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Trust
me. I know secret things... RANT FROM HOSPITAL 2004
Well,
ok, no more real excuses left I suppose I had better write at least something
or later rue that I did not.
I have just had my first treatment of ECT - electro-shock therapy. I had
it at around 7.30 and it is now 9.
I am wearing purple underwear and multi-coloured socks that do not match
and I am typing at my desk in a room at the Perth Clinic.
I feel ok, no worse than usual and better than most as I am not in the
depths of the deep blue as I often am. I have a headache and I neglected
to mention two of the things I am wearing - a hospital wrist-cuff and
some kind of electrically sensitive sticker on my chest.
I was not afraid in the morning that led with stalking inevitability to
the procedure (by the way there is a doctor here called "Dr Assumption"
- what's the prognosis Dr assumption? Looking GOOD huh? Is this arm broken?
Are you SURE? Are you really really SURE?). I have done my fucking research
like I always do and not only that but so have my father, my sister, and
my mother read a BOOK about it. And they all agree that the unusual and
devastating diagnosis appended to my usual manic-depressive diagnosis
seems to leave little choice (an underlying and time deep despair; a manifest
and pervading depression.) Shock treatment is the best path, rutted with
reasonable fear and speculation though it is.
The staff keep trying to explain to me what it does. Sure, they understand
it better than I do, but the truth is that I have read experts from on
high depict the brain as the final frontier and something about which
we know practically nothing. And it has to be thus. If it were simple
enough for us to understand, we would be too stupid to understand it…
ah, a catch 22, there are so many in life are there not??? I was struggling
with a nasty pointy one yesterday myself - you see I could find no reliable
account of the memory loss involved in having ECT because the people who
have had ECT have got memory loss. So how would they know?
But my fears were assuaged to an extent by the Doctors that I saw subsequently,
though I didn't trust the guy with the Monet tie - passionless limp artist
he is.
I know why I was not afraid, I suppose. My primary fear was that I would
lose the depth of my long term memory - what I have worked so hard to
remember over so many many years ("our memories are hunting horns
whose sound dies on the wind." Guillard Appollinaire. Hah. I guess
the quotation facility is intact.) Once I had learned that this was immensely
unlikely and all I was going to lose were these moments themselves - around
the time of the procedures, the truth came out vomited in my mind that
ok fuck it I do NOT care.
Though memory loss in itself is a very odd thing. The memories are masqued
and yet YOU appear in them. And… "Who WAS that masked man?"
I am kind of cool with it since I have drunk so much in my life. Not that
I wish for it to continue, but hey I mean if it works, if it actually
really in real reality works, I will have traded two weeks of a hazy existence
for really what amounts to… well perhaps that in itself requires
some serious prose.
My head is ok… the headache has abated somewhat and all I have to
remind me is the memory and the knowledge that it did in fact happen,
since I was under a sense-occluding anesthetic - the two pieces of time
before and after I went under. I remember up to the point where the nursey
said now you will feel a sharp pain and then a cold sensation up your
arm.
I don't remember where I woke up - I infer that it was in my bed though
I am certain that I do not know. Now. Hmm. I DID do that a great deal
when I was drinking though it was more of a surprise where I went to sleep.
Other ends of the loop, catch a timeline by the TALE!!!!
I require nicotine. I must make my way hence. ACH. I have at least begun.
Eek.
Hm. Later it is - the evening of the above day. Wednesday.
For a time I felt quite high and otters commented on the change - I seemed
as well as felt brighter on the morn of my carapace's electrocution. Now
I do not.
I feel lazy over-full with my own idiocy and BLEH Christ I carry on and
on - out out suffering I say and clutch it to my breast like an over-sized
cartoon character to an evil little child (or the reverse.)
One of the known and I believe the most typical side effects of ECT is
tired-ness…, And I feel tired early in a sick kind of tired a sweaty-sheeted
tired a moving through mud and honey though not that sticky sort of tired.
I do tend to manage to put a tick next to every possible common side effect
if I take and drugs and why should this be any different? Maybe I should
attempt to write something interesting instead of this drawing out; this
cigarette's call - this hunt for subject just describe how you feel Paul.
Put those metaphors down. You might need them later.
So
And we were…? Was I at the end? I owe you one linear time point.
Feel
crappy grr. My room-mate is watching the gnus (news) on TV. Fuck. Hm I
am having trouble with my eyelid dropping forth closing considering flicking
such a soft so fundamentally soft a thing.
