Psychotic Views Part Fifteen:
My eyes went dark for the rest of the day. My mood went sullen. It stayed that way for the better part of three days. The days were bad, the nights were worse. I wasn’t sleeping well. I’d sleep for a couple of hours, wake up, then be unable to go back to sleep until six or seven in the morning. Then I’d sleep for a couple of more hours before waking up again, and this time I’d be up for good. I left my room once or twice, but didn’t stay out for any decent amount of time. I was restless inside my room, sometimes pacing around so obsessively I nearly reached the point of exhaustive collapse. I hung out a hand made sign on the outer door knob, ‘Do Not Disturb, Already Disturbed’. I allowed no visitors, none, not even the priest. I had two short conversations with the same two people I had called before.
There was not masking my state of mind during the conversations. The graveness in my voice was alarming. It frightened me and if it frightened me, it certainly must have frightened the people I was talking to. What was weighing on their minds after the conversations ended, I could only imagine. My body was racked with a chill that I just couldn’t shake off. It had penetrated both skin and bone and lodged itself somewhere deep inside the epicenter of my very being. Tremors would eminate out from the epicenter and spread across the rest of my body in low, rolling waves.
I was uneasy on my feet as if the wiring for my equilibrium had been worn and frayed was causing a slight interference in the proper flow of the necessary impulses. Most of my time was spent unmoving in bed, there were no tears. There was no hysterics, just cold and darkness in well rserved supplies. They increased the dosage on my pills, but the move didn’t alleviate my condition in the least, in truth, it seems to do nothing except to make my condition worse. Staff was moving in and out of my room at a nearly continuous pace. I don’t know if my fear showed anywhere on my face, but theirs did. The professional masks covered well, their eyes though, gave them away. I was being monitored with an owl’s eye for night time prey. Probing into the darkness with a calm yet concerned glance. Staring into the deep unknown, aware of a mortal danger lurking somewhere in the seamless shadows, for two and nearly one half days, my condition showed no signs of abbreviation, but somewhere there, in the middle of day three, my fall began taking small steps toward abbreviation. Baby steps, but then, the hours closed in on early evening, the steps became stronger, bigger, longer. It strides began to lengthen. Then, somewhere close to the break of dawn, the storm which had surrounded me broke and cleared itself out from inside me. The danger had passed yet one more time and then I closed my eyes and slept the sleep of sweet relief.
There was a notable slight upturn in my condition the next day. A little piece of sunshine day across my face, it’s warmth had the power to soothe me, to comfort me, to let me forget the cold darkness of the previous three days. A familiar face returned in the early afternoon, the priest.
“is it okay to come in and see you?” he asked.
“Sure, come in and sit down.”
He turned the chair around to face me on the right side of the bed. He moved the chair closer to me than before, there was a small cup of coffee in his left hand and a small guarded smile in his face.
“A little better today,” he said.
“A little.”
“Good, you had everyone on edge, I hear.”
“Yeah.”
“I came to see you, but they told me what was going on.”
“Well, I’m…”
“Don’t apologize, it’s not necessary. You have no control over these things.”
“That’s what scares me so much, my lack of control.”
“It’s different now?”
“To some extent, I’ve always had this wild, mood swinging personality, but the nature of it has changed.”
“How?”
“The pendulum swings higher now, but only to side of darkness. It doesn’t swing as far to the other side, to the side of light, as much as it used to.”
“Anything else?”
“Because the pendulum isn’t swinging as far to the side of the light, it’s swinging more often to the side of darkness. The swings are also more intense than they were before.”
“Your medications are having no effect?”
“If they are, it’s only in a negative way.”
“Are they going to take you off of them and try something else?”
:I don’t know, they haven’t said a thing about it to me yet.”
He raised the coffee cup to take a long, slow taste. His eyes never left mine as he did so. His throat let out a low exclamation of satisfaction after swallowing a considerable amount of coffee.
“Would you mind and philosophical discussion over theology?” , he asked.
“No.”
“It won’t upset you in any way?”
“I like a philosophical discussions. Theological or any other. I like the challenge. I believe in my position and I am prepared to defend it with calm, rational thought.”
“There is so little calm rational thought in the world.”
“Problems cannot be solved until they are, at first, admitted to, bullying is a common tactic of the insecure and weak. Their argument is built on a foundation of shale and shifting sand. An even fight is a fight they lose.”
“You have a remarkable way with word, you do know that?”
“You’re not the first to tell me that. It’s always been with me. Many people have found themselves on the wrong end of words with me.”
“Judging you from the little time I’ve known you, I would say you’re a rare person in the game of discussion. Some are logical, some are emotional. You are both.”
“It’s a wild mix.”
“It also explains the turmoil you have experienced all of your life. You want the world to be a better place. You want humanity to appreciate life and its place in the larger scheme of things. You look at the big picture and believe in the big, ‘we’. To you, people too willingly accept the world as it is and take no part in helping to better it.”
“It’s not a crowd winning position.”
“And this has frustrated you all of y our life. It has accumulated inside all these years and now it is overwhelming you. It has worn you down and weakened you. You fear that you can no longer win the fight. You fear the outcome is now inevitable, that it is only a matter of time, a very short matter of time.”
