"Never call me normal" used to be my motto; now, it is a reality... I never can be. Almost 20 years ago, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Writing is an outlet for me. In this blog, I am free to express my story, thoughts and feelings; this is my journey.
I recently felt the urge to submit one of my oldest and most favorite poems to a competition here at https://vitabrevisliterature.com/ which is The New Poetry Magazine. I decided that since I just finished that earlier blog about “Embracing the Storm”, I wanted to follow-up by posting this poem I entered in their monthly contest. Here ya go:
My Thunder Poem
Have you ever embraced a thunderstorm? Let the rain, lick your face? Or let the thunder, thrive inside – Quickening your pulse to race? * * * Have you ever danced with a thunderstorm? Let the wind, whip your beat? Or let the lightning, glisten stars – Enticing your skin to heat? * * * Have you ever conquered a thunderstorm? Let the sun, enslave your being? Or let the clouds, impart ribbons – Awakening your soul to seeing? * * * I have seen the thundering tempest; Bathed in its sensual ferocity… Curtsied to its electric bow – And echoed its rumbling ecstasy.
This precise moment is a very happy and well anticipated conjunction of time and place which I have waited anxiously for two decades to witness. I do believe that in my complete sober state I am experiencing a piece of nirvana for the first time in my life that I wasn’t even sure if I’d live to see…It is quite nice actually, peaceful, serene, quiet and comfortable.
As I reflect back to just a mere two weeks ago, I laugh at the irony of it all for I was in such a terrible afflicted state physically and emotionally that it felt like a tornado was tossing my spirit throughout the air and ripping it to pieces. Yet sometimes its just best to embrace the storm and face it head on – that is precisely what I did. I refused to become uprooted.
It actually all began rather slowly like rolling a small snowball in the ground. At the local mental health center where I attend, a man from my housing rehab class came in with bedbugs on his clothing. A couple months later, I hear from the staff that his home (primarily his couch) is covered with bedbugs and this individual is banned temporarily from attending the mental health center until the housing manager and his assistant go to his rental home to spray and help with the situation.
The next week, someone picks this man up and brings him to the mental health center when he isn’t suppose to be there and the entire facility is being loaded into like 8 large vans to go to the capital that day and rally for a mental health bill to keep state funding for mental health. Instead of taking this individual home, the manager decided he can ride in the crowded van with 15 people for 2 hours to the capital, then go to a pizza place and ride back for 2 hours! I was not happy with the situation at all.
I told the manager I was uncomfortable with this idea of riding with a man known to have bedbug issues and he claimed it was solved even tho the man wasn’t suppose to be there that day. A couple weeks later in my group therapy room, in a separate building from my rehab class, a different man from a different rental home has a bedbug crawl off his jacket onto the table. The counselor told him to lay his jacket in the corner and we continue with session.
The next couple of weeks talk is flying around the housing class about the bedbug infestation in the homes and how they have had to spray the mental health center. Then my group therapy class loads up into a van and 9 of us go to town to visit a local church for groceries. The man sitting next to me, behind the driver on the front row, has a bedbug on him. The counselor flicks it off him and says I guess I will have one of the staff spray the vans.
Then I find bedbugs in my apartment. I was also really sick with a bad ear infection.
I was not a happy camper.
I called my apartment manager and she informed me of all the HUD protocol I would have to follow to have my apartment sprayed for bedbugs: everything off the walls, everything out of drawers, everything out of closets, everything in plastic tubs or bags, strip all curtains and bedding and wash everything, AND purchase two plastic bed covers from the bug man at a nice $20 each (one for mattress, other for box spring).
I was livid to say the least… not to mention, sick and broke.
So I eventually told the administrator of the mental health facility that once I bought the bed covers, I would give her a copy of the receipt and she could pay me back because I know I got them from the mental health center. She of course did not agree with me…lol. She furthermore went on to say that I’d been “raising hell” lately at the mental health center (I had filed a couple complaints against some of the workers) and I was having too many absences (from being sick).
As a result, she informed me that she did felt I was “no longer a good fit for her program” and that she’d “recommend to the courts that I seek treatment elsewhere.”
I was thrilled. I told her: “Great! I will just go to (the mental health facility in my town).”
I couldn’t be happier. I took off walking. The mental health facility was like fifteen miles away from town, but I could care less. I knew I had a friend with a vehicle that would come pick me up off the highway sooner or later. So I called my state’s patient advocate and told her I just got kicked out of my mental health center and wanted to file a complaint about the bedbug infestation as well as the workers at the mental health center that I had been having issues with.
As soon as I got back to my apartment, I called the local transportation company and paid a dollar to ride to the local mental health center and fill out an application and set up a date for an intake interview.
Now, I have had two intake interviews with the case manager and will be meeting, if the roads are clear, with a counselor there tomorrow to do a two hour interview and set up my treatment plan for the behavioral health facility.