Ok
fuck you conscience-guy I am going to bed and I didn't do ANY fucking
painting today!
The
morning was excellent, exquisite and resolute in deep passion and ocean
blue. I swam with Lisa under the blooming sky - we swam and sank and I
lifted her in the surf, her weight and warmth devastatingly real. I was
immersed, hah! A baptism in life.
I said to her that I had found a new goal, I told her that I now sought
"Clarity" that all of my thought was going to be tried and tied
by its loop.
She said she lived. And I laughed and fucking laughed because of course
that was so much more clear than the seeking of clarity could be, than
any of my forms and expressions and bullshit lines of thought! Why is
it that in seeking the value - in askance of value, I miss and preclude
the value itself? Ah but not for these moments.
I held her and held her and told her of the things such things that I
have seen and know, her eyes a flaming version of the ocean's aquamarine.
I believe there were few wants this morning. Few, yes. A beautiful woman
a flawless ocean; the right temperature of day and water, timed by degree.
The beach a strip of pure white wire in my mind. What more?
I out-stayed the two hours outside the ward I had been prescribed by Dr
Orr by an hour, and no-one had noticed, about which I am perhaps more
apathetic than they were.
I am shaky and agitated and I do not really know why at the moment - it
is not even the turning of my thoughts I do not think, just some state,
some slackening of reins somewhere inside me. My hands are quick over
the keys with sudden hesitations and corrections. The words are everywhere,
laid open like a messy room or wound.
I feel a little more calm - that may be due to the absorption of my missed
morning meds. I hate this; all, hate it so much it makes me feel like
I have grown not at all from the vicious teenager with the wounded eyes
that I used to be; used to inhabit. I do not care to be in this place
any longer. I have too much I need to do. I…
Foolish to go on in that vein. I am here for the next few weeks, however
many thousand seconds that may be.
Staying.
I have to stay here. It will keep me alive. How strange to even consider
that as truth.
Thursday
night before Friday's morning treatment.
I wrote half of a song this night. Oddly and alternately elated and tired.
Tiredness is a kind of madness so Dostoevsky says and am I to argue?
The man with whom I share a room at night is watching sport television
and hiccupping. He must be killed.
2004, morning after the second treatment.
I did not sleep last night, though that in itself is not particularly
surprising in consideration of the solid sleep I ascertained the night
before and not unlike me or even possibly unlike others if the stress
were shared out. The details of the lead up to the general anesthetic
are very clear to me, as are the details of the one previous. Perhaps
I will be further affected after more treatments, I really don't know.
I feel fried. It is a sensation that I think may well be outside my previous
experience. It is not completely unpleasant, though mostly so. Certainly
it is preferable to many of the states and sensations that the illness
(the fucking curse) of bipolar subjects me to with pendulous swinging
clubbing force.
I have a headache I suppose and my usual restless wandering prickling
and speeding thoughts, made worse by the headache and the lack of my music
to listen to. I HATE going without a sound track. I suppose I should begin
counting down the days.
I know I will be having six treatments, one every two days. So it should
take twelve days as the lunatic flies, but may not as the specialists
involved seem unlikely to work weekends. This would be the third day.
Fu-uck. And I hate this place so well already.
That would leave me here for another 9 days. My teeth hurt from being
clenched so hard so desperately life-bleedingly hard in seizure. I can
not of course remember it but it is akin to waking from a drinking binge
to find that I had been in a fight. I feel a similar kind of shame.
21/2/2004
I managed to leave my keyboard and mouse at home and could not get them
till this evening - this being an ancient piece of crap laptop I have
only begun to write and it is 7.35 in the evening.
No memory loss that I can (can I? would I even know? How can anyone ask
themselves questions like this?) perceive. I seem to be able to see through
my mind like a piece of plate glass being made on boiling tin. I feel…
I feel a deep, a bone deep despair.
I am constantly hyper-conscious of my actions; of my words. I cannot imagine
being otherwise. It is unpleasant and the way I have felt in my lifetime's
gathered sense. Arc them and reel them in under a long deep grass scythe
and that is with fucking brutal clarity the answer that I get.
I suspect that I feel things in some star-bright way… no wait, ill
chosen metaphor.
I
suspect that I feel things raw; as if the skin had been taken from my
eyes, my hands, my ears, mouth and throat. Each sense, I believe, is tuned
in some way to over-provide me with stimuli and I have too much. Too much!
