The Other Side of The Incantation

It is a summer day
And you are too much alive.
The breeze removes your skin
The chain link fence breathes light
And time stops. It could all come crashing down again
The way daylight savings time starts over
And afternoons get black. There are no guarantees
Only facts, miracles, and misunderstandings.

In the beginning it seemed clear
The revolution was too urgent to be beautiful.
Freedom was something that made you grind your teeth
It made you sob it made you broke it made you come
Like the explosions at the end of the world
It made you sorry. Freedom was something you could not carry
Across the border. It was something you could not keep.
Freedom had scruffy wings and dirty hair and broken shoes
Freedom had cold ears and holes in her heart
Where the night went. Freedom got swept off the streets
And locked in a padded room. Freedom forgot that she was real.

Sometimes what is real erupts
Through the keys in our spine
To make music like earthquakes. Sometimes it plants
A kiss like a promise smudged in the corners of our souls.
Sometimes it leaves a ghost in our bellies
And an ache in our eyes. It does not offer instructions.
We do not understand that we must practice
Over and over again. The other side of the incantation
Is doing the work. It is not enough
To climb this mountain once.

By Ashley
------------
Raw...Fragile...Delicate day.Feeling easily torn.

At the park I came down a new path. Very sweet, close, soft, wet, hidden back here.
I am sitting on the barely-visible path next to an inspiring tree who has graciously agreed to let me sit and have a talk.  This tree embodies how I am feeling today, but more- it embodies the strength I seek.
Once upon a time, someone began to cut this tree down. I am surprised that it is healthy and healed (though "disfigured").
About a foot up the trunk, there is a frighteningly deep chainsaw cut all the way around the trunk- about two inches into the flesh of the 8inch thick tree, far deeper than the bark layer.This was not a flesh wound.This could have been a mortal wound. Above it by a couple of inches is another cut, half as deep as the first, also all the way around the trunk.Above that, a cut about three inches wide and 1/2 inch deep.

When I came upon the tree I knew at once why I was drawn to this particular path today.When I paid my respects and expressed appreciation and asked the tree whether I could spend some time and talk with it, I got a warm, kind feeling and the top cut almost appeared to become a little smile for me.I looked and the tree was smiling at me.

The tree is very tall- 50 feet?  100 feet in the air? No leaves until the very tippy-top of the tree, at the canopy of the forest.When I first looked up I got scared for a moment, thinking it actually was a standing dead tree, until by moving and looking from various angles I saw that it had a living head of hair at the very top.

So, here's our conversation, what attracts me so much;

"This person has been wounded like me.  I feel like I was almost cut down, too."

"Yes, but we survived!"

"Yes we did!Thank you."

"These cuts on my trunk are not disfigurement.They are part of the story of my life. Sometimes when I feel down or     hurt I feel as if being attacked, having my trust betrayed, is like a rerun of "the story of my life", like it's     bound to keep happening to me. I don't want that. I don't believe that."

"I didn't want to be attacked either.Luckily, this person changed his mind."

"I've been lucky, too.  here I am! "

"Sometimes it can be scary to feel out of control of one's life.  hm?"

"Yes."

"See how solid I am inside the cut there?  I knew how to heal. I was lucky, too...wind and sun and rain helped to heal me.  my neighbor-trees all around me sheltered me.  you know how to heal too...and the wind and sun and rain and friends will help you, too.  you can do it.  you'll be ok."

    Deep involuntary breath, stabilizing sigh...and another big one.  integrating sigh.  then, I hear birds, babbling brook, feel solid ground beneath...watching the shadows of the leaves dappling on my arm, like a caress. I am not alone

"We're all here with you.  we won't ever leave you alone."

Memory-self of "alone, all alone" cries, inside me

(touching you "all alone" one)
   
"We are here with you.You are not alone anymore."

Putting my hands on my heart where I feel that "all alone" self.  "all alone", see her in my mind's eye...she is crying.  I am here, her, crying.  Hugs to "all alone".  I am here, you are not alone anymore.  Crying hard, rocking, gently, patting, you are not alone anymore. I am here with you.

I was scared! I was so scared, I was all alone!Crying. I was all alone and nobody came to help me, I needed help so bad, sooo bad, I was calling so loud, and nobody came!  nobody ever came!

crying hard, crying...   crying...

        crying more gently...   tears subsiding, relaxing...

         relaxing...

                 whew.

                      feeling a little better

"used to be alone" is smiling, hungry :)  (let's get something to eat!)

looks like someone has a new name. Is this the ending, or-

"There's more.  I am angry. Feeling of bristling, anger, bad bark, ripping, roaring, feel like getting away. I am angry.  there was a chainsaw buzzing, it ripped into me, it hurt me, everyone was screaming!"

"Ok.Yes.We need to deal with that still."    

"I am tired.  could we finish later?"
"Yes dear.  I just wanted to remind you to continue through the layers of pain.Each voice waiting can be healed."

"At this I think of my lesson-book.There is something there that will help me with this. My heart to yours, dear tree.Thank you.what can I do to repay your kindness?"

"Always remember to ask permission before cutting another living being."
"Oh wow."
"That's right.Everyone who hurt you thought they had a right to cut you, too. What do you take or cut or do to other living beings without first gaining permission?"

"Oh.Lots to consider.Holy cow."
"Yes."

    I began walking down the path.Need a drink of water and rest.  Begin feeling shame again, deep, angry shame. How do I get from here to feeling better? I need to stay accountable for harmful behaviors.

