Ophelia Flies the Cuckoo's Nest: A Preface... Watch this Space

A disclaimer. And some history. And hopefully, a whole lotta truth.

The inspiration, a kind soul...

And this one, one I hope, for all the kind souls... My inspiration.

And more.

My duty.

For so it was that last year I lost one of the kindest and most gifted of souls I had ever known.

She'd hanged herself. Barely 30. A flourishing artist. So very kind. So very gifted. And really, just an innocent.

And I grappled.

And I longed to immortalise her kindness, her gift, her innocence, and I hoped it would be enough, and I wrote a flailing attempt at a fitting tribute for all words can fail us.

Sometimes they barely do any justice at all and words just words.

But I gave it my all.

All I could do.

Though not really.

There had to be more.

There just had to be more.

And I flailed all the more.

And then...

Another.

Kind. Gifted. Innocent.

And at my last stay in a psychiatric hospital, all too recent, for all I keep flying wings waxen, and crashing, well, there I befriended this kind soul battling severe depression. So kind, so gifted, so innocent and so sad, she told me time and time again how weak she felt, and worse, cursed. Her word. Cursed. To her, her diagnosis - bipolar, like me - was a curse. A curse she wished and bargained and prayed could be lifted.

And time and time again, I tried to console her.

A curse it can feel, yes. And yet, maybe, just maybe, a gift.

But she was still something of a stranger to her diagnosis.

For years, she began to confide in me, all those years there had been moments in her life left unexplained, buried under the weight of the good wife and more so mother, buried under shame and unuttered. Not to a single soul. For years. And all her life.

And one day, confiding, I will always remember fondly when she confessed that there had been a stray cat that visited her bedroom window many a night, while all were asleep, many a night begging just like any beggar for a piece of bread. Just like any beggar. Just a piece of bread it begged of her. And she told no one. She resolved never to speak of it.

By morning, every morning, the good wife and more so mother.

And again the shame when one day her beloved dog jumped on her bed as always after all had left the house, as always and as usual, nothing unusual, but then looking at her knowingly, concerned, and outright asking if she was okay. Her words. The dog’s words.

No, never to speak. Wife. Mother. And good at it. At all of it.

But she broke the silence with me. The first time she’d told a soul. And I was that soul. And maybe she’d deserved a better soul.

For all her eyes were wet with worry, confession over. For all her brow was furrowed deeply in distress awaiting penance. Judgement day.

For all she fretted but too late for she’d unveiled herself to me, things never spoken not once, not even to her psychiatrist, no, not a single soul before me.

The shame.

The confusion.

The embarrassment.

And her eyes pleaded mercy.

But I just couldn’t help myself. It was me. All she had. This was the soul she got.

For better or worse.

And I burst out laughing.

Have mercy on me.

And I laughed and I laughed and I laughed. Like I hadn’t laughed in years. Gut aching. Tears rolling. And I laughed some more and then some until I just couldn’t take it anymore.

But I wasn’t oblivious. Laughing and gut aching and tears rolling and then some. God, I laughed. Fuck me. But I didn’t lose sight of my friend. And maybe I wasn’t the soul she deserved, but the one she needed. You gotta laugh! Or you’ll really go crazy...

Sure, I think at first she’d felt betrayed, regretting her walls down and at long last, finally, agonising, yet yearning, yet agonising, and still confiding. But then, the long buried shame and confusion and embarrassment and the weight of wife and mother, it lifted a little. And I looked on, through tears of laughter, gut sore, and it was sublime, just for a moment, as that moment of peace (oh, that sweet relief!) plain passed over her face. And she let go. For a moment. And she laughed. Nervously. Was she the brunt of the joke? Relief, then wretched, then relief so brief.

She laughed again. Eventually, she got it. That relief so brief. And it was so peaceful as we sat on that wooden bench by a bowling green in the garden of a psychiatric hospital, laughter still in the space between us, grinning like idiots. It was just funny as fuck. And I still grin like an idiot when I think about it.

