My Aura Borealis

    It’s not a character flaw. That is what I was told by a former friend. There I stood, at the threshold of life and death, a decision was to be made. I had all my medication bottles clustered on my desk and with one thought only, my shaky hand wrapped around one of them. I unscrewed the bottle of my anti-psychotic, arched my head back and swallowed every pill as if they were candy. I remember the dozens of pills sliding abrasively down my throat. All I wanted was to die. All I wanted was peace at last, a resignation from a lost life. Do I still feel my life is lost? No. Do I still feel depressed and anxiety-stricken still? Yes. Due to my history of suicidal ideation and an actual suicide attempt, my doctor will not write a script for certain medications, instead I have to get them through a monthly injection. The black cloud whirls above me still.

     So, here is my story to you, hear with undammed ears and without curtained eyes. There is a lesson, a story we all walk by every day that we may notice, may take a second look, and then forget. I ask you to remember my story. I ask you to take a second look at this human being that cannot go a day of his life without the sting of psychosis.

     Years of dust becomes disturbed whenever my mind unrolls the film of my life’s journey. I remember. My oldest memory of psychosis is from middle school. I was around twelve-years-old. A classmate was making a crack about me. It concerned me talking to myself. Now, growing up I had never had more than two friends at a time, and I was raised in the basement of my house. Literally. So, it was natural for me to develop imaginary people to speak to. That basement had definitely left a sore on my heart and mind that is irreversible. But it felt good to have a friend beside me, when in reality, nothing was there but hollow air.

     I am clinically diagnosed as schizoaffective, clustered with major depression and anxiety disorder. A foul-tasting cocktail. So, how do I do it you may ask? I turn the tables on the disorder by making it a strength! Yes, I am a creative writer, what more perfect way to vent? When clusters of symptoms attack, I’m ready with a shield in hand and a pen in the other.

     How do I express myself? Well, through creative literary expression, I do not hold back. In fact, I go all out. For example, a thought, which oftentimes is a delusion, can be expressed through dark and surreal imagery. Normal persons do not have a clue what the landscape is like within this mind. Imagine a beach with fine shards of glass for sand, you set your bare foot into the glass and allow it to sink and settle before you take that next step. But the shards do not lacerate. Anxiety is fear of what is not true. So, with that in mind, take the next step into the sand.

     Continuing on with the beach scene, your bare feet buried in the glass, you look up into the sky, and witness an aura borealis. The stars and the moon rage brightly against the dying of the night, the morning blue brings death, not life. Then you realize that your aura borealis has faded on into oblivion.

     “When he shall die take him and cut him out into stars and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.” Shakespeare may have been suffering psychosis as well in my opinion.