I arrive at the brook. It is amazingly gorgeous- rushing water, freezing-fresh and clean, pouring over rocks and pebbles under the sun-dappled trees...watercress growing up into the sunlight out of a thick bed of some rich, dark-green succulent that lays like a blanket in the stream.Amid this beauty I feel poisoned and mean.  regret and shame for things I have done without thinking, without considering the effect on someone else, pour over me.Amid this beauty I feel poisoned and mean.

"Yes, accountable, but you don't need to commit suicide over it, right?  the idea is to heal, to correct yourself, right?  the idea is that we are all in this together, right?  grow out of it, stop doing it, but there is no need to slash and burn yourself. That is the anger you feel about the suffering you have both endured and delivered.As you deal with your hurt and angry self, you will stop feeling so ashamed."

The Tree back on path nods.

I walk through the water and out onto the path, digesting, considering.  I take a drink from the stone-pillar fountain, so grateful and hoping that I am drinking water from this kind and wise stream.I lay down on the grass and look into the trees, noticing the little birds who speak nearby, flitting from branch to branch.I rest.Enough for one day. Home to eat and rest.

Sandpiper
--------------
Rebirth

I didn’t understand at the time. And maybe I don’t understand now either, but I suspect I have a better idea.

The old woman told me in a dream that I was going to die. It was the summer of 2003, and I’d been spending a lot of time doing dreamwork. She showed up sometimes when I was asleep, sometimes when I was awake, and almost always angry at the way the world was today. She would take my body and use my mouth to shout what were probably obscenities, in an unknown language. It would be okay, though, she told me in that particular dream. I would be dead for a few years, but eventually I would come back. When I woke up that morning, I was shaken. I didn’t take her entirely seriously -- I didn’t believe I was literally going to physically die. I did believe I was in for something, but what exactly I did not venture to guess. Several months later I was in a psych ward, refusing medication because, as my psychiatrist quoted in the papers filed as a part of her efforts to have me committed, the medication “would kill me.” I don’t entirely remember saying that, but I do know the sentiment. I didn’t believe it would physically kill me, as the doctor assumed. I believed it would spiritually kill me. To some extent, I still believe those powerful pills are small mindkillers. They certainly do the job of putting a quick end to that strange world of psychosis, but they do much more than that. The ability to amuse oneself on one’s own, the ability to sense one’s inner equilibrium, the ability to create...all of these are bled out or blocked out. I was not myself while dosed with 3 mg of risperidone daily, was not myself after being off them for a year. I started to feel something like myself again about a year later, in a yoga class. Every week after class I would have deep, detailed, beautiful and symbolic dreams. The class felt great physically and mentally. And then one week something ruptured. The dream was of coercion and screaming and a draining of life. I woke up terrified, could not go back to sleep.

From there? Downhill, and quickly. That which two years previously was put down quickly with drugs was again put to rest by new doctors with more pills. It was back to the underworld for the deepest parts of myself.I fought the medicine,took half doses.My partner tells me I cheeked them, which seems impossible to me now because I don’t even know how to do such a thing. I was switched over to something new after a few weeks, stuck to the low dose despite doctor’s orders. Eventually the craziness mellowed. Over months, at glacier speed, I tapered down the dose. I moved north after a while. What little of me there was left connected again with my home turf. I tapered down further from the medication, and slowly I gestated in the womb of the land, the corpse now a new seed. A shock came to my system when my employer notified me last fall that we would be moving to a place farther south than I had ever wanted to live in my life. But it was a job. I uprooted my tiny radicle from the northwoods this summer, and planted myself in the southern piedmont.

The day I arrived at my new home, I found in the mailbox a gift from one of the friends who had taken care of me five years back. At the time I was hospitalized, I had given her a shirt of mine that I could not touch in my madness, a shirt from which I usually could not be separated. Now, in the south, my signature shirt had returned to me.

I am not returned to this world quite yet, but the shirt’s return was like the first sensation of sunlight on a seed that has been buried in the ground. I knew I was, and I could feel the potentiality of growth again.

I attended the wedding of this same friend last weekend, and I danced like I have not danced in years. I broke through the soil at last. There is so much growing to do, and I am looking forward to getting my sustainance from the sunlight again, instead of from that embryo sac of medication.

Pakana
---------------
Peacock Moon

Peacock moon
makes the mayhem go away
when it is like summer in February.

Incense streams
Out the window
Down the street,

You are hoping it will
reach the one
you never got to meet,

The one you barely touched
across landscapes, of mountains
deserts, and lakes.

With a vowel.
With a howl.
With a kiss.
With a moan.

Peacock moon
Moon of poets and lovers,
who gather where the waters meet.

In pristine canyons
beneath sycamore trees
you listen for his breath
his lunar song in the breeze.

Blue-green feathers stroke your cheek-
a dream, a dream, only a dream,

But you never have to wake up.

Nightbloom
----------------

Nutrition and Mental Health---my particular discoveries

This is a piece on my diet and nutrition. I talk about diet all the time on my blog (bipolarblast.wordpress.com) but most of the time say very little about what it means for me. There are a few things that can be said for everyone about general good eating habits. After a certain point individual needs have to be addressed. For someone like me who is extraordinarily sensitive to everything that goes in my body it's good to be religious about good diet. I am for now relatively inflexible about what I eat or don't eat, but I do hope that once I've reached and maintained stable recovery that I can be more low key about what I can eat.I am currently in the midst of a long term withdrawal from drugs so I take my recovery very seriously.