And before the furrowed brow returned, I had to tell her. For all it was funny as fuck. She needed it. Safety in numbers, even in one other soul, and only one. We all need it. Assurance. Zero judgement. Space.

“That’s friggin’ brilliant," I told her, still catching my breath. Then chuckling the last of it. The very last, a little chuckle. “Seriously! I mean it… I love it! You should read Kafka on the Shore... Or become a vet... Hell, Dr bloody Doolittle at your service! Just keep it on the downlow... For now.” And I winked. And kept on grinning.

Her head downward cast, but eyes focussed on me, studying, curious evermore and pleading all the more absolution of insanity.

And who was I to deny her?

So I just kept on grinning.

Funny as fuck.

Grinning like an idiot.

Until it was my turn.

And I just had to tell her. Because we all need it.

“Relax, really," I smiled then with every inch of kindness I had in me, all for her. “Look, it's like this. Really. I've seen a moth keeping time to my music. Like some kinda drummer! And I’ve seen a cellphone change colour like it was nothing... And that’s not even the craziest shit. I’ve never really told anyone... But gospel. Time just stopped one night. No one there but me, but gospel. I swear. It just stopped. And then, ticking again. Fuck knows! But talking to a cat? Now that's swag."

And she smiled. And breathed that sigh of relief, no penance in sight. Only absolution. And the lingering laughter in that space between us.

But still.

She didn't get it.

That relief so brief.

Not quite. Not yet.

Good mother and more so mother, she struggled with a curse. No gift in sight. And she got the absolution she needed. But it was still penance she felt she deserved. Even when I tried to be the soul, the confidante, she really deserved. Absolution can’t lift a curse. She just wasn’t ready. Not really. Not yet. Maybe never. Absolution is tricky like that. And I’ll leave the laughter in the space between us.

But the truth? Well, a clinical diagnosis, that you have a chronic condition, a mental ‘illness,’ and you can manage it but never escape...? The truth is, it’s one bitter pill to swallow. And the taste can linger for a lifetime. No matter how kind and gifted and innocent. And sometimes especially then.

And for all there are some truly wonderful doctors out there, and my young psychiatrist with his faithful hound ever by his feet, well he’s the best of them and wise beyond his years.

Yet, all too often and the tragic reality even when we should know better... It’s another bitter pill and the hardest truth of them all... All too often, and tragic, and true, the doctors ain’t making it any easier. The best of intentions, maybe. For others, I’ve wondered. And one day maybe. But I wonder.

Me? I was only 29 and just diagnosed and a ward of a state at a psychiatric institution (and in some wards, a veritable prison!) when I had to face those clinical terms lambasted with plenty of good intention. And I wonder. And at 29, I first learnt the clinical term: messianic complex. Such good intent. It robbed me. In two words. It robbed me blind. But I accepted this thief in my house willingly, blindly, not knowing any better. Even when I was robbed of a universe split wide open before my very own eyes, gospel, and only to piece itself back together in that most magical of tapestries I could never ever and not in my wildest dreams, beyond. A golden thread here. And there. And another. Piece by piece. But one...

Magical and one, all one.

Every bit of it.

The bigger picture spread out every bit of it and to the very stars above. And it’s a lot. Trust me. It unravels the very world you thought you knew before it wraps that magic around you so vast the shimmering embrace and to the very stars above. All one. And you're one with it. Unravelled. Embraced. One with it. And when you're young and dumb, it’ll scare the shit out of you.

We are all one.

Well, it scared the shit out of me anyway.

So yeah. Scared shitless for all I longed for that embrace again, I gave in to fear and accepted the thief. The clipboard. The assessments. My messianic complex. Tick. And doubt flooded where once there had been magic, and unravelled, and embraced, and one with it... Magic in everything. Just doubt. My spiritual truth, gospel, no, nought but bad brain chemistry and a whole lotta batshit crazy. But I’ve always been kinda stubborn. And I’d never been one to back down without a fight. And even when I felt I had no fight left in me, I was still fighting it.

