Strange thoughts

You know, its been a long time since I have thought about this, but I was in retreat this weekend, and had lots of time. This arose amoungst the silence: When you focus on being present, and the mind becomes secondary, it lobs strange messages in its attempt to hold onto your attention. We hear these stories all the time. Wispers that we are not good enough, or that we have to move, or thinking about our schedules, or how hungry we are. Whatever. When I was ill, those messages were clearer narration. The voice was louder. I am assuming everyone has an itnerior monologe going on, but for someone with SZ, those voices are loud, and clear. The worse the SZ, the more negative the messages and the louder the voices still. Remember John Nash? The mathemetician in "A Beautiful Mind"? He was SZ, Histapenic. He never saw people, as the movie depicted, but he heard clear and threatening voices from onset until late in his life.

For those of you out there withfriends and loved ones with SZ, know that many of them have a host of narrations in thier heads, loud, demanding, and critical.

For those of you with SZ, you are not crazy. No more than I am or anyone else.

This is not really going anywhere, except that I noticed how quiet that monolouge has grown for me. Perhaps it is "normal" right now; if there is such a thing. Its quiet now. Vibrant, and still. Perhaps its the healing. Perhaps its what John Nash did, letting the constructions of your mind whirl away and paying them no more or less attention than you might your stomach, or your heartbeat. They are naught but the secretions of that organ, doing its thing, and need not distract you.

Well...again, my best to all.

I know that I should post something. I know that I should be in here in the trenches, blogging, reporting, but somehow, I cannot find the time. I have been well. Really well. Little things are the biggest testimonial to my well being I guess. I sleep without a fan in my room, a habit I picket up when the insomnia started years and years ago. I dont know if this is well being from treatment, or the fact that I am on a rest from work. I dont know.

I have been eating and drinking all those things that for years filled me with fear of the repercussions. I have been going out, and meeting people, and enjoying it. I still, occasionally, get a headache from too many new people, but it is small, and distant, in comparison to the wall that limited me before.

I still take my pills, though sometimes I forget some. They are not the most important thing in my day. They are just automatic. Like deodorant. I think about my illness and it seems something far away, something distant. Something that happened to someone else. Then I go somewhere again for the first time in a long time and I can feel the differences in my perceptions and I recall how bad it was. There is still a sadness in the middle that I doubt will ever be lifted, but I dont know that I want it to. In a way it is like a badge. A solemn reminder of a battle fought and won, or fought and to be fought again.

I feel still a kinship with the broken, the lost, the unwell. I feel like they are my brothers and sisters and my compassion for them is overflowing. I dont know how best to help them, but my heart breaks when I think of them and the places they still are in the shadows waiting for better days.

I think about the illness every now and then in an attempt to explain it. Recently I have been fascinated by the idea that all of the stress hormones created by the endless epinephrine of the h'penic must have done major damage to my hypothalamus. It makes sense. All of the systems that are controlled by the hypothalamus were responding erroneously, as one would expect. Hormones, sleeping, mineral balance, etc. It takes a long time to heal. for me, almost 9 years now. But heal it does. I suppose there is a lesson there.

Well, please write in if you have the time and tell me how you are doing. My heart is with you.