I am so happy to be done with that chapter in my life. My patient advocate agrees that since I have been living independently now for over 3 years I no longer require rehab services. I simply will need to set up individual counseling sessions, some group therapy, family therapy (which I was so happy to see they offer) and see a new psychiatrist for my medications.
Needless to say, I am starting to feel more and more like a normal crazy person!
I even went out and purchased, fully with cash, my first vehicle in over 20 years! All I have to do is take it to the mechanic on the first and get a new water pump installed then save up money next month for a new heater core that my boyfriend is going to replace for me.
I couldn’t be happier. They sprayed the apartment over a week ago and it took me almost a week, due to my infection and the catching of the flu, to get it ready. They will be back around the 12th to spray again and so in the meantime, I am having to keep everything in totes and plastic bags (mostly piled up in the closet with the doors shut because my cat has claws).
I have no cash. My car is broken. The weather is wet with sleet and snow.
But I could not be happier. I got through the thunderstorm. All I have to do is wait to hear from the court because from what I was told, my paperwork to change my conditional release to where I can go to the new behavioral center in town simply has to be signed by my Judge.
So I sit and tap these keys counting my blessings for there is no other place I’d rather be right now and right here.
Last night I had requested from my inner guide before sleeping that she show me a better way of understanding why I was so angry these past few days…Right before waking, I had three distinctly different dreams; yet I can’t recall for sure which happened first… Therefore, I will begin with the most logical sequence:
The First Dream
I was with my family again: parents, sister and children. My parents made all these promises to me such as a new car to keep, a home, and to be the mother again to both my children. (I saw both in this dream as young kids…) But then, as I was taking a walk, I suddenly found myself back at the old institution grounds; yet, I was unaware that this is where I was until I went in to get something to eat.
I soon found myself in a cafeteria line full of females wearing the thin cheap blue uniforms we once had to wear. I realized my parents had lied; they had turned me back in to the institution and I saw them there attempting to eat as well and contact me. I was enraged and told them to stay away. I saw my old psychiatrist there from India as well.
That was my first dream.
To me, this dream is a clear reflection of my personality and my current life situation… You see, I have always held a very high regard for truth and honesty. I hardly ever told a lie to my parents (most generally out of fear and terror of the sever beating I’d receive if they ever caught me…) and yet regardless, this core value has stayed with me all my life.
Now, whether it be from the fact that I am a straight up Sagittarius, or what, I have been known to be blunt to the point of sticking my foot in my mouth and getting into trouble for it. So in this dream, I am promised all this lovely life from my parents; this is a genuine reflection of how they raised me. The were very protective and never wanted me to see the ugly negative aspects of life.
For example, my dad used to fill my head with all the potential men that would flock to me as a teenager when I suffered daily for over two years wearing braces and a head gear at night to have “beautiful teeth.” Now here I sit, only 44 years old, with not a single tooth in my head. (Oh the irony. lol…)
Yet the day I “woke-up” in the institution and realized I had killed my son, all those lovely little glimpses of “what do you want to be” as a young girl, came crashing down. The real truth laid right before my eyes just as the dream shows: my parents had lied. This here is the reality of the deep seeded anger I have held towards them since I got locked away…
Of course, I know there is no book on how to be the best parent in the world and I also know they simply wanted to protect me from all the possible evils out there. They honestly thought it the best to then raise me in a little fortress. I do forgive them and love them; yet, they are still very mean and verbally abusive to me for not having turned out to be like the princess they had envisioned.
The Second Dream
After eating we went out for smoke break to the yard that was no longer fenced in (it is in this reality). I had no cigarettes, so I walked away from all the others and went to a solitary large tree. A couple of guys followed me and I told them to leave me alone; they tried to warn me this part was off limits. I didn’t care and they left. Next thing I know, I am back on the ward being given medications and a shot…
I pass out. When I awake, I find myself in a cell with only three walls and some strange female sleeping next to me. Her foot was touching mine and it was rough. I told her to never touch me again. She responded: “But your foot is so soft!”
I stood up on my feet and told her to never touch me again. (I couldn’t see her face.) I then attempted to walk out of the room but as I got close to the exit, the walls narrowed and pressed on either side of my hips. I knew if I wanted out, I couldn’t walk straight out– I would have to turn sideways. I was immediately enraged at this again.
That was what I call the second dream.
This is another reflection of my life and current situation: my question of freedom. One aspect of my personality is that I absolutely can’t stand being told what to do. I like to be independent and make my own choices. Yet, as this dream shows, in order for me to walk out, I have to “turn” or in another word, CHANGE.
