Clover hearted

Irrational paintings and stories

A chapter about psychosis.
TW: hallucinations, psychosis, alienation, hopelessness

Vivid misunderstanding
You walk into any odd room, any corner store or home and you are in a place where everyone knows more than you.
They know how to move, talk, and live. You know how to do these things but never in the way you should.
They sit still and don't flap their hands when they are happy, they enjoy things without getting too excited, and you get far too excited.
They talk to each other and they understand what they are saying, they speak the same language, you know the words, you have seen them written on walls and you have taught yourself the definitions of them, but it's never the same with you, they were born knowing about humanity and you can only read about it.
You sit in the doctor's office reading the books you've read before rocking yourself gently. You walk through the aisles of the grocery store sometimes muttering to yourself. Maybe you are just another idiot who needs to buy milk, maybe you are an abominable creature that sparks dread and discomfort, sometimes you like being a freak of nature, and sometimes you want to exchange parts of yourself for someone else's less broken bits.
You don't know the world, you probably never could.

Illusion
I watch myself peel back the layers of paint and suck on the candy until it changes color again.
I ask myself the same questions every day.
Am I a shallow breath away from a disconnect so profound that I am not on a different planet but in an entirely different universe? Do I know reality? Will I begin to hear her voice less and less until I stop dialing?
I have to live with myself, more than anyone who you could potentially be burdened by my disconnect and vivid experience of falsehoods. I ask myself what I feel about the person that I am. Can I sit with myself knowing that my comforts are often neurochemical chemical con-jobs? Can I live with false perceptions and peace with the understanding that my perceptions are vivid before they are real.
Elliot, when you are staring at the ceiling by yourself in your bedroom, what do you want? It doesn't matter if they think it's odd to find comfort in hallucinations or if they think it's strange to entertain them, they aren't you, they never will be, I am asking if this is what you want to be?
He looks at me blankly and peels back another layer of lavender paint reading "If I wanted to be as close to reality as I could, to view hallucinations as a fact of my past that eventually was wrung out and evaporated, could I? Is there really any chance that I can choose this?"
He stares at the wall, I stare at him. I guess it never was about what he wanted but rather what he could stomach. Do you want to try another medication that might do nothing but make you sick and stupid? When you are foggy and uncomfortable and nothing has changed, do you want to take a higher dose?
The game is not a question about what he wants but what he is capable of. Maybe there will be more attempts to leave the bitter ocean for the sandy beach and maybe I will only find myself deeper in its unforgiving waters.

Rewriting
It's part of you, you have failed to submerge it, no pill or therapy or anything has peeled this out of your mind, so you can live with it happily or you can live with it unhappily but there is no question of whether or not you will live with it.
Illusions aside, you have an illness that makes it hard to be a real person, you have an illness that makes you dysfunctional. You can paint your face, you can cut your hair, you can wear a different style of clothes, it will always be what it is.
You can define yourself by the standards of something that doesn't exist for you, you can carry around a notebook to measure your shortcomings, endlessly reminding yourself that you are a failure, that you will never be that, you are allowed to do that if you'd like.
You can also write your own definition of a good life. You don't have to align with someone who is structurally different. You are different, but you are not less.
Maybe you dream of someone to share a bed with who loves for what you are and not in spite of what you are. Maybe you dream of working with not against. Maybe you rewrite your dreams to fit yourself in them.

Old fashion TV
You sit on your front lawn and watch the house slowly burn down, when you know it's already gone, what else is there to do?
You seem to stray further every day, your understanding of reality rotting little by little. You watch yourself deteriorate in real time.
The shadows linger in doorways, watching over you, coming a little bit closer, getting a little taller, towering over you.
You can't tell the difference between thoughts and voices and real things. You hear your thoughts outside of yourself. The voices are comforting but you know it's odd to see safety in that.
They see it, they see in the conversations with no one, they see it in the fearful look on your face, they see it when you don't see reality for what it is.
You want to hide a little more every day, it's odd to feel scared of something you once loved, it doesn't feel safe in a room with another heart beat.

Humanize
He looks at you with genuine kindness in him and asks you what song you want to hear today.
You are hallucinating and horrified, you are a bit jarring to look at because you are reacting to things they don't think are real, and you are just another person having a rough day.
You were never anything else.
You are nothing to be afraid of, you are not a personified moral failure, you are a person with an illness who's scared.
You are just like everyone else.
We all cry. We all hide. We all shake. We all fall apart.