Blogging is a new exploration for me, so where better to start than in the heart of the matter? I am starting this blog because I am a writer, which means that I’m absolutely, assuredly, completely insane.
Not really, but I like saying it. I am what our culture calls “crazy,” but I’m a functional kind of crazy, so long as I’m supervised by my lucid mental faculty.
I have what the good doctor calls major depressive disorder, but I’m pretty sure there’s some anxiety and schizophrenia mixed in there too. In my eyes, it doesn’t matter what the labels say. What matters is my ability to see it, recognize it, and talk about it.
I have had symptoms and suicidal thoughts/attempts since I was about 10; however, it is only recently that I’ve come out of the mentally-created asylum to ask for help. It’s exhausting living in such duality: one with the mask that covered my symptoms, and one the without it behind closed doors.
The most important thing that has allowed me the ability to stop trying to hide is that I’m not afraid to laugh at myself, and I’m not afraid to see the beauty in the ugliness of my own mentality.
I’m not afraid to laugh at myself when I yell at the fairy who won’t leave my dog alone. I’m not afraid to laugh when I drop a carrot on the dirty floor that and cry for two days, thinking I’m a complete failure in life because I couldn’t even hold onto a carrot. In case it wasn’t clear, that’s a joke. Episodes are not that simple. It’s not just one event that sets me off, it’s the weight of many.
The labels are just words that describe one thing: A sensitive human soul. They are used to assign a level of crazy to a colorfully eccentric mind. While attempting to snuff out the unusual and dampen mental anguish, we’ve tainted the magic of the world, we’ve diluted faith and belief in the supernatural, and we’ve lost the wonder of unexplained things. In essence, we’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
There is beauty in “crazy minds.” There is a deeper understanding of human nature and behavior, there is divine wisdom, and there is a better appreciation for both love and hate, fantasy and reality.
We as a people (and by we, I mean the general You of society) have forgotten how to communicate with each other, how to care about one another. We have forgotten how to be empaths. In favor of this distorted view of the need to have brute “strength,” we have disengaged from the things that make us human: Love, companionship, trust, loyalty, reason, higher understanding, etc.
I think it’s about time we move from the words “mental health awareness” to “mental health acceptance.” The former is too… inadequate. You are perfectly aware that there are people who are exceedingly different from the majority. Truly accepting mental illness and seeing the beauty in it requires not only an open mind, but an open heart.
I am not diminishing the effects of these conditions. I know the depths of despair and the sweet release of making the choice to die and go Home. I have attempted suicide on at least 10 occasions and suffer nearly daily episodes of depression and freakishly outlandish conversations with nobody in particular. I know what it takes to get me to the point of wanting to relieve my mind and soul, too… which is a hell of a lot of unrelenting pain and internal torture. This is the kind of pain that scares most of you. It’s because I can’t prove it. I can’t show it to you. I can’t even use words to accurately describe it!
What I can do, though, is tell you to stop being so afraid of me. I’m not a ticking time bomb. I am not always planning my next attempt. I am not looking for hand-outs, playing the victim, or looking for attention. I am always, always, always fighting to stay afloat and ahead of the demons that I have spent years trying to subdue. Unfortunately, when you do this every day for years on end, there comes a breaking point.
Imagine the most stressful time of your life, the greatest and most severe pain. The kind of pain that made you double over and do nothing but scream and cry. Amplify it to include several more situations just like it… as if the demon of betrayal decided to marry the demon of deceit and have a bunch of baby demons to torment your soul. Now, feel that every day for several years.
Oh… and smile, nobody wants to hear about that shit!
In my own experience of coming forward and asking for help, I have found that nearly everyone has displayed this belief that mental illness, and especially suicide, is “wrong” and “awful,” even from people in my Pagan community. I seriously question that judgment because I am crazy enough to stand alone about this if I must: I am not condemned to bad karma or hell or purgatory or the nothingness of a spirit-less void because of this human condition that connects my soul to my ego in a variety of frightening and exciting ways.
I will put in my own words what I have read in multiple articles, in particular this piece on what a Shaman sees in a mental hospital.
