|
Chris
Amazing Member (1000+ posts)
1773 Posts
Gratitude: 268
|
 Posted - 06/28/2005 : 04:48:13
|
earlier I ran into an old friend from highschool whle I was on main street with Nick. it was an odd encounter because he had been a really good friend when we were in school together but much like everybody else from that school we drifted apart after graduation. today was the first time I'd seen him in two years and it was tough because I learned through conversation that he's been in and out of the psych ward and on and off of a whole rainbow of medications, mostly off I gather. He's been going through this for two years and the doctors still havn't given him a diagnosis (a situation which I find personally abhorrent). This lack of diagnosis must be ****ing terrible for him because without any knowlege of what's wrong there's no real way he can actually begin to heal and no way he could ever be expected to remain on any medication therapy because there's no way for him to know how serious his condition could be. I also found out that he's living in a welfare hotel downtown and still smoking pot (something from my own experience I found to be really hard on the mind). The whole thingfills me with sadness because not only do I not have any way of really keeping in contact with him (he doesn't even have a phone) but there's little if any way for me to help him because he doesn't seem to want to help himself.
I might have written something about this a long while ago I can't remember but when I was first diagnosed and out of the hospital, five years ago now, I used to half want to know and be friends with some other people with mental illness
because no matter how cool or accepting or supportive friends and family can be unless they go nuts too they will never truly understand what it's like to lose it. I would think about that and then I would pray that none of my friends ever had to experience what I did, I still pray for that. But what I'm fnding as I grow older is that like it or not some of my friends are having psychotic breaks, be it from drugs and hard living, or a genetic predisposition in the end it really matters little the reasons why. It makes me sad to know that no matter how much I love these people, no matter how much I can identify with what their going through or have been through the fact still remains that I can't do anything to help, there seems like there's no way for me to make my friends life any better, to convince him of the effectiveness of drug therapy or point him in the direction of a doctor he can trust and build a healing relationship with.
I hope and pray that he can get proper treatement because to see one of my friends on skid row like that breaks my heart, to see anyone on skid row like that breaks my ****ing heart. Call it a sort of solidarity of psychosis or something but you get to see things like that from a different angle when you've been there or even close to there. It feels so ****ing wrong to me that I can live like I do and where I do while other people, especially people I've shared a part of my life with, have to live in the **** and hard.
it feels impotent.
(I posted this in my blog too but thought maybe it might go better in here.)
Born in the 80's,
grew up in the 90's,
lost my mind at the Millenium.  |
|
| Chunkybeefsoup
Incredible Member (2000+ posts)
2353 Posts
Gratitude: 412
  |
Posted - 07/04/2005 : 16:14:56
|
Hi Chris, I completely agree with you that unless you've been through it yourself, you'll never know what it feels like to be insane. It's such a cruel thing to go through and it's also very sad. It hits us in the prime of our life and robs us of leading happy and normal lives. I'm really sorry to hear about your friend. I often think about Vancouver, Downtown, Eastside. This is where the mentally ill, poor, sick, illicit drugs, prostitution, happens. This is the area that nobody wants to talk about. It's almost as if the people there are not human - they're treated so horribly. Nobody cares. When there are deaths, nobody pays attention. I'm so ashamed of our city and the people who live in it. We choose, out of our own free will, to leave these poor people and abandon them. Sure, there's talk every once in awhile, but only about statistics - how many died this year, how many died of violence, drug overdoses, etc.
I really hope and pray that your friend comes out ok. Cindy |
|
| Anamater
Super Member (250+ posts)
284 Posts
Gratitude: 123
|
Posted - 03/14/2007 : 22:59:56
|
I agree with you, but from a slightly inverted viewpoint. The people I am closest to are my family, and of them one sister and a half brother have sought normality, and dont relate well becasue they have not been there. All the rest are completely dysfunctional. My sister, whom I am closest with, won't stop smoking pot, even though it made her son premature, and her insanity is wrecking her marriage. She can't drive, and almost never leaves the house. My bro and dad live together cloistered away form reality, and drink their demons away. My mom jsut rejects it all, ran away from home and suppresses her memories of what we all went through. It seems like I am the only one who both has a problem and is trying to fix it. It feels really lonely.
Art. Like morality, consists of drawing a line. |
|
I posted this in my blog too
