A word about rage. I had deep, abiding rage that lived in the abyssal places of my mind and body. It was of the blackest of blacks and seemed infinitely deep and wide. When I tried to personify it, it became a huge, snarling gorilla, driven mad by his cage. The source is all that I experienced as a child. I had to learn very early on to bury this rage as any hint of it would be savagely punished. That was one of the reasons I was so silent. I had no energy for anything else but stuffing the rage. I became very good at it, developed a great strength in this area. Later I would learn to use this rage as my life force as I had not the will to live that is the life force of others. I learned to use this power to be both incredibly strong and incredibly gentle. I had witnessed, experienced the effects of rage unleashed and there is nothing I knew that would incite me to unleash my rage. I learned to use it in sport and in work and it served me well for many years. I excelled in all I did due to the tremendous control I had learned in order to survive. People would say that everything came easy for me and I could see why they would think so. But it is precisely that everything was difficult for me that I excelled. Everything required a tremendous amount of focus and discipline to control and focus the rage. And it worked, it worked well. Until the memories returned, then the beast was loose. It was free, ravaging my body and my mind. I had no energy left but to express the monster. I could no longer work. To write what it brought to my heart, to draw what it brought to my mind was all I had energy for. It rose up in my chest and into my throat, literally choking me. Body memories assailed me constantly. I had no strength, my engine had run wild and would spend itself in ranting and attacking me. I searched for my will to live, I could not find it. I took to carrying a seven inch blade under my thigh as I drove at all hours of the day and night across the back roads of six counties, searching for a reason to live. A steady flow of tequila and kahlua took the edge off. There was still no possibility that I would hurt anyone, I had seen far to much hurt to ever hurt anyone. Even myself, though I wanted too and always held it out as a possibility, I knew I could not. That is one of my God's strictest rules. I had developed a deep and powerful faith, beginning with the endless Bible reading of my mothers that were the only words that truly came through to me, and later, faith in God was the antithesis of those who assailed me and was my only comfort. And He was there, he spoke with me walked with me, He and his angels. I would harm no one except to defend another. And I was forbidden to harm myself. So I drove, and drank. I have never truly been drunk in my life though I have tried mightily. Something in all that I have experienced has denied me that pleasure.
So I asked Him, "What is it that people live for?" Lots of things. "Dammit, thats no answer." Silence. "OK, what do you want me to live for since you're determined to make me live?" Faith, hope and love. "Great, like I haven't heard that one before." Silence. "OK, faith I've got, thats why I'm still here but its not enough anymore." "OK, maybe I've got love ,too. There are people who think they love me and people I try to love. Its not satisfying at all and thats not enough either. Don't give me that hope shit, I've never had it, never will. Its totally nonsensical, there is nothing in this world you can depend on, hope is impossible in this world. And yes I have hope for the next world, hell I have an assurance of the next world but it doesn't do me a damn bit of good if I'm stuck here." Silence. "That line about hope never disappoints, bullshit." How do you know? "Okay, maybe I had hope once but so long ago I have no idea what it is or how to summon it up and I know it wouldn't work anyway" You hope it wouldn't work? "You know very well thats not what I said." Silence. Silence. Try it. "No." Silence. "I don't know how" Don't think. Silence. Silence. "I think I'm gonna throw up." Good, thats your defense mechanism kicking in, you'll get past that... eventually. "Gee, Thanks, now I've really got something to live for." Silence. Silence. There's those two little boys, you know (My two step-grandkids, one newborn, one eighteen months). ...Yeah, they're great, but I really have a hard time being around them." Silence. "Its the abuse, isn't it?" Not precisely. "Then it's this hope thing?" Yes. "I can't handle it and they have it." Not exactly, your hope has indeed been destroyed, long ago and since it only brought you pain, you resist it. These boys have awakened your desire for hope. "They're not mine, you know." Does that matter? ...No, not in the slightest, perhaps I feel more strongly because they're not" Yes. "So, maybe I can handle hope for them, I still have absolutely none for myself" Thats fine, for now. "Oh, don't give me that." They're going to need you. Silence. Silence. Silence. Well? "Yeah, yeah, I know, boy do I know." Silence. Silence. What was it you were looking for? "OK, I guess I already have it, I just can't feel it." Thats OK, you've got it. "I still don't buy into this hope shit, though" OK.
