“NOT FRAGILE LIKE A FLOWER, FRAGILE LIKE BOMB” A COLUMN BY KATE TAYLOR

“Not fra­gile like a flower, fra­gile like a bomb”

Star­ing at the sun

This is the second column by Kate Taylor, where my recov­ery from a men­tal health sec­tion, plus music and philo­sophy are inter­twined. A “world without music would be a mis­take” (Niet­z­sche) and any recov­ery, be it phys­ic­al or men­tal without music would be a travesty.

The sub­head­ing, ‘Star­ing at the Sun’ comes from a book I am cur­rently read­ing by Irvin Yalom, a beau­ti­ful exist­en­tial­ist psy­cho­ther­ap­ist. Death is the biggest taboo we can face in this world, yet it is the one inali­en­able truth we face in life. The sub­title is fright­en­ing, it is “becom­ing at peace with your own mor­tal­ity”. And it is per­haps the bravest jour­ney of our lives. The most fright­en­ing, and the most lonely, as we came alone, though that can be contested.

As RD Laing, the lead­ing psy­chi­at­ric anti psy­chi­at­ric said so suc­cinctly, and with such humour, “Life is a sexu­ally trans­mit­ted dis­ease with a 100% mor­tal­ity rate!”

So, back to the column. I’ve had great feed­back. Both good and bad. But as the old adage says, the best thing is not being talked about at all. And the main thing is watch­ing the rat­ings going up on magazine that I love. Inter­ac­tion, and explo­sion. And this is the very place we aim to be. Fra­gile Like A Bomb.

This very time last year I was being held against my will under sec­tion 2 in St Anne’s hos­pit­al in Tot­ten­ham. I had taken a massive over­dose. That very day I was stopped in the street by a group of women who kept ask­ing if I was OK. No, I thought, I’m not fuck­ing OK, this is the last day on earth for me. They kept repeat­ing the ques­tion and I could­n’t under­stand, per­haps the dis­tress was show­ing on my face.

In a fur­ther coin­cid­ence I painted a pic­ture which my new friend at my flats has admired. Out of interest I picked it up to see the date and saw 29/3/20. The exact date 3 years ago from now. It seemed fit­ting that she have it. At this point 3 years ago I was in Cygnet, a long term unit. How things have moved on.

I awaken this morn­ing and things are very dif­fer­ent. I have gone from a lovely one bed­room flat in a beau­ti­ful area to a stu­dio apart­ment in a rough­er area. But this is the best decision I have made. Had I stayed in this ‘beauty’ I would have died with­in the year. Between my bipolar and my drug addic­tion I would have over­dosed either delib­er­ately or by acci­dent. I’ve had over­dosed in that flat, I’ve had CPR in that flat, I’ve seen things no human should have to wit­ness in this life.

In the past 12 months I have spent 9 months in hos­pit­al. It is time to begin again. Afresh. Now or nev­er. I want to write again. I want to paint. I want to fly again, as I once did. My arms out­stretched like an Eagle. I have a mas­ters degree, I have writ­ten, I have been a ther­ap­ist. But I could­n’t stay well with depres­sion, bipolar, sub­stance abuse.

With wis­dom, com­pas­sion, and wit, Judith Viorst, ana­lyses loss with depth and empathy. I do not intend this to be a somber book. Instead it is was my hope that by grasp­ing, really grasp­ing, our finite­ness, our brief time in the light”.

My final mes­sage from the dream­er: “My vis­ion is bounded by the women of my life and ima­gin­a­tion. Non­ethe­less, I can still see far into the dis­tance. Per­haps that is sufficient ”

“We all face the same ter­ror, the wound of mor­tal­ity, the worm at the core of exist­ence ” (Valom)

Since leav­ing hos­pit­al I have faced a lot of fear. Mov­ing on. Facing the world. I’m so scared of so many things. The song, that res­on­ates with me this week with the sub­ject of fear, and anxi­ety, is aptly called Fear by a band called Blue Octo­ber. Once it would have been neg­at­ive, now Justin Fursten­feld has been mov­ing on to pos­it­iv­ity. “All my life, been run­ning from a pain in me, its been hold­ing me down. The beauty is, I star­ted now to find my peace”.

All my life I have walked around with a degree of pain, as if a piece of me is miss­ing. I was born as one of a triplet, and my baby broth­er died a few weeks later. I was the last one born, and I was pushed around in a incub­at­or with a sign say­ing twin no. 3. As soon as I found out all of the facts I had an unsale­able belief that it was my fault and that I should have been the one that died. I have moved on from this now, but it still arises now and then. Again, a loss we all have to go through.

A song by Mark Laneg­an, a sing­er who I loved since the mid 90s, who died last year had a song called “Fix”: “Gonna watch from the bal­cony, sing back­wards and weep”

“The longer you stare into the abyss, the more the abyss becomes you.” (Niet­z­sche)