“You’re not exactly a soft minded weakling with words either, are you?”
“So, I’ve been told. Now, are we going to have our philosophic exchange, or do we put it aside for another time?”
“I don’t’ know if I have the energy to finish it, but we start it and see where it goes.”
“Where do we start?”
“How about the word faith?”
“You mean as in the context..”
“I have faith that there’s a God?”
“To me, religions have all corrupted the meaning of this word. If I have faith in a person or if I have faith an event is going to happen, that faith is based on something.”
“So is a faith in God.”
“What?”
“Creation.”
“When you say creation, are you limiting it to Earth or all things everywhere. Look at space. Where does it end? Does it end? Does this God take the time and effort to create so much magic and wonder and yet only create living things on just one tiny grain of it?”
“Maybe there used to be life on the other planets that we know of, but there isn’t now, maybe there’s life on places we cannot see, places we don’t know.”
“Possibilities, but I don’t see them as an argument for deity. For most of human history, people believed in many gods and they believed them just as strongly as people believe in one god today.”
“What is your belief? What is your explanation for life?”
“Did God create man or did man create God?”
“To you, God is just a product of human ego or even imagination. They believe they are the highest life form anywhere as far as time and space can go and they need a reason, a purpose for their life. So, they invent a creator.”
“People cannot accept the idea that they are nothing special. They are just another of a long line of species. They cannot accept the idea that we are here solely because of a colossal, cosmic accident.”
“This to, is just a belief.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Is it more valid because it is yours?”
“No, but there is one very important difference between what I believe and what others believe. I won’t kill because others don’t have my beliefs. I won’t persecute them, ridicule them, or demean them. I won’t torture them or use violent means to try and convert them. I won’t war with them or ignore their suffering.”
“You were raised Catholic, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And their history appeals to you?”
“Yes.”
“So, you reject them and all other religions.”
“I was raised catholic. As a child, I had no choice. I listened to the words, to the arguments, but I never accepted them or any other religion.”
“And you cannot accept the idea of a Creator being?”
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is a Creator being, but this being is not the one preached about in any of the religions of today.”
“Humans want answers, so they invent them with cultural influences and phrases.”
:Even if I believed in a Creator being, that still isn’t an argument for religion, is it? Why can’t everyone believe what they want to believe and leave everyone else alone? World History has shown that this isn’t enough for people.”
“So, no organized religion has a place?”
“No, has organized religion done some good? Yes, but if you add up the harm it has done and weigh it against the good, the scales tip heavily to the side of harm.
I was tired, my eyes suddenly closed and remained there for a long time. How much time, I can’t say, but when I opened them up again, the priest was standing over me, looking down at me with large, sympathetic eyes.
“I like you, “ he said. “No matter how much I disagree with your views. You’re a good and decent man.”
“And I would like to express all of those same words to you.”
“I wish you well my friend. I’ll pray for you to leave this place soon.”
“Thanks.”
“Until another time.”
“Sure.”
He shook my hand, smiled, then turned and walked out of the room. It was our last meeting. I never saw him again a few days later, I had another session with the doctor. My moods had leveled off since my last fall. No extreme highs, not extreme lows. The pendulum was still swinging, but its arc was on a near perfect heel.
“Your condition has improved the past few days.”
“My moods have been better, no more swings.”
“Yes, you have been much more even minded, but your last downward swing was prolonged too.”
“Three long days.”
“Yes, I hope this recent improvement of your continues, right now, it’s too early to make any firm conclusion about your condition. I treat such circumstances with small doses of cautious optimism.”
“How small? 50 milligrams or is it 75:”
“What?”
“You said you treat such circumstances with small doses of cautious optimism. So I said, ’50 milligrams or 75? I was making a joke.”
By her reaction, I believed the good doctor had suffered from a childhood malady which had required surgery and while they were operating on her, they accidently removed her sense of humor.
“I’d like to talk about something very specific, “ she said.
“What?”
“Your mother.”
This was an emotional topic for me. What was the doctor trying to accomplish by bringing the subject up, I wondered. What was to be gained?
“Is there any particular reason why you’re bringing this up?”
“Yes, I believe somewhere in this subject is the key to your problem.”
“Thank you, Dr. Freud.”
“You are making another joke?”
“Yes.”
“What did you mean by it?”
“Nothing, it was just a joke.”
“Are you saying my thinking is old and outdated?”
“”You’re being overly sensitive.”
“Am I?”
“I told you it was just a joke.”
“Some of the cruelest, most hurtful words ever to come out of the mouths of humans have been guised in the form of a joke.”
“Maybe so, but that’s not the case here. Do all of the doctors in your field have such think skin?”
“Thin skin? Let me tell you something, I -----.”
“Look,” I said interrupting her, “Just who the hell is the patient and who is the doctor here? I’m the one on the couch. There’s no room for two here. Even if the two of us managed to occupy the couch at the same time, we’d have a major problem. Too many patients, not enough doctors.”
