mental illness – The Word Worker

The Bridge

https://pixabay.com/photos/bridge-fog-river-night-mist-7703146/

It only appeared in the fog, the old bridge. Not the morning fog when the rising sun burned off the surface of the river. The rare sunset mist defying the golden glow spilling over the horizon. The mist that was both there and not there, with impossible shapes darkening it. With the bridge that couldn’t be.

She had seen it before. A child’s vision, obscured by the cynicism of time. Only his disappearance had made the memory real. She hadn’t been to the river that night, when they said he drowned. She hadn’t been there, but she knew anyway. He would never have drowned.

He had crossed the bridge. Of course he had crossed. He probably just wanted to look, to know where it went, what those dark shapes in the fog became when met face to face. He wouldn’t have thought about it at all, never would have meant to leave her like that. But mist never lasted.

She could see it now, old stone glowing gold in the damp. He could come back now. Any minute she would see him, a little older, rushing back to reassure her and plead his remorse. But how would he know? What if he missed the fog as she had that night? Already the mist began to lift, and she could almost make out the wall across the river.

With a gasp she ran, oblivious to the sole of her foot scraping through the hole in her shoe. The worn strap on her old knapsack fragmented under the sudden strain, depositing her entire life behind her. She clutched the stone as she stumbled onto the span, gasping, desperate. If she held on, if she kept going, it couldn’t vanish. He would come.

She stumbled forward, calling frantically. The sun flared once behind her before gloom closed in. A few more tottering steps, just a few more and she would find him. He hadn’t been able to come to her, she would go to him. They wouldn’t need to go back.

A shadow coalesced beside her. She whimpered, not afraid, relieved. Here was someone to help. The figure smiled, took her hand. She followed, docile. The mist had lifted, of course it had, she didn’t need it anymore. The bridge had brought her home.

The Round Peg in a Square Hole: No Words

I’m a writer. I don’t mean that I write for the public, though obviously I do. I mean that I express myself through the written word. I love the way words come together to depict complex ideas and emotions, the beauty in the way they flow. With my pen, I can think. Except when I can’t.

For a person with neurodiverse brains, self-expression is a constant challenge. When left alone, expression finds outlet in natural ways: sounds, movements, sensations, hyperfocused interests. But other people expect words. Not just any words, but specific combinations of words delivered in specific ways. There are no official rules, and different people expect different combinations. Different situations require different combinations.

You try to translate all your natural self-expression into words, but things don’t match. You can’t find a word that describes the feeling relieved by cocooning in a heavy blanket in ninety degree weather, or the surge of undirected energy prompting the need to hum a set musical phrase on repeat. The words other people direct toward you don’t make sense either; they are too flat somehow, or the sounds making up the words trigger responses that confuse and anger the speakers.

Living in a household full of neurodivergent brains has taught me a lot about communication. While words are still a huge part of our lives (seriously, they never seem to stop talking), we have to listen beneath the words to understand. Because sometimes there are no words, not for the real things we need to say.

As a word person in a non-word house, I have discovered a strange empathy with that deeper, wordless self-expression. The strength of it overwhelms until I must share it or drown, yet all I have is words. I try to write the feelings and ideas down in ways that other people can see their beauty. I try again and again, writing and erasing until my mind is as full of rips as the paper, but I cannot find the combination that others will understand. Suddenly there are no words left.

Listen to the notes. Dance with the motions. Oggle at the skill produced from hyperfocus. Buy the heavy blankets. Share the smiles and the tears and the squeals. Maybe you’ll find no words are needed.

Not Helping

http://kaiju.wdfiles.com/local–files/wiki:charybdis/charybdis_2013_01.jpg

“Aren’t you on medication? I thought it was helping. Why do you feel so bad?”

If you have a chronic illness, you’ve probably heard some variation of this ad nauseum. We live in a culture that expects some version of Star Trek medicine, where every problem can be fixed, every ailment can be cured, with the pass of an instrument or the click of a button. Or the swallowing of a pill. When reality doesn’t live up to expectations, confusion and suspicion of the sufferers reigns.

Now, obviously, some of those who say such things have the best of intentions. They genuinely care that another person is hurting and they want the hurt to stop. Then there are those whose voice is just a little too sharp, whose smile is just a little too forced, whose eyebrows rise a little too high. They don’t understand why help us not helping according to their expectations.

The problem is the expectation, not the help. Humans don’t exist in cookie cutter shapes, and our lives are as unique as we are. There is no pill, no therapy, no trekkie fix that can make every person fit the same mold. When wiring goes wrong, when internal connections “leak” or don’t match, there is no quick fix. There may be no fix at all. What help exists may simply make symptoms easier to endure.

Until it doesn’t. A hot day, a disagreement, a small pain, a touch, a deadline. Maybe today the brain can’t communicate with the hands. Maybe every sensation is magnified. Maybe sensations are so muted that the brain doesn’t have the tools to make decisions. Without outside help, those things can result in brutal public meltdowns or complete functional paralysis. With help, those days may allow getting out of bed, being able to muster a smile, have a conversation. They may allow the ability to say, “I can’t fulfill obligations today because I feel horrible.”

When society forces a cookie cutter ideal on sufferers of invisible illnesses, a new illness grows. It’s called self-doubt. “Maybe there’s nothing really wrong with me. Maybe I’m just selfish. Maybe I’m making it up. Maybe I should stop using my help. Maybe I’m just stupid and worthless.” Charybdis yaws, drowning talents and hope and purpose in the depths of misery.

