Mental Illness

Posted on September 17, 2009 by Margaret

A viewer wrote recently and asked about mental illness. It seems a friend of his has suddenly developed schizophrenia and he does not know how to deal with it. Mental illness is a very deep subject and one that, no matter how far you go into it, always has another door to open.

The Self is very much a part of mental illness. It can send you mad if you let it. It is the most abject fear one can have, and it is a way of not facing issues and running away from them. Do not get me wrong. I am not condoning it nor am I without sympathy. I cannot imagine what it is like for people with serious mental illness. I am very aware of mental illness though because I have experienced it a number of times.

The first time was as a child of about 9 years old. My father was a man who I chose, of course, but he was a difficult man to live with. His behavior was so bad that I escaped into fantasy to cope with my life. I was so in fear of going home every day from school because of his mood swings that I ran away and asked the local orphanage to take me in rather than live at home. I truly believed I would die if I stayed in that home environment and I withdrew inside of myself. Photographs of me at that time show a very skinny, anorexic child because I did not eat. I could not eat because my stomach was so in knots from the tension of the house. I was so sensitive that it affected my entire life. As I withdrew I stopped communicating with everyone and went deep within myself to cope with the energy. Finally, after my mother taking me to a doctor and talking to him, I came to the realization of what I was doing. The doctor told me that, if I did not pull myself out of where I had put myself; I would die because my body was so in need of nourishment.

Continued…..