Another Letter

I think it’s good that you took the day off from reading today… I just got back from the store, where I bought a Coke and Aesop’s favorite treat of chicken jerky. I looked around at the sky and it was blue with a lot of white from clouds or maybe smoke. It’s 90 degrees. You know, what you’ve been saying is right. The fact is that I really like my Edgar Rice stuff. Why should I let anyone ruin it for me? It takes me back to a happy time in my life. In 79 I was 12 years old and just finding some things that I really loved. I read my pulp novels and drew pictures to illustrate what I’d read. I had a wonderful time. I didn’t really hit the wall until I started high school and caught mononucleosis. There’s evidence now of a possible correlation between schizophrenia and the virus that causes mono. In my case, this makes good sense. My battle with mono in high school was awful and depressing. At the end of my senior year, my doctor did some work on my blood and determined that I had a low level of immunoglobulin type A, which may also turn out to be related to the schizophrenia. But I’m only guessing, and the research on this stuff is going very slowly. Anyway, I was terribly sick during high school, and the schizophrenia happened to me in college.

A problem with my ex psychiatrist was that he never believed anything his patients said until there was a consensus, a considerable body of evidence. It always drove me kind of crazy to have him pooh pooh my observations or complaints about something with my illness or a medication I was on. He had to see it in JAMA or whatever before he would believe it. He didn’t credit us with any intelligence, sometimes even humanity. His patients were beneath him. Ick! He was an autocrat.

The Coke tastes really good this afternoon. I’m resolved to read my Edgar Rice and enjoy it.

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Saying No

Seven fifty.

For some reason I felt better for getting out of the house a bit ago. I’ve been rather besieged at home due to my PCA situation. Sometimes I just want to be left alone… I spent $17 at the convenience store this morning. Not many people were out yet. I feel I want to break free from everything, like the old Queen song by John Deacon. Conceivably I could go buy a load of beer and drink myself to oblivion this afternoon. But if I did, then probably everyone would find out about it. How many ways do I know to fly to the moon? Occasionally I find myself in this position, tempted to get drunk, but knowing better what’s good for me. I don’t think I’m like some people who WTF their way through life, and yet I could really use a little bit of empowerment. Drunkenness is what you do when your life seems painted into a corner, or like a dead end. And when that happens, you need to rearrange your circumstances. Often it starts with saying no when you feel the pressure to say yes. It’s when you say yes too many times that your life gets out of control. It can even make you sick.

Nine o five. At last the sun is out, though it’s still partly cloudy. Time to take the bull by the horns…

Towards a Cure

Four thirty five in the morning.

It’s been raining fairly hard and constantly. The sound of it was comforting while I slept. I recall a dream I had when I was a sophomore in college. I hid by my bedroom window to avoid being seen by pteranodons in the sky, a paranoid dream. About ten years later I dreamed of men landing in my backyard in a helicopter to take me away with them. Somehow I think helicopters symbolize sex because they hover like an erection, as Freud would say. Dreams of floating or suspension in air usually mean that… The problem with gay sex is the clash with conventional morality as it is prescribed in the Bible. Internal conflict like this gives rise to neurosis and maybe even psychosis if my theory is right. I also think the homosexuality is innate, something I was born with. In schizophrenia, there’s a split between feeling and reason. But what if instinct and the intellect could be joined in harmony rather than opposing each other? Perhaps it would heal the illness. In this case, I could quit taking the medication and maybe live longer… Freud wrote that homosexuality is no degradation, no vice, and can’t be called an illness. And of course, Freddie Mercury said, “I’ve done my sentence but committed no crime.” 

“Heal Thyself”

Quarter of eight.

The weather is cloudy yet again this morning. Tomorrow is my sister’s birthday, so I’ll have to give her a call soon. She’ll be 74 years old. I really don’t want to drink again, so whatever comes, I’ll stick it out however ugly it proves to be. I believe that psychosis is what happens when elements of the personality are in conflict with each other. Beyond that, my knowledge is rather sketchy. My personal experience will have to guide me from here on out. There are no traditional psychoanalysts near me in Oregon. Only Jungian therapists, and they are mostly ignorant. What I’m looking for is a permanent cure for schizophrenia. Also for alcoholism. I think I’m on the right track. Maybe I can go online to the forum and discuss it with somebody else who has recovered completely. I remember one person who actually did that with the help of a therapist.

Quarter of nine. I don’t really know what’s driving my thoughts since my last talk with my sister. But I think I need to talk to her some more. Maybe something will be jostled loose and I’ll be free.

Wee hours.

I’m no longer doubtful. I was thinking back on being in ninth grade, all of the little clues to my identity. It’s almost as if willed by a god or something. All of the pieces fit now, except I still have to confront my sister. Maybe not on her birthday.

Poetry in Motion

Nine twenty at night.

The weather was very pretty this afternoon, and 70 degrees out. Only a few lonely clouds drifted across the blue sky. And like a little cloud, I had a disagreement with the rep for my health insurance on the phone today. However, I stood my ground and got my way with them after she spoke with her supervisor. The only drawback I’ve seen with my insurance company is how they insist on a really bad dental program. It was like pulling teeth, but I managed to switch over to something much better. Sometimes you have to advocate for yourself to get what you need. I’ve also heard of other people having trouble getting help with the taxi service for the disabled. I don’t think it’s a matter of good or bad luck in dealing with people. Rather, it is being persistent and smart about doing it.

The most picturesque thing I saw at the agency this morning was Misty when she glided in the automatic door from the sunshine. And like the sun, she spoke not a word to us guys who greeted her, but made a cryptic gesture with her left hand, then sauntered majestically away towards the pharmacy and the dispensary…

Now I remember that I corrected the rep’s pronunciation of “colorectal.”

Salud

Nine o’clock at night.

Everything consumes time. I’ve never been good at managing my time each day, or keeping a rigid structure. I could read my book right now, but it takes time that might be better spent writing my mind. I found it bizarre how Baudelaire is spiritual in a dark and wicked way. Is that healthy? To put down anything in words is to make it more real… But it isn’t just bizarreness: familiarity with “the devil” can happen in substance use, as it once happened to me during the years I had a job in an office. On Friday nights I’d get ripped and watch old Polanski movies, King Crimson concerts. I seemed much younger then, and I guess fifteen years does make a big difference. But the mystery to me is why I waited so long to take charge of my life, jerking the strings away from “Satan Trismegistus.” Now I know it’s really possible to do this. Stay away from the booze and everything is doable. The best way to keep sober is never to start drinking in the first place… The very last time I drank beer, I was sick and couldn’t keep it down. I’d have two beers and then throw them up. Finally, with a Miller High Life in my hand, I said that everything was different now. And I realized that nothing else mattered but life itself. I knew that a way would open up to me, though it would take some sacrifices. What you gain by it is integrity: purity, wholeness, and health.