Among Mad People: A Therapist's Notebook (1993 - 1995)
among
mad people
to
make them like us
as,
in the
old
tales, saints
taught
wolves to speak.
Go
to
learn how
we
are and can become
like
them.
Think
instead
of
the prodigal son.
Only
the one
who
falls into
his
"wild living," spending
his
inheritance
among
the poor and
outcast
is of use to me.
What
did you get
life
for? Or the one
about
the talents.
To
hoard it?
Then
that is
your
reward, and what
you
store
will
be taken away.
It
is hard to confess but
"like
us" is a
lie,
a defense, not
healing:
mad people hold
the
medicine
for
souls, keys
to
unlock our dark forests,
if
they will share it.
Not
trying to take it away
so
they
become
lost among
the
malls with us.
It
has a far more familiar sound than I might once have imagined.
But by now it is no surprise.
A disappointment,
almost, how domestic the devils are.
Yet having lived
with them so long, in the closets and covered wells,
the basements and the attics of me, hidden between the leaves
of my albums, how could I not know them, own them?
So
where is the dashing, numinous power who will overwhelm and transcend me?
Where
is the dark, goat-footed god, phosphor fire in his sea-soaked beard,
who would shatter
the walls of my world and carry me
anywhere, up, out,
down, beneath, beyond --
Where
is the archetype whose electric power
will seize me and
strike me, stuck and dancing,
on his terrifying
high-voltage lines,
burning the sap from my
cells?
Peace,
soul: they are here.
But
the way is not that way. Not now.
It
seems to begin in lying down and lassitude,
solitude and
silence and sitting. Punctuated
by sleep, and heat,
and breezes. Visited by
the men and women
who visit madness,
are visited by it,
visit me, receive my visits ...
and letting the stories begin their enfolding unfolding.
Dayroom
Silent
images of cars fly by
outside the window:
their
reflections race at odd angles
across the polished
surfaces
of the plastic desk
accessories:
lighted
bubbles rise, rosy, in the fish tank
toward the water's
pink shiny skin:
pingpong
balls bounce arhythmically off wood
while
voices talk and laugh
and
piano melodies fall into the room,
popping off brick
and linoleum,
not swallowed by
the rug:
a
fan whirls slowly, chopping fluorescent light
into pie slices ...
pardon me,
did
you speak?
Voices
Do
I have voices
people powers
in my head
in my life
who
make things difficult for me
get me in trouble
tell me to do
certain things
in certain ways
who
punish me if I tell?
Luis
does. I do, too.
It
says on his chart
his are hallucinations.
I
call mine family.
What
are the differences?
(these differences
may be important:
Luis is behind bars
all day and all
night;
I visit him
four days a week
and then go home)
Performance Review
Fitting in here
is not about
fitting in here but
about not fitting is
not fitting in here
how i fit
finding
is my work
how I don't fit
again
not in fits of despair
but slipping loose & mad
crazy
is
& free
my here
too
home
there too
peace? peace?
here
too
who cries peace
when there is no peace
except in the struggle
to find peace
Taurus
tore us
open
loose
bleeding
adrift
ecstatic
I
had a style
everyone said they recognized it,
even
I began to --
light,
airy, graceful --
I have it no more!
no more!
in
the shit and the mud and the blood and the dirt
style is denial
Meeting the Emperor
I
met the emperor of the Chippewa nation today.
His
face is on all the bills
("Bill," his name)
but
not everyone can see it -- it's transparent.
You
know, like his broken ankle.
The
ankle was broken by torture:
they've
been torturing him since he was 14 months old.
And
he was kidnapped.
Yes, I know why I'm in the hospital
(he says)
it was because I attempted suicide.
Shot myself
here
(touches the gashes and puckers where
the left side of his mouth twists far into
his face, emptying the space
where a cheek and lower jaw once were)
That was 15 years ago.
I been in the system ever since.
Never tried suicide again. Never even thought about it.
They hung a murder beef on me
after I was incarcerated. But
I was in another state
when the murder happened.
The lady ... the name they told me ... I
didn't
know it, didn't know who ... I was in
another state.
My lawyer beat the charge.
They hauled me back to Minnesota
then sent me back again.
Do I know why I got sent
here?
(a
locked ward in the desert
beside
a freeway)
Probly because of the altercation I was in:
this guy was messing with my girlfriend, hitting on her,
I intervened. He got eight stitches.
I could've restrained him better,
but he was too big -- I was afraid, he was so big,
so that's why I hit him so hard.
Never been in another altercation in 15 years,
15 years in the system.
The
government,
(he has said,
in another room
with one shrink and a desk)
is
after him.
They
want his reasoning computer:
it's
transparent, but they want it.
The
reasoning computer also punishes him:
Got freezer burn in Minnesota.
(Bill also joked loudly
with several other men in group therapy
today, his first day,
upon finding two were guys
he'd known in the last lockup)
Do you know
(he asked the shrink
during the raucous session)
what's going on here?
(But no joking
during a staffing)
I've done hundreds of staffings
(he has told the shrink
in another room;
here, he talks about
suicide and knowing he is mentally ill)
Because I tried to kill myself,
but I beat that one; when I get out
I won't even own a gun
(and wanting to go to a board-and-care
and get a new plastic jaw, and teeth, and lip.
The few teeth he has
fit together perfectly,
the three on the bottom settling
into one of the spaces on top
each time he stops speaking)
The
reasoning computer also kills.
It
froze his blood, which is why
his
ankle and other injuries are transparent.
Now
that he has so much money,
being
emperor and controlling the mint,
(he has told the shrink
in another room)
his
parents are interested in him.
(As Bill talks he rubs
his limbs, stroking the hair
on his arms all in one direction, down,
a movement called conciliatio in Latin,
currying in stables;
Bill strokes his thighs toward his knees
through his slacks;
when not being stroked, his legs
bob up and down rapidly, first one
and then the other)
(He has not told us today about being emperor,
or about the Chippewa of Minnesota, where
he grew up and was punished, or about
the rape and the arson,
also on his record sheets
and not, apparently, dismissed.
He does not know the name
of his new medications. Nor has he said
anything about
frozen blood, transparent wounds or
the reasoning computer.
Or the government or his parents.)
I been in the system 15 years
(he does say)
when you been in that long
it's hard getting out.
Joan
hears
voices
and
does
what
they tell her
tells
who
they point her to
joan
sleeps
alone
in
a room
with
a steel door
drab
colors
everywhere
joan
has
few clothes
no
job
no
family
an
aunt
comes
on tuesdays
sometimes
Would
it
cost
this
much
to
speak my truth?
Practice
the
way of the
therapist:
first
(you draw)
the
boundary
then
(you invite)
complete
disorganization
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