Now, as far as the past nearly twenty years of being locked away and now out on conditional release, there have been many positive changes about me that I will hands down give to the many therapeutic treatments from the institution (both psychological and medicinal). Yet here lately, I received a visit from the advocate general of the state department giving me a “pep” talk about how close I am to freedom again and how it seems “something always tend to happen…”
The man did not give me any specific details as to what those “somethings” have been over the past few years, but gave me hints as to how I can change my approach with the board and ask for my freedom. One of these was to shorten my letters and speeches. I happen to be very analytical and detail-oriented and here this man is saying that is a problem; yet, I know for a fact that the last woman who committed the same exact crime, did 5 or 6 years LESS time as an NGRI, and wrote a five page letter and got her freedom.
In other words, I think this man is blowing smoke up my ass to simply help himself look good as well as the department for the truth is I have a right to be free from excess treatment. I am beginning to see that this is indeed perhaps the truth in my case…
The Third Dream
I found myself on a large stage facing a huge choir. They were dressed in dark red robes and as I look to my right, I suddenly saw the director begin and the choir started to sing some old Christian gospel song. I felt nervous for I felt I had to sing and that I was a part of the choir; however, I didn’t know the words or had any music in front of me.
Then I look back up again and realize suddenly that I am facing the choir and I notice the orchestra is sitting right in front of them. I look back to the right and see a large crowd watching… I become apprehensive for I am thinking that somehow I got mixed directions and got to standing on the wrong side of the choir instead of being a part of the choir.
I then begin to feel a bit embarrassed yet I also start to analyze the situation at hand. I ask myself: “Can they see me? Am I invisible for some reason?”
I search for clues and soon see that no one seems to notice my presence on the stage. I then begin to relax. I look back up towards the choir and orchestra playing straight in front of me… I pause and allow myself the opportunity to embrace the music and enjoy this unique perspective I have been given…
I then wake up from my sleep.
To me, this is a very powerful dream in which I can see several interpretations the more I analyze it. Yet, I will share the very first interpretation that came to me after I awoke and the dreams slowly started to come back to me this morning…
I had watched a show last night by UFO-TV called “The Reality of Truth” and in that show came this unique perspective that basically it’s all good; if a person want to be mean and bad okay, because they are going to get theirs in the end… simply stay out of my sphere. To me this dream is a reflection of that concept within my life.
The choir, being dressed in blood red clothing, could represent all the hypocritical Christians like my dad. The initial fear that I couldn’t sing the songs is what I once felt when I was a part of that family; I never liked singing the songs back then. Never was in the choir either. Then my placement on stage is a large symbol of how I always have stood out from this group of people and the embarrassment is exactly how I used to feel.
Yet now, after a thorough analysis (many years later), I realize I am invisible to this crowd and that even though I am not a part of them, I can relax and enjoy their “music.” It’s like one of the sayings I’ve often heard, let’s see if I get it right: “Not my monkeys; not my circus.” (or something to that effect).
This dream could possibly also have a positive interpretation in light of my current status as an NGRI; yet that perspective will be saved for myself due to my own privacy concerns…
May the love and light surround you all this blessed New Years!!!
“Hello again!”
my shadow says
as he walks along
with my every step…
Let’s play pretend.
I’ll cut you loose
and let you run
down to the river bend–
you can wash your mind
in the crystal waters
clearing your head
of all things that bother
and see with clarity
why it is that you need me.
You’ll remember painful memories
and all the battles that were fought
embracing the negativity
as you hung your Self on the cross.
I suffer when you seem confused,
when you feel I have no use.
Can’t you see I’m a part of you?
Let me show you something new…
I hold you when you are down
and you feel nothing can be found.
I bring to you a balance beam
and together we make the perfect team.
For when you pull in one direction
I am here as your protection;
I bring to you no critical labeling,
just an opposite voice who is loving.
For there is no decision that’s “wrong” or “right”
when you are true to your inner light.
Without the dark side of the moon the moon simply could not be…
——-
Madcow#52699
June 4, 2002
This poem was written almost precisely four years after my son’s tragic death and my spiral down into the rabbit’s hole… I was living in the institution at the time and was outside enjoying some of my ground freedom. The place was built in 1913 and consisted of about a dozen old buildings, some two or three stories high, that housed the mentally insane for the state.
Several of the buildings were unoccupied due to the fact that in the late 1990’s, the state had recently began the process of placing mental ill people out of institutions and integrating them into the community using residential care facilities. (Yes people, I am an old dinosaur… hear me roar… lol). The majority of the people held at that institution prior to that time were not there due to crimes, just major illnesses. After the state shut that portion down, the place held nothing but those that were either a) heading into court for a crime and needed to be mentally evaluated or b) been through the court system and were found NGRI (not guilty by reason of insanity.)
I spent as many possible hours as I could out on the grounds. I was never much of an indoor individual… Back then, I didn’t get much access to a computer; nor did we have one available to us on the ward. So I went about much like the writers of old – I had either a pen or pencil and notebook with me at all times for whenever inspiration wanted to spring forth into a written format. I knew that in spite of all the negative circumstances that led to my situation, it presented a unique opportunity for me to be able to pursue my life long goal of seeking the true meaning of life.
