“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad Gita. And perhaps I understand the feeling. Someone on this site said that the real fear is not thinking that you’re powerless, but instead, that you have power unspeakable. How many reading this have felt that “fugue” sensation, that they wielded power over the fundamental forces of the universe, that they could will galaxies into being or snuff out the most distant quasars? I myself have thought that I played with the strings of existence themselves, that which causes all things to be — or not to be. Where does it come from, such delusion of omnipotence? What in us makes us believe that the reality out there is just as malleable as the one inside our head — is it that there is confusion between the two? And such grand plans I had, of a world made EUTOPIA (I’ve mentioned this before), though now I look back and cannot even be glad I did not possess such power, just embarrassedly smile and shake my head at myself for such overboard thinking.
One might examine the phrase, “drunk with power”. That was the sensation, if I think on it, feeling so powerful it made you high. Maybe it was a drug, after all, that gave me the whole sense, some chemical imbalance that made me so deluded. I do know that I don’t miss it. Wrestling with such huge imaginary demons — give me instead the ordinary, any day. Such highs always came with a price, and I never want to pay that kind of debt again. In the little sphere that I was reduced to when I became more or less sane, I know I had trouble enough controlling what little things I had power over. I cannot imagine if I were in a loftier seat and had say-so on greater governances. What do you think, you who came back down to earth? Do you miss the tastes of Heaven and Hell? The air up there, for my part, I need never breathe of it again, and I know that I will still be happy. To bear the responsibility for my own life is quite enough to have power over. Perhaps that, and to know that what there needed to be done, I did what I could.
Strawberry
3:34pm friday, 2nd december
It was long ago when I was drunk with power. The disease had not yet run its full course. In the beginning stages of the disease there were a lot of delusions of grandure even though my real ability to handle the mundane tasks of my schooling and self care was slipping.
Now, 17 years later I am saner but more brain damaged. I know exactly how small and powerless and disabled I really am. I don't know if I'm up to the task of taking a shower today (it's the fourth day without). I'm not up to the task of answering the telephone so I listen to it ring and then the voicemail picks up some mysterious message. One of my medications has run out so the big task today is calling in a refill and then walking to the pharamacy to pick it up. Haven't bought anyone any Christmas presents yet. I have 35 days until the Wedding and almost nothing important has been done. No licence, no blood test, no justice of the peace hired. And the worst? What I'm most ashamed of? Is that sometimes I make my dog hold her urine or feces because I'm too tired to take her outside and walk her. I put her in a down-stay on the floor next to me so that she won't go in the house and she periodically, quietly, whines.
In my sane dreams I seek power and recognition as an artist. They are ordinary dreams. And my ordinary goal for the near future is that I handle my disability with dignity and class. That I shower and walk my dog. That I wash the dishes. That I eat something other than ice cream.
Ah, the dog is whining at the door. So I am going to put on my shoes right now. Do the right thing. Thank you Stand for providing me the opportunity to write these confessions.
Reflection
8:47pm friday, 2nd december
Jesus turned the water into wine.Not milk, not Kool-aid, not Pepsi, but wine.
Reflection
8:50pm friday, 2nd december
And who can fu@%in blame him.Dealing with all these money hungry soulless idiots on this planet.
Reflection
11:19pm saturday, 3rd december
When the world comes down.Its not about come.
Reflection
11:20pm saturday, 3rd december
Matter of fact.I am totally peaceful.
Reflection
11:23pm saturday, 3rd december
Although Strawberry, and Stand catches my attention.Strawberry, if you don't watch for plum pudding, you will regret it.
Reflection
11:25pm saturday, 3rd december
Sane gets boring.I guess after a zillion years, sanity would be kinda boring.
reflection
11:28pm saturday, 3rd december
I don't understand why you all don't live eternal.Eventually van gogh will talk to strawberry, etc, etc(tell me why you all don't live eternal.)?????????????????????????????????????????????????
Reflection
11:29pm saturday, 3rd december
You have become yourself
Webster
12:13am sunday, 4th december
I was in college living with roommates when I began to experience that they had begun to possess demonic powers. They used codes to identify themselves to each other. Then it happened that I developed resources, powers if you will, to fend them off.
I lived in fear and began to believe that they were sending coded messages on the radio and television. I then began to believe that this conspiracy was expanding and did not feel safe anywhere. I believed they were everywhere using codes to identify themselves only to each other but otherwise existed undetected. I however, had the power to decode their messages and knew who and where they were.
I also thought that I had the power to rid the world of their demonic presence.
I ran through the streets and was brought into the hospital speaking about devils and power people.
Sanity was a comedowm from such grandeur. Looking in the mirror and seeing the effects of medication is a comedown just in itself. I don't miss the power because it was always intricately tied together with fear.
I too have difficulty having power over myself now, less yet controlling the supernatural. Sometimes when music is playing, I have setbacks in which I think that I am decoding their signals. This is distressing to still encounter this invasion on my sense of reality.
Strawberry
2:37am sunday, 4th december
Last night I decided I wanted to become a fairy. I was giving up on being human. But this morning was much better and I've decided to ignore magical thinking and focus on being a decent human being.
I want to be a really good artist and writer. It is a very ordinary sort of daydream. You HAVE to have wishes and desires and daydreams. There are still sweet, lovely fantasies available to schizophrenics that won't hurt us in the long run.
What really messed with my sense of reality was being called a creative genius by my psychiatrist before the onset of my disease. I was seeing him for depression when I was eighteen, nothing psychotic yet. He read my diary and said that I was writing things that no one had taught me about.......... he said that you don't have to have a high IQ to be a creative genius, I guess it means that you just think thoughts that haven't been thought before. Well, he wasn't a quack, he was a professor at Yale. Eventually I told several professors in college that I was a creative genius, and oh, looking back, was that embarrassing! I thought that going mad was normal for genius types. Then there was the lust to be called "brilliant" after I got institutionalized and back in college again. It's like a fix and you wait and work hard just to hear it again.
Probably I wouldn't have been so power hungry if my dad didn't treat me like such a fool when I was a kid. His absolute favorite quote, "you have that all ass-backward, Strawberry." Nah, don't blame it on the parent.
Hey Webster, why do you call yourself Webster?
Webster
3:39am sunday, 4th december
I too long for words of gratification that remind me of who I used to be. When I infrequently hear them now, it makes me feel that some semblance of who I was survived.
There is nothing so profound about the name Webster. I wish that there was some meaningful, witty tale to tell.
When I recovered sufficently enough to attempt to write again, I noticed that I often had difficulty spelling even the simplest words. I refer to the dictionary more than ever before. The first time that I posted here, I pondered about a code name to use. As I did this I had the Webster's Dictionary as always close at hand. At the time, it seemed convenient.
Strawberry
4:54pm sunday, 4th december
I think that caring enough to find the right spelling of a word in a dictionary makes you a class act, Webster.
Sometimes I think that recovery from schizophrenia can be seen as a spiritual crisis. When we become new people, and step away from our former place in the mainstream public, our personal definitions of what is decent, good, and valuable have to change. We must let our small triumphs become significant. My whole day seems like a string of little victories, and some victories, only God knows about.
Strawberry
5:01pm sunday, 4th december
I wish some of you guys lived in my town. Today is a sleepy, snowy, quiet Sunday in Vermont. Just perfect to go see a movie. I'd love the four of us, Stand, Reflection, Webster and me to go see a movie. But oh, wouldn't we all be shy of each other!
Reflection
8:13pm sunday, 4th december
"A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men.".Willy Wonka.
Strawberry
Reflection
Reflection
Strawberry