I have had a go at recording a recent psychotic episode, there is a link to it at the bottom of this page. Instead of describing how it felt or what it was like to experience (which I have done elsewhere in Psychic Strain), I have focused on an account of some of the sensations and delusions I experienced. It is not everything by any means, my memory is not good over this period, my sense of time was scrambled and my language is limited when brought to bear on some of it. The intention of this project is to help people understand, to encourage people to imagine themselves in the reality I portray. I hope to render the experiences useful by putting them to work. In doing so I do not want to take the sting out of the experiences or trivialise them in the act of trying to create something from them. Psychosis is a terrifying long term struggle, for many it is suffering which cannot be glibly summed up or captured. The way I see it, creating something from these experiences is my way of taking them seriously and elevating them as significant. (See also Here). Others prefer to keep their similar or more severe experiences private or never get the luxury of relative peace afterwards to create from. I believe there is growth and healing to be gained in learning from these episodes, perhaps those lessons are only for me or perhaps you will find some use for them too.
In this work, after an account which is written as a long haibun there is a series of poems. These poems were all written in the run up to the episode, with the exception of the first and last which were written as I emerged from it. They point to a tension which is characteristic of my episodes. It seems in the early stages the experiences are spiritually rich, as my imagination gets carried away, my energy increases and it all moves too fast for me, I lose ground as it were. From then I swing between the extremes of the psyche, unable to hold that middle space. I am the Second Coming or a monster. It seems that some of the learning is about claiming that middle space where I am, Tom, with my potential and faults. Holding the tension with compassion and a calmness that makes shared reality still possible. Positioning myself as part of connected whole, neither at the centre of it or particularly significant yet unique in the way all things are.
The paintings included in the work were all done by a team of family and friends who looked after me over the two week period when I was unable to live recognisably in this world. The pieces were ongoing collaborations in a fraught time that must have been both hard and claustrophobic for them. Improvising they tried ways of creating a calm space and providing me with something to do that would give me some ground, for the most part I was not able to engage. However, in retrospect I can see how incredibly lucky I was to have their patience and love. Interestingly the colours and shapes in the paintings mirror the images and tone of a recurring nightmare I had as a child, I find this disconcerting.
If I can encourage others to create from their lived experience, I would be happy. If too I could illuminate some further understanding for carers helping people going through psychosis that would be wonderful.
