My breakdown didn’t really happen. It is all a lie. I have been lying to you all this whole time. And my family. And the orderlies, psychiatrists, and other personnel in the hospital who strapped me to the hospital bed during my second hospitalization (with pee-cup, and all) so that I would not, once again, flee like I attempted to earlier that evening when I first arrived for fear of “acquiescing to the system” the “way I did” during my first hospitalization.
I was afraid that by not resisting this second hospitalization I would lose more time at school, and ultimately, my present livelihood and independence.
I would, anyway… precisely at about the time the very large, and muscular, orderlies (hired for these particular attributes, no doubt) in question wrestled me to the floor in the hallway outside the intake room from where I bolted.
My fear and advanced delusional state was only enhanced by my belief that they were really trying to anally rape me (may I say this on the internet?).
But this, my breakdown, didn’t happen.
Or, if it did, it’s all my fault so it’s all the same difference anyway. (Because of all the drugs- other than those prescribed after my first hospitalization- that I was definitely taking. Definitely. Like the one cigarette I’ve never even smoked in my life.)
There are those who will attempt to lead you, and others, to believe this. But, usually, these people have a whole helluva’ lot in common with the people who wanted nothing to do with you, or, worse, wanted to make sure you knew that they wanted to have nothing to do with you while still obligating you to be in their presence, in the days, months, and years that followed the incident.
And, then, when you are rendered helpless and feeble, or, at least, marginally employed, years later, blame you for that, too, as if nothing is true… except for their own superiority and desire to make sure you know it. While continuing to wanting to have nothing to do with who you really are as a person.
This is, certainly, not true of everyone, or nearly everyone, but it is true, nonetheless.
And continues to be.
The problem is, once you begin to own your story, as I am doing here, and have done in drafts of personal memoir and other writing, they hold THAT against you, too, as if your ability to recount this story is proof that you never, or now still don’t, had any deficiencies in relation to these events and the biopsychosocial reasons underlying them to begin with.
As if THEY own YOUR story.
But that’s their issue. And, maybe, they, too, would benefit from a breakdown… to come into greater touch with their own humility. Or, at least, humanity.
But, then again, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
I’ve “advanced” far enough in my recovery not to.
Or, maybe, I’m just advanced.
Time will tell.
Because I am.
Observations from the Brink 