Madness 847: The Rational Self in the Storm

I did several versions of this piece - I made it in a flurry of creativity, and stayed up all night, without sleeping to make it.  It was kinda crazy, but it was like, madness overtook me, and I couldn't stop, I made it in a frenzy.  I thought, at first, that I was done when I got to "Madness Cold & Sharp" (below), but then I kept working on it, coz I wanted to make the shapes more jaggedy and random.  And as I was doing that this face sorta appeared in the middle.  It's hard to see, but if you look closely at the very middle of the piece, you can see what looks like a woman's face, screaming, or horrified, with two very open eyes and an open mouth, and her hair swept into an up-do.  When that face started to take form, I got very excited, and tried to bring out the face more and more - only thru manipulation and filters tho.  I did't wanna draw it in coz, first of all I don't really do that kinda work so it'd prob look really clumsy, but second of all I liked the magic of it forming out of the mad scramble of figures.  I wanted it to look like it was part of that deranged scramble, that whirling vortex of jagged madness - I wanted it to look like the horrified, scared, but still somewhat rational, inner Self, that's in the middle of the storm.

The reason why I felt like i was losing my mind was because in a way, I had - I lost a good deal of my brain's capacity coz I suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury nine years ago, and it turned my life upside down.  A lotta people read my writing and think "this person must be fine," but you have to understand, I was a writer before I got hurt.  I know writing comes hard to some people, but it's easy for me (I can't do math or budget money or fix cars or do a lot of stuff that comes easy to other people). I can, literally, write as fast I can think (I'm doing it now).  I worked a high pressure job, and had to write scripts, grant proposals, grant reports, letters to principals, lesson plans, theatre arts exercises, pedagogy, teaching philosophy. And I didn't have a lot time to write those things, so, I got really good at spewing.  Only, back then, I was also good at editing.  If you actually read my Art Descriptions, I'm sure you'll notice, I'm no longer so good at editing.  I couldn't write a play, or even a good grant proposal, now to save my life - you can't only spew those out, you have to edit them, take out every extraneous word, parse them down.  I can't do that part very well, if at all, anymore.  I certainly don't have the energy to teach, or to put on a play - my Goddess, you have no idea how much work goes into putting on a theatrical production if you've never done it.  Especially if you're doing original work - with children.  I lost those abilities, and I had built my life around those ability. 

I've often felt, with all the confusion and problems incumbent with a traumatic brain injury (TBI), and the chronic pain, plus the gender dysphoria I suffer being transsexual in this culture, and losing my ability to create in the way I'd built my life around, that i am slipping into madness, but while somehow holding onto my logic and reason.  I feel like i've been at the edge, looking down that rabbit hole for a while now, but i've managed to maintain this reasoned distance, as if i were a tourist.  "Oh, look Mabel, there's the rabbit hole to madness, just look at all the poor crazies down there, my word, i'm glad i don't have to live down there."  But then the ground at the edge of the rabbit hole began to give way, and i felt myself slipping down.  I totally lost it one night, smashing some beautiful Goddess statues i owned.  I was laying on the floor, doing my lil before bed exercises, thinking about my situation.  You see, having a TBI, is very limiting.  I'm only able to get out of the house 2 or 3 days a week, for a few hours.  Mostly I do my grocery shopping, and chore shopping, and slip in some fun shopping; and go to appointments, and take walks for exercise, and now I take photos.  But, back then, I wasn't really doing that.  My only artistic outlet was writing - writing rambling, unorganized essays, spewing my thoughts about having a TBI, being transgender, or about politics, or posting comments on social media websites, or taking photos on my cellphone.  

I have a Sleep Displacement Disorder, associated with my TBI as well.  My neurologist told me about it, and I've read about it in literature given to me by cognitive therapists.  It's very common for people with TBI's to have erratic sleep schedules.  My neurologist told me that were not all born to be "morning people," some people are "nightengales," some people are "night owls."  They used to say that about people, you're either a lark or a nightengale.  Right before I went on disability the earliest I could get to work was noon, so I left the office at 8pm.  When you work in the theatre you can do that, but it was weird being in the office all by myself, coz most of the office staff left at 5pm.  When I stopped working, I no longer had that structure forcing me to get up at a certain time - I started going to bed at 4am, then 6am, then 8am, then 10am.  It was kinda weird at first, but eventually it became horrible. I was so off from everyone else.  It's hard to call businesses or organizations when you're usually waking up at 3pm and the fuzz doesn't leave your mind until 6pm.  It's hard to call friends when you need to talk to someone.  I do my grocery shopping after 7pm, when the store is less crowded.  

