Descent into Madness/Coming Home

There is a process to going insane

         To tell this tale correctly, I have to start in the middle, work backwards, then tell the end, so please bear with me.

         5 years ago, I found myself in 4 point restraints in a hospital. I had spent six months plotting my own death, and had chosen hanging, in a national forest, off-season, when I would be least likely to be "interrupted". That way, I would likely be found by a parks employee, rather than my wife, or kids. The place I had chosen was right off the road to the nearest fire-watch tower from the state highway.

         Now, obviously, six months of planning--no depression can last that long, right? Well, that's not true, but in my case, it *was*--I was in a high cycle of a bi-polar swing, when I actually did this. But the plan had begun while in depressive phase, and the planning laid out long, and carefully...and went into action immediately after I began the descent from the frenetic, can't keep hold of a thought, everything in the world can be handled, easily, so put it off for now, and have fun, fun, fun, peak of mania.
         You see, I knew, by then, what was coming. I had experience, if not acceptance.

         After the restraints, came a mandatory 72 hour hold in a mental health facility. My repeated statements that "they had to let me out, eventually, and I can finish the job, then" caused a judge to place an indefinite hold order.

         Now here is where I have to start clearing up some of the stigmatic public perceptions that made it so hard for me, and still make it hard for others who need the help, but won't get it, because of these stereotypes.

         People have some expectations of "the mentally ill". In part, due to the media, how they depict these illnesses, their treatment facilities, the behaviors associated, the speculation of mental illness surrounding a heinous deed, or the referencing a "history o mental illness". In other aspects, these stigma--the stereotypes, are due to what the general public sees, in the cases of the terribly delusional, untreated cases, or the self-medicating "fell through the cracks in the system" "homeless nutcases".
         We've all seen these people, sometimes with pity in our eyes, sometimes with a bit of fear or nervousness, sometimes merely with a touch of discomfort, no different than one feels through being able bodied, and running across an amputee..a "don't look, because it might make them self-conscious"...and, understated in that in cases of mentally ill people "their reactions might be erratic and unexpected, if they notice YOU noticing."

         There are some, far too many, who refuse medication, can't get medication, self-medicate, and who descend into their delusions as if a black hole swallowing reality around them. Having conversations with a person who isn't there, arguing with them. Muttering to themselves. Giving clear signs of a persecution complex. Complete inability to hold a rational conversation. They exist.
         But just like congregations such as the Westboro Church, who picket military funerals, saying the soldier deserved to die, because his nation is tolerant of homosexuals, these are a small, but VERY noticeable minority.

         In the hospital, there were no gibbering idiots, no "totally disconnected with the world" catatonics, no conspiracies between patients to continue engaging in various fixations (nymphomania, hyper-manic behaviors, similar). Those don't exist. The state can't afford to house enough of the insane to make it possible, and, if it could, priority would be on "salvageable cases".

         Private hospitals won't get patients like that, either...they get the nervous breakdowns, the anxiety disorders, the extreme cases of germaphobia and obsessive disorders. The issues the spoiled "haves" can afford to have, and go get treated for, usually because it gives them something besides themselves to blame for something.
         Don't get me wrong, here. Anxiety disorders are real, and so is clinical depression. As well as many others. But you don't treat clinical depression by "taking a happy pill" and suddenly being all better--if you run into someone who claims to experience medical depression, but can "take a <name your prescription antidepressant here>, and feel better", they are full of crap. Anti-depressants are neurochemical adjusters. It takes a minimum of a week to build up in the system in quantities capable of having ANY effect. So waking up, saying "I feel down, today. I'll take a happy pill, and be all better!" is pure and simple attention-craving hypochondria. It just doesn't WORK that way.

         My ward-mates were people. Strange people, but people. Most of them, you wouldn't have known they were prime material for a skull-borer, unless you got involved in a conversation that touched on one of their "off areas". Much the same way you don't realize you're kooky neighbor is a flake and a bit off the rails, until she offers to read your Tarot, claiming to be a medium that can tell with unerring accuracy, your future through a pack of cards, and how serious astrology is at least as strong a science as astronomy (and these specimen often confuse the two). And even then, if you put up with this little eccentricity, and steer conversation away from it, so as not to be trapped uncomfortably into palm readings, tea-leaf readings, the importance of holistic medicine over medical treatment of surgical issues...she's fine.