Hope is still difficult for me. It requires faith in future things of this earth. I know too well how wrong things can go. So I simply guard the present as best I can and keep my head down. The rage has been largely dissipated now that I have told much of my story. It still rises up and chokes me at times but the gorilla is merely sullen and grouchy now. The infinite abyss is now a large, sometimes placid lake, racked by storms, but landlocked, limited.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Momentary Consciousness, Fall of '99
My most current difficulties with my illness involve a state which relates to how I experience time. Truly I have had this experience all my life but it has been most acute in the last several years. At best it is a wonderful combination of present moment awareness and sensory experience that I have much of the time. At the worst it is a combination of anxiety, impatience, anticipation, and present moment awareness that is all but unbearable, something very difficult to describe that I call momentary consciousness. In its more innocent form I will be reaching for a cup and the moment before I touch the cup will be frozen in time for me while at the same time I will continue moving to touch the cup and then that moment will be frozen and I will be frozen again until I have a sensation of endless moments that feel like they never end but yet they still move in time, and then I stand up, distract myself and its over. But if that doesn't work the moments still freeze and drag, they pile up upon each other, making it difficult to move, depression and anxiety immediately set in, making it even more difficult to move but move I must because movement is the only antidote, movement of my body to get my mind off the mind-boggling movement and non-movement of time. This will go on for a few moments, a few hours, a few days, or a few months. It constantly feels like it is instantly going to end but then it never ends, it simply has to fade and dissipate into the back of my consciousness. That is why I think it never leaves me. When I am conscious of it, it is unbearable; I simply must constantly shuffle about trying to distract my mind or sporadically try to sleep which is only barely possible and then only for an hour of two at a time. I fear I cannot make it clear what this feels like so maybe a metaphor is in order. Suppose you are walking down a street, on a normal sidewalk and suddenly the very instant before your forward foot touches it, the sidewalk crumbles away, revealing a chasm beneath it. Imagine you are suspended in that moment forever, not falling, not touching anything with your foot but knowing there is nothing there but feeling your body slowly and inexorably fall into nothing but yet at the same time not really moving and knowing it is all totally illogical but there is nothing you can do about it. Each moment is your last moment but yet it is not and there is another moment but yet there is not and each is an eternity and an instant at the same time and it drags on forever, or so it seems. That's the best I can do for the layman, but for those familiar with psychology I offer another. Imagine two strict Rogerian psychologists counseling each other, each absolutely certain the other is right on the verge of a major break through. Extend that moment out forever. Those familiar with mathematics or physics might see it as the physical equivalent of the near ultimate points of a parabola. So near but yet so far and always nearer but at the same time infinitely far away and paradoxically as close as possible and as far away as possible, forever. Perhaps the most successful of my descriptions might be that for the philosopher. I seem to experience paradoxes of time in single moments. I experience the present moment and the passage of time and the infinity of time all at the same “time.” It is excruciating. All I can say is that ime dooes have all three elements, present moment, passage of time and infinte future, if my experience means anything. I am incoherant on time past, though the moment most recently past does seem to hang around a bit before it dissolves into nothing.
There is another element to this phenomena. If I can relax in it a bit, center myself, I feel a spiritual sense. A gentle presence sustaining me. As I lay in bed on these endless nights, it helps to repeat a couple of prayers I know well. The Gloria used in the Catholic mass, a beautiful prayer:
Glory to God in the highest
and peace to His people on earth.
Lord God, heavenly King,
Almighty God and Father.
We worship you, we give you thanks,
We praise you for your glory.
Lord Jesus Christ, only son of the Father.
Lord God, Lamb of God,
you take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us.
You are seated at the right hand of the father,
receive our prayer.
For you alone are the Holy One,
you alone are the Lord,
you alone are the Most High,
Jesus Christ.
With the Holy Spirit in theglory of God the Father,
Amen
The other prayer I know as the Prayer for Protection:
In the name of Jesus I take authority and I bind
all powers and forces in the air
in the water, in the underground,
in nature and in fire.
You are the Lord over the entire universe
and I give you the glory for your creation.
In your name I bind all demonic forces
that have come against us and our families
and I seal all of us in the protection of
your precious blood that was shed for us on the cross.