Something.

Even when the mania left me bereft and the depression came to take its place and I could barely leave the covers of my bed to brush my teeth or eat or shower or pull back the curtains, not even, not anything at all really, no more than feeding the cat... Even then, I was still fighting something. With the last bit of fight I had left. And little at that. And stubborn still to a fault when it just didn’t sit right. A grave injustice niggled at the very seat of my soul. I couldn’t quite name it. Or place it. So young and so dumb. But that clipboard. And oh so many assessments. Damn the brazen thief. It just didn’t sit right.

So young and so dumb, I thought I’d returned to reality and I chalked it all up to madness, and sickness, and the grandest delusion, to be one with everything and to the stars above, deluded.

But I wouldn’t quit.

My mentor and friend and before then lecturer, supervisor, Mary of many talents and more wisdom, well, she calls it my sense of ‘righteous indignation.’ Her words. Wise words. She teases me really. But never without a smile of encouragement. And I wrestled with it, in the pit of my despair all alone and grappling with my diagnosis, so very restless, and at once resigned to my fate, that clipboard, those assessments, the clinical matter-of-factness but no, never, not me, I’d never go gently. So I wrestled, and wrestled, restless, resigned. I wrestled. That is, until I returned to a creature of habit. Just enough.

All those years spent in the library as a little girl after school flipping through index cards, searching, searching, and as a student of life and literature at university spent much the same, and depressed but stronger, old habits die hard and I was still a creature of habit. Restless, yes. Resigned, I guess. But all the same I was searching for all it was only second nature and my searching heart eclipsed by sheer animal instinct. And so it began.

Strong enough to leave the covers and pull back the curtains and begin again a ritual, a daily saunter to the library at the centre of the city. A stroll through a park where monuments now marked our fledgling democracy and boys and men alike played soccer and the coral trees were there before it all. A step by step by step down and always a pause at the Anglican church to admire the pretty garden and pay respects to those remembered on chiselled marble. And then the smug ivory cast statue of Queen Victoria before those proud doors to the most magnificent library I will ever know.

My sanctuary ever since my maternal grandfather had taken my shy hand, so shy and only five years old, and bestowed upon me the honour of a flimsy laminated card. And so I entered, a flimsy laminated card my birthright, yet shy again.

I approached no librarian nor flipped through index. I simply gravitated towards the dust glittered sunbeam piercing the stained glass and up a winding wrought iron staircase, narrow, and trailing hand along spine after spine until I stopped a finger on a title.

Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore.

A Jesuit who left it all behind to study the mind. But steeped in spirit.

Yes. In spirit. And so, nearer the sunbeam and quietly, oh so quiet, I sat on a tiny stool and read and read and read. And read. And the more I read, the more my searching heart found refuge. And maybe, just maybe, there was more to me than a brain behaving badly.

So much more to me.

Me who had set sail on the most perilous and treacherous and still nobler adventure of them all: the journey of the soul. Or human condition. Or the self aware. Or whatever you'd like to call it. It can have many names. So feel free to take your pick. But I'll tell you now, it’s never easy. And maybe you have to be bloody mad. But Moore knighted it noble. The rewards nobler all the more. And on that day, warmed by a sunbeam, and sent off with well wishes of safe passage, that resignation left me all at once and with it gone too, and gone for good, my restlessness. Only grit.

Grit, and nothing but grit would get me there.

And this was no curse. Though my kind and gifted and innocent friend had her own perilous and treacherous and nobler still, that journey, a long journey ahead of her. But no curse. A gift. With some grit for good measure. And though my own journey continues, and my grit may waver in the darker waters of my darkest days of depression, my searching heart forever returns to find refuge in this confounding but wondrous gift.

