30-7-2021: Day 49
The day started with a brighter sunrise, a large brew, and a moment of inner strength and resolve not felt over twenty-four hours. But I could feel the Persian Black Phoenix Rug being slowly pulled from under my feet. The earth underneath was quaking, and the cracks were beginning to splinter outwards.
The Blackheart Man – the name I give to my psychosis – was stalking my every movement, had become my shadow, and was intent on psychological brutality of the highest order.
After a bitter tasting flat white in a surreal café environment, the moves were being made on the chess board, and piece-by-piece there was a real game of the soul being played out. The Blackheart Man and I. I and the Blackheart Man. I & I.
So, I followed the mental drill down, and took to my bed, necking double-weight in downers, praying for it all to end. My partner – a towering angel of strength in times of Crisis – got on the blower to the Community Mental Health Team to sound out a hospital admission on this darkest of dark nights.
The response was emphatic. There was no bed on the hospital wing. The advice given illustrated a clear and transparent litany of failure of the state mental health services – ‘have a cup of tea, take a walk, or do the washing-up’.
I was alone, abandoned, and afraid.
1-8-2021: Day 50
I was on the third day on the battlefield, and the bodies were strewn all over the Trenches. The dead, the walking wounded, and mind-blown combatants were wandering lost through the shadowlands. The Trenches being a familiar zone of conflict of the mind to my drugged-up state, and somehow represented the declaration of mindless chaos endured by soldiers in combat.
The Trenches are deep dugout, reinforced battlelines, and hellish military survivalist networks – which, surely, no awoken soul would wish on their worst enemy.
The enemy was in my crosshairs – the Blackheart Man – my nemesis, my nightmare stalker, my arch tormentor.
His mere words, or bated breath, had me reaching for the secret stash, the white wicker basket of state sponsored medication, and there was no difference on day three. So, I popped 20mg, to wait and see.
5-8-2021: Day 54
The drugs don’t work. In the words of Ashcroft. They just make you worse. The Blackheart Man, or a shadow of his persona, stalked my personal universe last night, as I stirred the final ingredients into a chicken risotto. The waves of paranoia came on strong, like a wicked curse or spell, slowly enveloping itself round myself and my family. I don’t know how much more of this I take. I’m at breaking point, in this battle for my soul.
When this paranoia comes on strong, as it has over the last seven days, it tells a dark and foreboding story. The story is this: I am the one and only good soul on this planet, and everyone else is a demon. The universe is inherently evil. All hope is gone. Oblivion is coming.
The following morning, as I sip gently on a blueberry smoothie, all I feel is hurt, pain and trauma. And taking leave of my senses try and sleep for Britain.