From the walls of psychiatry, where the windows are well-secured and barely open enough for one to even consider jumping, I look outside. The darkness allows me to observe my reflection in the window. I study my short-cropped hair, sunken and dark eyes, and the silhouette that still carries sadness and thinks: Who am I now? When will the time come when I can definitively say, this is me.
This is my body, and I feel good in it. If the diagnosis is what I think, maybe never. Or, at best, only after prolonged treatment.
I am smoking a cigarette, the only pleasure left to me. I am watching the cigarette smoke drifting away. Then I am shifting my gaze back to my hair in the reflection, examining it thoroughly to the very ends. This silhouette too disappears when the cigarette is finished; now it’s another patient’s turn to come into the smoking room and find their solace.
Here are people like me, unable to get out of bed, unwilling to eat, swallowing pills at least three times a day, yet fighting, whether hopefully or hopelessly. A bedridden girl. A somber face. Silent eyes. A caring mother. She brought flowers. Perhaps she thought the flowers would beautify the bed. She diligently placed the flowers in a vase. Does she even know that her daughter cannot perceive the flowers? To her, it doesn’t matter what’s there or what color it is. She’s not in a coma, and her eyes are wide open, yet she still doesn’t notice the beautiful flowers in her view. Why? Because she sees a world of nothingness and emptiness. A world only she can see, and no one can peek into it even if they wanted to. I cannot tell her, “I know how you feel.” And yet, I have a similar world, but no one else can look into it either. And so, we remain beyond each other’s reach, not having the faintest idea of what we each experience. All we can do is trust in the descriptions and stories of those who tell us.
Thoughts race, swirling like a whirlwind, dragging you into a vortex, and the only thing that can stop it for now is medicine, which either works or doesn’t.
Am I still the person I was outside? I used to be busy, now even a single sentence feels too much to listen to. I was loving, now I can neither give nor receive an ounce of emotion. My heart, or whatever organ people believe love resides in, has turned to stone. Now I am a stone-hearted, and neither the warm words of those around me penetrate the heart, nor sounds echo from it to say I have received your warmth. You can’t blame me, you can’t judge me. This simply no longer exists in my world. There is only emptiness, profound solitude, hopelessness, incapacity, worthlessness. This is intensely torturing.
My thinking has changed so deeply that it’s hard to believe my birth on Earth was a significant event, that it’s unimaginable to have faith in the future. Will people still meet me the same way when I get out of here, see me as the person they knew? The loving, thoughtful, caring, creative, analytical, self-sacrificing, loyal, cheerful, free-spirited person? Inside me, there is only sadness and a lost identity. What is the point of living like this? Why prolong time if this is to continue forever?
People encourage me, telling me better days will come, but they don’t know it doesn’t help. In that world, there is no hope. But what can they do, they must say this. They too want to cheer you up, they too want to contribute to keeping you on Earth.
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