Inside My Head

I was reading an autobiography in which the script from the movie “Promise” was

being discussed. Specifically, this part concerned schizophrenia, but there are very

many similarities to bi-polar dysfunction, and I believe these two to be one and

the same, best described as along the spectrum:

“It’s like, all the electric wires in the house are plugged into my brain. And every one

has a different noise, so I can’t think. Some of the wires have voices in them and they

tell me things to do and that people are watching me. I know there really aren’t any

voices, but I feel that there are, and that I should listen to them or something will happen.

That’s why I send for those ads on the TV, because I feel the voice in the ad is talking

to me. I hear him talking to me. He tells me to buy the things and that… well, I’m afraid

if I don’t.”

I know I am broken. I do not know why, nor do I know how to fix me. I do not hear

voices as was described, but the intrusive thoughts are always there playing like a

subliminal track from a movie. So I turn up the music. I sing along to give me a voice of

my own using borrowed words and thoughts because my own are destructive. Not

destructive in a final countdown to the big sleep kind of way, just self-destructive. So I

try to build walls to keep myself inside and safe from myself.

The walls are created out of music or books or movies. And yet I still hear the thoughts cloyingly

chanting “tear down these walls.” Sometimes, I write to build another part of the wall.

My words acting as bricks and mortar to shore up my defenses. I write and I write and I spew

another pile of verbal vomit to clear the inside of my mind. I write in different places to confuse the

thoughts. I blog to my self, because I absolutely cannot convince myself that others want to hear

what I am thinking.

I write to get rid of the pain of these thoughts. The pain is not acute, but a chronic thing that is always

there. It ebbs and flows, much like the pain of an old injury that is now a weather-tell and has highs

and lows affected by an incoming storm. Most days it can be ignored. Some days I need to take the

edge off by medicating, using writing as an analgesic. Once in a while the pain comes on hard and

fast and I have to seek relief much like using Lamaze breathing techniques to force my focus away

from the pain. Much like an addict, when you find something that alleviates the pain, even temporarily,

you cling to it. You seek it. And when it is taken away from you or no longer works, you panic. You

try harder.

You get desperate. You get afraid. 

I wish you peace.