When people invite me to lunch, or to a picnic, or things that happen in the day, I can rarely go, coz I just can't get myself to places by, like noon, when I usually go to bed at 10am - it isn't much easier when I go to bed at 6am for that matter.  My sleep schedule being so off only increases my feelings of lunacy - I'm most awake in the night, when everyone else is asleep, and when the world is starting to wake up and get active, I'm going to bed.  Plus, I can rarely get 8 hours of sleep when I go to bed so late - it's bad enough waking up in the afternoon, but waking up when it's dark out really sucks.  THAT feels like lunacy.  At my absolute best, when I'm feeling well, I can get to bed consistently at 4 - 5 am.  At my worst I've regularly gone to bed at 1pm.  A month or so before I made this piece i was doing really well for someone with a TBI.  I had friends I would hang out with in clubs, or we'd go out shopping, or just take walks together.  Going dancing at a club is actually really easy for me, coz i'm always up late anyway, and my brain functions best in the night time - I'm a Night Owl.  

So, I was doing really good at that time, keeping up with friends, I had two really good friends I hung out with, I was going to bed at 4am, and getting 8 hours of sleep.  I was able to get out of the house three times a week.  My pain levels were fairly under control.  Then, I had this week when'd been out three days in a row, for appointments, but then, since i was up, I took advantage and hooked up with friends.  On the last day of the three, i went out to a club where a friend of mine deejays.  There weren't many people there when I first got there.  Me and my friend were chatting and sorta swaying to the music.  All of a sudden this tall, pretty, amazon of a woman came up to us and started dancing with us.  My deejay friend is lesbian, and drop dead gorgeous, and has a lot of friends, and women who flirt with her, so I assumed the Amazon knew her.  My friend had to relieve her partner deejay and go spin, so I danced with the Amazon.  She told we had met before, at a friend of mine's house - I couldn't remember her, coz my TBI makes my memory swiss cheese - it has big holes.  We danced together for a while, and she complimented me, and said she loved dancing with me, and invited me to this Comedy show she was putting on the next night.  

When I got home i found the Amazon on facebook, and we became friends, and then she invited me to a party after the comedy show.  Going out four nights in a row, is hard for me.  I knew I wouldn't be able to do it, but i really wanted to.  I don't often meet women who are interested in me, and this woman was an Amazon, and I get weak in the knees for Amazons.   So, the next evening, I got up, and decided I'd try to go out.  I got ready, cleaned up, got dressed, put on my makeup.  I was moving really slow, and my head kinda ached, but I kept pushing, coz i really wanted to make this connection with this Amazon woman. I got in my car, with my headache starting to pound, but I pushed thru it.  I started driving, but as I got to the freeway, my headache became tortuously bad - i could barely drive.  I took the next exit - altho that's not an accurate way of saying that - my body just drove onto the exit ramp, i was no longer really in control  I don't know how I got home without getting into an accident.  

When I got home, I laid down on my couch.  My headache was super bad.  There are times, when my headache will get super bad, when all i can do is lay down, and try not to move, or even think very much.  I can't close my eyes coz i'll get sickeningly dizzy, and i can't turn out the lights - all i can do is lay there and endure the pain.  That's how bad my headache got.  Usually that sorta headache is temporary - it will go on for a night, then i'll be better in the morning.  But not this one.  I had this terrible headache for days, weeks.  I didn't leave the house - at all.  I had to have friends and my daughter bring me groceries.  My sleep schedule got really bad again.  Watching television and being on the computer were the only two activities i could reasonably handle.  I had all these photos on my computer from my cellphone camera, and I began to manipulate them.  A friend of mine visited me, and brought me a polaroid - the day after i went mad in fact - so this piece of art was made from the first photos taken with the polaroid.

