The Realization
I just finished watching Boy Interrupted. Its a sad and at the same time uplifting exploration into the suicide of a 15 year old boy. Now we will never ever know what was in his mind when he took the decision to end it, But his mother said that maybe he had come to the realization that he would never defeat his illness.
I have said to many people over the years, that acceptance of your illness is the hardest thing you will ever achieve in your entire life. The realization that there is no cure. That you will have to take mind altering drugs every day. The realization that you can never ever go back to the time before the illness and that things will be forever changed. It devastating to realize that you cant be helped. That no one can reach you when your at the bottom of the pit.
You cant tell those around you or you loose them to. Its hard work to live with someone who suffers from mental illness. I know I hurt those close to me but that doesn't stop the illness leading me down that road. How can you tell someone that all you see is blackness, that it has an appeal all of its own. In short you cant tell anyone about those moment. I have been called weak, I have had people run the other way when they find out I have a mental illness. Yet they cannot see the inner strength that I have, that has kept me alive when I should have been gone. They cannot see the strength of character that takes a load on board and works around it. All they can see is the frailty the times I am not well, when my world becomes black and I hear the voices.
Is it fundamentally me to take a few weeks or months a year and judge me by that ? Or do you take a whole view of me and see that there is a worthwhile person here ? So many people do the first and never give me a chance to see the second.
I am not defined by my illness yet it is an integral part of who I have become. I sometimes wonder how much of what I consider me today comes from the medications. How much of the real me is actually here? I wish I had an answer, what I do know is that the real me hadn't been able to come forward since I was a young child. Coming out and getting help created the me I see today. I accept the illness and what it does to me, I accept the fact that the medications will most likely take a decade off my life, and I also accept that there will be times when my world is black.
Does that mean that I can survive this illness. ? That I am afraid I cannot answer you. I know there are times in the blackness that ending it would be a relief that the struggle has become to hard for my soul to bare. I keep telling myself tomorrow is another day and maybe that will be better. Is that enough ? Maybe has been so far, I wont sugar coat the fact that I have been so far down I have attempted to end it. I wont make a promise that I wont do it again, as that would be stupid. What I do know is right now today I am ok, and I hope tomorrow is ok too. In the end I want to see another sunrise and that's all that matters.
I have said to many people over the years, that acceptance of your illness is the hardest thing you will ever achieve in your entire life. The realization that there is no cure. That you will have to take mind altering drugs every day. The realization that you can never ever go back to the time before the illness and that things will be forever changed. It devastating to realize that you cant be helped. That no one can reach you when your at the bottom of the pit.
You cant tell those around you or you loose them to. Its hard work to live with someone who suffers from mental illness. I know I hurt those close to me but that doesn't stop the illness leading me down that road. How can you tell someone that all you see is blackness, that it has an appeal all of its own. In short you cant tell anyone about those moment. I have been called weak, I have had people run the other way when they find out I have a mental illness. Yet they cannot see the inner strength that I have, that has kept me alive when I should have been gone. They cannot see the strength of character that takes a load on board and works around it. All they can see is the frailty the times I am not well, when my world becomes black and I hear the voices.
Is it fundamentally me to take a few weeks or months a year and judge me by that ? Or do you take a whole view of me and see that there is a worthwhile person here ? So many people do the first and never give me a chance to see the second.
I am not defined by my illness yet it is an integral part of who I have become. I sometimes wonder how much of what I consider me today comes from the medications. How much of the real me is actually here? I wish I had an answer, what I do know is that the real me hadn't been able to come forward since I was a young child. Coming out and getting help created the me I see today. I accept the illness and what it does to me, I accept the fact that the medications will most likely take a decade off my life, and I also accept that there will be times when my world is black.
Does that mean that I can survive this illness. ? That I am afraid I cannot answer you. I know there are times in the blackness that ending it would be a relief that the struggle has become to hard for my soul to bare. I keep telling myself tomorrow is another day and maybe that will be better. Is that enough ? Maybe has been so far, I wont sugar coat the fact that I have been so far down I have attempted to end it. I wont make a promise that I wont do it again, as that would be stupid. What I do know is right now today I am ok, and I hope tomorrow is ok too. In the end I want to see another sunrise and that's all that matters.
Comments
Post a Comment