With one single book, and grit for good measure, I was growing readier. Slowly but surely I grew ready to seek out unchartered waters and new constellations to guide me.

Beyond the clipboard.

And beyond assessments.

Beyond, beyond a brain behaving badly.

To infinity and beyond.

And maybe moths can dance.

And maybe, sometimes, just sometimes, time stands still.

And maybe cats can talk if we only listen a little.

But the depression... Yeah, it sucks I guess. And we don’t celebrate the courage it takes, that dogged determination, that sheer grit, and so much more on the worst of days, to keep keeping on and gazing up at those stars to steer land’ho. No. Not like we do the cancer survivor. Or the paralympian. Even the three legged dog on YouTube. Who doesn't love that dog?!

Still.

Society kinda gets depression. And anxiety. And sadness.

Any society gets it enough. No one a total stranger to the human condition, be it a broken heart, a failed dream, and that unfathomable hole left behind by a loved one. And they may not always get it, not really. But they kinda do. Kinda. And at the very least, well, it doesn’t terrify the villagers. Not the depression. Not the anxiety. Not the sadness. Pitchforks at ease. At ease. And if you’re lucky there’s a little sympathy left.

But don’t forget about the clipboard just yet. It ain’t done. Not yet.

Assessment: mania.

Assessment: psychosis.

Oh yes...

And my personal favourite.

Assessment: messianic complex.

Oh more and more that troublemaker of a diagnosis. Bipolar.

And no, it’s nothing like really crappy PMS.

But yeah.

I do tend to give away all my earthly possessions save a wicked cool stone gargoyle and a small bowl of green gemstones and a shabby toy donkey with a wonky leg an old Irish widow gave to me a lifetime ago. And I’ll probably skip around in a sweet summer frock at all ungodly hours giving wildflowers to drug dealers and spritzing the ladies of the night in choking clouds of Chanel No. 5. And I’ll definitely dance with the monkeys. And David Bowie always comes up through the floorboards to wake me from slumber and whisper in my ear the true meaning of life even though I’ll hardly remember in the morning and all I’ll want to do is listen to Space Oddity over and over and over again.

Then... Can you hear it?

Space Oddity, sure.

That damn cat begging for bread again... You bet!

But listen closer still...

And you’ll hear it...

The pitchforks quivering in their corners in every slumbering and nice, real nice suburb. With slumbering and nice, real nice folk. Quivering.

But the villagers, those nice, real nice folk, you know they’re a whole lot nicer these days. Yeah. A whole lot nicer as they send their children to their rooms with legos and planets a science project and a happy, happy, nice, real nice story in a real nice suburb in a real nice world that forgot Hans Christian Andersen. And they switch on all the lights. And with the click of a button they welcome the blue light of a reassuring flatscreen telly. Real nice now. The door is firmly closed, and out comes a cold beer and then a bottle of good wine with one last little button to protect those manicured lawns and rosebeds and softly illuminated Khoi ponds. And it’s real nice. Yeah, you betcha it’s real nice and so much more soothing than pitchforks so rudimentary. And there’ll be no talk of monsters tonight.

Leave that to the clipboards.

Leave that to the psychiatrist who spent the better part of a session for a first timer’s fee of two whopping G’s waxing lyrical about the chemical composition of my twice daily cocktail.

Leave that to the nurse at the state clinic, bills piling, as she asked me month in and month out the same old questions I’d heard before then and before that and no, I’m not hearing voices, and she scoffs her third candybar and sidebar to puff on a cigarette smoke cloying at the rusty bars of a filthy window.

And no, let’s not talk of monsters with a Hail Mary and the psychiatrist who would change my life and exact her cool indifference in her cool and indifferent office of Swedish perfection and my coffee flask making her nervous. Nervous. Her word. Her cool and indifferent and expensive white rug. Cool and indifferent clipboard and expensive pen, Swedish. My own nerves shot, awaiting that cool and indifferent and expensive interrogation. But a sip of warm coffee, nope.