Before I continue from my last post, I recalled some poems I had written that I feel are important to share. This one was written two and a half years prior to my psychosis. It was during a time when I was a single parent in college again and actively exploring different aspects of New Age spirituality. I felt I had met some of my spiritual guides and that I could speak to them and they could speak to me.
It is different when a spirit “speaks” to a person. First of all, it isn’t like a audio hallucination, I didn’t “hear” actual words spoken; nor did it feel like an intrusive thought for the information didn’t seem to come from my mind. It feels more like the heart speaking and one of the primary differences between it and an intrusive thought is that the speed to acquire the information is much faster… it’s more of an automatic knowing than the slower thinking process of a thought coming from the brain.
Thus this poem was written in this manner… from what I felt at the time were some of my spiritual guides:
SHADOW SELF
He is another part of you in a different reality that enjoys negativity.
He can’t touch you or do you any harm.
His only intention is to get you angry.
He doesn’t appreciate the fact that you’ve found the love frequency and he hasn’t.
You need to ignore him and don’t let him upset you — tell your friends to tell him that he needs to go find love before he can enter back into your soul.
He is the part of you that you are breaking away from.
He is the one who has steered you away from the truth.
He’s unhappy because he was comfortable with you and now your strength has pushed him away.
He’s the one who caused you to doubt and to fear.
You need to have a clear intention set forth that you do not wish to ever be the person you were before.
You will go on your feelings and intuition.
You will not accept hate and anger into your life anymore. Your consciousness has risen above that.
He has no part in your life now whatsoever. Do not allow fear, anger or hatred to corrupt your soul.
At the end of every year, starting towards the holiday season, I have a very cyclic pattern of behavior that has not only been observed by myself, but by my mental health care professionals as well at my latest mental health facility (MHF) here in America. Typically, I am like the winter season in that my brain begins to “hibernate” like our Great Mother Earth here in Northern America. This hibernation period usually last about two to three months…
Last night, I signed up on my Amazon Prime account for a new channel. Much to my joy, as I was on a mission to find the name of a movie I had seen to start a new post last night, I discovered the channel called CuriosityStream. Normally, I’ve never looked into the different channels that Amazon.com provides due to the fact that what is advertised predominately are entertainment channels such as HBO, Showtime, etc. that I have absolutely no desire to dish out my precious time, mind, or money towards.
Yet, this one is described as: ” …science, history, tech and nature documentaries…” (curiositystream.com). I think I must have put like 25 shows from it on my watchlist last night!!! Thrilled, I lit a cigarette and picked a short documentary to absorb into my brain called “Unraveling the Creative Mind.” Finally, it summed up exactly what I haven’t been able to pinpoint about this time of year and what is happening to me. The show helped spark a new perspective as to why I behave the way I do, or at least added another piece of the puzzle to the overall big picture of the inner workings of my self.
Yet, holding true to the wise saying from ol’ Uncle Si from the Duck Dynasty show I used to watch often, in every good story, you have to build it up in the beginning, (or some quote he said like that in one of the early seasons)…please allow me the great pleasure to describe myself a bit more during this time of the year and the pattern of behavior observed from others and myself before I share my enlightening discovery…
One of the first signs of the season is an increase in overall depression. My mood begins to gradually switch and little red flags begin to pop up that even I notice; however, I have no motivation during this period to really do anything about. In my private therapy sessions, a change in my “normal” thinking patterns begin to change from positive to negative and instead of being the usual easy going optimistic individual that I am 75% of the year, I turn more pessimistic and begin something that I am going to start labeling as “dancing with the shadow.”
This change in my brain, the thinking and feeling parts, (which as I am well aware there is a predominate theory here in America that the thinking comes first prior to the feeling and that is the premise on which all cognitive behavior therapist base their approach), this change in turn spills over into some of my behavior. I begin to act all “abnormal” or “unusual” or as I’ve even heard, and will agree with this one, quite a bit “irrational.”
A primary example of this seen by myself and others is that I will tend to embrace my more addictive nature and over-indulge in more addictive negative behaviors that can and do impact the overall stress levels of my self which in turn has been associated with as a causative factor in generating overall symptoms of a mental illness like the one I am labeled with: schizophrenia. For example, my overall smoking will begin to increase and during the past good three years (perhaps four), I visit the casino more frequently and will over spend what I have allocated in my budget for what I referenced to as a “form of entertainment.”
I also am deeply aware of the reasons people cater to their addictions…generally to escape some pain that they don’t want to deal with at the present time. And for me, in the winter season, I have one very happy event in my life that I was later robbed of in the summertime when my psychosis hit: the birth of my son. He was born in December. The season that once brought me in my “former” life much happiness, excitement, hope and possibilities now appears to do just the opposite.
