GETTING CLOSER TO LAUGHING IN COMPANY
I get very irritated at going for my fortnightly jag, not because of my CPN, I know she is very good but because of what? The decades long drip of the reminder of illness and sadness and symptoms perhaps. I still don’t believe I have schizophrenia and can get fed up when I am asked about a mental illness I don’t think I have. I do get it when my partner asks me what else they should say but I wish they would ask their questions in a different way. I also get fed up that the professionals in my life have so little knowledge of me and though I know they are managing something specific about mental illness and maybe have no need to make such links would love to talk about how much I miss my son, my still confused feelings that I feel I deserved it when an ex partner hit me, punched me, spat at me because I had promised her I would love her for ever and ever and did not manage to do that.
It can be hard managing the competing priorities of health workers and my priority to be known as a person; for them to know my past and my dreams of the future and what it is that makes me tick and how hard I find it when I struggle to express what I feel or think about something. I would love a meeting of minds here and need to remind myself that sometimes in the past that has happened as a matter of course.
Last time I went to Jeans Bothy I was busy grumping to myself at someone’s surprise that I probably have to go to court about something a teacher did to me over forty years ago. They said, “I have never seen this in your notes.” I wanted to reply that no one has ever asked me about such things; that there are many, many, things I could tell them about but without a relationship I won’t and so, of course such things are not in my notes. Then I paused a little and thought to myself that I have never volunteered such things to the succession of doctors and nurses I have seen over the last thirty five years and that maybe I bear a little bit of responsibility too; I could have tried a little bit.
Anyway, seething slightly after that conversation, I arrived at Jeans Bothy to pick up some food. There were people gathered in the garden, talking to each other, nattering. The sun was out, it was warm. Katrina gave me a lovely welcome and introduced me to a new volunteer. My anger fell away. Here I still cannot truly be myself but at least I feel I belong and can trail into a long sentence about how I have things to say and do but cannot bring myself to leave and then find myself embarrassed that, lacking the gift of words, I end up leaving anyway!
I am so in awe of what happens at the Bothy. After well over a year I am very slowly beginning to recognise some names and faces. I am learning that I am accepted and welcome. I read the books for the book club and have fond hopes that I will manage to get to a meeting of it soon. I take my photos for the photography group and manage along most Saturdays. Sometimes I post in the members group about walks I have done with Dash the dog or my family. Even though I only appear on the periphery of the Bothy, it brings a warm glow to me. It makes me feel less alone and less alien.
My family do that for me too. I am learning, nearing old age, the value of kindness and respect. I am learning people are not always right or in charge; that momentary irritations are just that; momentary irritations. Being teased and loved is a wonderful feeling. Having my long silences accepted is also lovely, as are cuddles and trips to charity shops. Making breakfast for everyone on school days and watching a tousle haired Charlotte object to waking up, while James is already on his Xbox. Watching Dash the dog leap on the bed with no regard for which part of peoples anatomy he is stamping on; seeing Wendy covering her head from the noise while I make the children’s lunch and then, as soon as coffee arrives, springing into a very lovely and rather quirky torrent of words is something I treasure every day.
My life is as I want it. I still work too hard; when I wake in the morning I am still planning my day, working out when and how to do the latest report or speech or meeting, but, very slowly, I am learning that a much better gift to the world would be to lie in bed thinking what small things would make my new family smile.
Nowadays I am so busy writing, or making dinner or doing the washing or walking Dash with the curlews, herons and oyster catchers all around us that, increasingly, my knowledge of how much I damage the world seems less and less important. I have hopes that one day I will believe many of the harshest thoughts I have really are a delusion; that I really do have schizophrenia. I have hopes that one day I will not think about that at all but will still have Jeans Bothy to go to, maybe even in person. Perhaps I will join in a lunch time walk, maybe I will help in the garden, maybe I will finally get the time to join the creative writing group; all these small hugely important things that bring connection and belonging and companionship.
Maybe next time I am in the garden and thinking of an excuse to hang around I will find myself a seat and just sit among everyone and breath in the smell of the grass and feel the vibrancy of the community I seem to, very slowly, be becoming a part of.
(First appeared in Jean’s Bletherings – 2021)
(Photo: Dandelion clocks : May 2021)
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