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Hearing you will hear and shall not
understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Matthew 13:14-15
What does it mean to understand mental illness? At some level, we all
have an internal definition for illnesses such as cancer, heart disease,
diabetes and mental illness. Experiences in our life teach us more about
these diseases each day.
The story of Mr. Anonymous signifies for me the beginning of a journey that
I didn’t even know I was taking. A few years ago, I learned much more about
mental illness in a way I would not have expected. It is easy to say you
understand, but the journey to a greater understanding and appreciation of
the pain and stigma of one who carries that illness with them is more
complicated than I thought.
The title of the story, “Can You Forgive Mental Illness?” entertains the
idea that mental illness is a sin or some type of transgression. Mental
Illness is simply -----an illness. There are both similarities and
differences between mental and physical illnesses. However, both can be
painful, and are usually out of our control.
It was an epiphany to me in March of 2002 when a Texas jury found Andrea
Yates guilty of drowning her 5 children, I was shocked. This was a person
who was as ill as people get and yet she could not use an insanity defense
successfully. The word “insanity” itself, is problematic. It is actually a
legal term, rather than a medical term. Society uses “insanity”
interchangeably with “mental illness,” but the word is a technical
definition meant for the law and the courts. How could someone so ill be
found guilty of murder? Where was the safety net of the “not guilty, by
reason of insanity” plea.
Shared below is a story written by a friend of mine. Mr. Anonymous gave me a
better understanding of how a mental illness can totally change one’s
ability to think, and to reason. It is a rare glimpse inside the mind of a
psychotic person. Years ago when Mr. Anonymous and I first met, I had no
idea that mental illness was a part of his life experiences. Shortly after
knowing, I suggested he write about his experiences and reactions in light
of the Andrea Yates tragedy.
Why would a story from an anonymous person be included in this collection of
mental illness stories? It is a first hand account of psychosis and
illustrates when a person’s brain is no longer under their own control.
Perhaps, after reading this you may gain a better idea of what can happen to
our minds.
Why does a person choose to remain anonymous? It is a complex decision. The
significance of his needing to be anonymous is a reflection of the stigma in
our culture. In one of our conversations, he shared his concerns about going
public with his story and his name attached to it. One of the reasons was
that friends and co-workers might always be considering him in light of his
mental illness. He said, “….If I say something dumb sometime, will people
think I’m losing it again?” Only you as a reader would be able to answer
that for him.
From his story I have learned---
It could be someone in my
family, or
It could be my child, or
It could be my spouse, or
It could be me.
And I will have no idea it is happening.
Indeed, I find this a frightening thought.
Statistics tell us that somewhere, there is a Mr. or Ms. Anonymous in your
life.
You may know their experience, or perhaps they may feel the risk is too
great to be known. But, either way, they are here.
Karin Ogden
By Mr. Anonymous
For the sake of Noah, John, Paul, Luke and Mary, the five Texas kids
drowned by their mother, I have to write this.
I cannot be quiet any longer. The Texas tragedy has brought my anger to the
surface. And guess what? I'm not livid at Andrea Yates, the Texas mom. I
might be angry with you.
Can you forgive mental illness?
This country does not understand mental illness. We're starting to see books
about bipolar disorder, starting to hear talk of postpartum depression and
psychosis. But deep down, I don't think most Americans are willing to
forgive the acts that a mentally ill person commits.
We give lip service to it. We have some weak insanity defense clauses in our
laws. But, fundamentally, society tries to apply customary rules and logic
to minds working under completely different laws. We act as if the sick
person has control over the world-view their brain is creating, but they
don't.
Let me tell you a secret. Maybe we can come closer together on this.
I survived an acute psychotic episode. I know what the mind can twist to.
Better than you do. Probably better than the psychiatrist who monitors my
preventive medication. After all, he has only heard descriptions of
psychosis. I have been in the skin of psychosis.
Let's walk through an episode of mental illness. I will use my personal
experience to illustrate just how off-kilter a mind can get in a short time
- without anyone noticing.
My episode happened when I was in my late thirties. After the episode, I was
diagnosed as bipolar, although all my life I have shown no signs of mood
swings, depression or mania, nor is there a family history of mental
illness. Most people would describe me, I think, as a quiet, even-tempered,
calm person. After the episode, I quickly returned to my old self and life
has gone on without incident.
