“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)
Kate Taylor