My hands are fucking full it runs out between my fingers too fucking much.
I
have felt this day little different than I have felt on any other day.
I feel tired, I want to go to sleep, I want it all to stop hurting me
just for a little while. Am I working myself up to this? Is this what
I do? OK few alternatives no recourse to escape never ever, I think I
will go and get some more meds and have a cigarette.
Find me something else, ever.
I
dare you.
Hm
well I have done those two things and I think I do feel slightly better,
strange (so close that word, to strangle!) as it is for me to admit. I
also had tea. A nice hot cup of tea, some godamned biscuits and some psychiatric
medication and we have A NEW PAUL.
22/2/2004
KEENING
IN THE NAME OF…
Hm. It seems I have got NPD as a diagnosis appendable to bipolar affective
disorder. I passed a pregnant woman in the coffee room who had lizards'
eyes, untouched by her polite smile. Of course, I believe she was here
to see her husband. No wonder he cannot cope or hope at home. I think
I saw straight through to her soul and it was very cold there.
NPD translates to narcissistic personality disorder. More homework - I
have to find out exactly what that means. I don't qualify for many parts
of it as I am not actively malicious, and will not sabotage anyone but
myself (with deliberation that is). It is the attention that I crave.
Fucking footlights that I crave. Even in writing this I am writing to
a vast silent audience, even an older version of myself. Not so I can
record my thoughts and later pore over them and what they might mean -
fresh from the mental ward - no; more so I can read later and be reassured
after sudden chill of reality that I am still something unusual even in
here amidst the lunatics and Nietzsche's abortive saints. And of course,
I am. Though if this is an advantage to me I do not know.
I
am restless today as ever. I have already worked for hours this day and
paced the beautifully carpeted halls, smoked my strong cigarettes and
cleaned and reloaded my memory. I am a little better than I was though.
The intensity of BEING seems to have abated to the point where I only
have to squint and not close my eyes and cut. I am on very light meds.
Who knows if it is them or the 2 sessions of electro-convulsion that I
have experienced that have improved my existence. Or if it is just me
and I turn slightly away from my own searing light, from my own blistering,
inward, fucked up, sun. I need more cigarettes, must smoke I need to hold
my head in my hands since there are no other hands to hold it for me.
It
IS better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
I have done pushups sit ups and dips, lots of each. I am trying pretty
hard not to let the medication make me fat this time. It is so strange
to have all these people on the inside of these walls - and they do seem
more sane than the generic freaks that I may meet were I to paint in public
for a few hours.
I miss my car. I feel so trapped here. I won't go ANYWHERE normally without
an easy escape in case I am anxious and feel trapped, not even for a few
hours. And this is for weeks. WEEKS! Argh!
I have at least another week and a half TO GO. Fuck THAT. Man… I
mean… sure I have a lot of my stuff here and can still work but
not as much as I could were I at home and I don't have my computer, I
miss my friends and I need sex pretty bad. I miss my cat also. I wonder
if they have a policy on that. I am sure they have planned for such contingencies
with a hearty rejection.
No Paul you cannot have sex or bring your cat or even your computer with
you. This is a hospital after all. Perhaps I could charm an administrator
into it but I would have to find the RIGHT administrator to charm, ok
giving up on that whole train of thought; derailed now.
It would probably be the pregnant woman with the lizard eyes or someone
like her. It seems that she is here visiting her mother. I imagine that
seeing those flat grey lifeless eyes peering over the edge of a bassinet,
cot or nipple would be enough to drive most women insane.
There
must be some kind of ratio between those of us who are artists and those
who can wander around appreciating art and telling the artists that they
are cool. I wonder what it is and how it grew, skewed amidst our bizarre
archeology; skewed even then. What else have we to describe but ourselves;
what better describes us? I suppose this is the point. Though I hardly
paint anything in my life that I can actually SEE ALREADY.
Some other thing, some other truth maybe.
I know that it correlates with something others see out there in the wind
in the night. If they cannot see any of what I saw in my work I don't
think they would buy it: It is not just the buying there must be some
special thing about owning original art some different kind of appreciation,
some once-ness. I just know that I have no choice and must MUST keep going.
Lots
of credit in the real world gets you HIGH.
And
the sky was made of amethyst.
I am restless tonight, my god the understatement say is the universe big?