My story is only one person's experience. No doubt many variations of
symptoms occur. The point is that our minds are not our own. They can betray
us. We can slip into an altered world undetected.
I would estimate my total illness lasted four to six weeks. I know when it
ended, but it is hard to tell when it began. The first few weeks, I started
staying up later. I'm not a night owl, but I began reading until 2 am.
A month or so prior to this, I had discovered the Bible and was reading it a
lot. My mind became increasingly consumed with interpreting and
understanding the readings.
In the few days before I became psychotic, my mind was in overdrive, yet
everything felt normal. My mind perceived the late night "understandings" of
my Bible readings to be the special process of getting closer to God. I was
very happy during this time.
My psychosis peaked on a Sunday in December. Earlier that week, I had strong
twitches in my left arm. I saw colored fireballs leaving my body when I was
alone in the car or bathroom.
None of this alarmed me. The entire time, I was working. My co-workers,
wife, and young daughter seemed to be unaware of my condition other than my
wife did not like me staying up late.
On Thursday night before I became psychotic, at about 3 am. in my living
room, I vividly recall my mind crescendoing to an infinitely high mountain
peak. It was as if all the philosophical and theological arguments of the
universe were played out in my mind in just a few seconds, spiraling my mind
higher and higher in truth until it peaked. My mind hit the ultimate peak of
all truth. I fell to the floor laughing in joy and ecstasy.
At that point, I made a conclusion I cannot fully reconstruct now with a
clear mind. It was along the lines of "spiritual life is like a yo-yo. It
rises to the Peak, but then you have nowhere to go and must slide back down
again."
It's the ultimate joke, I thought. The joke is there is no God. Just the
Peak. I went upstairs and jumped on my bed. "It's a joke," I blurted to my
wife. She opened an eye to look at me, puzzled and dismayed, squinting at
the clock: 3:00 am.
On Friday, my mind was falling apart, but no one seemed to know it,
including the guy in the skin. At work I was inattentive. More fireballs.
Someone asked me to attend a big meeting in an hour. I completely spaced it
off. I was lazily poking at papers on my desk when someone came looking for
me 20 minutes after the meeting started.
I was distracted because of the big event at lunchtime. I experienced a
prophetic vision. Everything that happened over the lunch hour had a
biblical, religious meaning to my nearly psychotic mind. The people on the
escalators represented angels. I was "led" around the skywalk. I literally
felt a pulling force, like partial gravity. Every person I saw was
"revealed" to me as representing some future player in my life or the
world's. I ended up in an atrium, looking down over a high school choir
singing Christmas carols. I wept. It was all so wonderful. Nothing felt
abnormal in the least.
Friday night, we went for pizza. It was a tense meal because my wife thought
I was ignoring her. My mind was racing, using up all my ability to
concentrate. My inner voice would ask a question, then immediately answer.
Then ask, answer, ask, answer. Relentlessly. Relentlessly.
On Saturday night, the key event happened. It is the reason I have forgiven
Andrea and countless other mentally ill people in the news, snared by the
legal system. I drove to the mall, wandered around, then started back home.
For some reason, I felt I was being tested by God. "The Test" was to let go
of the steering wheel and let the car go wherever. No matter what happened,
God would take care of me. Maybe He would cause the crash to be gentle, or
maybe He would bend the laws of physics just a little if needed.
Let me strongly state that this was not a suicide attempt. That was not the
purpose. It was a Test, and no matter the physical outcome, I was convinced
I would still be on Earth. As I said earlier, physical reality or rules of
normal society do not apply to the sick mind.
I was doing 40 mph on a wide residential road. There was a cop on a side
street, giving a ticket. Lights flashing. I saw him. Didn't matter. I let go
of the wheel and dropped my hands to my lap, foot firm on the gas.
My car drifted to the right, slammed the curb and spun hard. The cop said it
spun twice on dry pavement. The car stopped crosswise straddling both lanes
of traffic.
Thank God - and I say this with my clear mind - no one was on the road but
me. Who would have forgiven me if I had hit a baby stroller on the sidewalk?
Or clobbered a van full of kids?
Did I know right from wrong? Not even close. I was focused on the Test. The
laws of physics were going to be bent to ensure safety.
