Dancing to the Moon’s Song That Only We Hear
Some families are known for their artistic talent, all that they touch is graced with beauty. Some families are known for the music they make, no instrument goes unlearned and no melody is out of reach. A chosen few families are known for having the Midas touch as wealth seemingly falls in their laps with no more effort than taking a breath. My family? We're all bat fucking guano crazy.
A lot of people talk about that one crazy family member who everyone dreads inviting to family functions. In my family, you'd be hard pressed to figure out who that one crazy family member is because we're lunatics one and all. We all dance to the silent song of the moon, a tune that only the true lunatic can hear.
Suicide is an old friend. She's visited my maternal grandfather when she was a child, aunts, uncles, and most recently, a young cousin. The creative type, she used a hose and running car to end my grandfather and a revolver in the mouth to silence my cousin. Her sister, Addiction is more patient and a bit more social. She's always keen to invite her friends depression, anxiety, delusion, and personality disorder along for the ride. Never in a hurry, Addiction is willing to play the long game and has let countless members of my family kill themselves one drink, one white line, one needle, one pipe, and one pill at a time. My family's traditional poison of choice, Alcohol and centuries old Achille's Heal to Irish Catholics everywhere, has put countless generations of my family in the ground well before the age of 50.
For many of us, Depression has been our wetnurse. Held firmly against her breast, barely able to breathe, we have no choice but to suckle at her bitter teat, gulping down self-hatred, and an eternal abyss of gray melancholy hopelessness. Try as we might, we are often too weak to turn our heads to see that there is a world outside of Depression's, firm and cold embrace.
Emotions that spin chaotically like a compass that cannot find true north keeps many of us too dizzy to navigate the world. Lost in the chaotically changing magnetic field of mood that rapidly swings between mania and depression, some of us never feel the firm ground of of emotional and psychological stability under our feet. Instead, our lives are filled with long periods stale, unmoving numb feeling. Suddenly, without any warning of a coming storm such as a stiffening breeze of disorganized thoughts or the darkening of the sky above with clouds of thundering disordinate emotion, we're hit with the battering force of the psychological storm. The manic tempest upon us, we find ourselves in a maelstrom of psychological instability, battered by waves of chaotic, delusional, and self-destructive notions of invincibility. The storm can last moments or days, but when it's over and the stagnant and placid emotional state returns, we find ourselves surrounded by the flotsam and jetsam of mania's storm. Relationships may have been torn apart by mania's beating winds and hasty words. It's massive waves of self-destruction undermined freedom as delusional acts of criminality have been placed in the spotlight of the criminal justice system. The calm may allow for some of the damage to be prepared, but it's never fully fixed, and eventually a manic storm will start to form on the horizon of consciousness promising more destruction to come.
Mental illness in my family is most dangerous to the individual. We are our own worst enemies and rarely does irreparable damage occur beyond the self. The trust of others may be bruised and battered, relationships may be torn, and good will may hemorrhage after being cut by addiction's sharp edge one too many times, but it's never fatal. All of this can be repaired with a little time and a lot of distance.
The mental illness that is our birthright has committed the ultimate act of violence against another just once. A cousin, smart, talented and possessing a great talent with electronics entered the military during the Viet Nam war. His talents recognized, he was assigned to intelligence. It was only when the prerequisite psych evaluation was completed that this cousin was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Discharged honorably, the cousin was given a legion of pills and sent home. Now, at that time the treatment for serious psychological disorders with medication was still in its infancy. As a result, the side-effects of these meds were almost as brutal as the mental illness they were supposed to treat. So, as many people with serious mental illness do, this cousin being tortured by the medication's unwanted effects, stopped taking them. Staying with his mom at the time, she noticed that he wasn't taking the medication and confronted him about it. Tragically, in his precarious, delusional state, the cousin thought his mother was threatening his life, and in a paranoid act of self-defense, he beat her to death with a baseball bat. For once, the criminal justice system got it right and instead of prison, the cousin was hospitalized. Eventually, the medications would improve and the cousin would stabilize to the point that after 20 some years he was offered the chance to explore a return to the outside world. Terrified that he could do harm again, the cousin refused. I never met him, but I was told that he died in that hospital after more than 40 years, guilt kept him a prisoner longer than his crime ever could.
So, mental illness has written much of my family's story and the endings are usually clothed in the trappings of Greek tragedy. However, change has managed to sneak into the narrative. Addicts have found recovery, jobs, and purpose. Medications and commitment to therapy seems to have created a bit of a strain with our decades old friendship with Suicide and she hasn't sent a RSVP to anyone in over 6 years now. Many of us are still being weaned off of Depression's teat, but with a little help we've grown strong enough to turn our heads away from the poisonous nipple. Slowly, we've all come to realize that there is sweeter sustenance in the world to be had and hopefully we'll all walk away leaving Depression's poison filled, sagging, pasty, and chapped breasts behind.