We are the unveiled minds and hearts of the world. We are the empaths; those who can feel everything and everyone around us. With a world and culture that is overflowing with anger, disconnection, and worry, is it any surprise that most, if not all of us suffer to extremes? Everyone suffers, yes… but not like one who has known nothing but.
We are the connection between That world and This one. Most of you know what I mean by that, whether you call it Heaven, the Void, the Summerlands… whatever.
A schizophrenic, for instance, can literally hear and see things that are not part of this plane, but because the majority cannot see or hear it, they are looked at in fear, heavily medicated and/or shut away from society. These people are forced to suppress this gift of otherworldly connection. They are forced to hide the symptoms for as long as possible, and grow to be ashamed of them. This creates a virus in the hard drive of that person’s brain, and it shorts out to become something malevolent.
After decades of instilling into the collective mind of our society that all of these “illnesses” are terrible and “wrong,” we have created an entire race of fearful, shamed, and psychologically impaired human beings. We have become a people afraid of the higher Mysteries – those that involve the unexplained. This creates division not only within a society, but within the individual too.
There is beauty in an “unnatural” mind. Of course, this could all be crazy talk. I don’t interact enough with general society to really know if this kind of change is even possible anymore; however, there is no shame in trying.
With a bit of humor and simple loving acceptance, little by little we can fix the “problem” of mental illness.
This is not to say that it's derisively funny, nor is what we go through in the torment of our minds. It takes a lot for someone to get to the point of a break… the only point people can see. What I mean is that we have to learn the art of joy and laughter before we can even hope to make a dent in the gross misconception of "unnatural minds."
It’s time to lighten up a bit and open the doors of the asylum.
I will say here that there are certainly dangers with mental illness, especially if it’s untreated, and especially when paranoia is part of the symptomatology; however, paranoids have just as much right to be respected and loved as the rest of us.
In my opinion, paranoia is caused by malevolent energy that grows over time and under certain conditions. These gifts, these differences, get buried in the darkest and dankest corners of a person’s soul, and they grow dusty and moldy. When they break out of that dark prison, they have only a distorted view of the world around them, and everything becomes a threat.
That’s just an opinion, though. I’m no doctor. I am simply human, one with an “unnatural mind.”
Not really, but I like saying it. I am what our culture calls “crazy,” but I’m a functional kind of crazy, so long as I’m supervised by my lucid mental faculty.
I have what the good doctor calls major depressive disorder, but I’m pretty sure there’s some anxiety and schizophrenia mixed in there too. In my eyes, it doesn’t matter what the labels say. What matters is my ability to see it, recognize it, and talk about it.
I have had symptoms and suicidal thoughts/attempts since I was about 10; however, it is only recently that I’ve come out of the mentally-created asylum to ask for help. It’s exhausting living in such duality: one with the mask that covered my symptoms, and one the without it behind closed doors.
The most important thing that has allowed me the ability to stop trying to hide is that I’m not afraid to laugh at myself, and I’m not afraid to see the beauty in the ugliness of my own mentality.
I’m not afraid to laugh at myself when I yell at the fairy who won’t leave my dog alone. I’m not afraid to laugh when I drop a carrot on the dirty floor that and cry for two days, thinking I’m a complete failure in life because I couldn’t even hold onto a carrot. In case it wasn’t clear, that’s a joke. Episodes are not that simple. It’s not just one event that sets me off, it’s the weight of many.
The labels are just words that describe one thing: A sensitive human soul. They are used to assign a level of crazy to a colorfully eccentric mind. While attempting to snuff out the unusual and dampen mental anguish, we’ve tainted the magic of the world, we’ve diluted faith and belief in the supernatural, and we’ve lost the wonder of unexplained things. In essence, we’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
There is beauty in “crazy minds.” There is a deeper understanding of human nature and behavior, there is divine wisdom, and there is a better appreciation for both love and hate, fantasy and reality.
We as a people (and by we, I mean the general You of society) have forgotten how to communicate with each other, how to care about one another. We have forgotten how to be empaths. In favor of this distorted view of the need to have brute “strength,” we have disengaged from the things that make us human: Love, companionship, trust, loyalty, reason, higher understanding, etc.
