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

By Kate Taylor • On Health And Wellbeing


“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)

The fol­low­ing two tabs change con­tent below.

Kate Taylor

Kate Taylor is a Lon­don based writer whose Interests are based primar­ily on music and art and also the philo­sophies and polit­ics that accom­pany them. In addi­tion she has an Msc in psy­cho­logy, has worked as a ther­ap­ist, and paints abstract art pieces.

About Kate Taylor

Kate Taylor is a London based writer whose Interests are based primarily on music and art and also the philosophies and politics that accompany them. In addition she has an Msc in psychology, has worked as a therapist, and paints abstract art pieces.