Psychosis, Part I: The Three Week Episode

Any mental illness and/or disorder is problematic because it is not an "exact science". 

What I mean by this: when I was rushed to the hospital for the first time regarding my mental health, the doctors had to ask some questions, as they ask all patients. But questions for a mentally ill patient are a little different.

"What's wrong? Tell me what's going on?" - Doctor 

"I'm hearing voices, everywhere." - Me

"Where are the voices coming from? Inside or outside?" - Doctor

"Outside." - Me

This conversation, taken up in a small and quiet (nearly silent) hospital emergency room, was the initial examination into what has now been determined as psychosis. There was no physical examination of the brain. The doctors had to take me at my word. That's all they had to go on, besides any other signs of panic that may have appeared through my eyes and facial expressions, or any physical signs of my paranoia. Body language and my word is all they had to make an immediate dianosis, which is why I say mental illness is not an exact science. Many times, if not most, mental illness affects the body in debilitating ways without ever providing a physical source of the pain and disturbance. This is extremely difficult for the doctor, but even more disconcerting for the patient. 

I am not afraid to say this now: I truly believe a person who is severely mentally ill would rather be diagnosed with cancer than something as abstract as psychosis. In my situation, I can say this as fact. I would have rather been diagnosed with cancer, or any other chronic illness besides something purely mental, for at least it would have been understood more than the human mind. I reiterate: mind. Not brain, which is a tissue that can be studied and of which a tumor or some other regularity can be seen. But mind, that abstract element which allows us to be aware. It doesn't get any more vague than that. 

A few hours, a few weeks, a month prior - I don't remember now - to being rushed to the hospital, I was in my bedroom attempting to watch a movie (specifically What's Eating Gilbert Grape, of all movies), calmly, in hopes of warding off mysterious voices I was hearing. I was looking around all over my room for the source of the incessant voices (and unfortunately, then, I knew little to nothing about the large canon regarding fairy-folk. I kid you not. Fairies and imps are something that I have not discredited in this Earthly realm). Anyway, I looked out my bedroom window. into the trees which seemed like live creatures trying to tell me something important. After some time passed of looking at the trees with searching eyes, I finally decided to go outside for a walk. When I stepped out into the snowy and wet suburban landscape, I peered into windows looking for the people who shouted at me. I searched inquiringly at cars passing by, wondering who it was that was yelling at me. What I was hearing was not pleasant. "Bitch" and "slut" were two frequent words that seemed to be thrown into my head from invisible passers-by and oncoming traffic, from closed house windows and gated backyards.

(by Francis Pacabia)

I don't remember the exact chronology of everything that happened, but I'm pretty sure it was a full three weeks of an intense psychotic "episode" that finally culminated into me being hospitalized. I simply was in disbelief of what was happening to me: many times I'd sit with my legs bent and I'd hug my body with my arms, staring into the open space, whether in my bedroom or outside, in a crazed state of pure shock, sometimes hallucinating (I'll explain this part later). The voices were a kind of attack that made me feel entirely submissive. I had surrendered, but when they got loud - and not just one voice but a crowd of them - male, female, adult, child, troll-like, friendly, and evil - I finally had to cave in, scream, cry (sob), and pound on my bedroom walls, screaming: "Stop. Please stop! Stop!" And they wouldn't.

During that three week time period, there were a few nights that my mom had to sleep in bed with me. But it just barely helped the uncanny fear that rose up within me. It was less a fear of the voices and more a fear that the voices would never stop, which would result in me never being able to finish my work, me never being able to go to work, never being able to focus, never being able to create, or read, or do anything because of the constant state of berating I was being subjected to. Berating or else mocked or teased, of if in fact there happened to be a friendly voice, it wasn't any less distracting. I could no longer be present. This was infuriating. I could no longer think my own thoughts. Everything became a echo chamber. Everything became a joke. 

There was another course of three nights during this three week episode in which I didn't sleep at all. The first night I sat, wide-eyed, on the couch in my living room, while what manifested as a "war" happened right outside the front door. While I didn't hear any guns or bombs, I heard constant shouting. Male voices like sergeants, like colonels, shouting orders into the void, telling me to stay put. This first night something dawned on me. I felt like I was being transported into a reality I had never quite grasped and finally understood. That the Earth I walked on was alive, had transformed from this expanse of green, lush chaos into some type of settlement, with homes and electricity and lights. As if no time had passed...

OK, now I'm talking "crazy" (apologies for that word which is still connected to a stigma). But really, I believe there was something magical, mysterious, and mystical happening to me that first night, not so much because the experience was pleasant but because the experience taught me something. 