Sure, like I said, I have a good doctor in my corner now. But up until now, you could say it was a bit of a doozy.

And searching and searching and I never stopped searching, oh my searching heart.

Searching all the while and all those clipboards and all those assessments, they grew all the more monstrous for all I kept on searching.

So say no more of monsters.

And grave injustice.

And don't say a word, not one word, or you'll be sorry, about a universe split wide open. So you better not be talking to that bloody cat again and for God's sake don’t give it any bread!

And it’s real nice.

Real. Nice.

But I was always too damn stubborn.

I just couldn't give up the search. A creature of habit. With enough grit left to spare.

And one day it found me. Blinking at me on my little Lenovo screen.

“Are we drugging our healers and prophets?”

Blink.

Blink.

And I clicked.

Oh my searching heart.

And I read it. Many times over. Feeling somehow so very shy again. But here, maybe, oh my searching heart, could it be another constellation?

Admittedly, I wasn’t yet sure how to map its stars. All the same, it was time for a big announcement. A declaration. A graduation. With cap and gown and glitter bombs and balloon animals and Mao the clown. Okay. Just the balloon animals...

But it was time.

My job at the time was sending me spiralling into yet another pit of despair and I cried, and just in time, and I cried and I cried until the wee hours until I had no more tears to cry and I typed out my resignation on my little Lenovo as the light shifted mauve and my mental health, my diagnosis, my sole reason. In black and white. And I googled balloon animals. And I waited, my freedom so close, and I waited, and at 8a.m. I was finally free. Free at last.

And it was time.

Just in time.

To write.

That first piece: Learning to love life with bipolar.

It was time to put my old habits to good use, along with that pesky but bloody persistent ‘righteous indignation,’ and to say it loud. And more, to make damn sure to say it proud.

It was time to enter the tender and compassionate and tentative voice into the fray.

And it was time to make space where there would be no room for clipboards. Not an inch of space for clipboard. Or white rugs.

And it was good.

For all I was a nobody in a nobody town really, it went pretty viral. Viral enough for me anyway. Just a nobody.

But looking back, a nobler pursuit, but a bashful beginning. Not clinical. No, not clinical. I had to make sure. But not entirely honest either. Still, a nobler pursuit, and the sake of my freedom, and even the most bashful of beginnings have to begin somewhere. And so it was that I breathed life into Humble Pie. My very own online space, with no room and not an inch of space left for the clipboard, to try and tell it true. To tell it tender and compassionate and tentative. Within and beyond my diagnosis. Because that’s life. And sometimes I’m different I guess and other times I’m just like anybody else.

It was time.

And just in time.

And with time, and almost a decade now since my first admission to a psych ward, well, my words ever less bashful, truthful, my truth my freedom and consequences be damned. In truth, and absolute truth, there is always hope.

And today, ‘illness’ has no place on my little Lenovo. Nor in my life. My freedom. Mental health matters. Period.

So I harness it on better days. And I nurture it on tougher days. Most of all, I get to know it more and more as an intimate part of me that isn’t the sum of my parts but just another gift. This funny brain and big heart and sensitive soul. And my gift to give.

So take this humble book, collection of essays old and new, for what it is. I’m no doctor. And I don't have all the answers. And this ain’t Ikea.

What the hell do I know?

I'm just so many things, so many things...

And intimately bipower.

A gift.

And I love my funny brain.

And I love my big heart.

And I love my sensitive soul.

And sure, they can be a pain in the arse!

But maybe, just maybe, if I'm honest, and nobler still, but honest most of all, then maybe, just maybe, hope is my gift to give.

Hope beyond the clipboard.

Hope beyond a lifetime of assessments.

To say it loud. And more, so much more, to always say it proud...

I am bipower!

This, my gift.

Eternally yours.

Ophelia by John Williams Waterhouse