So during this dance with the shadow this year, I came to a very low, what I consider rock bottom point of recognition of my addictive side of my personality. Ever since I started keeping a bank account and have had reliable, cheap internet access (for the past two years or longer), I quit using my check register book. My reasons include:
It is a better way to manage one’s time – (I didn’t have to compute single items and document them).
It is more convenient – (I could easily check my computer or phone app and know my balance instead of my checkbook which I didn’t always carry with me).
It is overall less stressful – (I didn’t have to keep both a budget and daily inventory of monetary transactions).
In a way, this was a step in the positive direction of slowly easing away from my very highly analytical and detail-oriented self which in the past, prior to my starting of gambling would sometimes create too much stress. I’d become, during this dancing season, addicted to crunching numbers and then bemoaning and criticizing myself highly should I make even the slightest of errors. This resulted in much wasted time spent on judging my own self harshly which we know isn’t healthy.
Yet when my addiction found a new home at the local casino, this wound up becoming very problematic for me. Yes, I have pretty much before gambling, not been too good at keeping up a savings, unless I had a list of large purchases to make. Like during the first two years of my independent living in this apartment, I needed a new mattress, $350; new or refurbished computer equipment, about $400; and a new separate desk for my creative endeavors, $120. Then after this first couple of years setting up my home, I got introduced to a more active casino life by none other than a former worker at the mental health center I still go to.
The ironic thing about it is that I knew the behavioral pattern of people with chronic addictions. I spent years in the institution educating myself there through various group therapy, individual therapy and reading for my own thirst of knowledge to know the truth. Yet, what I didn’t know is that my friend was in the active throes of his addiction. I did not recognize the fact that he was extending his invitation to go there with him not just as some preamble towards friendship, but as something to clarify and justify his own addictions as “okay” or “not a problem” thus keeping himself in the denial stages…
It started as I would go and spend like just perhaps $10 of my own money. Then, he would give me his money to gamble with until one of us would start winning…before you know, during three hours, with just a little bit of my money, (that $10), we would go through the rushing rapid mood alterations that winning and losing over and over and over again stimulated and provided. Talk about your rush. It was something I had never experienced since my last roller coaster ride as a teenager. (And yes, I loved roller coasters, often throwing hands up in the air and screaming for sheer joy.)
Now, combine this trait with my love for a challenge and you can easily see the resulting characteristic in myself towards taking risks. To me risk is stimulating, not just on a highly physical level, but mental level as well…
Well, last year my dance with the shadow almost made me break…on two or three occasions during that season, I couldn’t make the full payment of a particular bill due to the fact that I owed money to the casino and it would automatically be withdrawn from my bank account on a certain date. If I didn’t have the funds, then all I was told was that it was treated as a bounced check. I knew I could not afford, nor did I want to pay, the costs of that happening; as a result, I wound up having to post-pone payments to the electric and gas companies.
This year, my dance almost broke me and shattered my own financial security. I had two checks bounce from the casino. I did some number crunching. After a good sweat, I had it figured out how to handle the dilemma; however, I made a mistake and didn’t do an adequate investigation into the fact of what will happen next. The last time this happened to me was at a bank approximately six years ago when I agreed to a free sample online and gave out my bank information. I didn’t read the fine print and I discovered they charged my bank for something later…yadda yadda….
So that being my only experience with dealing with something I couldn’t afford, I wasn’t aware that the casino would keep making regular attempts to the bank to collect its money and each and every time I didn’t have it, the bank tacked like a $25 fee for insufficient funds. I discovered this when the same two checks bounced again. After calling the bank and gathering the correct information I did another recalculation using the next month’s budget/spreadsheet.
That is when horror struck and true fear came right along with him. I realized I would not have enough money to cover my basic bills for the following month. (That didn’t include food for I had food stamps.) I also knew that from the previous year’s close encounter with the edge, I could not post-pone bills again.
I could not ask my mental health facility for any advice or help. My pride would not allow me to make such a confession to anyone there for it would serve only as grounds for them to temporarily put me back into the boarding home. I simply could not afford to do that. I didn’t want to lose my cat and leave her without me.
The guilt of having failed as a mother to my son is bad enough. If I had to leave my cat and even temporarily lose my apartment until my financial situation improved, I would have perceived myself as an unfit mother or a utter failure to simply be able to responsibly care for someone I love.
The thought of having to face those feelings all over again is without description. I calculated exactly how much I needed to cover costs and when I needed the money before the next attempt from the casino came in again. There is only one person in the world that I could turn to: my Dad.
I had to make the call. With a heavy heart and tears flowing, I explained my situation. I told him I am aware I have a problem and that I intend to ban myself from the casino. The experience of hitting rock bottom was enough to jolt myself into taking this step that I saw as a final last step and resort. I was now ready to do just that. The awareness had began last year; yet the motivation to change and do anything drastic had not occurred until then.
