Schizo: A Memoir

Sun in the Sky.....

Music: Nina Simone - Feeling Good

Tea: Strong and dark

Air Quality: a little warm

Life: Calm

Mood: Reflective

Somewhere between here (waking life) and there (dream life) I gathered the courage to hunt down the thing that's been haunting me. And the thing that has been haunting me is nothing by fear, plain and simple fear. I'm stalking it like a tiger that has spotted his prey a mile off. I'm the zone and just waiting for the chance to pounce but until then I have to keep a cool head, I will not allow this fear to get the best of me. In my life I am a fighter who has lost more battles than I've actually won, but those wins are so huge that they overshadow my losses. In my dreams however, I am a warrior collecting the remnants of my enemies and displaying them for future adversaries to see. Be they monsters, former friends or the darkness that likes to threaten me from time to time. I have my wars with the best of them - sometimes I come out on top.

And YES, as an adult I still have monster dreams. There are two different types of monsters I face in my nightmares. When the monsters show up with a face I know that somewhere in my life there is a person who is mistreating or hurting me and when it shows up without a face I know that there is a situation giving me hell and is haunting me, it's either my failure to deal with it or something I can't handle. It gives me pause to look at the whole of my life and do an inventory of my thoughts and feelings about things and people, then question their intentions towards me.

I always find myself being careful when I do this. I don't want to get stuck in the past...meaning replay it to the point where I'm reliving it and can't discern it from my present. This has happened before and it was so hard to come out of that, my therapist all but went on a search and rescue mission for my mind, to bring me current. I would end up repeating the date over and over to myself because I would be that stuck, that scared and that gone. Now I do this (remembering things) with my therapist - in a safe environment where she can help me if need be. When there are things that threaten to have me back in the mental state I was in - like past traumas she's there to help with that. Not to say that I don't venture to remember things on my own, sometimes I do but never in the depths that we go to in therapy. Sometimes I can't remember and it's just the emotion that comes across and being stuck in a past emotion where you don't know why you are crying or angry or whatever else...is tough. Negative emotions hurt especially when you can't remember the situation. It just feels like your anger or sadness is misplaced, like nothing makes sense but you know it does because you are feeling it.

I don't know...and I try not to say that too often. Saying "I don't know" implies that I really don't know- I do but it's just hard conveying the thoughts. Remember when you were a kid and used to go to the swing set and swing as high as you possibly could because you thought you could touch the sky if you did? And if you were the dare-devil that I was...you'd leap from the seat to sore through the air for a few seconds....that right there - that is the feeling you can't describe. That half exhilarated half fear for your life feeling while you hang in mid-air for a few seconds unsure of whether or not your landing will be a smooth one. Odd...I acted on impulse even as a child...hm. Anyway - if you've never leapt from a swing in the air then perhaps the thrill of watching somebody do that with just as much horror and secret excitement to see if they land properly. As kids you lose your sense of self, nothing weighs you down because you are for those moments invincible, unbreakable and "super".

In the height of my illness - I thought myself to be unbreakable. I felt like nothing or no one could harm me - because I believed myself to be special, possessing a godlike power to keep people from hurting me. When did I realize that none of this was true? When I got hurt for surely if I had those powers none of that would have happened...I would have been able to save myself but it was God who saved me and brought me back to reality. He even helped me a time I was hearing voices non-stop...he took them away from me.