/compulsive, bipolar live-in landlord. The first condition can be tolerable or even amusing, but in conjunction with the second, it's a horror show. You quickly learn that it's not the outbursts that kill you, it's the holding one's breath, knowing an outburst could come any moment. I lived like that for three months, in a shared situation where i couldn't even retreat to the privacy of my own room. I wanted to stay in touch with him after i got out, to be a support and friend...but my own wounds are too raw, my walls too thin.
A month after i arrived in San Francisco, i became entangled with an open mic MC who has anger issues, compounded by paranoia. I became a demon to him, someone who was perhaps responsible for everything that was wrong in his life. The most irrational hatred could pour out of him...and again, i wanted to be a support and friend, because i understand what he's going through far better than most, and underneath it he's brilliant and well-meaning. But i couldn't escape the terror over what he might be capable of, and how his outbursts shredded me, so my only goal became to extricate myself with my life intact. Hopefully, i've done so.
My point in sharing all this isn't "boo-hoo for me". My point is that these people are US...and though most of us may fancy that there's a huge gulf between such obviously damaged people and ourselves, i assure you that's not the case. With just a few unexpected turns, you could find your life spinning into darknesses you can neither comprehend nor control. Or maybe NOT you personally! Maybe your own walls are so impenetrable that you'll never fall prey to such "weakness" (i was like that for a long time myself). But if that's the case, i submit that you have no idea what dehumynizing price you've paid to stay "healthy".
We're all sick in one way or another. What else could we be? We're products of a sick society.
A century or two from now (on the unlikely chance that humyns are still around), we may finally understand how we existed so cut off from the love and security we need to live.
Keep pushing toward that day.
In the meantime, do your best to fill everyone around you with forgiveness and love.
Especially yourself.
I love you all.
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