What is key in a diet for most people who have taken psychotropic medications is the control of blood sugar. Stable blood sugar promotes stable mood. Most psychotropic drugs wreak havoc on blood sugar levels. At worst they cause diabetes, at best they simply cause general disregulation problems. I have suffered from horrible hypoglycemia and find that in addition to eating a diet that promotes good blood sugar levels, I also need to eat every 2-4 hours. My snacks are exclusively protein which is the most sure-fire way to stabilize blood sugar. I eat primarily nuts and cheese for snacks and some vegetable at each snack. (Update: my blood sugar has stabilized dramatically since writing this with the help of my latest doctor. I take liquid Chromium under my tongue and an assortment of glyconutrients which seem to minimize my need for frequent eating. I still need be careful though—I don't hesitate to eat when I need to and I don't go over 4 hours in any case) For most people who are not on appropriate nutrients I can't emphasize enough how much eating small frequent meals helped me. And that seriously meant a small snack every couple of hours for some time.

I will describe a good diet as follows. (this is a good diet for a lot of people….not just those suffering from mental health issues.) The most key element again for the purposes of maintaining good blood sugar is how many carbohydrates are consumed and they should be few. Because carbohydrates greatly affect blood sugar a diet that excludes anything other than whole grains and occasional fruit is essential. This eliminates, sugar, white flour, white rice, potatoes and for the most part corn. These are all common carbohydrates that the body converts rapidly to sugar.

The alternative is to eat all whole grains. Make note: most "whole wheat" bread is not 100% whole wheat. Whole wheat may be the first ingredient but if you read the label closely you will see that there is a significant amount of refined white flour included. Breads that are described as "flourless" are best. Otherwise eating whole grains like brown rice, millet, spelt, bulgar wheat, barley etc. is essential to good blood sugar control. It should be noted that only small quantities should be eaten. Too much grain can be destabilizing as well. I have a lot of anecdotal evidence that suggest that for some people, any grain is too much carbohydrate, but I personally find that I do better with high quality whole grains in small amounts. Many people are sensitive to whole wheat and some people are sensitive to anything with gluten in it (the may have celiac disease which can appear as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder in some cases.) It's worth experimenting with no wheat and also no gluten. I no longer eat wheat at all and had significant gut problems clear up. A good gut means you can absorb all the important nutrients you need to feel good.

The majority of a meal as well as snacks should be high quality protein, preferably animal or fish and large quantities of vegetables. The animal protein is specific to mental health—my endometriosis would prefer a vegetarian diet and so I choose between sanity and pain here—this is an area I hope to change once I'm recovered. I'd rather be a vegetarian for philosophical and enviromental reasons as well as it helping the pain I deal with every month. I eat veggies at every meal and with every snack. I keep snap peas and snow peas on hand as an alternative to carrots which most people think of as the munchy veggie to keep around. In addition I eat a large variety of greens and all sort of other vegetables. I know many people refuse to eat meat and for those people being very careful about veggie protein can be done but it's harder. I've recently discovered that hemp protein contains all amino acids including those usually found only in meat. I also find hemp protein powder quite tasty. I hope to be healthy enough to go completely veggie some day.

Fruit should be limited as the sugar is also too easily digested. If sugar cravings are a problem a piece of fruit is of course much preferable to other forms of sugars. Additional protein can be beans, although some people find them too carbohydrate rich. I find I like to mix them with meat or cheese in various ways. Nuts, cheese and eggs are also excellent sources of protein. I've switched to goats milk entirely as cow's milk is difficult for me to digest.

To discover food allergies and sensitivities it's good to consider doing an elimination diet. Food sensitivities and allergies are much more common than is realized and many of them can affect mental health.

Organic food is preferable. Hormones in meat can cause hormonal problems which destabilize. Pesticides too effect hormonal balance, which completely surprised me. Pesticides include xenoestrogens which can destabilize hormones and endocrine balance which in turn effects mental health.

I cannot afford organic products 100% of the time. I try to maximize what I can get that is organic, but when living on a limited income eating purely organic can be beyond many peoples means.

I will say that I am also aware of people who recover from serious mental distress without making any changes in diet and nutrition, but it is clear, again, based on what is now a lot of anecdotal evidence, that people do have an easier time and a more complete recovery when radical dietary and nutritional changes are made. I'm also finding the most profound changes come for people who include some sort of spirituality or meditative practice in their healing program. I think that for most people, if they don't make significant changes they simply will not get better or be able to withdraw from psychiatric medications successfully. I always encourage people make these sorts of changes before trying drugs if they have that opportunity. Also it's wise to begin a program of good diet and nutrition before starting the withdrawal process.

Other things to cut out of diet include alcohol and caffeine. For a long time I continued to have an occasional beer or glass of wine, but as I withdrew from drugs, and my body became seemingly more and more sensitive, I found that I would have immediate ill effects upon consumption of even small amounts of alcohol. Radical blood sugar shifts that would make me feel sick. So what I thought would be difficult to cut out, (I loved my social bottle of beer or glass of wine) became very easy when the results became so obvious.

