Am I Still Ill?

Yesterday was a tough one. Having been low in energy and mood I went into a proper tailspin with depression.

Desperate for a bit of  help I texted a few friends and R. Naturally I suppose, R was the one I looked to for the most support. But instead I got the usual ‘you’re angry, stop taking it out on me’, inflammatory remarks. I responded with ‘I’m depressed, will you kindly stop telling me what I’m feeling? Concentrate on what you yourself are feeling, because half the time you don’t seem to know.’

I started several texts and then didn’t send them. I realised I now couldn’t openly voice my feelings to R, out of fear of his response. Having been ‘told’ for several months now by several people that I’m some kind of angry, aggressive and abusive monster my ‘demonisation’ radar is as sharp and sensitive as a razor.

Forget about the months. What about the years of stigmatisation as a lunatic? My human feelings pathologised? Being considered ‘beyond the pale’? Written off…dismissed…discarded…condemned to a marginal life?

Anyone who has been in the mental health system for a long time will know what I’m talking about. And here I am, in a situation where the two closest and most trusted people in my life turn around and appear to demonise me too.

And then I realised that in actual fact all that ex-friend A and the Equals Training experience had really done was highlight the dynamic between me and R, which had been going on for years.

It was a transaction, a trade-off. By my agreeing to be the ‘demon’, he got to be the ‘saint’.

Then with all the pressure of the Equals situation the worm decided to turn. I fought back against the demonisation and dehumanisation. I identified it as bullying and scapegoating, with a shedload of psychological projection from others.

I went through the proverbial wringer over this. But my Higher Power gave me the strength to stand up to the bullying. As if my life depended on it, I analysed the situation from my point of view and insisted on my right to have an opinion of my own.

I some ways my life DID depend on it.

As a result of this experience I felt myself put on a massive growth spurt. My perception of this so-called mental illness changed. I stopped pathologising myself. I recognised the potential of my condition to bring about great insight, vision and creativity.

What I said in the Equals Training course was essentially this. I believe that the experience of being at rock bottom in life is a strength and not a weakness. Far from a disability it can impart great ability.

I honestly and truly do not aspire to be ‘normal’. I do not look to the run of human beings with ‘normal’ lives…jobs, mortgages, children etc, as role models.

I look to myself. I have self-belief. I trust my own judgment, and I trust in the amazing experiences I have had in the course of my ‘illness’.

All illness, according to Caroline Myss and many other healers, teachers and writers on spirituality, is an opportunity for healing the human psyche and attaining spiritual growth.

A political element also enters in when you are dealing with mental illness, because we face additional stigmatisation and demonisation by society as a whole. The effects of this are probably more painful and worse for our overall health, than the ‘illness’ itself.

It’s not for me to know all the reasons why my views did not go down well with the Equals team. Though my guess would be this. They are telling us to aspire to something that I could never in a million years aspire to. Normality.

I am resonating to the sound of Scott Peck’s ‘different drum’ and travelling down his ‘road less travelled’.

I see my life as a spiritual journey. I have been offered the privilege of not having to live a normal ‘householder’s’ life, as the Hindus would put it. I have not had to bring up children, work in order to keep a roof over my head, worry about where the next meal is coming from. Those circumstances have come about for a reason. This is the life I chose.

What I haven’t been able to choose, is to accept the presence of a Higher Power in my life. He/She/It is there whether I like it or not.

And to return to the much-vexed subject of ‘demons’ (interesting that I mention them in the tagline to this blog!) I am putting my size eight foot down now, and refusing to tolerate any more demonisation, either by others or by myself.

I am claiming humanity. And that has naturally resulted in a change in the dynamic between me and R.

Yesterday I had to face the prospect of a split from R. In fact I’ve been looking at this prospect pretty much daily since the whole Equals saga, which, as I say, simply highlighted the roles we played in our relationship.

The insecurity has been excruciating. Of course most people fear just this kind of insight, growth and change! That is only human. We are an animal species, as well as having divine potential. We cling to our familiar human comforts. Central among these are our fellow human beings, our family and close friends.

But the thought of losing R was unbearable. Then I realised that there were three in this relationship, like Diana’s ‘crowded marriage’.

Me, R and the Higher Power.

I prayed for strength to release him if this was what I must do.

I did not want to face the rest of my life without an intimate relationship, and for some reason, R was and is my choice for that intimate relationship. I have had many other offers and opportunities, but I always come back to wanting R.

I saw R yesterday. We sat on a park bench together near his home. I prayed out loud, holding his hand. Prayed for the guidance to both of us to do the right thing and for us to have the strength to do the divine will…whatever that was.

The spiritual life is very hard. But once you have embarked on it there is no turning back, because the joys and glimpses of another world that it affords you become almost like an addiction that you can never put down.

You are in this together. Not you and your human partner. He or she will always be peripheral to some extent, however much loved. No. You and your Higher Power.