Shall I eat? Shall I spend a great deal of time ruminating on eating and
even fucking WRITE ABOUT IT???
Ach,
yes, hey what the fuck? Did I get electricity passed through my BRAIN
(or as I like to sometimes call it my Brian) this very morning? I believe
that I did. There are many things that indicate that I did…
This morning Lisa came to visit me ("come up and see me, make me
smi-ile") and we walked under thick green leaves and talked softly.
We soak each other up, I feed from her her eyes and skin water for my
soul.
This morning… deep rapturous moments, long languorous and full -
wandering around in her eyes, her eyes oh.
I have to learn from her. I think I learn from her. She is so alive -
she does not even attempt the things that I do to assure her that she
is alive that she is real. That the things that she sees, that touch her,
that move her soft pretty heart are verifiable in all of our senses. She
does not to do this. She does not need to; it is my trap and if I can
pry it from her sweet fingers then I will, I might. I wonder…
We walked together and kissed on the grass in the bright summer sunlight.
I cannot let go of her she holds my attention better than I do. I hold
her body, her hands. I take her radial pulse, her carotids, once, twice.
I am in the sweet scented pollen of her, on the grass stretched and ragged
against her. Ah… something there, something lifelong, unfoolish
and like a splinter of life.
I
had more ECT this very morn. I felt, in an analogy deeply inconsistent
for me - a SPORTS analogy, like I had been belted, hard, with a cricket
bat.
There is some kind of time dilation there also. The morning seems in hindsight
to be split more than in two by one event. The pain is real, and consistent,
but hardly unbearable. I will bear it - I will bear that the least of
my considerations the fucking LEAST and LAST the pain??? Fuck the pain
I know pain and this is just a physical pain not a soul pain! I am losing
time away from my work, this causes me to suffer, yes, trade it, time
you must fucking trade it there is always some kind of fucking deal to
be had.
And
this is it people... often i was too tired to stand up so i lay down a
great deal. OF course now it is 6 am and I have insomnia, the reverse
but still hardly pleasant. i feel ashamed that i did not write more whilst
hospitalized. I did not sleep with anyone THE WHOLE TIME i was in hospital,
though this was certainly not from lack of opportunity. How unusually
responsible of me.
My neck heals. I have always healed very quickly I am a little like wolverine
in that regard - also I am short. I believe the similarities end there
- I cannot even grow proper sideburns.
There
were many so many swiftly powerful moments in there - so much human truth
and suffering... even mine. Dawn draws its fingers across the room so
slowly it seems that it could never be bright here.
I have wounded my arm by doing heavy weights too soon after my atrophied
stay. I am terrified of gaining weight from new meds - neulactil anyone?
It is a treatment antipsychotic in nature and design used for schizophrenia
to stop voices i admit I have sometimes heard. It frightens me. Much frightens
me.
I did some work of a new ilk during my stay but I cannot post it on my
webpage because I loaned my camera to someone... I shall soon.
My typing seems so slow and my touch so sensitive on these keys - I hear
them so loudly in the morning CHILL. In the morning SILENCE re-sounding
in my head.
This
is not enough when is there ever enough for me? How much must I paint
and write to not feel like the fool that I know I am in my heart? Even
this question is laced with heaviness for me because so many others have
asked before in all that I have read, sure, yes, trapped in the human
experience that cannot be undone cannot ever be original because of the
billions who have died before me and the billions, the BILLIONS who yet
live.
Narcissist, me? And WHY THE FUCK NOT? How else to live? How else to ever
consider self and seething mind and bullshit? Yes I am in the prime of
my life and yes I am beautiful to my own eyes and yes I have a soft kind
touch and yes oh yes I have a mind that would be considered genius in
any society and yes I overdosed and cut my own throat not five weeks burned
into the past because none of these things has ever been enough for me!
AM I MANIC? Is this fucking classifiable insanity? What else in existence
could I want?
How much will I hate when my body breaks beneath age when my sharp eyes
dull and my hands fail me?
I despise rhetoric I slip in it like shit there is such passion in me
such raging life and of course this is insane anyone under such a sun
must burn my own hypocrisy hurts me and I hate myself for having the courage
to ask the questions that hurt me so much for feeling the impossibility
of answers so bloody and keen.
At least I have the courage to ask and live and cut.
To
ask, most of ALL.
That is the key, stabbed into my eyes. |
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