Caffeine affects the adrenal glands and should not be consumed. Adrenal gland function is also very important for mood and mental health. It can also cause mood swings. For many years I struggled with the avoidance of caffeine. I suffer such fatigue and exhaustion, that for a very long time after making all my other changes I still would have occasional cups of black or green tea. I don't recommend this. In retrospect it hurt me. It's like borrowing energy from the future. Again, now that my diet is mostly pure, the caffeine in coffee immediately makes me unstable. One must first completely cut out caffeine to notice the huge difference it makes when then taking a small amount once in a while. I was a hard-core coffee addict. This was the most difficult change for me. Most people have the most difficulties with cutting out sugar, refined carbohydrates and other processed foods.

I have had a cup of green tea twice in the last several months for emergency purposes when I really needed to be functional. It worked, but I definitely paid the price afterward.

In addition: no refined foods, no msg, no artificial ingredients. I read labels religiously.

Also important, drink lots of pure filtered water…I try to keep things flushing through my body.

In essence what I eat is a "whole food diet." Just think of it as eating non-processed, unchanged food as nature made it.

Supplements are a whole different and equally important part of diet. I am now on an extremely specialized regime made just for me. It's made a massive difference in my health. Prior to finding my current doctor I was on a very solid somewhat generic regime that works for a good many people. It was not enough for me. Supplementation really is extremely individual as is diet really. Some of the books on diet and nutrition I recommend are "Depression Free Naturally," by Joan Larson and "The Mood Cure," by Julia Ross. Both these books an be used for just about any mental health issue. The dietary and supplement advice help all forms of mental health problems. Joan Larson has a great website with a Natural Pharmacy listing that one can google.

For the best advice on withdrawal and recovery, diet and nutrition on the internet the yahoo group "Withdrawal and Recovery" is where I send people. Safe Harbor Alternatives for Mental Health is another good spot if you don't need to withdraw from drugs. It helps with diet and nutrition. You can google and find these groups.

GiannaKali
------------------

Madness: Attacking the heart

Everyday people with mental problems face struggles. The struggle sometimes can never subside until death reaches out to make its forever lasting mark. Happy could seem as if it is a long road away or be swept the same second it comes.

As optimistic as it sounds: what you hear the voice(s) say can never reach another person's soul, unless he/she is the same as you. At times it seems as if only in the heat of the moment can your words reach great heights. Once the numbness of each minute you face life comes back, your words simply go flat.

What you see is not suppose to harm you, but does anyway. The images that flash through your head are psychotic, insane, etc. You see homicide and suicide take place in thoughts you can't control. Suicide knocks at your door, as you plan and picture your own death. Your mind nags at you to understand that harm to others is wrong. The emotional response to this pains you and leaves you dumbfounded.

Still you take one step at a time each and everyday. Life continues to take its course as you continue to resist the urge to down all your medication at once or refuse to take them at all. Not taking them is hardly a fair option. You take medication to better yourself. Sadly, the truth is: as each day past you wish that things get better.

lilmisslovely
-------------------
 
When will it be?
 
I often wonder when I will be better,when I can stop pretending to be normal,when I won't be stricken with panic every time I attempt to work under routine, structure, and pressure.My plight as a brilliantly plagued lunatic is that my creativity, like a small child, cannot and will not be controlled. It can only be redirected, and only on its own will. I wonder how and when I will be free from the paralysis that my fear has created in my life. Realizing that I know how to do alot of things a little bit well, I get good, stop, crash, disengage.Thinking in dichotomies,Old me/new me.Good me/bad me. My self-criticism keeps me trapped, locked, and unable to do meaningful work. I can't wait until I am "all better", when the "new me" will emerge from the shell and walk away from the past. But the fact of the matter is, I am good now, just the way I am. There is an internal mechanism that keeps me from using too many of my talents at once because I get overloaded. By putting my energies into good impressions, I decieve only myself and in the end I realize its hard to keep up with a good first impression. Much like the mythical figure of Icarus flying towards the sun, I desire to accomplish many things, though I have a guardian angel trying to hold me back, calm me down, keep me grounded, but my wings are so anxious to get up and flap in the sky.
 
Madness is blinding, sometimes all one can think about is getting to that warm, brilliant shining sun.
 
While basic mundane things like brushing my teeth and taking out the trash seem trivial in comparison to “real work” These small every day tasks are part of my grounding process, what helps me get back to center. On the other hand,if I am waiting for circumstances to be ideal before I am willing to excavate the ruins of my creative desires, I may find those ruins long decayed by the time i get to my destination - and miss the whole journey. Overwhelmed with ideas, love, passion, fury and rage, I get fired up and buy the illusion that I am invincible. Its not untrue, I can do everything, but not all at the same time.So painstaking it is to start at the beginning and work my way up, gradually, building on my knowledge and skill base. I quickly abandon things because of my lack of attention span. It hurts me deeply inside when I do this, pull the carpet from under me, not allow my talents to flourish, to really thrive, to ebb and flow. Aren't we all deserving of a few things we are not only gifted at, but skilled? I say yes.

Getting better is a one-day-at-a-time kind of process. Sometimes there are regressions when I stand still too long, sometimes I have momentum and it feels like it is unlimited in every respect. Sometimes I don't talk to my friends for weeks, months at a time. It doesn't mean I don't love them, It doesn't mean I don't care - its just my process. So these are the gifts. Movement. Stillness. Awareness. Understanding. Desire. As long as I am wanting something more, I will gravitate towards that, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly - if I can trust. Progress is not a linear process, it wanes and weaves and overlaps, its a rare occasion to be able to track such a complex and multi-dimensional thing such as our own healing, with charts and summaries and numbers and even words. We are not always the best judges of the speed of our path to healing, but it is seldom the case that we aren't aware of the impact it has on our lives, even during times of stagnation. So am I better yet? There is really no easy answer to this, only the knowledge that as long as I am not resisting it, the change I wish to see will happen in time. That, and - keep on doing the next right thing.

