madness p2
Okay, so it'll be awhile before the text gets too long. I am probably killing the buffer or something, I dunno.
So my parents piled me into the car and drove me out to Whitby, a regional psychiatric hospital in Ontario, one town over from my home town. We drove a long gravel avenue past the grounds, typically pastoral with trees, and trees lining the road, but no hedges or bushes to screen the view. I looked out and saw autistic people rocking themselves on the lawn among other figures, most of them looking hunched and bloated and grey. I think it must have been evening, it was twilight. The rest of it, the boring cement rooms with furniture, the desk and the test and the friendly guy in the coat passing evil judgement on me were unimpressive. Well, I didn't appreciate the guy saying there was nothing wrong except I wasn't trying hard enough. But I believed him! he was the expert! He said I was just lazy and if I tried harder, I'd do better! So my parents exercised more discipline and punishment and I squinted my eyes tight vowing to do this thing known as "try harder." Not that I had a clue what that actually meant, I mean, I was just being. If they'd said "you need to stand on your head 3x a day for five minutes" perhaps that would have worked, but nobody explained how to try harder. They just kept telling me I wasn't doing it, for the next forty three years.
So the years went by and my situation got more difficult. Everyone was mad at me, nobody liked me, and the praise I got was polite lies. I was desperately unhappy, forced into dealing with psychiatrists so I also believed i was hopelessly crazy, a pariah, never welcome to join human society, but never going to be allowed to stop trying harder. When five years later I started in earnest to try and end it all, they told me they'd lock me up in Whitby if i didn't quit. By now I'd consumed a few novels about insanity and heard more than a few scandalous rumours of the nuthouse and what it was like in there at night. Screaming and violence all night, abuse and pain all day, and lousy food and always too cold. So I wasn't going for that. So I didn't quit trying to kill myself, just gave up thinking anyone cared enough to help me. They weren't trying to help me, they were trying to help my parents and teachers who couldn't throw me out till I was 18, no matter how much they disliked me.
sometimes I wonder if I could see why everyone dislikes me, would I be able to fix it? then I remember the years of trying that and how no matter how much I fixed it was never good enough. I have spent most of my life "fixing myself" and it's not good enough. Meantime I look around me at all the abusive people enjoying the society denied me and I can't understand at all. How can they be likeable with all that abuse and I'm hated?
That brings me right back to wondering if I'm the abuser and delusional, taking us right back to that theory. If I cant' trust my own observations nor even recognize which are good and which are flawed, then I can't be sure of any of my observations, not even whether the sun is out or the moon!
So I'm either a perfectly lovely person with high intellect and a variety of nice skills and talents, and a wicked wit, who has no support network, or I'm a catatonic schizophrenic in a nut house. Why settle for in betweens? Would it matter anyway? I still don't have anyone to come over and comfort me when I need it. I still don't get praise from anyone for anything. I still don't receive compliments. I still get treated like a predator when I try and initiate friendships. I still sit home waiting for my husband to return and annoy the fuck out of me for four hours.
Yeah, this is about as good an illustration of madness as I can think of. Something as quantifiable as the Delerium Tremens or even elder dementia at least has lables and plans of attack and professionals to treat it. this, however, this autism or maybe hallucinogenic dream state, there is nothing for that.
So my parents piled me into the car and drove me out to Whitby, a regional psychiatric hospital in Ontario, one town over from my home town. We drove a long gravel avenue past the grounds, typically pastoral with trees, and trees lining the road, but no hedges or bushes to screen the view. I looked out and saw autistic people rocking themselves on the lawn among other figures, most of them looking hunched and bloated and grey. I think it must have been evening, it was twilight. The rest of it, the boring cement rooms with furniture, the desk and the test and the friendly guy in the coat passing evil judgement on me were unimpressive. Well, I didn't appreciate the guy saying there was nothing wrong except I wasn't trying hard enough. But I believed him! he was the expert! He said I was just lazy and if I tried harder, I'd do better! So my parents exercised more discipline and punishment and I squinted my eyes tight vowing to do this thing known as "try harder." Not that I had a clue what that actually meant, I mean, I was just being. If they'd said "you need to stand on your head 3x a day for five minutes" perhaps that would have worked, but nobody explained how to try harder. They just kept telling me I wasn't doing it, for the next forty three years.
So the years went by and my situation got more difficult. Everyone was mad at me, nobody liked me, and the praise I got was polite lies. I was desperately unhappy, forced into dealing with psychiatrists so I also believed i was hopelessly crazy, a pariah, never welcome to join human society, but never going to be allowed to stop trying harder. When five years later I started in earnest to try and end it all, they told me they'd lock me up in Whitby if i didn't quit. By now I'd consumed a few novels about insanity and heard more than a few scandalous rumours of the nuthouse and what it was like in there at night. Screaming and violence all night, abuse and pain all day, and lousy food and always too cold. So I wasn't going for that. So I didn't quit trying to kill myself, just gave up thinking anyone cared enough to help me. They weren't trying to help me, they were trying to help my parents and teachers who couldn't throw me out till I was 18, no matter how much they disliked me.
sometimes I wonder if I could see why everyone dislikes me, would I be able to fix it? then I remember the years of trying that and how no matter how much I fixed it was never good enough. I have spent most of my life "fixing myself" and it's not good enough. Meantime I look around me at all the abusive people enjoying the society denied me and I can't understand at all. How can they be likeable with all that abuse and I'm hated?
That brings me right back to wondering if I'm the abuser and delusional, taking us right back to that theory. If I cant' trust my own observations nor even recognize which are good and which are flawed, then I can't be sure of any of my observations, not even whether the sun is out or the moon!
So I'm either a perfectly lovely person with high intellect and a variety of nice skills and talents, and a wicked wit, who has no support network, or I'm a catatonic schizophrenic in a nut house. Why settle for in betweens? Would it matter anyway? I still don't have anyone to come over and comfort me when I need it. I still don't get praise from anyone for anything. I still don't receive compliments. I still get treated like a predator when I try and initiate friendships. I still sit home waiting for my husband to return and annoy the fuck out of me for four hours.
Yeah, this is about as good an illustration of madness as I can think of. Something as quantifiable as the Delerium Tremens or even elder dementia at least has lables and plans of attack and professionals to treat it. this, however, this autism or maybe hallucinogenic dream state, there is nothing for that.