There are two types of people in this world, those who have been touched by madness and those who are still immune to its relative charms. I fall firmly into the first camp, aware that even as a young child the things I saw and felt weren’t the same as those experienced by the other pupils in my class.
Today, 30 years on, madness grips me in the worst kind of way. The kind where I don’t know what to believe or what is the truth. Is the Devil really visiting me, showing me images of horror and fire and death? Or is it my mental illness? Bipolar Disorder short-circuiting something in my brain that creates these facades? Logically I try to focus on the most realistic cause for my terror but the grip of Him is so strong. I close my eyes and all is golden and gleaming and light. There is the glow of the early morning suns rays as they shine through the magnificent stained glass window. The candles are ablaze, burning unnaturally high on the alter of pure which cloth before which I kneel in supplication. I know that if he wanted to take me now that I would be powerless to stop him. I would be his creature. He shows me murder. Murder at my own hand. And I don’t know whether I would be able to resist the things he wants me to do. Horror and fire and death and Him and, for some reason that I can’t understand, lots of red feathers.
I take my medication. Then I take another dose and another and add in a couple of different medications for good measure. Anything to block this out of my head. No, not just my head because I feel this within me. A part of me as much as the part that loves to draw and sing and paint and be in nature. This darkness has penetrated me again. It has done so before but always I hope it will be for the last time. The medications help, if only to make me so sedated that I can obtain the sweet relief of sleep. I awaken and for a fleeting second forget about my demons but then as I try to stand I jolt and nearly fall as the disorientating effects of the medicine remind me that all is not well. Motor and mental skills are the price I am paying to hold off this Devil and it is a heavy price. My body feels old and weak and my mind is so slow that I can’t find words for things that I know so well. I have fleeting glimpses of freedom which I seize with both hands and I paint my naked body with abandon, determined to reclaim ME. This is ME and I will not be yours. Then after all too brief a respite He returns and so begins the cycle of medication and sedation and sleep.
It is now nearly 03:15 and I am wide awake. I’m lucid. I went to bed at 17:00 – collapsed under the mental pressure of the medication which is supposed to be making me better – but now this is time for me to be myself for a while. There are enough drugs in my system to hold off the Demon but not enough to completely tie me to sleep. So I am up, a candle is lit, I have a pot of loose leaf chamomile tea and I am trying to pour out some of the jumble that is inside my head. There is so much inside me that is trying to get out. Imagine picture after picture after sketch after painting after photograph after poem after song after dance and more and more and more pictures. I see everyone one completely vividly but I either can’t get them out quickly enough to capture them or the Demon comes and takes them away from me and I have to numb myself with the tablets again.
Tomorrow I am going to get up early and go the The Eucharist at the Cathedral. I was raised as a member of The Church Of England but have drifted away and back again several times during my life. Although I wouldn’t class myself as a confirmed believer in any one thing over another I do believe that there is Something out there, whatever name we choose to give it. I often visit the Cathedral and light candles for my loved ones, for my past, my present and my future and I always feel like a weight has been lifted after I have been inside the glory of a building built purely for praise. I don’t think anyone who has entered the greatness of one of England’s Cathedrals can fail to appreciate that magical feeling. I am hoping that I can be purified by the experience and try to convince myself that this Devil is all in my head and I’m not actually being groomed by the Antichrist. I know that sounds ridiculous. Please believe me, I know. But if you had seen what I had seen and heard the things that I had heard and watched your own hands commit murder than perhaps just making sure you aren’t actually possessed by the Devil wouldn’t seem quite so foolish.
Now I’ve written all that I’m going to get out of my brain before it shuts down on me again so I’ll finish my tea and attempt to get back to sleep – a sleep that isn’t completely drugged.
I’ll let you know if I burst into flames when I cross the Cathedral threshold….
Brain Wanderings 