Reese
--------------
I wish

I wish someone had just taken the time to teach me how to live with this mood disorder without medication. If they had just made me aware of alternative pathways. Or the notion that this was a dangerous gift and not an illness.

I was so immersed in trying to find out everything that was wrong that I never paused to figure out what was right. I was taught to hate my brain.The traditional medical model teaches you to hate your brain, that there is something very broken in your mind and it can be fixed, allieviated or hidden by medication. Most of all they teach you to hate a part of you. And thus you end up hating your overall self and no matter what that leads to no where. I was definitely taught to hate the bipolar part of myself and wanted to eradicate it- I thought the bipolar was an unnatural part of me. But it's not. That's just who I am, a very intense person who feels things deeply and thinks fast.

The whole system needs to change. I think if only I was taught to live with specific symptoms. Like I have a fast brain. No doubt about it- it's just fast. They (medical community) wanted to slow it down and I downed pills for it. But I couldn't deal with a slower brain- that made me more crazy. But no one saw that. If only I were taught how to handle it going fast- taught how to organize my fast thoughts. I had to learn that stuff the hard way. I self-taught myself to handle my speech so its understandable not fast and jumping around topics. I may be thinking that fast but I've learned how to have appropriate conversations.

When I was hospitalized- there were groups on lifestyle changes but overall they pushed pills. They made me believe that the little white pills could fix my brain. But that never happened. I continued at a frenetic pace, never satisfied with anything. I was constantly researching, convinced I could figure out where it all went wrong, where my faults were and how I could change it all. But what I was really doing was changing my body's natural state. I was taking myself from the natural to the unnatural. And I know I felt all of that and it changed me- changed me into someone ugly.

The medical model taught me that there was this normal and I should strive to attain it. But normal was so subjective. I had to find out the hard way that the normal they all wanted me to be at was actually not my normal but me depressed. My normal had me thinking fast with much energy. My normal just happens to be a little higher than the average person. But I didn't recognize that and drove myself mad trying to find this "normal" that was untrue to myself.

Now I embrace myself and who I am and make it work. Often I find myself in harmony with myself. That is wonderful feeling. I do not feel unnatural and that is a God send. So I find myself thinking of all those years that passed and I got worse and I just wish someone had said- hey your looking at this all wrong, maybe those meds are hurting more than helping. If they had just told me that not everything could be fixed, instead of sending me on this journey told normalcy that I was never going to attain. All those years I needed to learn how to live with the symptoms instead of searching for something to get rid of them completely. What I learned the most was how to take this med or that med to alleviate symptoms, but never how to live with them or how to harness them or turn them into a positive.

I think the problem was this: I believed in a myth. I believed that by taking the pills I would be like everyone else- I would be normal. But what I failed to realize was that I was never going to be like everyone else, even with the pills. I failed to embrace myself- at least the true me.

By not accepting the natural me- I was never going to get better. And I know that now. I had to accept the real me- which meant I would always run a little high and a little low. I would always have to control aspects of my behavior that were extreme. I was going to feel self destructive a lot of the time. I was going to ride a never ending roller coaster.

Sure, if someone told me this five years ago, I would have probably reactive very negatively and been really angry, but then maybe gotten over it. Instead they said try this pill or that pill, it would reduce that symptom or hey take this and you'll feel normal. I was searching for something that did not exist. I was chasing fairy tales. It took me five years to grow up and see how it really was.

I live with this demon inside of me. But if I am in harmony with myself, if I harness the energy just right, it can be something beautiful. And that is what they never tell you in the beginning.


ecatcher12
--------------
Hearing Voices
 
 
Talking about hearing voices to someone who does not hear them is hard. It is hard to explain how my voices place me into a world with people always talking all around me. Whispering. Talking about me. Cautioning me. Commenting about my behavior. They are not thoughts, they are literal voices. They sound like they are coming from outside my head. They are as loud as if there are other people in the room with me.
 
People think I can ignore them if I wanted to or was not so lazy. There is no way to do this. My voices are not like something I can turn on and off. They are an almost constant companion. I hear them for probably seventy percent of the day. I hear them the most when it is dark. And people wonder why I have trouble sleeping at night. While I myself can not ignore my voices, I do do things to make it easier for other people to be around me. I do not act upon anything my voices tell me. I do not talk to myself. I try not to respond when I am not sure if someone is actually speaking or not. I try not to say "what, what did you say" when no one said anything.
 
Sometimes I can not tell if some one is really talking or it is the voices in my head. I have the problem of "recognizing" people that I have never actually seen before, (which is its own private hell), so some times when I hear my name being called in public I turn around and can not tell whether I am being paged or being crazy. I hate this not knowing. When I am in public, I tend to ignore everyone around me. I figure if something is important you will tap me on the shoulder or get in front of me so I can see you speaking. I wonder how many people I have snubbed this way.
 
