my third husband was clinically insane. afflicted with either bi-polar or manic depressive disorder, they were never sure which. paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur, he was forever being found naked in some public place, ranting about being god and brandishing some weapon or another at the world.
i remember visiting him in the institution. how stelazine or thorazine or some other chemical had reduced him to bare minimums of mobility, his face slack and his eye, dull with a film of forced sedation.
i remember how i used to worry for my own sanity. my family history rife with similar issues, how i used to fearfully wait for the day when my mind would crack and some manner of hideousness would crawl out into the world. i remember wondering if it already had, and i was just too ill to know it. and i remember when i finally realized and ruefully pondered that i was, in fact, quite sane. no idea how i managed it.
all of this and more rises for consideration and review in light of recent days and the somewhat odd manner in which i cannot seem to hold a thought for more than a few moments, and how the simplest, easiest of things i seem to forget consistently.
i know it is only stress. and i know much of it is self-inflicted. i haven’t quite figured out how to stop it. the strange part is, when i do the mental/emotional ‘check’, i feel perfectly calm. centered. so why is it that i cannot keep my thoughts straight? why is it i’m forgetting easy, simple things?
my temper is fraying badly. i’m much more impatient than i would be normally. things that do not usually bother me are very annoying in this moment. i cry for no apparent reason. i feel frustrated at the silliest of things. the words of others land heavy and hurtful in spite of the fact that i know they were not intended that way.
stress. bleh. combination of pressures that have been slowly building for a while… no outlet available. i sit back and consider what possible outlets there might be… a ready list springs to mind. alas, all out of reach. i decide i will revisit this list. see if it is possible to find outlets that would be in reach. there has to be something close by that would lend relief.
muddled thoughts. i decide to end here and go scan more of the old photo albums. for some reason, that is a comforting, calming process.