Once there was optimism to see silver laced clouds till the world shook on its axis and decidedly bowed. Psychosis (they say) is to go quite insane, lose touch with reality, but they never mention the pain. When all that is true breaks at the seams, life becomes survival, desperation and screams. Mistrusting your judgement since all you see is false, no more gut feelings to rely on, you’ve got to just halt. Buried beneath the weight of taunting monsters and more, the theories roll, there is no staunching it despite how you implore. Eventually, the doctor will finally take note, through terror laced tears you sought out help and hope. The medicine works! That’s great, saves the day, the 50lb weight gain, well at least you’re not in a grave. Time will return that the world is no longer asunder, blessed peace will come back, beautiful and quiet as thunder. There isn’t much that the mind cannot do, it a remarkable system when it runs smooth. So if you find yourself in that darkest of nights, keep hold of your love and never stop searching for light. Psychosis is agony, there’s no hiding it, vulnerability is the solution though surrendering seems amiss. Give trust to those that care about you, seeing through their eyes might keep you from the thorazine zoo. Recognize, none of us perfection incarnate, schizo or not we all have a life to live well and stories to make.
Psychosis, when you’re a shadow of what you once were.
Hesitation on the edge of perfection while the wind whips back past the lips of despair and a trajectory that ends splatted on the rocks below. A momentary pause for God knows what reason, soliloquy rattling like unquenched armor inside a skull aching for reasons and meaning.
No jovial tone to be found other than the laughing hysteria that comes choked off with a seemingly endless parade of tears. Coughing, bawling, howling, begging, giggling into the yawning darkness and discontent of a reality set to dissolve beneath the weight of a mind misfiring badly.
The beautiful tableau awash in sunlight and a fucking million possibilities all riots against that creeping sensation that “all is not what it seems”. A centipede who can no longer walk because he thought about how he did it. Natural instinct sold out into chained slavery inside the boundaries of nothing and infinity. Conjured by poisons and released by fears it’s set loose as a hungry behemoth on the landscape of mind, the carvings of soul, the sculpture of heart.
Hesitation on the edge of perfection with the barest sliver of hope overcoming resignation. Nothing is ever as it seems, and the worst of the world today may become the most redeemed beauties of tomorrow. Shake off the terror and walk into the fire to be forged anew.
The edge of perfection recedes against hope. Time slips forward into the next scene.
I’ve posted at various points about the women I had been in meaningful relationships with over the past several years. I’ve started the process of trying to own my mistakes and damaging choices that I made which wrongly hurt so many. I’m not expecting forgiveness nor looking for absolution – I simply want them to know that I see, finally, what I was doing, and that I am using that knowledge to change – but that I am truly sorry that I never gave validation to their suffering or trials as my partner.
The woman in the picture is my wife. We have been married for nearly a year now and during that period, for nearly 7-months of that I was in a schizoaffective psychosis that made it excruciating at points for us to interact. I left her for another woman, an ex, and then came crawling back as the hallucinations and delusions became too much. She welcomed back a broken and distorted man who was in the middle of, very literally, losing his mind.
At various points during what should have been our honeymoon period, I was convinced that she was in collusion with a massive entity that had designs on my life or was controlling and manipulating every facet of my existence. At others she was the embodiment of every other woman from my past, down to peculiar quirks, gestures and habits. She was going to be my executor and was part of the CIA, maybe she was part of a higher learning classroom where the objective was to transfer the emotional condition of each unknowing participant to their partner in order to engender sympathy and empathetic understanding of their challenges, she had been solicited by the local police force as part of an investigation into me and was the only reason I wasn’t in jail, we were unified spirits finally returning to each others company as we had been separated at birth, I was an android, we were both part of a “Matrix” style computer simulation, we were in a computer simulation again but this time it was part of a pre-death effort to recover functional control of the potential disability funds that I was too apply for – we were both on our way out and there was a timed limit to how long we could be sustained, she was god, she was my mother, she was my sister really, we were siblings, we were part of a government solicited experimental project that dated back into the early 1960s and was consistent with mind control practices used by the CIA and the conditioning had finally started to falter and a reset was needed in order for us to continue on, the experiment was over and the pain was from the conditioning being wiped, I was part of a TV show and was always considered an overindulgent jackass but the popularity had hit a decline and now the producers were reworking to see if they could salvage what had been a massive financial expenditure, there were patterns in all of the lights and colors that indicated specific events that would be forthcoming, the patterns were there to trigger latent programming in my mind to demand I act in certain ways……on and on and on.
Heather dealt with accusations, assertions, demands that were incredible unreasonable, threats, hostile looks, battered and desperate sobs, breakdowns, manipulations on her reality to try and line up with what seemed to be gaslighting, and capped with endless triggers to her own trauma that brought it back into full swing for her PTSD – she walked down the same road as I, holding my hand while my mind shattered and I became completely incapable of functioning in any sort of a way. I became wholly dependent on her emotionally and often physically as I would need direction to do the simplest of tasks.
I don’t know how she did it, I can’t imagine the entire extent of psychological and emotional damage she endured for that period – all while being judged and criticized by her family for standing by the side of a “schizophrenic drug addict” to such an extent all support and contact was removed.
She is truly incredible. Today, I am enrolled in college full time studying towards a law degree. We own a small RV that barely functions but acts as home. Support comes in from my family as we have actually rebuilt a degree of trust and love now that I am on a steady and clear path forward. They see the efforts that we have put in and the support we’ve given each other. When Heather broke down and checked into the local hospital, I was able to be there as a steady support and ensure that she was taken care of and all the outside concerns were handled so she could relax.
I was shattered at one point to the level that while sitting in the hospital with a deep wound from breaking a window in frustration that I didn’t know my name, my gender, my birthday, anything beyond that I was sitting in a hospital. She nurtured and helped grow me back into an actual function adult, and a partner that adores and supports (as best he can) her in turn – trying to reciprocate what she extended so freely despite the obstacles.
I love her to pieces, she astonishes me with her creativity, emotional connection to the larger whole, altruism, sympathy, caring and respectful behavior towards anyone and everyone – completely free of judgement. She is loyal beyond what could ever be expected of someone to endure and when she sets her mind to any task she has such a commitment as I can only dream of. For all her peculiar little quirks and certainly acknowledging that we all have faults, she is one of the most remarkable people I have ever met with a story that would bring any rational person to their knees in disbelief. She has been on quite the journey with me, and I am proud to finally be returning what she invested – surely to the disbelief of anyone who was in doubt of her decision if they were still paying any attention.
Most what I admire however is the truthfulness she embodies in every action and conversation throughout the day. Coupled with her open mindedness regarding life and non-judgemental mentality, we can speak openly about our challenges, desires, mistakes, fuck-ups, and everything in between. She has challenged me to have such a degree of integrity as she does, to walk the walk and own my actions, to grow by mimicry at first and then taking my own steps. She and I are building a life together, starting from nothing, but laying every component carefully so as to have the most solid of foundation–something neither of us has ever done.
We truly have been through one hell of a ride, but today we are able to laugh, enjoy some precious moments, and be secure in our connection to each other, knowing that nothing can, or will, break us apart.