Fishes and Friendships

I've recently come back to the world from a foray into my unconscious.

I was swallowed by that great fish from the depths. I am so enormous in my delusional grandeur that it took a week to suck me all in. Being admitted to the hospital was like being spit out, being born again from the awful death I dived in my own deep water.

One of the things that calms me greatly is reading and drawing. I like the meditative quality paper has. I am allowed in its embrace to remain still while travelling the corridors of fancy and dream. Unable to cling to the moment (here, now) that I craved after discharge, I found refuge in my awesome friend's blog.

The link is here: http://aquietweek.com/

A Quiet Week in the House is exactly what it promises for me. If I am reading Lori's genius blog, you can be sure things are going well for me mentally. It means there is a small respite in the corner of my confused and overwhelmed grey matter. So I revisited the blog this week. I found peace and serenity in her arty collages and inspiration in the calm way she expresses her own frenetic flights. I am pleased to say she is my friend.

I give her some credit for the neurotic drawings that have spilled from my pen these last few days.

I have been advised to keep my hands busy, and so I have.

With a little help from Da Vinci

Leonardo's Hands Sketch (with my text)

Wednesday night.

5 PM.

Psych ward.

I'm finally home.
After a rough week in which I was in and out of reality, I went into the hospital voluntarily. My mom stayed with me until I was settled in bed and had eaten dinner. Bryan stayed home with the dog, and was ever present in my thoughts. He handled the night alone, playing the game of distraction. Distressed, the dog slept in bed with him.

But these things were the farthest from my mind as I chatted with apparitions only I could see. I giggled to myself and tried hard to ignore the fact that the cameras I believed to be in every room of the hospital ward were unbelievably REAL.

By the next day, I discovered they were.



I worried about nothing but myself and felt no remorse for my egocentric absorption. I was in a hospital to be taken care of, to declare a full time out from the rigorous stresses of the real world. The planet stopped on its axis and took no notice of my small hands and worried mind.

Alas, one of my medications was too new to be on the hospital formulary, so I was taken off of it. I was given a higher dose of another medication instead. It did the trick. Well, that and a break in perspective and a distance from the delusional. I slept nearly 11 hours, and by lunch I was ready to leave. It warmed my heart to know my psychiatrist trusted my judgment enough to discharge me within an hour.

Mom brought me home, and I am a new person. From now on, I plan to channel my emotional stress into art and words. I frequently write and draw, but not the frustrated murals I've been doing the past few days in my crossword puzzle book/doodle pad. Some things shouldn't be kept under the skin, but drawn out like an infection with all the creativity I can muster.

The universe is real again, and I remember why it's interesting and worth it again.