Tag: stigma

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Day 17: In The Grey

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Next comes medication. 

In The Grey
Cas Reeves 2012
 
The darkness and the light
They just seem to intermingle.
All is grey; all is mute,
There’s no sunshine and no night.
Beige and cream and soft blues,
No black to take me home.
Mornings and evenings
But no midnight and no noon.
I never see the sun
Or the moon.
Medicated to be calm
Take a pill; it’s a charm.
Go to the doctors,
Get a needle in the arm.
Do not think outside the circle
It’s there to keep you sane.
Do not feel, do not feel all your pain.
Maybe twilight, maybe dawn,
But never sunshine or night,
Stay in the middle,
Grey is right.
Two plus two equals four no more,
Do not say how much you’re hurting,
Keep it all inside.
Quiet child, quiet child,
Find somewhere to hide.
Do not let yourself be seen,
Wrap your arms around your heart.
In the grey, in the grey,
Live dead in the day.
After hospitalisation and a diagnosis of schizoaffective comes medication. Lithium, as a mood stabiliser for the bipolar, and Seroquel, as an anti-psychotic for the schizophrenia. These medications work, but at a terrible cost. The nothingness goes on for years; you live in ‘the grey’. There are many side effects. The chemical straightjacket of medication is a cruel punishment for a crime we never committed.
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Day 15: Delusional

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Delusional
Cas Reeves 2015
 
I gave birth to the Universe
In the courtyard
Of the mental ward.
I was alone,
But not,
For all the Dragon Queens
Of unfathomable eons
Kept me company
As I sat
Content,
In my fluffy pink bathrobe
And marvelled
At how much easier it was
To give birth to time and space
As opposed to a human child.
I submitted to the council of elders
That there was a great injustice
Handed to humanity in this regard.
It did not seem strange to me
To sit amongst distant spirits
And feel exhausted
Yet complete.
Not the mother of the Universe,
But one more daughter
Giving birth to the future.
I want people to understand mental illness. If nobody shares, how will the stigma ever be lifted?
I saw dragons, spoke with them; knew them. My mind built a whole mythos that made perfect sense to me. If I told it to you as a fictional story you would think: what a wonderful imagination, what a strange, symbolic allegory. But it wasn’t fictional to me at the time; it was my truth and experience. I was delusional. Some of my delusions were beautiful; not all were scary. Although some were terrifying, running outside screaming, stark raving mad terrifying. It feels like peeling back my skin to share, but delusions are a part of this mental illness.