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I've tried writing this post twice now and no matter what words I use or how I phrase them – I still sound crazy. Oh, that's not me being overly critical of myself – the topic of this post seriously makes no sense but it's true. I've talked to my therapist about it and she treaded lightly with the subject – not wanting to give it more attention than it deserved but we still hit on the main point which was that I'm not desiring for such a thing to happen...again.
So...the thing we discussed was how I missed the voices. Not all of them but the ones that had positive things to say. Yeah, I told you that was crazy but see it from my perspective for just a moment. When you are deep in depression and your friends and family don't understand you, people are pulling away to separate themselves from you, your marriage is ending, you're scared, nothing makes sense – mentally you are in a dangerous place and emotionally you've sunken into a bottomless pit of despair and your thoughts are all things negative...hearing a positive voice ...no matter who or what says it is the thing you cling to.
Understand that I know that the voice was a product of the schizophrenia. I know that now – but back then I thought it was an angel and even God speaking, telling me how beautiful I was when I felt ugly, telling me how smart I was when I felt stupid, pushing me towards finishing a book that I had started writing when I wanted to just toss the whole thing away because I felt like a hack and telling me how much my life was worth when I felt worthless. Hearing the voice, the positive one tell me these things and actually talk me out of more attempts at suicide was something admittedly odd and strange. But I'm going to venture to say that voice kept me in better spirits when I was low. My family would see the struggle in me – the days when believing in myself and God was hard to do. I struggled internally with my existence and externally with my living. Just keeping up basic routines was a hard thing to do. I couldn't. I had to be reminded of the days of the week, the month, and the year because my mind kept tossing me back to the spawning point of my trauma. Getting out of bed was hard to do and some days still is – but what's different now is that when I get out of bed and get started that I'm good for the rest of the day, not like before where I would get out of bed to use the bathroom and then go back to bed. I wouldn't even watch anything on television or listen to the radio or any of my music. I didn't read or write because hearing the negative voices all the time made it hard to focus on anything else and my emotional state wouldn't let me stop crying long enough to do so. Hygiene went out the window because I stayed in bed all day. Husband at the time didn't care either – he'd pretend as if nothing was wrong and would then leave me alone. It was all very hard to get through.
So imagine my response when I heard a voice tell me – I love you and you are beautiful. Now, there's also something else I should mention. My husband at the beginning of the illness had me thinking that I might have been possessed. I told him about the voices I was hearing and he told me – that he thought I was under attack by the devil and proceeded to call our pastor and ask for an exorcism. I can't tell you what that did to me. To tell a person that thinks she's hearing God, believes in the Trinity and can't explain the things she's hearing that she is possessed or being attacked by the devil is absolutely the wrong thing to do. To add – he fabricated some things as well to make it seem a lot worse to the pastor. Good thing the pastor is a medical doctor was familiar with mental illnesses, and actually sat down and talked to me before agreeing to do anything.
