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Return to: A Parent, Caregiver and/or Advocate
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#Post#: 91--------------------------------------------------
What does it feel like to be alone?
By: Randy Date: January 17, 2014, 6:21 am
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After I wrote my book, people started to e-mail me regarding
trying to understand what is going on in the mind of a loved
one. They asked specific questions.
My answers are based upon my opinions, my interpretations, my
research, my experience of dealing with a situation as a 10th
generation member of the Mott family living with a mental
illness, diagnosed as biPolar Disorder, my experiences with
family member of different generations, my experiences in
working at a Community Mental Health Center, my experiences with
working with family members via the NAMI Family to Family class
and my experiences with being a legislative advocate and
activist.
My first post will be my opinion of what it feels like to be
alone:
You, the person who has been told they have a mental illness, is
thrown in to a room, the door locked, and the key thrown away
for all eternity. You were left behind, there are no others,
only you. You find yourself alone forever.
An analogy to solitary confinement would only be a beginning of
an analogy used as a comparison.
You are alone with only your thought. You have been thrown
away, an unwanted outcast. You are self-aware of being nothing,
yet voices run through your mind.
Multiple conversations are mingled together that talk for days,
unending. The mind will haves times of complete silence too. The
longer the silence continues and no interaction with the mind,
becomes as severe as an eternity of conversations talking that
you listen to.
In my mind, the only resolution to stop the voices is
termination. To stop the silence, you do not want to exist.
You yearn for an identity.
You have the fear of going before the master, be it a higher
level entity or the one you idolize the most, where you hear the
words, �I tell you, I do not know where you come. Depart from
me.�
These are not thoughts of suicide, an act of ending your life
due to circumstances that you feel are too pressuring to
overcome. I am focusing on a matter of no identity or
characteristics to demonstrate you have a life of your own.
Another mindset for being alone is that of being in a womb.
While you are going through the evolutions to create human life,
but not complete. You become suspended, the same way a
non-completed painting is put on the shelf for tens of years, or
an unfinished doll puppet hanging on your workshop wall since
grandpa died. You are trapped, incapable of doing anything for
yourself.
Along comes a painter who sees you sitting on the shelf, wipes
you clean and finishes the work of art. A grand painting you
have become. Your son, born with the gift of craftsmanship,
like your grandfather, takes the doll from the workshop wall,
blows off the dust and completes the work your grandfather
started. You are now a prized possession, kept with your
family�s finest china.
When you are finished, you are born to also be a prized
possession. You are complete with all toes and fingers. Yet
sometimes, you are not considered anything special, you are a
liability.
That can also be true with the grand painting, it is not liked
in today�s society and is thrown in the trash, headed towards
the dump. The prized doll is auctioned off with everything in
the china closet deemed to be made inferior in respect to the
finest china made only for royalty. And you, where your family
says, �It would have been better for him if he had never been
born�. These are all negative feelings, robbing you from
self-esteem and self-respect. It�s a devastating feeling of
loneliness.
Can your belief system accept one of these descriptions? Is
there an understanding that makes sense to you? If so, say to
that scenario, �Get over it�, �just snap out of it�, �you�re
lazy, go to work�. Do you believe any of such statements have
meaning to what I described? Can you communicate with someone
who has no idea of who they are? Can you expect an immediate
response? Can you vision an immediate recovery?
I have sat beside an individual where the realization of his
illness has become so strong his equilibrium, his balance of
emotions, failed him. He literally falls over from sitting in a
chair. It appears he has fainted, resulting in hitting the
floor. He has not. He has no symptoms of suddenly becoming
unconscious. It is the realization that he has such an illness
and the impact is so emotionally strong he has lost control over
an involuntary action. He knows he hasn�t fainted and is
offended by attempting to be treated as such. He asks to be
taken home, regardless of the distance, the event being attended
and the importance it was to the person or family volunteering
to take him home? He can only think about himself and how
others are judging him. He would rather be alone, physically
and with his thoughts.
When I was a peer worker, I had 3 new clients to meet. When I
looked at their addresses they were very close to each other.
It was an apartment complex where all 3 were in the same
building, all facing the south.
I knocked on the first door and met a gentleman. He said he was
alone, no one would be able to understand his situation. We had
a good visit. It was just two doors down to see the next
client. She too said she was alone, a lonely person that no one
could understand. I told her that was interesting as I met a
man living two doors down who was also alone. We, too, had a
good visit. I went two more doors down to meet my third
client. She told me she was alone. I told her she was the
hatrick, the third person in 5 apartments who was all alone. It
was a phenomenal coincidence. She smoked and so did I. We
decided to sit out at the picnic table and talk. My lighter was
in my car but when I passed my 2nd client, I remember she smoked
too. I knocked on her door and asked if I could get a lite.
She gave me a lite and asked what I was doing. I told her I
found a person who was all alone, no one would understand her,
you probably would though. She decided she would come out and
have a smoke too. Now I had 2 people, who were previously
completely alone with their thoughts, with me.
I saw the curtain open, ever so little, to the 1st apartment.
Somebody was watching us, obviously the person, the 1st person I
met that day, alone with thoughts. I asked him to join us, and
to my surprise he did! They talked and talked. I don�t think
they ever realized I left.
As a peer worker, your job description includes lowering your
census count, which means I am trying to work myself out of a
job. A few weeks after my visits I learned that Sunday evening
was their Taco Night. Was I ever invited? No. It was a great
feeling of accomplishment, people reaching their first step in
recovery.
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