I have several different voices. The main ones I call my Family. By Family I mean whomever I live with and spend most of my time with. This includes my literal - biological family (as now), but also at different times has meant my network of friends. Family has also meant roomates that I was never particularly close to, but lived with. I hear them like they are in the next room. I hear them through the walls. I hear them through heating and air conditioning ducts. I hear them through the discourse between open windows. The voices of my Family are very distressing and hurtful. They are almost entirely negative. They make fun of me. They discuss my faults. They talk about how they only pretend to like or love me. They plot against me. They plan ways to get me kicked out of the house. And they mess with my head. They tap and scratch the walls to make me think I am hearing things.
 
Next come The Girls. I call them The Girls because they are young females. My age. The Girls come out in the daytime and in social situations. The Girls do not have regular voices. Their voices change all the time. They must be voices I pick up from radio and movies and people on the street that I casually overhear. I only understand what they are saying some of the time. Most of the time what The Girls say is a hazy blur of indistinct syllables and half heard words with the rhythms and inflections of conversational chatter. But sometimes they will remark on me with little criticisms, or say something about the world around me. The Girls are only distressing if I am already stressed out - like if I have an appointment - or if I am having social anxiety. The Girls rarely talk when I am speaking with someone else. They are the voices I hear when I am waiting in line. When I am riding the bus. When I am at the library. When I am out walking.
 
Then there are what I call the UFO voices, after a book by Stephen King called "Gerald's Game" in which the heroine hears voices. The UFO voices are all the things I hear that are not actually there that do not count as my Family or The Girls. UFO voices include people calling my name, footsteps behind me, peoples thoughts, birds, cars and bicycles. Stuff like that. The most distressing of the UFO voices is when I hear other peoples thoughts. They are usually thinking about me. And not nice thoughts either. I hear other peoples thoughts especially when I have to be in a group setting, or cooperate with other people. I hate this, and it causes me problems.
 
Unfortunately I have no way of coping with my voices. Ive tried turning the radio to static. Ive tried telling them to shut up. Ive tried ignoring them. I have not tried tinfoil! I am on two anti-psychotics, and they are not effective against my voices. I and millions of other people in the world just have to deal with our voices.

Bryan Babylon
-----------------------
Diagnosis "Human"

The fifth Diagnostic and Statistic Manual for diagnosing “mental disorders” is currently in progress, and if a layperson logs into the DSM-V website, there's a place for "suggestions", with five listed categories for suggestions. One of these is "suggestions for a new disorder to be added to the DSM."

When one considers that the DSM is pretty much the be-all-and-end-all Bible of psychiatric diagnoses, that invitation sounds very strange. Nobody gets to “suggest” other types of "diseases"; one has to discover a microbe or isolate a cluster of symptoms. This exposes the fluidity and subjectivity of what many people like to present as a solid, objective science. This invitation to create mental illnesses out of imagination, social stigmas, boredom, thin air or whatever else speaks volumes about our society and the nature of mental illness. While it’s true that some people perceive an alternate reality or experience a state of consciousness that is foreign to most, the problem is that society as a whole has chosen to recognize some of these differences as dangerous or broken rather than a unique experience of individual thought.

Most mental illnesses are seen as disorders because they prevent the person from functioning properly in the social world I have set up for ourselves. People have become so indoctrinated into this reality that they fail to realize almost all of the expectations placed on us are arbitrary and unnatural. If our society had an established place, purpose, or outlet for "mentally ill" behavior, it would become normal. If the majority of the population was bipolar, things would be set up to accommodate them, and those without bipolar "symptoms" would struggle to fit in and understand the world. Is failure to hold up to the expectations of other people really a disorder? What human being is so perfectly adjusted to this world that they may act as a benchmark for "normal"?

Why have I chosen to label certain thought patterns as disorders and not others? Anyone can write a checklist of traits and say "if these apply to you, you have X disorder," but that is meaningless. Homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness but has been removed from the DSM because today it is a more socially acceptable variation on thought patters regarding sex. Did it suddenly become healthier? Medical science does not decide that diseases are no longer such when technological advancements mean that they are not as disabling as they used to be, so why does psychiatry do so?

It is true that people labeled mentally ill may engage in behaviors that are destructive to themselves or others, but people too often assume that these choices stem only from the thought patterns; without considering that the choices may instead be a reaction to the frustration, anger and alienation that are a result of society's refusal to validate those thought patterns. In an interview on Madness Radio, Richard Unger points out that "recovery" rates for mental illness rose significantly in the 1970s and theorizes that it's because during that time, altered or extreme or alternate states of consciousness were more accepted and so the people experiencing them had the opportunity to work through, engage with, and share them.

Normal means only what I allow it to. There is no such thing as standardized, healthy behavior. Labels are arbitrary. When the DSM decides that certain combinations of thought traits constitute mental disorders, it uses a biased, unscientific, and damaging process to create a stigmatizing label and a false condemnation our very humanity. Failure to adhere to the standards put forth by a society-created world is only a disorder because the world does not value or understand the difference. When the global community realizes that "mentally ill" thoughts are simply a variation on human experience, then we will be able to create a society in which alternate consciousnesses are embraced, understood, and guided instead of medicated, punished and pathologized.

