"Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning"
--Eliot "The Wasteland" (click to read)
I've been under a huge amount of stress lately-- mainly with men (who never stay), friends, jobs, and my general deterioration of mental health. My father tells me that my descriptions of my mental symptoms are vague. I used expressions such as "I don't feel real," "I feel like there is a thunderstorm in my brain," "I felt like an inanimate object when I took Haldol (but it helped.)"
This may be for a combination of reasons. Aside from snickers of Schizophrenia, my description of my mental states may simply be over-worded or abstract because of my ongoing heated affair with words. I don't want to use words like other people do.
Since my bout with Tardive Dyskenisia, which I basically consider a strong seizure or brain malfunction, I feel quite damaged. My body went through Hell for three hours and I still feel the electrical pain of that rigor and it stalks me in my memories and dreams. Since the T.D., my brain has not felt right. Now, I have gone through a depressive episode since then which I am still in. It is quite severe. Nonetheless, my brain feels like it has been scorched too long in God's furnace. That's why I stuck that quote in from Eliot. I am a burning woman for many reasons, but primarily tonight my brain burns.
I have made the statement on many occasions that my brain hurts. I feel quite a lot of pain in my head. I have been suffering headaches for three weeks. I don't want this blog to turn into the "poor me chronicles". I am interested to know if anyone else with mental illness experiences "brain pain" or, as I like to call it, "brain freeze". Though, I must admit, there is little freezing in the neuropathological pain.
Kafka came out with his pain. That is why I love him dearest. Dickinson’s life vaguely mimics mine—we both hide, though I am no wordsmith to that degree. Eliot, I believe to a great deal, lied about his circumstances. I’ve read a lot about him and generally he seemed to have it together. The word I’d like to underline in that prior sentence is “seemed”. His wife, as we all know, was ill. Yes, yes, Mrs. Eliot, ill, yes, yes, allusions to her in “The Wasteland.” Maybe it is the use of the voices in “The Wasteland” that points me to the conclusions of mental illness in the poem. That could very well be it. So much of what I read there points me towards psychosis and schizophrenia and delusions and a general disarray of scattered mental health problems.
Some of his other poems give off this impression and some do not. So, I will leave Mr. Eliot alone. You may very well point out that I am hiding again, picking apart poets. Yes, you are quite right. I find comfort in that. Poets, whether they want to be or not, are my friends. Ah, maybe I should say their words are my friends. That is better.
But I seem to exist in a haze and where my written word succeeds, my spoken word falters. I search for words, I forget words, if I try to speak too quickly sometimes I stutter or my tongue stumbles over words. My word order is also wrong most of the time. I know these are common cognitive impairments brought on by psychoactive drugs, yet the drugs aren’t helping much. My parents say I seem better when I’m off the drugs, yet that is when I feel the most vulnerable. Yet the drugs…The drugs do not make the psychosis shrink or the depression crumble or the panic shudder…Ah, it is all a paradox and I am trapped in the middle. What to do?
Pluckest thou me out, O Lord? <---(This sentence seems wrong to me somehow and I used German question structure on it since I was a little unsure of how to phrase it.) Somehow my faith falters. Author's note: "Pluckest thou me out, O Lord?" <---(This sentence seems wrong to me somehow. I used German question structure on it since I was a little unsure of how to phrase it.) German question structure: Verb-nominative-direct object-mashed potatoes-corn on the cob LOL German students, are you laughing?
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning"
--Eliot "The Wasteland" (click to read)
I've been under a huge amount of stress lately-- mainly with men (who never stay), friends, jobs, and my general deterioration of mental health. My father tells me that my descriptions of my mental symptoms are vague. I used expressions such as "I don't feel real," "I feel like there is a thunderstorm in my brain," "I felt like an inanimate object when I took Haldol (but it helped.)"
This may be for a combination of reasons. Aside from snickers of Schizophrenia, my description of my mental states may simply be over-worded or abstract because of my ongoing heated affair with words. I don't want to use words like other people do.
Since my bout with Tardive Dyskenisia, which I basically consider a strong seizure or brain malfunction, I feel quite damaged. My body went through Hell for three hours and I still feel the electrical pain of that rigor and it stalks me in my memories and dreams. Since the T.D., my brain has not felt right. Now, I have gone through a depressive episode since then which I am still in. It is quite severe. Nonetheless, my brain feels like it has been scorched too long in God's furnace. That's why I stuck that quote in from Eliot. I am a burning woman for many reasons, but primarily tonight my brain burns.
I have made the statement on many occasions that my brain hurts. I feel quite a lot of pain in my head. I have been suffering headaches for three weeks. I don't want this blog to turn into the "poor me chronicles". I am interested to know if anyone else with mental illness experiences "brain pain" or, as I like to call it, "brain freeze". Though, I must admit, there is little freezing in the neuropathological pain.
Kafka came out with his pain. That is why I love him dearest. Dickinson’s life vaguely mimics mine—we both hide, though I am no wordsmith to that degree. Eliot, I believe to a great deal, lied about his circumstances. I’ve read a lot about him and generally he seemed to have it together. The word I’d like to underline in that prior sentence is “seemed”. His wife, as we all know, was ill. Yes, yes, Mrs. Eliot, ill, yes, yes, allusions to her in “The Wasteland.” Maybe it is the use of the voices in “The Wasteland” that points me to the conclusions of mental illness in the poem. That could very well be it. So much of what I read there points me towards psychosis and schizophrenia and delusions and a general disarray of scattered mental health problems.
Some of his other poems give off this impression and some do not. So, I will leave Mr. Eliot alone. You may very well point out that I am hiding again, picking apart poets. Yes, you are quite right. I find comfort in that. Poets, whether they want to be or not, are my friends. Ah, maybe I should say their words are my friends. That is better.
But I seem to exist in a haze and where my written word succeeds, my spoken word falters. I search for words, I forget words, if I try to speak too quickly sometimes I stutter or my tongue stumbles over words. My word order is also wrong most of the time. I know these are common cognitive impairments brought on by psychoactive drugs, yet the drugs aren’t helping much. My parents say I seem better when I’m off the drugs, yet that is when I feel the most vulnerable. Yet the drugs…The drugs do not make the psychosis shrink or the depression crumble or the panic shudder…Ah, it is all a paradox and I am trapped in the middle. What to do?
Pluckest thou me out, O Lord? <---(This sentence seems wrong to me somehow and I used German question structure on it since I was a little unsure of how to phrase it.) Somehow my faith falters. Author's note: "Pluckest thou me out, O Lord?" <---(This sentence seems wrong to me somehow. I used German question structure on it since I was a little unsure of how to phrase it.) German question structure: Verb-nominative-direct object-mashed potatoes-corn on the cob LOL German students, are you laughing?
© Megan Snider
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