Dr. ---------- closed her eyes and sat unmoved in her chair for a half minute or so. She inhaled deeply, held it briefly, then exhaled a long slow sigh.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Forget it.”
“No, I’d like to explain.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“You’re sure.”
“Let’s just get back to you being the doctor and me being the patient.”
“Uh…. Where were we?”
“My mother?”
“Had we started?”
“No, we got side tracked before we got anywhere.”
“Okay, let’s start now then.”
“Where?”
“Your mother meant a lot to you, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“You loved her?”
“Yes.”
“She died early last year?”
“Yes.”
“So, it’s been about fifteen months.”
“About that, yeah.”
“About when was it that you started on this downward spiral.”
“The day I came out of the womb.”
“Please, this is a serious line we are pursuing. Joking isn’t going to help you. I’ll ask you again, when did you start on this downward spiral. The one that resulted in you trying to kill yourself.”
Damn her, god damn her all to fucking hell. She knew what the answer was. Why the hell didn’t she just keep it to herself? Why is she making me say it?
“You know the answer,” I said.
“Yes, do you?”
“Yes, I know the answer.”
“I want you to say it.”
“Why?”
“Say it.”
“A little over a year ago.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Thirteen months, give or take a week.”
“So, your downturn started about two months after your mother died.”
“Yes.”
“You were numb for a short time. Then, at some point, the full weight of it struck you.”
“Is is that obvious?”
“It isn’t the sole factor in your downturn, there are others.”
“But which is the most important?”
“I believe other significant factors were already in play. Each of them were, in their own way, breaking you down. They were chipping away at your will, little by little, then ----“
“My mom died.”
“And that was the finishing blow.”
I closed my eyes and tried desperately to stop myself from crying. Outside of a funeral home and a cemetery, I had only shed tears in front of a couple of people my entire life, and never in public. I didn’t want this to be a first, but it happened. I buried my face in my left hand and waited for it to stop. When it did, my hand moved away from my face, but my head stayed down and my eyes remained closed.
“Are you okay?” Dr.___________ asked.
“That’s a strange question coming from a doctor in a psychiatric care facility. Of course, I’m not okay. Would I be here if I was okay? Would I have tried to kill myself if I was okay?”
“It’s painful. The hurt runs deep, but it must be talked about if you want to----.”
“Get out of here? Does anyone want to stay? Everyone wants to get out of here, at least at my end of it.”
“Then we need to discuss this.”
“I think I can save us some time here I’m going to lay it all out in the open for you. I’ve never had a lot of friends or acquaintances. I’m not someone who can spread their emotional being around to a lot of different people. So, when I do invest my emotional being in someone, it pours out like a flood.”
“Your entire emotional being becomes involved.”
“Yeah, to give you an example, I had a dog about, oh, fifteen years ago. I know a lot of people like dogs, a lot of people care about dogs, but I got so emotionally attached to this dog that when it was time for him to die, I had a hard time dealing with it.”
“Many people have difficulty dealing with the death of a pet.”
“True, but mine went on for a long time. I used to even have dreams about him after words. His death affected me so much that I have not had a pet since.”
“And do you think this is why you have chosen to basically live the life of a solitary man? It isn’t because you lack the ability of commitment. It isn’t because you think you’re better than other people. It isn’t anything like that at all. It’s because you fear you’re going to invest too much of your emotional being into them and then something might happen to them. They might die.”
“Yes.”
“Have you always tried getting out of this hole by yourself? Have you always tried to do it alone?”
“To a degree, we are all alone, aren’t we? You can be in a crowded room, live a crowded life and have a crowded list of people you know and still be alone.”
“Yes, that’s true, but---.”
“When you experience something dark, it is yours and no none else. When someone says, ‘ I know what you’re going through’. They might be generally sympathetic and care deeply about your well being, but no one can know how you feel. No one can know what you’re going through.”
“Yes, but alone is never better, never.”
“Speaking from experience?”
“Yes.”
“Professional or personal?”
“Both.”
“I appreciate your candor.”
“Maybe in the past you could handle these things alone, but obviously, you can’t anymore.”
“No, I can’t.”
“To me, it is foolish to even try.”
“Foolish and dangerous.”
“Have you given up the solitary man idea then?”
“Yes, there’s no guarantee either way, but the odds for survival are more favorable if I try the new way.”
“I’ll help you for as long as you ask for it.”
“Thank you.”
“I will keep you from being alone as much as I can. Are there others who can help in the same way?”
“One or two.”
“Call them, or have them come visit you here. Tell them what you require of them and if they care for you, they will give it.”
“Okay.”
“Our time is up for now.”
“Thanks, until the next time then.”
“Bye.”
I went back to my room and listened to music for a little while before drifting off to sleep. When I woke up, I took on the entire puzzle page of the local daily newspaper. Two ciphers, two crossword puzzles and a jumble. I defeated the entire page in about forty-five minutes. The puzzle page was the only good thing about the paper. The rest of it was only good for living birdcages and in emergencies, in case you ran out of toilet paper while sitting on the toilet. I read it anyway though. It occupied some time, which is important when you are residing in a place like this.