Mary, our Mother, we seek your protection and intercession
with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for us and our families
and surround us with your mantle of love to discourage the enemy.
Saint Michael and our guardian angels
come defend us and our families in battle
against all the evil ones that roam the earth.
In the name of Jesus, I bind and command
all the powers and forces of evil
to depart right now
away from us, our homes and our lands,
and we thank you Lord Jesus,
for you are a faithful and compassionate God.
I know not if the latter prayer has any efficacy in spiritual protection, but it has been my mantra for years and I cherish it. It has become a prayer of worship for me.
With these two prayers running through my head I feel in constant contact with God and this relieves my anxiety as well as distracts my mind from the state it is in.
Recently i was in this state for several weeks and came to the point where I felt i could just not take it any more. I decided to check into the mental ward. I heard a voice in my head say, “Wait until 7:00” That was quite some time away, to far away. I called my couselor, told her my plans. She gently said I could endure. I told what the voice had said. She said, “Well then, wait until 7:00” I waited, it was excriciating, but I waited. At 7:00 the state began to gently recede and I felt a gentle peace. I slept well for the first time in weeks. I don’t claim to understand this. But I learned patience and perseverance, and a trust in my God’s mercy.
There is another element to this phenomena. If I can relax in it a bit, center myself, I feel a spiritual sense. A gentle presence sustaining me. As I lay in bed on these endless nights, it helps to repeat a couple of prayers I know well. The Gloria used in the Catholic mass, a beautiful prayer:
Glory to God in the highest
and peace to His people on earth.
Lord God, heavenly King,
Almighty God and Father.
We worship you, we give you thanks,
We praise you for your glory.
Lord Jesus Christ, only son of the Father.
Lord God, Lamb of God,
you take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us.
You are seated at the right hand of the father,
receive our prayer.
For you alone are the Holy One,
you alone are the Lord,
you alone are the Most High,
Jesus Christ.
With the Holy Spirit in theglory of God the Father,
Amen
The other prayer I know as the Prayer for Protection:
In the name of Jesus I take authority and I bind
all powers and forces in the air
in the water, in the underground,
in nature and in fire.
You are the Lord over the entire universe
and I give you the glory for your creation.
In your name I bind all demonic forces
that have come against us and our families
and I seal all of us in the protection of
your precious blood that was shed for us on the cross.
Mary, our Mother, we seek your protection and intercession
with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for us and our families
and surround us with your mantle of love to discourage the enemy.
Saint Michael and our guardian angels
come defend us and our families in battle
against all the evil ones that roam the earth.
In the name of Jesus, I bind and command
all the powers and forces of evil
to depart right now
away from us, our homes and our lands,
and we thank you Lord Jesus,
for you are a faithful and compassionate God.
I know not if the latter prayer has any efficacy in spiritual protection, but it has been my mantra for years and I cherish it. It has become a prayer of worship for me.
With these two prayers running through my head I feel in constant contact with God and this relieves my anxiety as well as distracts my mind from the state it is in.
Recently i was in this state for several weeks and came to the point where I felt i could just not take it any more. I decided to check into the mental ward. I heard a voice in my head say, “Wait until 7:00” That was quite some time away, to far away. I called my couselor, told her my plans. She gently said I could endure. I told what the voice had said. She said, “Well then, wait until 7:00” I waited, it was excriciating, but I waited. At 7:00 the state began to gently recede and I felt a gentle peace. I slept well for the first time in weeks. I don’t claim to understand this. But I learned patience and perseverance, and a trust in my God’s mercy.