         The most extreme case--the most clearly persistently "crazy" case, while I was there, was a young man who had fixated on the Harry Potter books/movies. The offense that brought him into state care was having walked into a grade-school principal's office, and announcing his willingness to teach classes in wizardry....and refusing to be dissuaded by polite refusals. Yes, delusional. Rather seriously so. But unless your conversation with him somehow touched on magic, wizardry, witchcraft, or similar, a conversation with him was as normal as could be. He was actually quite bright. I'd even go so far as to say he was gifted in music and in art (we had opportunity to exercise any talents in either that we had).

         In other words, your average bi-polar wouldn't be recognized as one by people who aren't specifically trained in it. If your friend was one, he'd be a barrel of furious energy, and tons of fun, for a while, then he'd "burn out", and let social opportunities brush by him. In the midst of his frenetic tours, he'd be hypersexual--a "horndog", he'd seem somewhat ADD, as if there wasn't enough time in a day to get done what he felt needed done.
         And when down, he'd probably simply beg off social invitations, make excuses about not feeling well, lately, sleep a lot.
         Your average schizophrenic is going to be missed just as easily.

         Do you want to know why bi-polars and schitzoids are so common as movers and shakers in the world of the arts? It's a simple answer. Art is the process where a person uses a medium to draw an emotional reaction from the observer. Negative reaction, positive reaction, it doesn't matter. You don't buy a book because it's a perfect example of technical literature...you buy it because the author creates characters you like, or hate, and then puts you through a story with them that you can relate to---it makes you FEEL. paintings? Yeah, again...what do you put on your walls? Flat, dead, though technically correct work, or stuff that gives "a vibe", or carries some "taste" to you? Music? Don't even TRY to tell me you listen to music for its technical perfection. No matter the genre you listen to, you listen to what moves your heart.
         So why do delusionals appear so frequently in the art world? Think...they are delusional. They live in your world, you see the same things. They DON'T interpret it the same way, though. So a schitzoid's painting of the inside of a tunnel in Central Park can become a beautiful fairytale haven, without a touch of anything smacking of fantasy appearing on the canvas. You see it...but you see HIM see it differently. And that jars you into new perception and reaction. Or he might see the lights playing through the "living fountain" display at night as something hideously foreboding and threatening. You see a pretty light show. When he shows you what you KNOW is that "pretty light show" in such a disturbing perception--it jars, and creates emotional response.
         It's simply the effect of laying a pair of maps over each other. One marked "normal perception", and the other "this delusion"...the delusion has hidden paths, and alleys the normal map doesn't show, it shows spots of "abandon hope all ye who enter here" where the normal map shows a pleasantly winding path through a park.



         Now...back to the beginning. In 1992, I left the Army. Service in Desert Storm. Nothing I regarded as too horrific, especially as far as what a soldier was expected to encounter as part of his job. Not a patch on what some of the vets I knew from Vietnam era service had seen, dealt with, and come through seemingly right as rain (I found out later that "right as rain" was a very shallow surface appearance, in some cases). No family history of ANY form of mental illness. No depression, no mania, no schizophrenia...not even a "frail auntie" who took to using "Prince Valium" as her bed-mate.
         I went home after being discharged. My family had moved from my home town, but it was still MY home town, so that's where I went. Pretty quickly, it became evident that some of my old friends just found me "too intense and reckless", while others, at times, I found such a wear on my nerves that I stopped interacting with them. Those that stuck through the "intense and reckless" phases would tell me how "crazy" I was, but I took that as a young man will. As in "I'd never do that, you must have brass ones the size of coconuts!" Most of these, by the way, were the ones that had fallen into self-abusive lifestyles.
         It didn't take too long before my reckless and hyperactive behavior in these periods drove old friends away...my incessant need to be entertained, to be doing something, to be incapable of focusing on a project, of seeing it through, of making big plans everyone but me knew weren't going to go anywhere...what friends didn't leave just because of the chaos eventually abandoned me because my behavior "burned" them one time beyond their tolerance.

         Now during this time,, I would find myself in a screamingly great mood, then turning on a dime, and screaming, throwing, and breaking things. All through this, there were certain stimuli that would make me tense or jumpy. These simply got worse.