He agreed to loan me the money on the grounds that I pay him back each month and that he gets a copy of the paper that I sign at the casino banning myself from it. I intend to give him that copy as one of his Christmas gifts from me…
After this period of dancing with the shadow, during which the more rarely seen aspects of my personality come out, just as the earth keeps on spinning round that gorgeous sun, rays of light burst through and new growth is seen emerging from the ground. Every time, after this period of hibernation seems to be some great epiphany and insightful awareness of something about my self.
This in turn stimulates and spawns the ushering in of the “new year” during which any mood changes/swings are very temporary and short. They typically last about three to five days, kind of like miniature cycles of the larger period where I am “dancing with the shadow.”
Twisted sister in the sky Will be falling quite nearby Trees and power lines shall fall Just to show who rules us all *** Thunder beings cry out loud Rain begins to fall from clouds Waiting as the lightening strikes I have no fear — for this I like *** Wind whipping branches ‘round Calling out in moaning sound Telling me destruction waits For now’s the time to re-create *** Watch out all you young For now the sky hides the sun And you must adjust your eyes To the shadows in the skies *** They weave and dance real fast To an old tune from the past We ancient ones can recall That day when the sky did fall *** Bringing terror to little hearts Ripping families and homes apart You see this all with your heart Worry not — we’ll never part *** I wish you well on this journey So few have tried yet we’re many Helping as we see fit Remembering that we don’t forget *** You shall go into another world Where most don’t care to go But you are strong for a girl Be prepared — take it slow
Truthful Ones 12-5-2001
After two years of being in the state’s mental institution for the criminally insane, I “channeled” this on the porch of the administration one cloudy day as a storm approached. To me, when my creative writings come so fast and spontaneously that I don’t even have time to really think about the next incoming word, that is when I feel the Spirit is speaking directly to my heart. I used to always carry a notebook around with me for whenever this type of automatic handwriting would occur.
It didn’t happen very often at all; however, as one can see from the previous two poems I have put in this collection, this one is very different and flows quite effortlessly. All my spiritually based poetry like this would give me a rare beautiful glimpse of insight into the world or myself and leave me with an utter feeling of being blessed. I would know that I was never alone. Peace be to you all.
I sometimes wonder what they think As they gaze within chain links.
What is it that they see…
Animals too dangerous for society?
Creatures cursed with an abnormality?
Demonic humans hiding under “insanity” ?
I sometimes wonder what they know As they gaze into locked windows.
What is it that they see…
Animals to be fed and given sympathy?
Creatures held captive by an evil entity?
People sick with a mental infirmity?
I sometimes wonder what they feel As they gaze into the eyes of us taking pills.
What is it that they see…
Animals deemed ill and in need of pity?
Creatures condemned, not even worthy?
Uncaring humans who’ve lost their morality?
I sometimes wonder if they’ll ever understand What it’s like to be trapped in no-man’s-land.
Can they fathom the depth of this isolation?
Do they realize I’m just a person who has to take medication?
Are they familiar with the pain of an ignorant perception?
Two things happened to me just before the following writing of this blog today…
I created a new facebook page for myself. I had deleted my old one for I had read, heard and simply knew about the internet’s BIG EYE. (My definition of BIG EYE = government watch and control); however, I wanted to get in touch with my step daughter so I did a new one. I got to the part where I could enter my religious view and I attempted to hit the one that said “Spiritual, religion divides people.”
Facebook sent me a flag and claimed it appeared I was answering questions “too fast” and then blocked me from putting that answer down! I later tried the box marked simply as “Spiritual” and it again gave me the flag and block…so I left the religious question alone. (BIG EYE at work there folks.)
I then checked my emails and read up on a blog I follow. It was titled –
One of the things that stood out to me in that article was how the author had recently been in a psychotic break and spent time in the hospital watching Christian television. She said it felt like “…a safe thing for me to watch.” She wraps her blog up that people with schizophrenia need a compassionate and extremely educated person to discuss their religious views or theology with and not someone who just wants to argue and put yours down.
These two events helped to prompt myself into writing about my own beliefs:
One of the things I grew up on as a youngster was Nancy Drew. For those who may never have heard of her, she is a fictitious character that started I want to say in the early 1980s in books. She played the role of an inquisitive young teenage detective that often solved murder cases. I loved those books as a child! I believe some were later made into cartoons and even a movie but I never watched any of it. I feel it would ruin my memories…
As such, my own inquisitive nature grew as a teenager and my thirst for truth didn’t stop there. You see, growing up in a strict traditional Christian home in which I was forced to not only attend Sunday school and church every Sunday, I also had to go to Bible studies during the week, vacation Bible school in the summers (as well as church camps), and for two years attend a small private Christian school. Needless to say, the Christian religion dominated our family’s picture; yet, around age 12 or perhaps younger, I noticed a really foul smell seemed to permeate our inner circle.
