I do not know what to call this; an essay, a rant, whatever you wish to call it, but I have been thinking for many months and writing my ideas down in a journal and this is the fruit of that labor.
As an infant, I was normal, despite being slightly premature. I was born to an alcoholic, bipolar mother and an abusive, suicidal father. That is unfortunate in itself. I am one of eight children of this particular couple. In the hospital, I did not display normal muscular or cognitive development for an infant of my age. My lungs collapsed and I could not hold myself sitting up. It took much therapy before I was “there.” It was at about this time that the DCF decided that myself and my siblings were to be put into foster care after my father attempted to kill my mother and himself, taking a kitchen knife in hand and stabbing himself and her and chasing her out to the street, where they both collapsed and paramedics were called.
Perhaps it is genetics, perhaps bad luck and mutations, but in preschool, despite my cognitive shortcomings when I was born, I was identified as being highly intelligent, but something was still “off.” I preferred isolation, and sought a quiet place for myself, drawing intricate geometric patterns on paper for fun, in what was almost a trance. Everything had its order and its way in my world, a world of rules which must be observed at all costs. Right foot before left, one, two, three, four, and so on.
Suddenly, I stopped attending school. I became irritable, irrational, and angry. I wanted to hurt someone. I didn’t have a reason for that wish, but it would be satisfied even if I hurt myself. In the world of being ill, nothing makes any sense. It’s comparable to a less cheery version of Alice’s trip through the looking glass. Sometimes, you are left scratching your head with no idea of what the hell is going on or why it is that way. At the tender age of six, I had already attempted Self Delete by walking out into the water at the beach and deliberately trying to get pulled out by the current. I didn’t know why, but every muscle in my body was hypnotized, I was almost involuntarily walking out into the deep water. When I was hauled back to the beach by a life guard to my terrified parents, I was upset with the life guard for stopping me.
The suicidality never stopped, nor did the extreme mood swings. I’ve intentionally severed the first digit of my pinky finger just to see how it felt, attempted to slice my jugular and cartoid, stabbed myself twelve times, attempted to overdose, slit my wrists, and attempted to set myself on fire at a family barbecue. Each one of these acts resulted in a trip to one of three local psych wards, where I have lived, at the cost of three thousand dollars a night, for up to three months at a time. I’ve been turned down jobs because of my instability and history, and I have been held back in school despite being in the top 5% of my class due to the sheer number of days I have had to miss due to staying in the psychiatric ward.
I’ve been called a freak, a psychopath, and I’ve been relentlessly bullied in every school environment I’ve been in. The administrators are no better. They see my papers and judge me the same way the student body does. The worst part is that, despite the negative stigma, there ARE people who can empathize with me, but they are all just as ill as myself and therefore cannot help me.
The purpose of me telling you all of this is simple. The negative stigma surrounding mental illness has to go. It is hard enough living day by day as it is when your own body and mind are dedicated to killing you either quickly through violence or slowly through loneliness. I cannot stress enough how important kindness is in situations like mine. Even a simple “hello,” just one, can change the mood of an entire day. Kindness is imperative and everybody deserves to be treated kindly. Please, I beg of you, you probably know that guy, the one who sits alone, the one with no true friends, the one who may have some special needs, just say “hello” to him. Don’t feign kindness and be sincere. It really goes a long, long way.
I am trying to spread awareness of what it is like to live day to day being this way. Feel free to ask questions if you are curious, and I will answer what I can.
There is a project which I believe looks promising which I will link here soon. It is a game being funded through crowd funding which aims to simulate a variety of feelings, illnesses, and disorders so that those unaffected can experience what others feel so that they needn't be curious anymore.