         In 1994, I went to a VA facility for the first time, for a physical issue unconnected to my behavior, that a regular GP couldn't define, and suggested I see them for. In all of the in-processing as a VA-treated patient, some red flag must have gone up, because it was strongly suggested I go up to the MH ward for an evaluation, and to see what resources were available to "traumatized veterans".

         Of course they handed me a diagnosis of manic-depression disorder (what they called bi-polar, back then), and an anxiety disorder. Some of the questions they asked were outright insulting, though. "Do you hear voices in your head?" Well, of course not, I'd be crazy if I did! "Does your TV talk to you?" Ummm...not by name? "Have you ever considered suicide?" Well, who hasn't had a passing moment of "fukitol"? Not seriously considered it, though. (YET).

         So I refused to accept this diagnosis, left in a huff because they weren't trying to do anything about what BROUGHT me there, and ignored them for 3 years.

         During that time, I had a unique experience, that I wouldn't sacrifice for the world, despite what it cost. I spent 3 years being a modern hobo. I had construction skills, I had my tools, and it was the mid-'90's building boom. I would work for someone until I hit a point where I "just didn't have the energy to go to work" enough times I had to call in and quit before I showed up and got fired. Then I'd hop a Greyhound to wherever, and do it again. You can see a lot of the country, in three years, that way. Especially if you have about a 3 month crest to crest cycle, which you adamantly refuse to acknowledge.

         However, during that same period, I found it increasingly difficult to watch movies or television shows that had combat with "correct" sounds...most movies don't, you know. You don't usually hear the sharp popcorn of an M-16, you hear something more like the report of a deer rifle digitally overlapped into a machine gun pattern. Bombs don't sound like that. They don't make a deep, rumbling, multi-stage BAH_WAH_WHOMPH sound, they are more a loud crumping sound. Like a house sized cardboard box being crushed under the jumping feet of a 35 foot tall child. Bodies don't behave that way when shot. They don't get blown backwards in a stuttering dance as they are peppered with automatic weapons fire. In fact, being hit more than three or four times total, while being fired at by an automatic is unusual. When it happens, though, the bullets go in fast, they leave fast. if they hit a bone, they shatter it too fast and hard to create any sort of stumbling dance. And the body rarely falls backwards. Just like a faint, usually the body's center of gravity is forward, and that's the way it falls, unless there is a blast front to move it else-wise (such as a grenade). But once in a while, a director knows...and goes out of his way to get it right...and I can't watch his movies or shows, even today.

         And I noticed other things, in passing....I wasn't sure if, for some reason, I could randomly hear snatches of other people's thoughts, or if people learned to communicate telepathically as they became adults, and could tell a "mind-blind" person, and would, out of the same courtesy you use in not telling a man in sunglasses with a red tipped cane to look at the shapes of the clouds, today, use purely verbal communication.
         Either way, whether "specially advantaged" or "partially disabled" I was different...so I didn't talk about it. And no, they were OTHER people's voices, I could SEE who (I thought) they belonged to. No voices in MY head, that would mean I was crazy!

         Not long after, I was seeing movement in shadows, where others would tell me they saw nothing. Shortly, I became convinced that the telepathy thing was something we'd once been able to do, as a race (evolution wouldn't develop a brain that doesn't get USED entirely, correct?), but had stopped teaching each-other long, long ago (my surmise was it was an enforcement of social class standing), and I was just a weak prodigy, with no control...and the things I saw in shadows, then...they must be "the edge of spiritual perception"

         Now to someone who isn't insane, this SOUNDS insane...but if a person seeing and hearing these things has to make a rational line of thought to explain them, and then keeps that to themselves, knowing that they are "special", and not wanting to create negative feelings in those "less special", it makes perfect sense, does it not? And a manic, a schizophrenic, and almost all other delusionals who still have social sense hold this belief--they are "special", but they don't want to disturb those around them by letting THEM know how "mundane" they are. They believe ghosts are talking to them...or the thoughts they hear that are not their own are being PUT there somehow, and CIA idea projecting suddenly makes logical sense.

         Back to the VA for another unexplainable physical issue. Another reference to MH for, still, unknown reasons, as I hadn't given any of the obvious "you're crazy if you do" answers. Another diagnosis of manic-depressive, plus PTSD and chronic anxiety issues. Given a hand full of prescriptions, told to take as directed, report in six weeks.

