The Madness Within

20 June

White walls. White curtains. White bed sheets. No patterns. No life. No ordinary sounds. Just the infuriating "beep beep" of the impersonal machine monitoring my life signs. Shades of Monty Python and the 'machine that goes Ping!'. The thought brings a laugh to my throat and finally you notice I am awake.

Stupid, flat expression. You're trying for professional and sympathetic but from this angle you're more the devil in a white uniform. More white. You are the face to my pain and God is there pain.

I try to communicate but I have no voice. You tell me I have a tube in my throat. No shit Sherlock! What, you think perhaps I hadn't noticed? I cough and it hurts and you rush to my side to suppress the spasms racking my chest. I want to grab you and crush your simpering face but my arms are restrained, strapped to the cold and impersonal rails of the bed.

"Fuck you!" I want to scream. Immobile and impotent, helpless to express the anger inside me I see you smile. You are not afraid. You've seen me, other me's, before. Why do you do this job?

A shot of something in my drip. Bitch! Suppression. Oppression. You are willing me to die but taunt me by keeping my body alive. This IS me. Stop! Harder to concentrate. I can't think. Bitch.

Helpless and angry, a pitiful combination.

And you just walk away.

27 June

I gaze down the garden path and across to the trees beyond the pond. Sunlight and birdsong. I try to feel something. Anything. There's no rage left, no anger. But there is nothing to take its place either. I try to hold that thought but I can't. I know I need you to know that, but helpless, I know it's unlikely I'll recall it later.

Still staring at the trees, I feel I ought to be responding to the beauty around me. I can see it's a pretty place, a lovely afternoon. I try again to concentrate. I hear the birds, a light breeze rustling the manicured landscape. I can hear the unusual sounds of children playing in the visitor's garden. I feel next to nothing in response. I ought to feel so much more.

Christopher. I know I should. That's your fault. I know that too.

You stare at me pained, hopeful, and wary. What are you waiting for? This cocktail of me-suppressing drugs is no recipe for love. I can barely feel me, let alone you. I feel resentment stirring. Blessed resentment! That's something, that's mine.

August

They say I'm doing better. I'm off Suicide Street and have moved to Pitiful Parade. And they say that's better.

I wish you wouldn't visit so often. I don't want to hear about life outside, it has no meaning in here. And I wish you wouldn't hold me so close. I can sense your fear though you try hard these days to conceal it. You were angry at first, and that I understood. But why are you so afraid now? You got your way. I'm still breathing. Not like Christopher. His name is a piercing blade to the numbness and I am grateful for it.

October

I am glad you brought me back here. The uncompromising landscape soothes me. The grey moody sky, the shrieking winds and ocean spray. The rage of the waves echoes through me, it feels so familiar. But enough, I must have my say today.

The 'madness within' you call it. A dominating, powerful force that you feel drives me to both despair and delight. You derive comfort in any medical diagnosis that supports this theory of yours. And shallow optimism from chemicals designed to 'correct' this condition of mine.

Madness? Perhaps. Powerful, certainly. But it's no nameless force, no almighty independent power in itself. It is me. Part of me. All of me. By what right can you claim that a part of me that defines who I am is separate, an illness, a sore to be healed? I know what I feel. I know who I am. Can you say the same?

Unlike you I can see where this ends. The waves I ride get higher, deeper and harder to survive. Recovery (your word) is longer each time. The further I go, the harder it is to come back. And why do I, why should I turn back? Because that is what you expect of me?

I know there is only one end to this ride, to this life so fraught with intensity. I embrace it. Why can't you? You run when the darkness descends and show fear when I'm flying in the sun. You are forever waiting for the sun to disappear. You have no peace and nor do I, knowing your fears.

You do have another life. A 'normal' life. You show me pictures of loved ones and events, you tell me boring normal stories as if I could somehow just absorb your normality and all would be well. You plead for more time as if it would make a difference but you are appealing to the wrong saviour. Who is the more deluded?

I have no regrets and no reason to fight this inevitability. I have seen and felt more to this point than you ever will. I've loved, lost, hated, born a child and lost a child. It is Christopher's death that has finally allowed me to see past your smoke and mirrors.

Don't look like that. I'm not depressed. Relieved. Happy even, if that's at all possible. Fear of loss is so much harder to bear than the loss itself. I ache each day for him but it is nothing compared to the ache I felt when he was alive.

Don't cry and don't pretend you too are not a little relieved.

Who's being cruel? You held my boy at arms length, fearful to get too close. He accepted me as I am, as only a child can, and you could not. And always, always you let the fact he was not yours get in the way. We've been over it so many times. A silent fuck in an hour of darkness. I wasn't even there.

I won't regret it. It gave me Christopher.

You look so hurt. But I will not give in this time. I will not let you confuse me and love me into another death I can't bear. You say you love me. Do you? Do you really?

When you push and push for a medical answer to a problem I don't believe I have – don't you see it is me you are trying to kill? Think carefully. If I do as you ask, who will you be left with? Not me. How long would it last?

The strength you say you admire was forged by the darkness you want to exorcise. The humour too. And I know I'm right when I say the sex was always something else!

Made you smile at last.

Come here. Hold me. I'm only asking that you celebrate who I am. Don't mourn the loss of something that isn't real. You have what little remains of my heart after Christopher. And know that my darkness was never so complete while you were around.

Let me go now. Please.