Even though you may have
thought it, you have not begun to hear anything remotely like the last of it,
and there will never be a magical day of ideal balance that once found adheres,
and there can be no place of real security, oh no, ideal balances happen all of
the time, nightmarish too, and they last 15 seconds or so. The only ideal
balance I have and what brought me out of a 20 battle with psychotic
schizophrenia and bipolar depression, a disease called schizoaffective
disorder, was my growth in the gospel, which included giving up that which was
damaging to my state of mind, and galvanizing to the comfort and strength of my
family, which has for the large measure, put my mind in a semi-state of
remission of psychosis.
The celestial
room with my youngest sister Emily, who has always been the most valuable
creature in my life and always will be; as I walked in and saw my parents I was
still in a disheveled state with so much processing but as I turned around and
saw Emily, it was the most right moment of my life and it was the happiest
moment of truth I will ever experience as I held Emily in my arms and the tears
flowed like a tap that will not close, the purest tears of my life, embracing
her as I “got it” and all became clear and as each of my beloved siblings with
their spouses walked in with my joy compounded each time knowing that this is
forever. This is when the nightmare of psychotic schizophrenia, a state
that began with a major psychotic break in March of ’94 to forever alter my
brain chemistry so great was this break and so intense was the experience and
it was that very night of the break that I heard my first voice… but that is
too personal.
Following
this came friends, one by one abandoning me and my detachment from the world
around me was complete. I had completely broken from reason as my neurons
no longer had the ability to pass freely between each other for reasonable
thought, and what was to follow was 20 years of misfiring chemichals and a mind
sunk into a psychotic depression never having one moment’s peace. Yes,
the psychosis was tortuous, the delusion loomed large in manners that blended
homogenously one delusion fitting the other, the panic attacks were so
horrendous that I tried to commit suicide twice and both times I was saved in a
state of unconsciousness by my father. It was a battle of trying this and
that medicine and poor mental health treatment for those without hundreds of
thousands to spare for the extra niceties. It was a brutal reality and
all of the while I fought and I fought and there was nothing I could do to get
back to “the way things were” and after so many years I had to realize that to
live and to enjoy life at all is to accept and manage and this progressive
action took place after a confinement of a few days for “acute psychosis” being
already 29 and still my mind could not grasp the reality that it was indeed
mentally ill.
This episode
shook me up dreadfully and I began my 30s with this progressive initiative to
learn and to accept. I had to accept that I was a mentally ill growing
man and that there were measures I could take to effectuate better heath and
frame of mind as my life began a metamorphosis as I emerged from graduate
school in art history to enter the world on my own that took form immediately.
It is a life of beauty and simplicity with wondrous meaningful personal
collections in a bright and cheery spot in down town Salt Lake City and as a
successful art critic for the two top art publishing magazines/papers, I am
happily doing very well.
But this new
life, this new reality, truly required that moment holding my sister as I “got
it.” From that point onward, my life became a perpetual showering of
blessings to dull the manic depression I was experiencing and do experience
heavily and to distract me from the beast, my God blessed me with an
inspiration to explore my intense passion for philosophy applied with an LDS
point of view, a philosophy so bitter only to find that its antithesis is the
pure manifestation of Jesus Christ and the hope and joy he brings to those who
will embrace him.
Since my
endowments I have embraced him as my constant companion as I know he is ever
present. Having THAT peace and security in my life, something that my
philosophical contemplation only further galvanizes my testimony like a magnet
to iron, for the first time in my life, something had become really real.
The schizophrenia, as it is now, with the psychosis that is a perpetual
management and the bipolar leaving not a moment that is secure for me; the
mentally ill must for the sake of loosing comprehension, fill in the missing
gaps of reason with that which makes no sense to others and is most often, the
worst kind of mental life-reality that is in fact very real to the mentally
ill. Being severely ill I have many novels of psychotic miserably
self-destructive patterns of delusion, which I will never write, because that
is my past and as I turn 40 in just two months I have never been more excited
about anything in my life as my present and my future.
The full
story of how, ultimately beneficial, this progress has been should be written.
So much has manifest in me over 20 years that I do not know how to be
inauthentic, I can only be true in thought, word and deed as each requires some
corporeal reflex to balance out the misfired chemicals which perpetually cause
a brain that perpetually malfunctions and thinks it is the worst there is all
from a naturally perpetually regenerated gene pool. Many sink into or
embrace their psychotic identities, and these are the majority that will never
know any happiness like I know. It was by obeying without exception, the
feeling of truth in my heart in the moment of the bitterest hallucination,
panic attack, episodes of many shapes and sizes, at every dark turn when I
could not foresee what lie ahead but took a leap of trust, that I followed the
hand of the savor whom without, I would never have gotten out of the mental
hospital and been able to live a life that is literally “unreal” to the vast
majority. It is very real to me and only now, as the product of countless
decisions big and small, do I have a life tailor-made for me as I must still
live this reality and binge and purge everyday for my mind to process and
release and this it does on the spirituality of life’s progress.
I dedicate
this post to my new best ally in things deeply and richly spiritual as he and I
share, not a common experience, but common phenomena, as I have related a
charmed youth and then the horror of those twenty years only to find peace
through the Gospel of Jesus Christ… this is how his situation has developed as
we were raised together, he served an honorable mission to come back stalwart
and strong and ready for anything life could throw his way and it did… and life
was hard on him and satan knew of his sensitivity and manipulated my friend as
I have experienced the like. He and I having both gone far away from the
light of Christ, to come back makes the trial of our experience and the
blessings of our dedication so very profound as neither he nor I will ever
stray from the rock we stand on as we know to budge is to open oneself to tests
that have already been established and our fortitude proven.
My friend and
I hold the Gospel above all other things as we know with out it our lives, his
life would have amounted to little and mine would have long ago ended.
But, we are the first to embrace our suffering as a journey of strength to
build the kind of testimonies a house can stand firmly upon as a great
precipice can withstand any tempest and those within will be nurtured and
comforted. Even though our trials both he and I will last all of our
days, so will our conviction as we overcome them with testimonies uncommon and
a passion for the Gospel unusual for men of our age. But we have seen and
know too much not to be excited and rejoice in this glorious Gospel as Christ
has proven our Savior in absolute reality to both of us and we will not think
twice to let him down but will be the men he sees us to be.