Polvora
-------------
Brain Shivers

brain shivers--ssri
maximum profit
from those who can't get off it
and they don't care if you live or die
they don't care if your head's gonna fry

this is like going to hell
i think i'll vomit for a spell
i turn my head
and the electrical current
makes my head feel really burnt
and like its slipping
down some slope
and I wonder how the fuck
am I going to cope

and memory comes back
in a long drawn out flash back
and social anxiety
may be the death of me
bipolar, anxiety, ptsd
why can't I peel these labels
off of me--

i really am a free spirit inside
i dance in realms of shifting tide
i become one with the wind sometimes,
seeking the peace, sometimes in the pines
i hover like a chagall violinist
over the pain, into the mist
and then it is quite monet
and then there is this beautiful day

Nightbloom

-------------

"...what is usually called hypnosis is an experimental model of a naturally occuring phenomenon in many families. In the family situation, however, the hypnotists (the parents) are already hypnotised (by their parents) and are carrying out their instructions, by bringing their children up to bring their children up...

I consider that the majority of adults (including myself) are or have been, more or less, in a post-hypnotic trance, induced in early infancy: we remain in this state until -- when we dead awaken, as Ibsen makes one of his characters say, we shall find that we have never lived."

R.D. Laing, _The Politics of the Family_

................................................................


The flight from Massachusetts to Georgia creeps along grey and shrouded in fog. At several thousand feet, there is a brief moment of sunlight: best wishes from a kind angel soon very far away. I am going to visit my family for christmas.

Two hours in a car in downtown Atlanta with my father, mother, and brother, the first time we have been together in more than three years. There, there, that was open. No it wasn't. Let's turn around. Ok so keep going. Should we go back? I think I saw lights. Look what about that place? Closed. Ok keep going, there's got to be something. I manage to text message a friend. TRAPPED IN PSYCHOTIC FAMILY VORTEX. DRIVING EMPTY STREETS LOOKING FOR PLACE TO EAT. My family and I ride in circles, on christmas day. Keep going, there's got to be something.

By the time we find a table at a chinese by-the-pound buffet, I am in -- I still don't really know what to call it -- one of my 'dissociated paralysis states.' My mind and body are seized by an overwhelming force, and I am acting and feeling the way that earned a schizophrenia diagnosis more than ten years before. The words of my mom and dad and brother claw at me. Coded tones of voice and a secret language of gestures and glances grab and pull me down. I stare blankly from farther and farther away, trying to resist, but across the growing distance something makes me listen closely. They talk about my father's work, they talk about our farmhouse, they talk about relatives. Between gaps in sentences and pauses in eye contact, voices in my head begin to yell and taunt. Nasty, cruel, and vicious. With each shouted accusation and whispered insult I wince and withdraw deeper.

How did I suddenly became suicidal, why do I imagine jumping from a bridge or hanging by a rope to escape the screaming in my head? Why have my own life, my values, friends, work, interests... all evaporated a few hours after stepping off the plane? A small part of me speaks up, in defiance of the clamor in my head: This is ridiculous. It's just a conversation with my family on christmas, no reason to be like this, and as soon as I've formed them, the words fall away. They begin to repeat over and over, more and more loudly, This is ridiculous, this is ridiculous, you are ridiculous, it's your fault, why are you so stupid. Now they are mocking me, swept up with the rest of the angry and contemptuous hammering words. It makes no sense. It's my fault. I am 40 years old and I am powerless. Stupid.

This is my family. They have the diabolical power to entrance me.

Sunk beneath a thick wall of ice, voices shouting and whispering in my head, I watch all this unfold. Is my withdrawal a shield from my family? Or is this altered state of mind and, pinned down and not responding, is that the trap too? Am I protecting myself? Imprisoning myself? Am I no longer normal? If I could say anything, would it be listened to? Or am I now just crazy? Yelling, cutting words condemn my failure to solve this puzzle. A whispering, sickly sweet voice reminds me how easy it will be to just end this, to find one of my father's guns or take a bottle of pills from the bathroom cabinet. Yes, that's it, that's what makes sense, just wait until you get home...

The television screen says: A policeman's job is only easy in a police state. That's the whole point, Captain.

Back in the car and all I can do is smell everyone around me. I'm frozen, silent, and hearing voices, and now I'm beginning to gag. I become more withdrawn, avoiding eye contact and not replying when anyone speaks, and even this is not enough, their odors are seeping into my body. My coping mechanism, if that what this is, is so bizarre that everyone is reacting, visibly uncomfortable and turning away. They won't ask me directly or try to understand, they are afraid of me, and the trance prevents anyone from talking openly about what is happening. So I sit there, paralyzed, and I am the proof on display: Yes, I am the person trained by diagnosis and institutionalization. I am the lost soul mental patient, the ostracized outsider who is not like us, not participating, not part of the family, unreachable.

I am not responding to my family's craziness. I am crazy and my family is responding to me.

I watch my father's secret gestures as he speaks with more coded messages. Now he is copying my text messaging: I have never seen him text message before. He has hacked into my cell phone and read what I wrote. He is talking with step-children somewhere, his backup family, another sign of my own irrelevance and failure as a son. He reads my thoughts and replies with a cypher: his talk of his world and work, intellectual property rights, infringement lawsuits, a biography he authored, his lawyer -- it is all cunningly directed at me, to harm invisibly. He is a writer, my father, and he is reading my thoughts so he can control me. He is the judge, he is the law.

On the screen, Janet Leigh is stalked by a Mexican marijuana and speed gang. Charlton Heston is searching the Hall of Records.

