I have what may be described as a rich imagination.  I am certain I can distinguish the difference between it and delusion or some complex society I escape to.  Mine seems low in the order of things.  I want faeries, bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster to exist.  I want wild animals to want to cuddle.  I speak to wild and domestic animals; they do not speak back, nor do I expect them to.  I like to imagine the animal kingdom has a rich Wind in the Willows type society; I know they don’t.  I don’t dwell on these ideas; they are fleeting moments when I admire the animal kingdom.  I write these things to explain I do know the difference between what are playful ideas of bears having tea parties and instances when I am not sure if what I am experiencing is happening to anyone but me and those times I know it isn’t happening to anyone but me.  The times when I don’t trust my brain.

I have tried to pinpoint when my mental illness started manifesting itself.  I have a very early memory, five years old or less, when I frequently described to my parents my life “when I used to be big”.  It involved calico clothing, the sounds of my boots running on a wooden floor, fields and horses.  The colors and sounds were very vivid.  It was the 60s and I had never been exposed to anything like that.  Was it then?  Is that when it started?  Around the same time, I have very vivid memories of a woman in my bedroom.  I saw her many times.  There were only three of us in the house and it was not my mother.  When I was just a little older, I remember my first full blow anxiety attack.  I was walking home from school and got in such a panic that I could not figure out whether to go back to school or go home and so I sat on the sidewalk and cried.

My memory of it all becomes cloudy for the next few years.  In my early teens I began to develop a sense of worthlessness and despair.  Teenage angst?  I knew something was wrong and hoped the commercials warning parents of their children being on drugs would spur my parents into action.  I began to think about suicide, became convinced people were spying on me, following me.  Telephones became full time listening devices, my heart raced, I felt I couldn’t catch my breath.  Sometimes being outside became too big for me to handle.  I began to develop skin conditions that no amount of creams cured.  I scrubbed my skin, sometimes until it bled.  I developed blinding headaches, sometimes I didn’t sleep, then I would sleep for days.  My inner voice turned against me and chanted incessantly “you are worthless, you are useless, you are a failure, you are stupid, kill yourself”.  In another full-blown panic I was taken to a doctor for a “tumor” on my tongue.  It was not a tumor and I was sent to a psychologist.  Finally, someone was going to help me.

That first experience in therapy will stay with me for the rest of my life.  The anger I felt walking into an 80s version of forced calming and the resentment toward the big, patronizing smile is branded in my brain.  The woman had a voice like syrup, and she assured me these were the best days of my life and there was no reason to be sad.  I walked out thinking if this were true, I had no other choice but to kill myself.  Instead, I just didn’t go back.  What I learned is:  you don’t talk about mental illness.

What I have learned since then is you must.