I didn’t mention the reckless driving ticket to my wife because it was going
to be handled by God. Later, I looked at the ticket, expecting the ink to be
vanished. I thought the cop was just a bit player in the Test.
And still, my wife did not know I was sick. I didn't know I was sick. How
can a person be sick enough to kill someone and nobody realizes it? Even the
police officer, a trained professional in human behavior, said nothing as he
ticketed me.
Finally on Sunday, it became obvious to my wife that I needed help. I was
still clueless.
I was on the phone for hours early Sunday morning with a co-worker. I never
call co-workers from home. I have no idea what I said, but fireballs were
involved. By mid-afternoon, I was in the hospital where I stayed six days.
A key observation from my illness is that I can fairly accurately recall the
events that happened and the rationale for actions I took. The problem is
that I was completely unaware that my rationale was not normal, or if I was
aware, I did not care. Not in a criminal right and wrong sense, but in the
same sense that I don't care if it rains tomorrow. It was just not worth
worrying about.
Jump ahead many years. I'm healthy now, but heartsick when I read the
papers. I see absurd things said and absurd justice applied.
One of the most misguided notions is that the sick person should have known
better, or could somehow "snap themselves out" of their altered world. These
quotes about Andrea Yates are a bit old (June 21, 2001) but illustrate my
point:
Geraldo Rivera's show: A prosecutor said there was evidence Andrea Yates was
sane because she did not stop after one killing. I could not believe what I
heard him say. Had Andrea "come to her senses" after one or two or three
babies, realized her error and stopped the killings, that would have been an
indicator to him that she was insane while killing but snapped herself out
of it. But since she only stopped after all five were dead, that indicated
criminal intent. He was in favor of frying her.
CNN: A neighbor of the Yates' was interviewed. When asked what should happen
to Andrea, he said they should try her for the death penalty. He blamed
Andrea for the tragedy, reasoning "she should have sought help or
counseling". (Media accounts indicate she had been under medical care). This
is another example of the "just snap yourself out of it" school of thought.
Another predictable absurdity I read in the papers: Person commits bizarre
or horrific crime. Court finds person mentally incapable of understanding
the charges or assisting in their defense. Court sends person to medical
care until they are (somewhat) able to assist in their defense. Trial is
held using mental illness defense. Person is convicted anyway.
I am puzzled as to how a person can be too sick to assist in their defense
yet can be considered to have been in full control during their “crime”.
Watch the papers. You will see this pattern yourself.
There are two ways I learned mental illness can get a person in trouble:
Either their irrational mind concocts a scheme that is illegal in the normal
world, or they are so inattentive they have an accident. The accident may
look intentional, but the irrational person will have a hard time
explaining.
Noah, John, Paul, Luke, little Mary. Mommy didn't hate you. I really don't
think so.
Can you forgive mental illness?
Readers:
Below is a postscript in response to my request for permission to publish
this article from the author.
Karin Ogden
Karin,
It's OK with me if you want to re-use my story.
You might find this interesting. It is part of an e-mail I sent to my
brother shortly after I wrote my story. This happened a few days into my
hospital stay.
"... Previously, you have heard the part of my illness where my mind
spiraled up to the Peak of all philosophical and spiritual knowledge. That
was happy, joyful. Well, the flip side happened when I was in the hospital.
The incessant voice asking and answering questions in my head turned from
happy-go-lucky to nasty. Sinister. It started arguing me down to lower and
lower levels of hell. And once you got to a level, you could NEVER go
higher. Only lower. So every sin I ever committed was brought up and the
voice drilled me lower. I was frightened beyond description. I honestly
believe I have seen hell, or at least one form of it.
The ONLY thing I knew to do was believe that Jesus covered my sins. I would
not, could not go to hell because of Jesus' promise. It was damn near
impossible to believe but I clung to that for days. Slowly I began to
recover and I came out of hell.
There was a male nurse. He saw me reading my bible and suggested I lay off
for a while, because bipolar patients often have lots of religious overtones
to their thinking. The thing that frightened me a bit was: he looked like
Jesus Christ! What a guy to have on a mental floor! Full beard, long hair -
exactly like every statue and picture you've ever seen. How would you like
to be mentally ill, have all these religious thoughts racing though your
head and then Jesus Christ himself walks in the room!!!! Too much."
Mr. Anonymous |