I'm not going to make it. On the drive back they ask me questions: how are you, how is work, how do you like Northampton. I don't answer. At least we tried, they will tell themselves, at least we tried. I am not in control of my own body, my mind, or speech. I try to phone friends, but do I reach them? It is christmas. Did I dial? I'm convinced that anyone I call will try to hurt me. I think, If tomorrow things aren't better I will hitchhike to a hotel and wait until the plane ride back. The plan is comforting, like all my plans to crawl away and hide. It is, maybe, a better plan than suicide. When we finally arrive at my dad's farm house, I collapse onto a 28 year old mattress in the back bedroom. My father's wolves and dogs penned in the yard howl at the crescent moon. I pass out, and dream I am facillitating a support group and my friend announces she has quit heroin. I wake up. It is a vivid image, but is it a prophetic riddle? Or ridicule?

The next day I manage to eat a bowl of fruit, and then I spend hours trying to be in whichever room of the house no one else is in. I'm like those numbered tile puzzles where you can only slide one piece at a time into the empty space to make the other tiles move. My father, mother, and brother talk with me, but I can't say anything or make eye contact. I want to eat more but a stench is overpowering, so I spend the morning cleaning out cat litter boxes which haven't been emptied in a month. It is the day after christmas and dad has invited over people to work in the kitchen, so we can't cook. My brother sleeps until one.

From the television, Dennis Weaver scares me.

I manage to find a hiding place playing a video game on the internet and checking my email. I am still not able to reach any of my friends, or at least the ones I don't think are trying to hurt me. Or did I try? Then I take a nap. There is no cooking oil that is not rancid, so I head to the gas station for Wesson for my falafels. I am using a boxed mix that says it expired in eight years ago. In the kitchen, I exchange words with my mother. She sends something into me, poison wrapped in secret messages. I dissolve and disengage, and the conversation ends.

At this point my body is something else, owned by someone I don't recognize. My thoughts are not mine. I am locked in the schizophrenia factory: trapped with my anguished family, with its confusing mixed messages and tangled dynamics, it subterranean flows of trauma and its history of violence and abuse. Who I have become, the pain and disorientation and madness I go through, cannot be understood without seeing where I came from. And this christmas vacation visit of just a few days has brought the mechanisms and my reactions out into the open. This context is a hypnotic field as tangible and overpowering as a storm wind, tearing and pushing and sweeping my being away. My mind is spilled, debris. I am strewn between invisibility and explosion.

I get out of the house on the pretext of finding good cell reception, and sit in the car. I stare at my phone. I know the people on the other end told me they are my friends. They told me to call them if I have a crisis. I am looking at their names and each one is a secret message like the ones inside the house, a trick of language, a smiling cruelty, a promise to hurt me. Did I call someone? On the other end is my poor friend's voice mail, and now all I can manage is to unleash my voices, a ventriloquist speaking through my mouth, a spite-filled disoriented outburst about how I need to hire my friends to comply with my treatment plan. I hang up, trembling, shocked that my effort to help myself has only made things worse.

Charlton Heston is white trying to pass for Latino trying to pass for white.

And then, just as Orson Welles's police captain Hank Quinlan is going to die in this shadow and crime infested maze of dusty streets and corrupt lawmakers, my own role as a stunted monster in the family drama reaches a climax. Someone answers the phone. Is it destructive to reach out to my friends who care about me? No, that is not my voice telling me that, it is a trick. There is no allegiance and there is no love and I am selfish. Did I say that? But is that someone different, someone there, on the other end of the phone, who is not part of the hypnotist's trance?

The clammy gray mist starts to burn off in the warmth of that voice. There is someone there from my other life, my real life, my chosen family. I'm not crying or raging from any of the emotion numb and buried inside, I am still and frozen and lost, but now I can feel that warmth somewhere. Simple words: take a risk, you're not alone, remember who you are, remember that your whole world is not as crazy as your family.

Back inside, we are watching the 1958 film Touch Of Evil. Film noir, dark and misanthropic, shadows within shadows, claustrophobic and horrifying. It has always been one of my favorites. We sit silently in front of the television set, plates on laps, eating leftovers. My brother, my mother, and my father. And me. I watch them as they watch, transfixed on the screen. Their faces dance with faint shapes of light. My family.

A feeling in my chest surprises me, a sensation that is my own. Mine, not from somewhere else.

I know this moment. I can't tell you much about it, because if I do, well, there are places that are inside that are outside that... (the birds have come to my window, wondering at the barrier before settling on the tree). My chest is the world and it is you who are reading these words.

I know this moment. My father looks at me and says five words, five mean, hurtful words, and I am crushed. They are familiar words in a familiar tone, raw, acid, etching deep. They are unrepeatable. I stand in front of him, and I know his eyes, but I can imagine only shadows of what he's seen in his life. Soldier in the Korean War, gunshot wounds, self-inflicted injuries, prison, torture, psychiatric wards, electroshock.. and his violent father, my grandfather, standing over him. To this abusive moment he brings his own abuse, his own history.

This time is different, though. I look into my fathers eyes and something within me stays within me. I feel myself part of this drama and also outside of it. I remember my phone call. I speak back to my father, I defend myself simply and clearly, I tell him to not degrade and belittle me, I tell him I deserve his respect. I stand up instead of colapse.

And does the fog burn off, and do the dead awaken? We'll see. Now I'm in front of the television again, eating junk food, but the film is starting to be kind of fun. The director's cut is even better than the other version I have seen, there are more lines and angles, more depths of brilliance shining through. That night in a dream I am struggling to walk, stooped over like my father. Hanging from a scar on my right side there is a flap of unhealed flesh, but it isn't bloody and gaping, it's dry. Like molting skin, as fragile and easily torn as paper.

Will