I think it’s about time we move from the words “mental health awareness” to “mental health acceptance.” The former is too… inadequate. You are perfectly aware that there are people who are exceedingly different from the majority. Truly accepting mental illness and seeing the beauty in it requires not only an open mind, but an open heart.
I am not diminishing the effects of these conditions. I know the depths of despair and the sweet release of making the choice to die and go Home. I have attempted suicide on at least 10 occasions and suffer nearly daily episodes of depression and freakishly outlandish conversations with nobody in particular. I know what it takes to get me to the point of wanting to relieve my mind and soul, too… which is a hell of a lot of unrelenting pain and internal torture. This is the kind of pain that scares most of you. It’s because I can’t prove it. I can’t show it to you. I can’t even use words to accurately describe it!
What I can do, though, is tell you to stop being so afraid of me. I’m not a ticking time bomb. I am not always planning my next attempt. I am not looking for hand-outs, playing the victim, or looking for attention. I am always, always, always fighting to stay afloat and ahead of the demons that I have spent years trying to subdue. Unfortunately, when you do this every day for years on end, there comes a breaking point.
Imagine the most stressful time of your life, the greatest and most severe pain. The kind of pain that made you double over and do nothing but scream and cry. Amplify it to include several more situations just like it… as if the demon of betrayal decided to marry the demon of deceit and have a bunch of baby demons to torment your soul. Now, feel that every day for several years.
Oh… and smile, nobody wants to hear about that shit!
In my own experience of coming forward and asking for help, I have found that nearly everyone has displayed this belief that mental illness, and especially suicide, is “wrong” and “awful,” even from people in my Pagan community. I seriously question that judgment because I am crazy enough to stand alone about this if I must: I am not condemned to bad karma or hell or purgatory or the nothingness of a spirit-less void because of this human condition that connects my soul to my ego in a variety of frightening and exciting ways.
I will put in my own words what I have read in multiple articles, in particular this piece on what a Shaman sees in a mental hospital.
We are the unveiled minds and hearts of the world. We are the empaths; those who can feel everything and everyone around us. With a world and culture that is overflowing with anger, disconnection, and worry, is it any surprise that most, if not all of us suffer to extremes? Everyone suffers, yes… but not like one who has known nothing but.
We are the connection between That world and This one. Most of you know what I mean by that, whether you call it Heaven, the Void, the Summerlands… whatever.
A schizophrenic, for instance, can literally hear and see things that are not part of this plane, but because the majority cannot see or hear it, they are looked at in fear, heavily medicated and/or shut away from society. These people are forced to suppress this gift of otherworldly connection. They are forced to hide the symptoms for as long as possible, and grow to be ashamed of them. This creates a virus in the hard drive of that person’s brain, and it shorts out to become something malevolent.
After decades of instilling into the collective mind of our society that all of these “illnesses” are terrible and “wrong,” we have created an entire race of fearful, shamed, and psychologically impaired human beings. We have become a people afraid of the higher Mysteries – those that involve the unexplained. This creates division not only within a society, but within the individual too.
There is beauty in an “unnatural” mind. Of course, this could all be crazy talk. I don’t interact enough with general society to really know if this kind of change is even possible anymore; however, there is no shame in trying.
With a bit of humor and simple loving acceptance, little by little we can fix the “problem” of mental illness.
This is not to say that it's derisively funny, nor is what we go through in the torment of our minds. It takes a lot for someone to get to the point of a break… the only point people can see. What I mean is that we have to learn the art of joy and laughter before we can even hope to make a dent in the gross misconception of "unnatural minds."
It’s time to lighten up a bit and open the doors of the asylum.
I will say here that there are certainly dangers with mental illness, especially if it’s untreated, and especially when paranoia is part of the symptomatology; however, paranoids have just as much right to be respected and loved as the rest of us.
In my opinion, paranoia is caused by malevolent energy that grows over time and under certain conditions. These gifts, these differences, get buried in the darkest and dankest corners of a person’s soul, and they grow dusty and moldy. When they break out of that dark prison, they have only a distorted view of the world around them, and everything becomes a threat.
That’s just an opinion, though. I’m no doctor. I am simply human, one with an “unnatural mind.”