It was the abuse of which I briefly touched upon in my first blog. What I was learning with the literature/religion I was forced to swallow didn’t appear anything like that bar of soap my Dad once washed my mouth out with when he first heard me repeat a curse word I had learned from him. He’d often use the Bible as an excuse/reason for his action. The rod and staff corrects the child…I should respect my parents…it’s for my own good because he didn’t want me to end up in hell…yadda yadda yadda…
I guess my mind was focused in on other verses…Love is patient, kind, and gentle. Must have memorized the wrong verses…
Anyways, as a teenager, this early introduction into Christian hypocrisy made me search for truth that might perhaps lie somewhere else besides the Bible. Then my Dad decided to leave the military and attend one of the most liberal Christian Universities at the time, Oral Roberts University. That’s when we moved to what I kindly refer to as the “Christian compound.” It was a large apartment complex that all freshmen students at ORU had to live in (even those with families).
Needless to say, there weren’t many kids there, just a handful of us “chosen ones.” An interesting turn of fortunate events began though: Dad was too poor to pay for any Christian schools in the Tulsa area and my sister and I for the first time in many years got to see and integrate into a large public school. I had such a rough time of it. The kids were so mean. I was laughed at for my glasses, my clothes and my early conditioned belief that rock and roll would send you to hell. I didn’t even know what MTV stood for.
It didn’t take too long for me to see that people had different beliefs and were raised much differently than myself. I wanted to learn all I could get my hands on. I recall begging my Dad to let me have my first radio so I could listen to a rock station. My parents never listened to ANY music besides Christian or classical music. Finally, after years of arguing, I got my way around age 14.
Also around that time, or perhaps I think it was a couple years earlier, is when Oral Roberts made his infamous claim that God had spoken to him and that God said if he didn’t raise X million dollars by a certain date, Oral Roberts would die. What a scam I thought. I’ll never forget how soon afterwards a kid on the bus asked me what I thought. If I thought Oral Roberts would die. All the other kids were listening in so I just held my mouth shut and got mad.As a young free adult, internet was becoming available in libraries and colleges, and I went to college unsure of what to study. I majored in business, yet took psychology and philosophy classes. I was a single parent then to my boy and lived on student loans and welfare. I had moved away from my parents and was so happy.
I bought books from a New Age store and read up on reincarnation, Buddhism, chakra therapy, and I wrote poetry. I fell in love with a full blooded Native American. I shared many of his beliefs and loved to hear his stories. I became pregnant again when my son was five. I refused to get married the white man’s way. I don’t believe the government has the right to interfere in a person’s beliefs and marriage. I did that once with my son’s dad. It was a disaster and my Dad had to pay for the divorce. Never again.
After our daughter was born is when my “psychosis” really began to hit. I began having the thought insertions. The first thing I recall is sounds “speaking” to me…for example I’d hear the windshield wipers squeaking and each rhythmic squeak would talk to me and say something…or listen to a radio commercial and then have some perceptive internal interpretation of what the ad wasn’t really conveying and it would usually be something absolutely hysterical and funny. So I would laugh out loud for what most observers would claim as “no apparent reason.”
(NOTE: Although wikipedia isn’t considered the best source for a reference on this information, it is a good place to start. If you want more valid resources, begin by checking out their references or search your own favorite.)
These thoughts or “voices” would never seem to come from my own brain. It always felt like what I still to this day claim to be another spirit or essence of energy if you happen to be more scientifically orientated than spiritually. Or even alien. That theory though hasn’t really evolved within my own head until the past few years…
Now a second type of “delusion” that began to happen which coexisted with the thought insertions are what the educated white men of the United States call delusions of reference. You see, way before my psychosis began, during my late teenage years, I started to build my own personal beliefs. I began to seek the truth. One of the things I developed as a young adult, prior to my second pregnancy, was an absolute strong conviction that there are NO such things as coincidences.
These two things kept happening very rapidly and increasingly then I saw a face on the television one night. It was blackish, square shaped and fuzzy. In my head I heard it say “I want you.” My interpretation of it at the time was that it was a demon. This was the first time I ever saw anything or had a visual hallucination.
This is all I intend to write in this post of my psychosis prior to my son’s death. After he died and before the police came I had one more visual hallucination. It was of a dark solid black cloudy mass that was swirling. It came out of the bathroom where my son’s body was lying and went through the kitchen and out the screen door. The screen door actually opened and shut itself. I was sitting on couch in the living room and saw it all.
I never had any other visual hallucinations except those two.
When I went to jail is when the real “psychosis” hit. I felt the presence of some of dead ancestors and others that I didn’t know surround me in the single suicide cell. I had images erupt in my mind of what I felt was things that had happened to me in my past. Now, I feel some of these terrors were from past lives…I spoke in different languages or tongues (which I had been exposed to that aspect of Christianity as a child). Yet when a person is actively psychotic, it is termed glossolalia.