The night i went mad and smashed the statues i was really depressed.  I'd been doing so well before, but i was back to being in such terrible pain i could barely leave the house.  I was laying on the floor, doing my lil night time exercise routine, thinking about the night i was struck down.  The night i went out, when i knew i shouldn't, was because i wanted to make a possibly romantic connection - which, in a way, was forlorn and stupid, coz i'm celibate as far as intercourse goes anyway.  I stood up.  I was standing right next to my altar, with the Goddess statues - statues of Venus and Aphrodite - and i was so mad.  I was so mad coz i felt that the universe was being so mean to me.  So I picked up one of the statues, and cursed it, throwing it across the room.  I wanted to throw it against the wall, but a little bit of reason poked thru, so i threw it on my couch instead.  Then i took my other statue and did the same thing - only, I threw the second one on top of the first one, and they broke.  

I started crying then.  I pretended i didn't care i'd broke my precious Goddess statues.  I went to my bedroom to get ready for bed - but then i had this mad idea.  I grabbed the baseball bat i keep by my bed for protection, and went into the living room.  I wanted to smash the statues to pieces.  I wanted to smash everything in my house, in fact.  I wanted to put that bat thru every piece of art on my walls, and smash my entire altar, and the TV...  But that little bit of reason poked up.  I picked up the pieces of the statues - there were four of them at that point - and took them to my back patio.  I threw them on the ground, and tried to smash them with the bat, but that wasn't very effective.  But throwing them on the cement, I found, was very effective.  I threw pieces of statue to the ground, over and over and over again, as the sun was rising.  Every piece that was big enough to throw I picked up and threw again.  It was a wild moment, and it felt so good.  Too good.  Scary good.  

I wanted to keep smashing things, but i didn't.  I regained my reason, and felt my calm return.  That terrible, emotionless calm, that keeps us from destroying things, but also, it felt to me at that time, kept me from feeling.  About a week later, i slipped into madness again - i'd woken up after the sun went down, and i could see that i was losing everything i'd worked so hard for - going to bed at a reasonable hour, a social network, being able to leave the house!  I wanted to take my bat, and go outside - in my pajamas, without putting on makeup or anything - and smash in every car window i was. I was crying and screaming, and i threw myself on the floor to keep from going into my bedroom for the baseball bat.  Then i decided to call for help.  I looked up "Suicide Hotline" but there was nothing listed - then i started laughing, mad, insane laughing, how ironic was that.  I looked up "Mental Health Hotline" and found nothing again, and the mad laughter grew.  Then i remembered something.  Every time you call a medical or mental health establishment in my area - or maybe it's thruout the state - they tell you that no one is available and to call 911 if it's an emergency, or the Mental Health Crisis line, and they give you a phone number.  So, I called my therapist's office, and got the number.  

At first, the woman who answered was being somewhat confrontational.  "Do you have a therapist" - yes, but it's fricking 3 am, I can't call her now!  But eventually she was able to talk me down from the tree - or, to keep my metaphors strait, to pull me out of the rabbit hole, and my calm returned again.  I emailed my doctor about this, and asked if there was anything else medical science could do for me, or i was just going to have to live on the edge of madness all the time. She's actually a great doctor, and dealt really well with me bombing her email with crazy, rambling, lunatic emails.  She gave me a toradol shot, and ran some tests, and found out i have a low thyroid.  The toradol made my headache go far away, and that day I started this piece.   

I began taking medication for the low thyroid, and since then, that feeling of falling into madness has faded.  I'm still on the edge of the rabbit hole, but I'm back to being a tourist, only looking down.  The weird thing is, i kinda miss the madness. We really aren't allowed to fully express our emotions in our culture - too many of our feelings are labelled as negative and we are constantly being told to stuff those feelings. The allure of madness - to be able to just express without any holding back - can be extremely enticing. What we need are more opportunities when we can express our emotions in healthy ways - especially the hard emotions, like sadness, grief and despair, feelings people would rather stuff away. Then, madness would have less of an allure i think, and we'd have less people in our Mental Health hospitals.

THE MADNESS SERIES:
Madness Cold & Sharp              Like Broken Glass                 Madness 300
                

MADNESS THE PATTERNS
From chaos, came order.  From a group of statues, smashed in a moment of madness, i created the abstract works of shattered disorder above - but then, i took that abstract bedlam, and flipped it over, dissolved those two versions together, then used the mirror function, to create an extremely structured pattern.  Admittedly, I enhanced the first pattern image a bit using color filters, to bring out the pattern better:

Madness The Pattern
         

I took "Madness The Pattern," and enhanced it using color, masking and even the Xray filters on Image Tricks:
Madness The Pattern IV        Madness The Pattern II