Witness to Withness

What a headache

I can not ever having a lot of trouble with headaches until my emotional illness became evident as something I could no longer run from. I thought I could hide that there was anything wrong with me by the way I was able to work. The summer of 1977 I was working as if my life depended on it. I made my share of mistakes and yet I did what I was told and beyond that I clocked in and out when I was told to do so. And all the time working made me forget that I had anything wrong with me at all. Seldom did I share about it, unless I trusted someone. That would get harder as time went on.

I hoped to hide my illness by all the fun I had playing games. I played basketball and more than often was winning in games like horse or shooting free throws. I did some running and played some tennis. I was finding ways to share with others I was back to my old self and was therefore exempt from a thought of going back to the depression I left behind only weeks earlier.

I hoped to hide the fact I had an illness by getting involved in relationships. I will never forget the flight shining bright as I moved out of the darkness of isolation. My grandparents were taken aback by how much I had recovered from my depression. From that moment, I moved toward other people I barely knew like the Severs, an Al down the street. I used to go over Severs to listen to music and I can recall with the ear phones on feeling like no one could take away my joy. There was also time to share with all my friends in church that the frozen death of depression had thawed and I was finally free. At a church reunion at my great grandfather's church I even got to talk to Uncle Irving, who had told me to hang on for the ride. I recall seeing him in the midst of an ocean of persons who could not wait to renew acquaintance. He found time for me, if only to say hello.

I hoped to hide behind the fact that I was taking my medicine on a daily basis and I dutifully went to see my psychiatrist, Dr. Fleming. Even he was amazed to see me in my right mind, as if to say how did it happen. Although I am sure he had his own explanation. I knew it was God's grace. He talked about me going back to school in the fall if I could work over the summer.

I hoped to hide. The problem was that there was an undertow of anxiety that I could not get rid of. The weeks leading up to going back to school, I had been thinking of the girl I had the crush on. I could not get her out of my head. I feared what meeting her would do to me or her for that matter. I wrote a letter of apology, which I found out later she chose not to read. I tried to get to her house on a bike that ended up having flat tires, I went to chapel at the college hoping I would find her there. I was a mess underneath all the hiding and my parents were like a mirror showing me how messed up I really was, even if I was trying to convince myself otherwise.

I am sad to say that in the space of only three and one-half months I had gone from being on the way to going nowhere. Most of my drop into depression happened soon after my job ended at the college. The worst part of it took place about three or four weeks before I was to go to school. The crazy thing is that in the course of telling everyone how well I was, I created a vacuum whereby there was no one for me to talk with. I had put up a tough front with a smile and no one really understood I was in a state of unmitigated crisis and even if they did I felt I was in no position to ask for help and risk going back to the hospital, rather that going to school, which was getting to feel more and more uncomfortable the closer it came to getting there.

Well the inevitable happened. My judgement had obviously been skewed, as if I was the only one on the planet. Mom was having difficulty with her pregnancy and Dad was working crazy hours and the days off were spent getting me back home out of some fix I was in. Dad was a good man, but to be with him in a car or one to one was like being in a silent fog. What can you say to a dad who seems to talk only when he is talked to. I could hardly blame him as hard as he worked. As has been noted in other places the part of me that was hiding ran into the person I could not escape and there was this awful headache that did not go away for the longest time. And I did not tell people about it. Instead in the hospital proper I kept putting on head bands of all colors. It was something I was trying to hide, because to admit to being vulnerable meant that I was stuck in the hospital with no hope of getting out. So I spent a good bit of time in early hospitalization at the state hospital isolating from the people I thought were truly sick. I created some of my own problems. I kept trying to call home and the college and felt like I was up against a wall. I do not know if I let my confusion get in my way or not. I knew what I was wanting to do and it did not happen as I wished. I lost my voice that I in my own mind thought I got back. Where was the same God who got me out of the depression. Now I was really in a mess! Dr. Fleming was no longer on my case. I had this awful feeling that people thought I was crazy from early on. There was mention of calling the pope for me. Yes it was frustrating, a real headache trying to let people know like in the story of Horton hears a who, I am here. The headache would continue for several weeks until I began to see I was not the only person in that hospital suffering unjustly, but that is another story.

Even to this day a headache is a reminder of something that needs to be better managed by way of rest, medicine, relationship or just a bit of fun(after all I was worth it).
My head hurts because something in my head is not happy. Today is no different. I am out of work and that is always not a good place for me to be, knowing my history. I was told that an orientation was cancelled. I had been looking forward to getting back to work and they did not have enough persons to orient. In the mean time my wife works and I can not understand how she can be happy about me in any way. In the midst of all this I had trouble sleeping last night anxious about getting a better job that I deserved and now what was I going to do about the job I got accepted for in November. Life goes on, but for now the headache is waiting for relief and time to say once again I am ready to take on the world.