The second time I admitted myself into the hospital, part of what drove me there was not understanding the strange things I was starting to experience. I thought, certainly, that I must be going crazy. I still don’t always understand what I’m seeing, hearing, feeling – but it’s gotten a bit easier to allow myself to just experiences it instead of insisting to myself that I need to immediately make sense of it.
Sometimes I would close my eyes and focus on my breathing, trying to remember to count my breaths in an out in an attempt to ground myself. This, I learned the first time I was in the hospital. Well, that’s a lie. I had been encouraged to do it countless times before that, the concept was known. Anytime I had tried, though, it felt silly and I couldn’t get myself to get past maybe half a dozen of mindful breaths without deciding that was all I could handle – as if my lungs were as out of shape as the rest of me. My first round at the hospital taught me it was worth feeling silly if it meant doing what worked.
So with my eyes close and my breathing rhythmic and calm, I’d slip into this place of loving bliss. I would be aware that my body was heavy and held in place by gravity but forget where exactly it was. I would feel this sense of lightness and floating with an reassuring sense of peace. Then as soon as I forgot what it was like to picture something, to imagine, and image so vivid I could swear it was real would flash into my mind’s eye, snapping me back to the here and now in a panic. The content of the images would vary but they always came with a heavy feeling and a sense of needing to figure out where they were coming from, why they are there.
Other times, silence was broken by whispers with no place and voices without a face. Sirens would interrupt my thoughts and vanish the moment they were noticed. The harder I tried to understand these things and grab a hold of them, the more they seemed to elude me. I’ve never been one to trust without evidence and that applied just as much when it came to trusting myself, my experiences. I wanted some kind of understanding, an opportunity to observe to my heart’s content – but the more I tried the more maddening these things became.
It wasn’t the things I was seeing and hearing that made me crazy. It wasn’t even the times I was so sure that I felt fingers grip my shoulder when no one was behind me or my hair be pulled without explanation. What drove me nuts was trying to hold onto these things when it wasn’t necessary. I would experience one, notice one, and then fixate. I would channel my inner detective, insistent that I’d get to the bottom of things this time.
I know we’ve all watched at least one of those scenes found in every crime series where the detective drives themselves over the edge trying to close a case that they just can’t get any leads on. They go back and start retracing their steps, so much time invested now that they’re not going to let it go unsolved – not this time. Pictures, documents and newspaper clippings line the walls – connected by little red lines of string, push pins, etc. What was intended to be an organized system turns into absolute chaos as the obsession to find the answer grows. That is what I turned into – only I was trying to get to the root of my own experiences as if I needed an answer to believe that they happened. Some sort of closure, if you will.
I kept grasping for that control until I couldn’t handle my day to day life and continue focusing on it the way I was. Then, I gave up for the need for control and went to the hospital to do what felt like relearning the basics of being human. I had stopped eating consistently, I wasn’t sleeping, there were points where I hadn’t showered in nearly two weeks, my apartment was a disaster and I was just barely managing to pull off my duties as a mom but I was nowhere near the loving, supportive person I want to be for my son.
When I returned home, I found myself building excitement surrounding the boy I met at the hospital and the way he had described the things he felt, saw and heard to me. Somewhere in me I felt this comfort, an understanding that somehow, in some way, we were connected. I used this excitement to pour into my ADL’s, getting my apartment back into shape, and showing my son the attention he had been lacking the few weeks prior. For the first time in months I was catching a glimpse of myself again.
Once we were both out of the hospital, my fixation turned relationship because it only made sense to me that I be with the only person I’ve felt has understood me this well in as long as I could remember. I had never explained myself to him though, that’s the thing. I understood him and he reminded me of it often so I thought he must understand me as well. I learned that wasn’t the case, but I seem to take the hard way to learn my lessons.
From time to time it would sneak into my head that there was a day in the hospital where something had me incredibly convinced that he was the devil. I thought it was the silliest thing because how could a person possibly be the devil. That night, I dreamt that he told me he was and that I had sex with him. The next day, the way he turned soft anytime we talked had me questioning why I would possibly think anything so bizarre about him – clearly this sort of delusional was why I needed to be in the hospital, right? I ignored the misunderstood feeling and told myself that my imagination was just going wild again – it does that sometimes.
Everything felt so much more exciting, so much more vivid. Early mornings laying in bed watching the sunrise would turn into steamy morning sex which would lead to hours of talking about the universe, our lives, and all of the ways they’re the same thing. Then one day, smack dab in the middle of the steamy sex portion of our morning, I looked at him as he was on top of me and I noticed his smile was a bit different this time and then I nearly jumped out of my skin as I watched his eyes go black.
A jolt of fear coursed through my body, settling in a momentary expression on my face that I was hoping wasn’t noticeable. The break in movement and concerned voice asking if I was okay told me it was, indeed, noticeable. I lied, told him it just hurt for a second but that I was good now. I mean, really, how do you tell someone they scared you half to death when their eyes went black? So I started looking for my out, finally accepting that while whatever I had been feeling in the hospital may not have been telling me he’s the literal devil – whoever he is, maybe I shouldn’t be around him.
We parted ways a few weeks later and he moved away. I had my home blessed after a handful of particularly unusual sessions with the life coach I was working with at the time and then I focused on cleansing myself, my energy. I stepped into my “find Jesus” moment and then after fixating on that for a few weeks, finally accepted that I don’t need to know the answers – I just need to trust the feelings.
I started thinking that maybe every time we’re making a decision, saying yes or no to something, we’re just showing whether or not we’ve already learned that lesson. Are you going to go back and repeat the cycle or are you going to move on and choose better for you? Was I going to trust my gut that something was off or did I need to set aside a few months of making progress on myself to relearn that when something doesn’t feel right to me, I don’t need to let fear of missing out lead me to pursuing it anyways?
Like I said, sometimes I learn the hard way. But I’m working on getting a better grasp on who “me” is and more consistently choosing only what is best for her. Do you know “you” and are you honoring them with your decisions?
Much love, until next time!
Madeline May I... 