Rehab or "Bust"

WHERE DO THE BREASTS COME IN? I asked myself, attempting to rewind mentally to this headline. Victim of my own visual mind I saw boobs in that headline. Hmmm. What's new...?

Rehab...? Having been thrown in with those all the same junkies with their drug-talk, prison-talk, grafting-talk (money-raising techniques) and so on I can confirm they are indeed a drab bunch to be with. All the same, most definitely. And NA say you should focus on the similarities not the differences. The similarities are overridingly impossible to ignore I'm afraid. Junkies are all the bloody same!

My local mental-unit was so much easier going. Not to mention fascinating. One guy, their longest-serving resident (3 years and counting) spoke random phrases from the dictionary, his own verbal fruit-salad. His mind was fractured from the very core, like a hammered mirror. The true meaning of "disorganized schizophrenia".

The manic crew were most egotistical and boring. Full of delusions of grandeur and flagrant lies. E.g. "I wrote that song now playing on the radio. They owe me fifty million pounds in back-royalties etc ..." blah-blah. When they weren't boasting uproariously, the more intelligent maniacs engaged with anyone who would listen (i.e. mostly the nurses) in one-sided metaphysical discussions about the construction of the cosmos and other unforseen queries of universal ponderance (that would be their kind of phrasing, not mine ...)

The depressives were to greater and lesser degrees withdrawn, according to the severity of their illness. One man, put on "one-to-one" care (a humiliating situation where you cannot sleep, go to the toilet or do anything without being in the company of a nurse) seemed like the hollow shell of a human being, the insides having been blasted out. His eyes were dead. But I know from experience that anyone, however far out they have travelled in the realms of insanity can come back again whole. Or even enriched from the experience. Which is impossible to see at the time. In fact reality can't be seen at the time. That's what madness is.

One man, for example was wearing socks on his hands and hitting pool balls with his elbows when I first saw him. He later escaped and reappeared wearing Guantanamo Bay style uniform (this is how the police dress inmates they pick up naked.) When I encountered him a few months later he came up to me, full of conversation. He remembered the time of day I'd given him through all that madness and now he was well again. Quite amazing.

The personality disordered were the strangest bunch. They seemed for the most part totally normal - except for their outbursts. One had cut his arms in symmetrical places with a samurai sword. He spent all day chatting and smiling. And insisting to all who would listen that he wanted to die. He did all he could to stay inside the unit, prolonging his internment voluntarily for several weeks.

I made friends with the randoms and the paranoid bunch. Living with Nutnut, whose psychotic vibes wormed their way into my fragile consciousness eventually nearly flipping me out, I had an understanding of the fragile balance of the human psyche. And how easily one can come under psychic attack from Greater Forces.

Now I'm called a junkie "with low mood". Yesterday's doctor held off on prescribing antidepressants until I've had a full psychiatric assessment. I bumped into a friend this afternoon who's just been through one of these and, on reflection, believe that would be the best way forward. Having abandoned the driving seat a couple of years ago, I must accept that I am steering the course of my own life and nobody else. And if I give up control I become victim to life's every gust and downpour.

So I don't know the way forward. I just know that only I can push myself there. Wherever "there" may be ...