The second and third nights I was imagining/hallucinating a cat running around, a snake slithering intermittently, letters forming within the folds of my bedsheets, a talking plant, and angels having sex in the upright corner of my bedroom. I laid awake the second night convinced I was being visited by the spirit of a dead friend, who for that one night allowed the pain she felt before she died encapsulate my entire body and mind. 

Somehow, through all of this, I managed to go to the very last classes I had to take to receive my Bachelor's degree. I took the bus downtown, walked the streets in a frenetic haze, unbelieving. I tried to tell myself nothing was wrong and that the visions and voices would disappear on their own. Unfortunately, they didn't cease. I took a walk with my mom one night, late, and told her something bad was happening to me. I told her that I was hearing voices and if they didn't stop I'd probably kill myself, because I could no longer be what I considered myself. I was constantly paranoid, acting in weird ways to feign my being "OKAY", and slowly but very surely losing contact with reality; i.e. closing myself up in my room, speaking to people who no one else saw or heard, and imagining very different places within a small confined space in the suburbs of Chicago. I was in rural Alabama. I was in the ghetto of ghettos. I was in Sweden. Each place in each hour and I was not OK.

(Salome by Francis Pacabia)

After I finally caved and spoke to my mom, after enduring three weeks of an episode I was not willing to accept as something "going on", I called the Suicide Hotline. I don't remember what was asked. I remember telling the person on the end of the line what was going on and that person not really seeming concerned, which was awful. There was really no way to get anyone to understand the gravity of what was happening to me. I felt that, and so that night I cried and screamed and pounded on the walls of my bedroom until, very early in the morning, my mom called 911.

As I am writing now, I realize that this story is going to be very long. I also am realizing that no matter how much I can structure this experience with grammar and language, there is nothing that will ever be able to communicate what I'm talking about or what I've experienced. It is something that is almost sacred (though this is ironic because what actually happened was extremely profane) only because I know that something happened that is impossible to prove, something happened that I witnessed and felt and it is impossible to convey in any sort of realistic way. This is all I've got.

And I'm writing on the off chance that I may help someone who feels alone in their own mental illness experience. I'm writing to also shed light on what has historically been very misunderstood. I'm writing to share. If anyone reading this, in any way, feels scared or uncomfortable, I apologize and I urge you to not continue reading unless you think it will help you. Otherwise, stop.

I did want to share with you the etymology of the term psychosis. If translated into English from the original Greek, it literally means to give life to the mind. I find this definition beautiful, touching, and reasonable and, most importantly, positive. I need to be able to rethink what has happened to me in a way that doesn't make me fear life itself. I want to live. So I must think about this ongoing sickness in a way that is helpful. In a way that ultimately changes the way I understand everything into something that is useful and kind. 

I'll continue writing this story and will continue to share here. This is all I've been able to write for now.

Sincerely,
F

Why do you read?

I found this thought-provoking paragraph from Terri Windling's blog (Myth & Moor), and thought I'd share. It's also making me ask myself... why do I read? I have a feeling my answer is slightly different from Windling's and Tolkien's, though I do love their reason why...

- F

The Sickening Romanticism of Sibling-Love

I only truly noticed this a few years ago because it struck home (this is too personal for me to write about and too soon). What I'm talking about is the romanticism, fully understandable, put upon siblings, especially brothers and sisters. It shouldn't be surprising that this relationship is a special one, that has its own nuances, its own inherent, mysterious force that no one can really grasp except the siblings themselves. It is in fairy-tales, where the princess is happy to live with her brother and no one else for the rest of her life, or in major motion pictures like Star Wars, where Luke and Leia are enamored with each other almost to the point of romantic love until they find out who their parents are. It's lightly dribbled onto all sorts of writing and film, and it is exclusively there to show that special bond - sometimes completely innocent and precious - sometimes not - that only a brother and sister could have.

Frankly and literally, it makes me sick.

It makes me sick to my stomach and I cannot really pinpoint why. I know there's a good dollop of jealousy in there, because I don't have a sibling myself. I am an only child. So, there's an exclusive element to this sibling-ship that leaves me out. Why this is upsetting to me I can't grasp, although I am aware of it and it has disturbed me less and less as of late. 

This is something I will have to develop and research more to write about. 

I think another thing that makes the "problem" worse is when I'm asked whether of not I have any siblings myself. When I say no, it's just me, and smile - I usually get a look of pity, or else, "that's too bad" or "wasn't it lonely?" It was neither bad nor lonely, nor do I think it is something to be pitied. I loved and love being an only child... except... well except when I become jealous of people who have siblings. 

