A rambling confession

I’ve now been out of hospital five weeks. I have to write because I struggle to hold onto the truth of my experiences without a screen in front of me. I keep a wordpress blog, and often use it to write semi-journalistic articles about aspects of the schizophrenia, or my writing progress, but a lot of what I want to say is simply too personal, and too intimate, so this site is ideal.

I’m doing ok, mainly. Have spent the last week or so watching films (about 65% of free time), and reading (about 35% of free time.) I’d like for those figures to be the other way around because reading is more meaningful, and is better for me. However I’ve still got low energy levels, especially in the morning, and so putting a film on is easier. I’ve read two decent books though, 3 I think so far in the last month- which is good. I wish I could hold onto the positives as tightly as the negatives seem to sometimes hold onto me.

In all honesty, at this moment, I’m sheepish, and this is why I need to write this confession.

One morning, when I was in relapse, I’d been up all night and the sun had come up, it must have been about 7am, I’d been dragged down to a low, low point by family negative voices and my own self pity and despair, which seemed to happen a lot. He came in then, the guy I was in love with and who’d played such a big role in all the various drama’s going on in my mind. He was the one who would move heaven and earth to get me back up to a positive sphere again. It was like he had an alarm which went off when I went too low, and would then charge in, destroying anyone and everything he came up against, to walk me back up again. I loved this, obviously, he was like my own knight in shining armour.

However he wasn’t dumb or mindless; my mind doesn’t have the capability to only see one side of things and so that morning they story went that he’d worked out why this kept happening, why I kept falling so low. He’s worked out another pathway for my thoughts to follow, which would mean I could hold myself up and basically in the positive without needing his support. He started this pathway down in the negative- it was as if he was giving me an alternate version events, one which didn’t include Gods and otherworldly forces, for me to hold onto who I was and my own sense of self. I genuinely believe this was my survival instinct, and yes I still believe in otherworldly forces, the two things are connected, and when I say survival instinct I mean a healing process. Anyway, I have a strong practical side to me and so this side was trying to rebuild my sense of positive self, and he was the voice that was leading it.

He started by saying, “you’ve always thought you were a little bit better than other people, (insert my name there,) didn’t you? Always thought you were a little bit special?”

This was the line that knocked me, but shouldn’t have surprised me really. Love translating as the harshest criticism possible- the sequence of words designed to knock my stomach out.

I had been lying in bed, genuinely believing that I needed to die for what might have taken place, that I’d done something wrong on some cosmic scale, and that I couldn’t be more wrong about nearly everything even if I tried. Then his voice broke in, with this assertion, and it was like he was showing me why all the symptoms were happening. I took it hard, I lay in bed thinking about it, and then got up and got in the shower, and then I sat in the shower for five minutes thinking about it.

My confession- I felt bad, I suddenly felt like an arrogant, presumptuous, up my own ass bitch- because I could see a truth in it then, as he said it, and my emotional reaction was strong.

I got out of the shower, feeling as small as an ant. I knew it wasn’t entirely true, I didn’t consciously walk around treating other people as if they were worse than me, and had spent most of my life feeling simultaniously superior and inferior. When I was a teen I wrote about this, I don’t feel superior neccesarily, I just feel different. After a little time I defended myself- I don’t feel better than other people, I just have a confidence about me, I’m a natural leader and can come across as really assertive.

His assertion wasn’t entirely true- the feeling special is a result of the mental illness. I argued with him later that day, once I’d really thought about it. I sometimes feel better than other people because of what I’ve lived through. Not even better than other people just different.

I realise I’m rambling now- the reason this came into my head today, my confession, is that the schizophrenia has often, a lot of the time, made me feel as though I’m special. On a level I actually think I’m lucky because it gives a person that feeling which acts as a resiliance.

However now, I want to write something, the schizophrenia gave me this natural presumption, I will write something meaningful. However now I’m struggling with just how difficult it will be.

The schizophrenia makes me feel as though I’m there already, it works to make the person feel different, special in the sense that the experiences are special. I chose not to see them in the negative because to me they’ve always been about potential, however now I’m trying to realise that potential and it’s flipping difficult. It’s the opposite of special.

I’m watching a film called “Birdman, or the unexpected virtue of ignorance), and I feel like the main character who is an aged actor who got big in one film franchise and is now grappling with the fear of anonimity. He’s mad, he hears the voice of his character in his head, and he’s terrified that he will be a joke. My fears manifest in a similar way in that I feel stupid for ever believing I could do something meaningful.

A part of me, a main part of me atm, is desperate, absolutely desperate to do something which I will be validated for. I’ve been writing for years, but since leaving work and being able to focus on writing, it’s like I’ve moved out of the play-pen and into the real world. The pathway I’ve been following for the last ten years has come to a violent and a dramatic end.

I’m now left with this self belief, but also the most immense amount of self pressure- like I need to prove something. His words, you always thought you were special, and better than other people, have come back to me because they link into how the schizophrenia made me feel different. It has made me feel special, as if I’m on a very personal pathway. But never better than other people, and often isolated and depressed. I meet my friends with their lovely families and lives and I feel distant, different. I’m no better than other people, but I guess I believe I’m living my truest life. I would prefer to have a book published, over having a baby say- that was never my life and my pathway.

However now, this special pathway I’ve been following has imploded, and I’m in my flat watching 3 movies a day. I’m not writing, or not as much as I want to be.

I lay in the bath last night thinking I’m old, ugly, overweight and unintelligent. These are the worst thoughts. I’ve been chatting to a guy, but I’m worried that if I meet him and he sees my most recent scars, he’ll run away screaming. I thought, I’m never going to travel, in the way I want to- I’ll never find my tribe, the kind of people who I’d get on with authentically. These are the worst thoughts, I’ll never leave this flat, this small town, and expand my horizons. My horizons are dying to be expanded. I think I lived in this bubble, for so long, now feeling the painful sting once it’s popped is hard.

All I can do is keep working. This has been my mantra for the last five years. To become a better writer one must simply keep writing. However I was working then, I was in a relationship. I had other things to absorb the negetives. Now I don’t have any of that any more. I’m moaning in self pity here, I know I am.

I guess the confession I wanted to give was- yes a part of me did think I was special. That I was special and therefore if I kept doing what I was doing good things would follow. However I am now facing the cold light of day. That those things might come but the amount of work I need to do is severely more than I’m putting in atm. It makes me smile, the theme of my symptoms this time around, when I woke one morning and figured it all out before the voices and forces came in, was that I needed to learn courage and focus. Which is true. It’s like grappling with a paradox, special, not special, special, not special.

Work is the answer, the only answer is work. To succeed one most work, and for some the amount of work needed will be significantly more than for another. This is just the way of things. Schizophrenia is like being caught in a mirror maze. I must respect myself for what I’ve come through, but not too much, not more than say, I respect myself for getting up and making myself a cup of tea.

There’s a great scene, in the bird-man film, when he daughter rips him to shreds basically saying he’s the same as her and the insta generation, in that he’s terrified his life will be meaningless, he’ll never be relevant. This film also made me realise that half the world feels the same as I do- terrified their life will be irrelevant, that they’ll never receive validation etc. I’ve been watching a lot of films with this kind of theme.

This post has become very convoluted. Special, not special, special, not special. Which are you?