Having just come out the other side of a short bout of madness, it isn't and it wasn't my fault. I was chugging along nicely, doing art for the exhibition in October, leaving my place untidy and spending hours on blogs and social network sites, and then ... I had some stuff laid on me which occurred at the same time as the terrible fuss that was made over the Internet about it being the end of the world, I knew it was bullshit, but with the green as well my sanity suffered.
One of the sayings close to my heart is that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and insanity is strange like that and definitely no exception. During the throws of madness, you suffer so bad, your friends and family can't handle you, in fact no-one can. In one of my hospital admissions for example, not even fully trained psychiatric staff could handle me and I was discharged much earlier than I should have been, left to cope on my own.
However contrary to popular belief, surviving a bout of insanity is not for the weak or the feint hearted, you have to be strong. Then again just because you might be strong (as many people who suffer with their sanity are), it does not mean you don't need any help and should be left to suffer it alone, we do need lots of 'intervention' in the form of human beings being kind and showing us love. This doesn't happen much if at all in the world we live in, at least not this part of the world anyway, and so we do pretty much get left alone to cope with it.
Its hard to struggle back to normality, the first step is to recognise that what you experienced was insanity. It can be an extremely hard thing to do because those ideas that you have that seemed so real and important are nothing more than heightened imagination, its a real struggle to get a grip and perspective that is sane, and of course the line between sanity and madness is not clear.
Every thing that was important to me I could not do during the recent attack which probably lasted about two weeks, like painting and art. Not only was this out of the question ( as I was constantly being told by 'voices' in my head) but every move I made seemed to be a directive from an entity outside of myself, it was like being controlled, you lose yourself, you don't exist, and this loss is strangely coupled with almost grandiose ideas about yourself too, probably something to do with survival. I am not going to analyse it to death because I would rather try and get on with my life, because life is for living and I can still do that.
Just want to big up my friends and family who had to yet again watch me painfully deteriorate and they still stood by me giving as much support as they could, and, as is always the case I have got some mends to make with a few people too ...
You can restore your health and spirit ( that will never die) but I feel much weakened as a result of that episode of insanity, I guess it will take time to heal, it always does take a while. At least though I am able to carry on with the art work, in fact my latest picture is an Anti-war picture, it is probably one of my best pictures I have done, it will go on the exhibition this year, it is called 'Man from Afghanistan'.
A friend and old colleague of mine has just produced a Short DVD of last years exhibition too, and it is very interesting. I am lucky to have the project to get stuck into, there is always plenty going on and my health has restored enough so that I can carry on organising it.
Oh gosh, Lord, all my trials ...
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