I recently read an article from Literary Hub that expresses the need to love outside of marriage - the need to take care of relationships outside of marriage - as just as important as marriage itself. I do not disagree. But there's a huge chunk in this article dedicated to holding sibling-ship up on a pedestal, above friendship, above sexual partners in romantic relationships, that gives me that sick feeling again. It's a sick feeling not looking down upon this, but instead filling me with a depth a sadness that only children and adults without biological siblings could understand. What is it that us only children are lacking without a sister or brother? What type of genetic comradery is there that we cannot fathom? What type of restraint? What is this relationship worth envying? Is it worth envying in the first place?


Here's the article: https://lithub.com/marriage-isnt-the-only-plot-for-love/

- F

P.S. These "notes" are mostly a reference for me for later, should I decide to take up the subject and write further. 

Slow Information

If there is a place that can be associated with “slow information” it would be a tie between being in nature and in libraries. Both encourage reflection and peace, contain plenty of the beautiful (and the sublime), and are free to enjoy. As a proponent of slow information, I love them almost equally — libraries have the slight edge, however, because it’s rarely too cold there, and one need not be wary of bears."

 Article from Medium: Slow Info: Where Libraries, Reading, and Well-Being Converge

- F

The Death Of A Symbol: How Western Writers Exploit The Tiger - A Brief History of Gross Fascination"

I read this moving article from Literary Hub on civilization's "gross fascination" with tigers: https://lithub.com/the-death-of-a-symbol-how-western-writers-exploit-the-tiger/ I highly, highly recommend reading it:

Tigers live secret lives, tucked away in forests and mountains, and avoid contact with humans at all costs. They hide when they need to, engage when they need to. They require large swaths of land to call their own, and they mark their territory by scratching trees with their claws, writing their names. The Siberian tiger needs the most land, almost 4,000 square miles. That’s almost 20 times the size of Manhattan.

You’d want to help a newborn. They’re born toothless and sightless, and when their milk teeth grow in, they’re thin, like pins. A mother becomes engaged in the ruthless conundrum of survival: if she leaves her cubs for too long, they’ll die, and if she doesn’t leave them at all, they will surely starve.

You can hear a tiger’s roar two miles away, but that’s for the best, because their bite is worse. Their canines can get as long as your middle finger. One chomp of their 30 teeth renders a pressure of 10,000 pounds per square inch. They could snap your back in half.

Do you want to kill them because you are afraid—or because you covet their power?

These first three paragraphs describe the sheer power of the carnivorous, massive, feline mammal.

My question, similar to Kini's, is this: why would anyone want to kill such a thing? Why not respect it instead? That kind of power: why would one want to vanquish it? Out of fear? Out of some struggle for competition? Why create such a persona (you must read Kini's words to understand the "persona" I speak of: an unreliable beast, as if all tigers were like the lion Scar from the animated film The Lion King - a stereotype of the worst kind) for this creature who lives side by side with us on Earth? Why create an "other"? Why does anyone ever create an "other"? 

Fear is understandable. I, despite my attempts against it, fear snakes. But I wouldn't go out into the world trying to conquer snakes. I respect their odd, mysterious way of life. I am in awe of the power they have over me: the power to make me stand back, to be curious yet tentative about their origins and way of life. To be aware that they want me to leave them alone. Or, on the other hand, to be with them yet to leave them undisturbed.

So what is this desire for conquering? Where does it come from? Does it come from one feeling threatened by another? Why does one act on a threat - only a threat - with bloodshed rather than an intentional "rising up" of the self, knowing and understanding the threat as only the will to survive, all the same. 

I will not delve into Orientalism, and I will not tear down the colonizer or "white man". Here I walk away from Kini's argument. Only here. All of that, for me, is just a vague generalization of the showcasing of evil: for many the colonizer has a specific face. For me, the colonizer is faceless, and the word itself abstract. Here it means those who need to make a show - an almost ridiculous one - of their ability to conquer a beast only by the sheer pointless killing of that beast for monetary capital. What would be more impressive would be one's ability to conquer through cohabitation. Or even, through some kind of alliance. 

When a human being is not killing but torturing for the sheer gratuitous glut of it - not to learn anything but only to weaken what s/he has already made inferior - that is when a human separates itself from humanity and further, begins to draw itself away from the family of creatures.  

- F

The Third & The Seventh

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Black Delirium

I found an old video of myself reading a philosophy essay I was working on as an undergraduate. Always teetering on failure, in those days. But as I've said before, I graduated. By the skin of my teeth, but graduated nonetheless.  

This was recorded about eleven years ago. 

- F

Let it roll, let it crash down low - there's a house down there but I lost it long ago"

My jam right now - 

- F

Donnie Darko's letter to Roberta Sparrow

- F