Reflecting on Nearly Ten Years with Psychosis

It is not without reverence that I remember those years of my life. Wrapped in a seemingly endless summer. Those years are blanketed in my mind, by light and warmth, and set to the beating of my then manic heart. I have come far from the person I was. Sweltering as I was, as we all were. The backdrop of those years colored the shade of hospital curtains, smelling like antiseptic. And if I listen hard enough, if I tread deeply enough into my memory of those times, I can hear the river, running under the sky. Skin and bone body. Clouded with a constant high, laying in the empty apartment, the empty university dorm, the empty field of tall grass. The sky reflected on the river, the river reflected on my heart, my heart reflected dangerously in my brain.

Those years tasted of Sugar Black Rose, burning the inside of my lungs. Lay back and forget.

I hardly remember the winters.

The cold, deep, dark of the infernal Maine winter.

Those beautiful, young years, in which I was psychotic.

Medical trauma is a hungry ghost. Still, it tried its damnedest to consume me. Many days haunting my chest, hammering my heart to the sound of my memories. I wish only to tear it out.

The sting of a needle as it slips beneath my skin, as had happened many times before. I writhe beneath the hands of medical professionals. I am glad for the calm like I am glad for a slap in the face. The great swell of mania drained from my chest, until I am empty until I cannot breathe; and I sleep.

When I wake the voices are still there.

I am dosed again.

I am held against my will. Until a bed opens and I am transported to the psychiatric hospital. There I am allowed to walk the halls, feet clad in socks, with which it would be very hard to hurt myself. There I am held too, but there I have some freedoms, even though they depend on my behavior. In this other hospital are many people like me. I don’t know if that’s a good thing. But I certainly feel less alone.

There I am sometimes over-medicated.

But the voices do not go away.

The doctor tells me I am bipolar. The doctor tells me I am a catatonic schizophrenic. The doctor tells me I am schizoaffective. At the very least, the doctor tells me, things will never be the same again. The doctor tells me to consider a group home. The doctor tells me I will not work. The doctor tells me I will not finish school. The doctor tells me that this is my life now. The doctor tells me to get used to it. The doctor does not tell me how I am supposed to do that.

Ten years later and the voices have not left. 

Ten years later and I am looking back in time.

Years have passed like the unraveling of a thread. I cannot, though I have tried, gather it.

Memories are illusionary at worst; at best they pass through my head with the uncertainty of a dream.

Depression after mania is like drowning in cold water. It is a mattress under a stiff spine. It is the cage of a dark room, dust falling in what little light is let in. Depression after mania is the sound of my skeleton falling apart, the white gleam of my bones. It is the want for a release from death. The becoming of a ghost, the haunting of your own body.

The years of eternal summer.  Hot in the chest, screaming at the sky.

I do not miss those years and am content to only reflect on them. What did psychosis teach me? If you had asked me then, the answer would’ve been that psychosis had taught me not to trust my mind. How certain I was of that. After all, it often conjured images others could not see, smells others could not smell, voices others could not hear, the sneaking unease of constantly being watched, and the horrible fear that others could read my mind. My brain even robbed me of my body, leaving me to endure bouts of catatonia. It is with a deep sense of consideration that I reflect on the unraveling thread of my past. What did psychosis teach me? It taught me to adapt, to learn better, to be better. It taught me to be strong in the face of absolute uncertainty.

I cannot undo my past, I cannot will it away, even as it fades scars remain. Some days it is a battle between past and present. The voices I hear are a reminder of both where I came from and how far I’ve come. I have, somehow, grown to no longer resent them.