         Psychiatric pills make you feel "wrong"...like you're driving your body from within--it a vehicle, and you a pilot sitting somewhere in it. The world is separated from you by "cotton wadding". Six weeks, you return. To wait for two hours after your appointment time, to be brought into the psychiatrist's office, ask how you're doing, no discussion of symptoms, pretty much "are you planning to kill yourself, or hurt anyone?", kicked out with orders to go to the lab for blood tests, pick up a refill on prescriptions, and consider one of the PTSD group therapy options.

         Well, bugger that! I'm apparently not sick enough to warrant any more concern than that, the pills make me feel wrong, and I am not a weak-sister...plenty of men went through MUCH worse, without becoming PTSD patients!

         More hobo tourism, meeting my now-wife on the way. HOW she stuck with me through the intervening years, I will never know. Thank God she did, and thank God for our children. I would never have made it through the other side of this rabbit hole, without their presence.

         2001, the kids are getting old enough to need some stability. I catch an opportunity while in high cycle. I can talk a MEAN game in high cycle, and have the energy to appear as if I can back it. I landed myself a job in a car dealership. Commission based, some assigned hours, but you could be there as much more as you liked...sales is sales is sales, and a commission goes in my pocket.
         So I had a new trade to hop around in...and hop, hop, hop I did...right up until I was hired as a finance manager by one...then another...then...a hospital and 4 point restraints.

         When you come out the other side of something like that--when the enormity of what happened, who you hurt, how much MORE hurt could have been done--you are shattered. There have been doctors and counselors working very hard to scotch tape the pieces back in the frame, but it's shaky. You're just starting with a new private psychiatrist, with a circumlocution of the new relationship, and the tightrope of "what can I trust you with...yet? How far will I be ABLE to trust you?". And new medication, medication that has the same effects as before, but that you keep taking because of your fear of "breaking" again, and causing what you were forced to see would be the actual results.
         And a year and a half, maybe more, of finding a balance of medications that minimally impacts your feelings of being connected to the world, but controls your symptoms well enough to prevent danger, or, if possible and even better, to bring you solidly into the realm of normalcy.

         In 2006, a stranger, a lonely hiker, walked through "my" patch of the woods at exactly the right time. Beginning with him, I got my life back. The price I pay, to this day, is that I no longer have any real moods. I can get happy, I can be sad...but nowhere near what I remember so clearly, no true sadness over things that should make me sad, like the passing of my family's long time member, our pitbull terrier. No extreme happiness, whee there should be, only a somewhat smothered sense of satisfaction. My eldest son finally found his "game persona" on the football field, after two years of being a player they put on the field because school district rules said they HAD to. Suddenly the kid is second string in three positions, then first string in two, and second in two more. And instead of a bursting proud papa, I was only able to tell him how well he was doing, not be bouncily happy that my boy has stepped it up.I am still somewhat separated from the world in a cushion of medications. But I know the difference between reality and hallucination, without having to form my own "least hypothesis" as to why I'm experiencing things others apparently don't. I don't have weeks of not enough energy to crawl out of bed, or weeks of stay-up-for-days frenetic behavior and abortive creativity.

         That price is fair paid, for a world where I am loved, I get to see my kids grow, graduate, get married, the things I get to do, and see.

         But the stigmata is there...if I or my wife have to explain that I am bi-polar for some reason, we see the little moue of mouths, we know the mental image that is being made. If we have to turn down an invitation to double date at a movie, or have to refuse the kids renting a certain movie during sleepovers, explaining that if they sound too real, I get too tense, excitable, and prone to reactions that, at the very least, could be categorized as "intense", the look of sympathy on a face that could never comprehend...but thinks they do...I see it, and I seethe.


         The descent into madness is quiet, gradual, and hidden by the one falling along it, until the depth is just too great to surface from, or until they surface again, fragile, timorous, knowing that they will be judged, misunderstood, stigmatized, for the rest of their lives. Even by the people who try to treat it with sympathy, or as if it's "no big deal, man", because that is simply stigmata in its other face---no different than someone saying "I know how you feel, man" after your sibling's funeral, when he was an only child.