“Aren’t you on medication? I thought it was helping. Why do you feel so bad?”

Mr. Meanie

“I was yelling at Mr. Meanie! He just WON’T! LEAVE! ME! ALONE! I can’t do anything right anymore!”

The above came from my tearful, sobbing seven year old son. He had thrown his playthings and rushed to his room growling like a cornered tiger. To an outsider it might have looked like a temper tantrum, but tantrums are intentional and controlled. In that moment my son was helpless, trapped by his own mind and desperately screaming for help. This is the face of OCD.

My son is bright and beautiful. He can build anything he can imagine with Legos. He knows more than I ever realized existed about dinosaurs. He loves Godzilla and could probably provide sound effects for the movies with his imitation skills. He has a gift for finding the lonely and offering love. He adores his little sister and, though they fight like cats and dogs, will demolish anyone else who dares to offend her.

One tiny part of that beautiful little brain malformed. A section of neurological wiring has a short. Thoughts that feel like his but are not, unbidden and unwelcome feelings, and unwilled behaviors originate in that shorted out, alien knot. Chemical help can mute them to a whisper. Therapy can provide strategies for working around the shirt in the wiring. Nothing will ever make them go away. His whole life will be a battle with Mr. Meanie, the alien inside.

For now, we turn off the lights and snuggle on the bed, his head on my chest and his hand clutching my arm. Worship music plays from my phone, his choice, soft and soothing in its reminder of a love that bears his pain. He doesn’t fully understand it yet, but he can feel it, and his tension fades. We have quieted Mr. Meanie. For now.

Apocalypse

The bomb hit at sunrise. Shards of glass melted into the asphalt, like black ice waiting to land me on the flat of my back. Twisted metal beams hung overhead, barely visible in the greenish haze that should have been sky. I couldn’t breathe.

Debris filled my vision, the emptiness overwhelming. The whining creak of frayed steel grated on my awareness as the beams cast weird, indistinct, swaying shadows into the ash. I shuddered, unable to step over them as if they were as tangible and insurmountable as their counterparts above.

The clatter of falling brick jerked my gaze painfully to the side, and I gasped into the wind. Smoke threaded into my lungs and I clutched my throat, coughing desperately for what oxygen remained in the thick air. The bomb would kill me yet.

I tripped over the layers of blackened sheet metal littering the street as I stumbled back the way I had come. I had forgotten to put on boots when the bomb woke me, and the metal sliced through my toes, blood drenching my sock. I clutched at the wounds in fetal position, wailing like an infant. My cries mingled with the creaks and rattles and drifting smoke until no other thoughts penetrated. I slept, utterly spent, alone in the silence.

The bomb came at sunrise and I lived death again.

The Lens

Savannah groaned. Here she was, supposed to be photographing this society fundraiser, and the camera lens was dirty. Again. She reached in her bag for the lens cloth.

After a meticulous wipe that covered every square millimeter of glass, she nodded with satisfaction and lifted the camera again. She snapped a candid of a bored looking brunette and her plasticized escort. Was that a smudge on the digital display? No, it was the stupid lens again.

The cloth went to work again. This time she sprayed the lens with cleaner and shoved the cloth into the edges with her fingernail, digging. She inspected the results with a frown and looked around for her next subject. Just in time. The host was taking the stage for the official welcome. She raised the camera.

Was that a speck? Man, that thing was huge; her boss would fire her if that thing showed up in print! That did it. There was no way she was taking any more pictures until that lens was clear. She sat down in the nearest chair and peered closely at the camera.

It had to be so small the naked eye couldn’t see it for her to be missing it so badly. The camera would obviously make it look bigger, like looking through a microscope. She breathed on the lens to fog it and pored over the results. There, did it look like the fog didn’t settle in that spot?

The world shrank. The camera lens filled her vision. That had to be a streak. And was that dust? She wiped, sprayed, wiped again. She had to get perfect pictures; her job was on the line. If she didn’t get this fixed soon the fundraiser would be over. That lens certainly was filthy.

Glitch

“Hey, Job, you’re glitching again.” Mara’s voice came through the neural transmitter. “What’s up?”

“This uniform doesn’t fit,” Job’s voice sounded tinny. “The collar has restricted blood flow and the shoulder seams are in the wrong place.” His shoulders twitched repeatedly, and one finger ran first left, then right, then left again under the thin collar, pulling it out of shape.

“The uniform is one solid piece, specially made to form fit,” Mara reminded him. “And you don’t have blood.”

“I cannot perform properly.” Job’s voice thinned farther. “My sensors are certain this uniform is wrong. I must have a new uniform.”

“Job, the uniform is not the problem.” Mara checked her feed. “Run a self-diagnostic immediately. These readings are out of balance; you need to find the source.”

“Uniform is sh-sh-shutting down central p-p-processing.” Job’s voice broke and stuttered, and he ripped at the collar of the uniform. “M-m-m-must cha-cha-“

“Manual override, freeze program,” Mara sighed. “Run full diagnostic on all Job circuits. Not just sensors this time! All circuits! This is the fifteenth test run; clearly the central processor is affected because he’s had a different glitch every time.”

“Unfreeze program.” Mara watched the robot press its cheeks until the face clicked open. “Job, put your face back on. Disconnecting your main sensors is not going to fix your processor. Oh good grief, you’ve done it anyway.”