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I have been writing since I was very young. I have some things published. I loved it but feel I can’t articulate myself as well as I used to. I watched some more of Diana’s videos today and then came across a personal blog I wrote about 5 years ago. As you will see, it is about being ill. I’m posting it here…I don’t know why. Maybe someone can relate:
8.3.08
I feel like I’m losing my mind.
I try to reassure myself that crazy people don’t realize they’re going crazy. I feel like I am in a drug induced stupor, staggering between two worlds, two completely opposite states of consciousness. My brain feels as though it’s filled with cotton, preventing smooth transmission of thought and emotion. It acts as a muscle that upon exhaustion, simply gives out. I struggle now to write, to make sense, to articulate what it is I’m feeling. I suppose it’s easily comparable to any type of physical or emotional pain. You can’t possibly understand it unless you’ve felt it yourself.
To sit back, at my age, and watch your body and mind begin to fail you more and more each day, is infuriating. It is difficult to fight a battle when the enemy has direct control over the amount of strength you possess. Rather than doing what I wish, my mind has its own agenda. As I follow the path it chooses for me, I frequently find myself in the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless, I must keep going – this is no longer in my hands. I could, of course, keep on fighting. But as I once heard, it would be like trying to get rid of my headache by banging my head against a wall.
So here I remain, powerless in spite of endless efforts to find my way through this maze. Lost in the labyrinth of my mind, so often crashing into walls that rob the wind from my very lungs, I can only pray, each time, that the next step I take will set me free.
-Jen
Oh, Jen, WOW, your writing — WOW. Your feelings. WOW.
This is certainly a place to bare your soul, Hon. You are among friends here.
At my worst (the mast cells were “eating my brain from the inside out”), I was depressed, couldn’t think or remember anything, couldn’t stay awake, and had suicide ideation. Thank heavens, I read about Organic Brain Disease, and got out of the mouth of that beast within two weeks, but having lived through it, I can SO relate to your feelings of losing your mind!Now, I couldn’t have written HALF as well as you did (OK, I couldn’t have written a FRACTION as well as you did), but I remember promising myself that I needed to share with others what it felt like to have Alzheimer’s and mental illness, and yet get sucked back into “normalcy” again. I was there. I pulled out. But had I not learned about mast cells, inflammatory cytokines, etc., I don’t know if I would be here today to tell about it. Honestly.
I am so glad you shared this intimate suffering with us all. I think most of us can relate (although perhaps not so eloquently). Hang in, my friend. Let’s change out worlds, OK? My nose is to the grindstone over here!
Big, big hug, and tissues all around.
🙂 Diana
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