Now before you as a reader begins to get bored with all this or thinks perhaps I am just symptomatic and derailing from the topic I intended to write about, I want to say this background information on myself is necessary in the basic postulating of my theories on people with schizophrenia and the discussion of my own personal beliefs.
While in the institution, after being regulated on several medications, I spent many hours in my room reading books. First, I got a book that I have since lost and hope to one day get again, called “Awakening the Buddha Within: Eight Steps to Enlightenment” by Lama Surya Das. I spent almost two years studying and practicing it.
I then put that down and a couple months later, I had my Dad buy me a King James Study Bible complete with cross-references and literal Greek and Hebrew translations of some words. I spent another year and a half in study simply soaking in the Word and seeing the truth.
Something I saw within both religions that year was many similarities. The biggest was the law of karma or in Jesus’ words: “Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” located somewhere in that Bible… Yet in my heart, I felt neither one, standing alone, was the complete truth I was searching for.
For example, I am a firm believer in reincarnation. I also believe in the spirit world and that demonic possession can and does happen. I believe we are all placed on this earth for a reason. That reason is to learn and grow in a positive direction through values that were taught by people such as Buddha and Jesus.
So why me? Why was I possessed by a demon?
First of all, I was at a place in my life where I wanted to know the truth and I was a seeker. Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Karma does indeed exist. Words are powerful weapons. Especially the spoken word. Both Buddha and Jesus went even further to say that intentions and what you think can also be used against you.
Then I came across something after my release back into society: the rice experiment.
I was so happy to see that this experiment can prove what Jesus and Buddha taught about the power of words…yet, remember I also believe in karma.
So I have a confession. The first two years of my son’s life I wasn’t exactly a super mom. I was in an abusive relationship for awhile with his dad and sometimes resented the fact that my son had ever been born. Now don’t get me wrong, I NEVER thought to myself that I wanted to end his life. I would just sometimes get angry he was around because all I wanted to do was get drunk and party.
Then when he was about age three or so and my husband left for the third and last time, he took off and stole my car leaving me and our son without transportation. The hate and anger I had towards that man was intense. I even got two men to go to the city where he fled to in order to look for my car and maybe rough up on him a bit. I went with them and we saw my car! Only it was being driven by his girlfriend and he was in the passenger seat. The chase was on.
Fortunately for him though we lost him. I decided to pull into a used car lot and call the police. I thought since I didn’t give that strange woman permission to drive my car which was under my name only, they could arrest her for stealing it. The police came and told me they couldn’t help me because if I was still married to my son’s dad and he gave her permission to drive then there was nothing they could do because of the joint property laws in that state!
We walked back to our car and the cop noticed a knife in one man’s back pocket. He goes to jail. The other man apparently had warrants out for his arrest and he goes to jail. I wind up coming home driving my friends car and explaining to his wife that her man was now in jail due to a knife in his pocket. Never seek revenge. Lesson learned.
Okay back to my confession. A little time after all this happened, my mother-in-law calls me. I knew my husband had taken refuge with her after he stole my car for that is the town we went to in order to get it back. She asked me how my son was doing. I screamed at her with intense hatred: “…(he) is dead! Do you hear me? Dead to you! Never call here again.” and I hung up the phone on her.
After filing my divorce using the newspaper (since I didn’t know where my ex lived, supposedly), I moved back near my dad to another state about a year later after that phone call. That is when I began my process of returning to college, reading New Age books and earnestly began changing myself. I knew the first couple of years of my sons life had been wasted so I started devoting all my time to him and my studies.
That is when I met my old man, got pregnant, had my daughter then got psychotic. I then committed my crime and have spent years studying schizophrenia, religions, philosophy and coming up with my own truth.
Remember karma. I sent that hate vibration years ago but it came back to haunt me… A couple years after he died I was in the institution and my mother-in-laws phone number that I hadn’t thought of in years just popped in my head out of the blue. A thought insertion? Perhaps. I think it was my guiding angel sending me a message. So I called her and wept bitterly as I spoke to her for the first time in years. I had to tell her that her only grandson was now dead and it was by my own hands. She forgave me and said she understood schizophrenia for she’d been in institutions herself for depression. What an amazing woman.
Now wait a minute, you might be thinking…but God isn’t mean or cruel. Couldn’t God have taught me about karma in a less dramatic way? Sure…but whatsoever the Lord giveth that He can also taketh away.
The truth is out there.
Begin not just with a search through scholarly text…
As a young free adult, internet was becoming available in libraries and colleges, and I went to college unsure of what to study. I majored in business, yet took psychology and philosophy classes. I was a single parent then to my boy and lived on student loans and welfare. I had moved away from my parents and was so happy.
MADCOW #52699 