Tag Archives: mental illness

When Is It Time to Leave the Party?

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“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”  —Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)

Freedom. Free will. Agency over our own journey. Personal preference. Knowing when to say when. 

Why are the fundamental, core decisions about how and when we choose to exit our experience on this planet restricted by laws, moral codes, religious beliefs, or societal pressure?

We never seem to shut up about liberty, independence, and the right to live as we choose. Yet, when the topic of dictating how and when we finally raise that white flag and throw our towel into the center of the ring arises, we are met with nothing but restrictions, moral shaming, and attempts at obstruction. Where’s the autonomy?

It doesn’t feel very tolerant or compassionate to prevent someone in pain from trying to end their agony. 

Medical vs mental. Is one more precious or protected? I have suffered debilitating effects from both sides of that coin. But differentiating physical torture endured during sleepless days and nights (feeling like your head will literally explode, locked in the vice-like grip of unabating pressure) from the runaway, insomniac thoughts leading you down abandoned psychological train tracks into some nightmarish wasteland of fabricated conjecture and endlessly cycling projection is nearly impossible when you’re in the grips of either scenario…and your body and mind can’t distinguish between the two varieties of distress.

Dr. Kevorkian was a goddamn saint…and even he faced unceasing ire and interminable scrutiny from a population (and legal system) unwilling to accept that sometimes people are at the very end of their frayed rope. They should not be forced to tolerate unyielding torment simply because archaic laws are chaining them to the walls of their pain. 

So what does that say about psychological or emotional duress? Since the misery we can clearly see is met with scrutiny and a reluctance to permit any justifiable attempts at cessation, there is an exponential level of resistance to suicide and someone’s personal choice to dismount the merry-go-round of heartache and trauma. For some reason, the deterioration of the body does not hold the same weight or importance as the degeneration of the mind.

So, when do we leave the party? If we want to close the chapter on our own terms, we need to be okay with the roadblocks, objections, and disapproval. This world doesn’t want to end our pain. It wants to control our actions. If there is no fear of what’s waiting on the other side, then there is no reason not to proceed.

When that pot of hurt finally boils over, and there’s no way to clean the mess, an Irish goodbye doesn’t seem like the worst exit strategy.

Adolescence Interrupted

The Power of No

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For the last decade or so, I’ve been steadily subtracting.

As an experiment in reduction and elimination, I’ve taken the long list of life’s accepted “essentials” and pared them down to the most minimal survivable items.

Many would see these choices as psychotic rigidity without real purpose. But I have always lived on a narrow spectrum of black and white, so floating in the gray never held much appeal.

Some decisions are grounded in practices of optimizing health. Others are stubborn refusals to double back once I’ve started down a particular course. Either way, the list is constantly expanding, and there is a real risk that, given enough time, I may ultimately be left with nothing.

Still, I plod along, desperate for some modicum of control or a sense of peace in an increasingly uncontrollable, chaotically unsettling world.

Mental illness, in any of its various constructions, is a constant wire walk. The best we can do is build blocks of balance from whatever tools are readily available…and these are mine, for now.

Diet: No meat. No dairy. No nuts. No soy. No bananas. No avocados. No tomatoes. No peppers. No onions. No caffeine. No soda. No fast food.

Lifestyle: No sex. No drugs. No alcohol. No smoke. No prescription medication. No gambling. No hedonism.

Personality: No jealousy. No envy. No greed. No fear. No lust. No easy acquiescence. No easy sleep. No vanity. No addiction. No laziness. No breaks. No brakes. No self-indulgence. No self-forgiveness. No self-esteem. No sustained sense of hope. No hysteria. No indolence. No cowardice. No egotism. No profligacy. No pomposity. No inanity. No misinformation. No wastefulness. No tolerance for animal cruelty, of any kind.

This may all be madness…or just a dangerous form of mad science.

Time will tell.

Just say no.

Adolescence Interrupted

All the Broken Brains

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We are spiraling. We are drowning. We are blinded by the harsh light of reluctance. We choose complacency over change and comfort over the scratchy-sweater need for action. We scream and shout. We seethe and shoot. The pressure release valves are clogged with the muck of a million excuses. The desire to heal is buried beneath a sea of social media distractions and disconnections.

We are mentally ill.

It’s time to admit that no thoughts or prayers or patience or compassion or tears or sympathy or best wishes will fix this collective broken bicycle.

We can blame it on genetics, parenting, toxicity, education, or bad luck. But it’s blatantly obvious to anyone still awake enough to see through the fog of this modern zombie society. We are walking around this planet with faulty wiring and a gross inability to solder the severed connections.

The glue is all gone and the pieces of our sanity are strewn across the floor like the remnants of a shattered cookie jar at the slippery hands of an overeager toddler. Yet we continue to think that the cracks will magically mend if we just cross our fingers tightly and pray for better days.

It’s imperative we travel upstream to see what’s been constantly poisoning the river instead of simply building dams to keep it from seeping into our pipes.

Soon no spaces will be safe. The mundane will turn murderous, the banal brutal. The seemingly innocuous daily activities will be weighed down with a constant head-on-a-swivel sense of mistrust and nervous agitation.

Each subsequent generation will be forced to live under the heft of unbearable levels of sustained insecurity. The already spiked national stress numbers will become incalculable. Drug abuse will numb the sounds of incessant mental static and we will retreat into caves of isolation simply to survive.

Or we can stop the cycle. Rediscover our common sense. Recognize the patterns. Remove the blinders. Wipe the blood from the money. Treat the roots to save the tree. Prioritize effort over promises. Engage the brakes to slow the train.

Admit that we were very very wrong.

Adolescence Interrupted

The Forgotten

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homeless manFor those of you who may have already heard my rants about the boggling inequalities and imbalances in society, I apologize for the redundancy. But, my recent contact with an increasing number of heartbroken homeless with hollow eyes and vacant stares has compelled me to find a steady stance atop this familiar soapbox.

The disparity between the haves and have-nots is growing at an alarming rate, but like Roman emperors wearing golden blindfolds, very few seem to acknowledge the impending fall.

We are at a critical crossroads in this country and there is a cauldron filled with the forgotten just waiting to boil over.

Our culture has continued its unhealthy love affair with capitalism, even in the face of some severely detrimental consequences. Instead of making slight adjustments to stave off the resentment and rage directed toward those holding all the cards, the dealers have found ways to ensure that the house continues to profit exponentially. Greed was good in the 80’s, but it’s a poison we’re forced to swallow today.

Poverty and mental illness are running rampant, but it’s more comfortable to draw the blinds and bolt the doors. I watch consumers carrying thousand-dollar bags step over people sleeping in the street to stand in line for an $8 cup of dead coffee beans and foam. I see state-funded food in schools sit in the bottom of garbage cans because mandates force students to fill trays with items they never plan to eat. I walk around in an environment full of waste and pollution and excess, and I wonder where it all went wrong.

I don’t proclaim to have the answers, and I’m well aware there is no cure-all for a population that has been beaten into submission for generations. But, it certainly feels like there is a revolution just waiting to explode with the right confluence of actions.

A seemingly insignificant event may play the role of that backbreaking straw. But, it could be just enough to tip those apathetic scales to the point of no return.