Spirituality and Madness
Spirituality and Madness
It begins, in me and in many other mentally ill people, with a heightening of the senses and a feeling of deeper insight and greater energy. Everything takes on a spiritual aura, depth and meaning, everything. I feel in touch with the very heartbeat of the universe and the voice of God speaks to me, converses with me constantly. I am able to predict the future. Everything I do has spiritual meaning and consequence. At first I have a sense of calm, peace and gentle euphoria. I begin to be the focus of reality. Every song on the radio (the good ones, that is) is about me, the weather revolves about me, I am in touch with all creatures and all people are my responsibility. I become the leading figure of my generation. In the last ten years I have twice become convinced I was female. My life as a man became the delusion. I am God’s emissary of creativity and good, the Holy Spirit within me castes out demons where e’er I go. The first few times I experienced this state, stressful circumstances pressed my reality into an evil cast. The universe turned dangerous and I along with it, though I did no harm. Every time I closed my eyes in sleep I awoke to find the world had had descended to a more decadent level, more evil. I cannot bear to be dangerous so anxiety mounts and I must find a way to cure the evil of myself and the universe to save the innocents. I consider suicide but God prevents me, guides me away from anything dangerous. I fail to save the universe, I lose control, I am incarcerated. There are many variations on this theme. If it comes on along with depression and stress there is no euphoria, only anxiety and despair. Beginning about ten years after my first psychotic break, or episode, I began to be able to manage the state to such a degree that I would remain in it for up to two years, avoiding the descent into evil but it always ended in some sort of crash. The voice, “the voice of God”, remained with me to a greater or lesser degree from about six months before my first episode (February 1986) until the present. It was only in mid 2006 that I finally decided this voice was definitely not the voice of God but I do maintain that God was with me, that I was in touch with spiritual realities along with the delusions.
Since I decided not to listen to the voice it has dissapated and now rarely intrudes into my thinking. I have been told it is not the typical schizophrenic voice as I do not hear it with my ears, it is a voice in my mind with a recognizable personality. I believe it has some connection with my first wife as much of the dysfunctional behavior it elicited were things she might do, tempered by my more compassionate nature. She was extremely abusive and controled me in every conceivable way for over a decade, the decade of my twenties, such a critical period. Toward the end of our time together this control took on a powerful spiritual dimension which quite simply drove me mad. When she finally released me I failed to deal with the years of abuse, I simply stuffed it all and built a new life as quickly as I could. After about eight years this new life began to unravel under the influence of this voice. I have since attempted to address those years in my writing and through counseling. I found there was an incredible reseviour of repressed anger which I have attempted to dissipate but her influence upon my life is immeasurable. There is something in me that loves her still.
Atypical voice aside, experiences such as mine are a very common phenomenon among the mentally ill, this spiritual cast to everything. It can be very confusing, overwhelming, resulting in all sorts of odd permutations of thought and behavior. It is so common because, I believe, there is indeed a spiritual dimension to everything. God inhabits the very fiber of the universe, sustains it and binds it together. In our “normal”, Post Modern Western existence we are shielded from this aspect of reality by the training of our culture and perhaps a chromosome or two. But when our brain chemistry becomes unbalanced this veil is either lifted or our senses are made attuned to this aspect of reality. In most cases we are eventually overwhelmed by it if it does not subside. Variations of the Messianic Complex are extremely common among the mentally ill. One feels as though one is somehow an extremely important and special person in the world, perhaps the most important, perhaps Christ himself. This is understandable in this state. You feel so close to God, he makes you feel like the most special, the most unique, the most important person there is. We forget that he feels that way about everybody else in the world, too. The spiritual experiences of the mentally ill are not entirely delusion, there is much that is real and true in them. But this gets lost in concerns about abnormal behavior and control issues.
There is within us all certain brain centers which have been found to be active during deep spiritual states. Research with yogi masters and others have revealed very specific types of brain activity in such states. I know of no such research on persons going through manic or psychotic episodes but since the religious experience engages specific brain centers in specific ways it seems possible these same brain centers and activities might be affected, the religious experience gone awry.
We here in the West are not far removed from times when the mad were thought to be possessed by demons. This view remains in some cultures and seems to still be in the back of the Western mind. I would say it is possible, it does happen, but this is not the root of mental illness. Mental illness is in general abnormal brain chemistry, derived from a combination of genetics and environmental factors. It is not, as seems the Western attitude, a defect in character. Most mentally ill people are gentle but tortured souls living lives of quiet desperation. Our world is aflame with conflicts arising largely from differing spiritual beliefs. Throughout history, as today, there has been much bloodshed in the name of religion. This is true madness.
It begins, in me and in many other mentally ill people, with a heightening of the senses and a feeling of deeper insight and greater energy. Everything takes on a spiritual aura, depth and meaning, everything. I feel in touch with the very heartbeat of the universe and the voice of God speaks to me, converses with me constantly. I am able to predict the future. Everything I do has spiritual meaning and consequence. At first I have a sense of calm, peace and gentle euphoria. I begin to be the focus of reality. Every song on the radio (the good ones, that is) is about me, the weather revolves about me, I am in touch with all creatures and all people are my responsibility. I become the leading figure of my generation. In the last ten years I have twice become convinced I was female. My life as a man became the delusion. I am God’s emissary of creativity and good, the Holy Spirit within me castes out demons where e’er I go. The first few times I experienced this state, stressful circumstances pressed my reality into an evil cast. The universe turned dangerous and I along with it, though I did no harm. Every time I closed my eyes in sleep I awoke to find the world had had descended to a more decadent level, more evil. I cannot bear to be dangerous so anxiety mounts and I must find a way to cure the evil of myself and the universe to save the innocents. I consider suicide but God prevents me, guides me away from anything dangerous. I fail to save the universe, I lose control, I am incarcerated. There are many variations on this theme. If it comes on along with depression and stress there is no euphoria, only anxiety and despair. Beginning about ten years after my first psychotic break, or episode, I began to be able to manage the state to such a degree that I would remain in it for up to two years, avoiding the descent into evil but it always ended in some sort of crash. The voice, “the voice of God”, remained with me to a greater or lesser degree from about six months before my first episode (February 1986) until the present. It was only in mid 2006 that I finally decided this voice was definitely not the voice of God but I do maintain that God was with me, that I was in touch with spiritual realities along with the delusions.
Since I decided not to listen to the voice it has dissapated and now rarely intrudes into my thinking. I have been told it is not the typical schizophrenic voice as I do not hear it with my ears, it is a voice in my mind with a recognizable personality. I believe it has some connection with my first wife as much of the dysfunctional behavior it elicited were things she might do, tempered by my more compassionate nature. She was extremely abusive and controled me in every conceivable way for over a decade, the decade of my twenties, such a critical period. Toward the end of our time together this control took on a powerful spiritual dimension which quite simply drove me mad. When she finally released me I failed to deal with the years of abuse, I simply stuffed it all and built a new life as quickly as I could. After about eight years this new life began to unravel under the influence of this voice. I have since attempted to address those years in my writing and through counseling. I found there was an incredible reseviour of repressed anger which I have attempted to dissipate but her influence upon my life is immeasurable. There is something in me that loves her still.
Atypical voice aside, experiences such as mine are a very common phenomenon among the mentally ill, this spiritual cast to everything. It can be very confusing, overwhelming, resulting in all sorts of odd permutations of thought and behavior. It is so common because, I believe, there is indeed a spiritual dimension to everything. God inhabits the very fiber of the universe, sustains it and binds it together. In our “normal”, Post Modern Western existence we are shielded from this aspect of reality by the training of our culture and perhaps a chromosome or two. But when our brain chemistry becomes unbalanced this veil is either lifted or our senses are made attuned to this aspect of reality. In most cases we are eventually overwhelmed by it if it does not subside. Variations of the Messianic Complex are extremely common among the mentally ill. One feels as though one is somehow an extremely important and special person in the world, perhaps the most important, perhaps Christ himself. This is understandable in this state. You feel so close to God, he makes you feel like the most special, the most unique, the most important person there is. We forget that he feels that way about everybody else in the world, too. The spiritual experiences of the mentally ill are not entirely delusion, there is much that is real and true in them. But this gets lost in concerns about abnormal behavior and control issues.
There is within us all certain brain centers which have been found to be active during deep spiritual states. Research with yogi masters and others have revealed very specific types of brain activity in such states. I know of no such research on persons going through manic or psychotic episodes but since the religious experience engages specific brain centers in specific ways it seems possible these same brain centers and activities might be affected, the religious experience gone awry.
We here in the West are not far removed from times when the mad were thought to be possessed by demons. This view remains in some cultures and seems to still be in the back of the Western mind. I would say it is possible, it does happen, but this is not the root of mental illness. Mental illness is in general abnormal brain chemistry, derived from a combination of genetics and environmental factors. It is not, as seems the Western attitude, a defect in character. Most mentally ill people are gentle but tortured souls living lives of quiet desperation. Our world is aflame with conflicts arising largely from differing spiritual beliefs. Throughout history, as today, there has been much bloodshed in the name of religion. This is true madness.
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