Mindless Passage of Time

Not originally written by me, but, edited and rewritten by me, through addition, subtraction, etc. As soon as I can remember how to contact the woman who wrote the original, I shall let you know. She asked me to do the editing and such, by the way. Ah, here she is:!

Mindless passage of time.

An idyllic world outside the mind does exist.
Proving it could be deadly.
“For my babies, without you I wouldn’t have made it through the mine field that is my manic mind. Mummy loves you, always.” ~ signed, YOU
Paint on my cruel or happy face  I hide me behind it
It takes me inside another place where no-one can find it
Escape I get out when I can
Escape Anytime I can
Escape I'm crying in my beer
Escape Just get me out of here
Don't get me wrong  Don't get me right I'm not like you are
When I get home from work at night I'm blacker and bluer
So I escape I get out when I can
Escape Anytime I can
Escape I'm crying in my beer
Escape Just get me out of here
Where am I running to? There's no place to go
Just put on my makeup and get me to the show
Yeah  Escape
My doctor said just come around You'll be taken care of
And while he ran my problems down  I stole his mascara
That's how I escape I get out when I can
Escape Anyway I can
Escape I'm crying in my beer
Escape Just get me out of here
Escape
               ~ Alice Cooper



FOREWORD:
My reality.


In reality, there is no reality, not for me. In my mind, there is only manic restlessness. Reality is the landing pad, aimed for, but, never reached. Pain bubbles up, in, through existence. It might be something like reality, but, it's not exactly something to cling to, then, is it?

Escape from the pain which dwells within my soul comes to me when I sink away from this striving to grab hold of that elusive state, that myth called reality, and, instead, I sink into the world of my own imagination.

This story  is a fictitious piece, based around the emotional facts of my life, and was written at the peak of a manic episode, which lasted several months. It took eight weeks to write. No actual reality was harmed in the writing of this story, and any resemblance born to what you believe to be reality, yours or mine, is mere coincidence.

I am bi-polar, and I do have children, but only three of them. My survival is based around the welfare and mental health systems, and this, my escape. I need to escape my mind, both what it does to itself and what the medications  do to it, and writing is the only way I know how to do it.

I will not let the medication steal my creativity.









Foreword Too:
My reality

I was asked to help with this book on some date that I cannot remember, by a friend whose name I only vaguely remember. I remember her ID on the art site where we met, better.

We have grown to friendship through shared adversity, understanding of the troubles of attempting to live as “normal” despite that “normal” is far less colorful or interesting, and is full of unnecessary limitations. So, why do we want to live that way?  For my part, it is because it's hard to afford a plate of linguine from a fine, Italian restaurant, if you've just been arrested for being “not normal”.

We share some of the same understanding, but, not due to the same cause. For me, it is mostly untreated health issues, which led to severe allergies and Fibromyalgia. I have to avoid certain foods, like the tasty little plagues they are, or I hallucinate, or worse. Sort of like a cross, I say, from what little observational experience I have, between someone snorting coke and dropping acid, at the same time. If, in fact, they wouldn't cancel each other out. I do not know these things! I just know I'm not normal.

Apparently, there was some opposition as to this book even having been written in the first place, and said lovely lady who wrote the original rough draft could find no one, that could be afforded, to give her the help she needed. So, I was going to help her with editing, and it became something a little more labor intensive; but, a labor of love.



Isabella's Reality


Chapter 1   Island in the stream .. of consciousness

      This has been very difficult to write, as the only resource I have is my medicated mind. All those lessons I learnt as a child, are lost in the abyss that is my unfocused and sedated mind. I hated history, and am no good with dates; but, I hope to share with you the gist of how our culture operated, how my life has been, all the same.

Now, in my adulthood, I can see that my childhood was inundated with persons who held high ideals of love, trust, respect and peace. It was a small society based on nurture, more than nature. There was room to grow through trial and error, and to err was never to fall from grace. Life was a learning experience, shared by all. Never since,have I seen such loving acceptance. As idyllic as my old world now seems, as I gaze lovelingly upon it where it lies shining in my imagination, or memory, back then I was eager to escape. The reasons for this were plentiful.

Imagine being isolated from the world at large, with only the same few people to share life with, day in, day out.  It got so that I could read every emotion, no matter how slight, ever felt, in the varience of movement in the wrinkles on their brow or appearance of a laugh line. I looked at their faces, and I saw their life story.

Back then, when I looked at someone, I didn't want to know their whole life story. Surprises are the spice of life, and all the spice had been sucked dry from having been left to sit alone, too long, under the hot, looming sun.

Too, the slight movements of facial expression changed, not upon their face, but, inside my head. Now, they were read as expressions of contempt.  The gleam and lustre of their eyes, the set of their teeth, no longer showed themselves to me as expressions of the pure love they had for me. They appeared as something else, not quite defined, but, sharp and cutting.

The island was not the life for me, so I thought. For I was under the misguided assumption that if I was away from their familiar faces, thoughts, deeds, ways of speech, then they would cease to whirl behind my eyes in that disconcerting fashion with which they had begun to dance.


I put my mind to work, thinking of how to find a new life;  which thinking always led to what evolved, over time, into this life of living within one's dreams. I dreamed of globe trotting. The dreams led to plans of escape, first from the island to a new and exciting life and, then, from the Commander.

I spend my days in inner turmoil, wracked with remorse and with a question whirling through my head, where their faces used to dwell. “Why, oh why, oh why did I not see how idyllic my world really was?” I ask myself.  However, I do not reply, choosing, instead, to leave myself moping for hours on end. Longing for the days of safety, for my island home, for the familiar faces with their tell-tale signs of lives well lived, I want to go home!

There is just one thing that stands in my way. Home exists in my heart, in my dreams, but, does it, in fact, exist; or is it simply the product of a tortured mind seeking refuge ?

I can smell the salted wind, in my memory, as well as I remember the twinkle in every once beloved eye. How could I doubt? Yet, if it does exist, then, why is it that no one can find it?

It is not on any map, nor do my memories of it correspond with my life as remembered by other people who believe they have been a constant part of it.

This makes me doubt my memories of the island. Don't think you have escaped my skepticism, though; because I have lived in my life, I have seen the island, lived within a community, read the lines on their faces, those memories are so vivid that they can,t possibally be manufactured. If my reality is non-existent, what does it say about yours? I doubt your life, too. In fact, I don't know your face half so well, as the faces of the people that I am told never existed at all.

So, if you say the island does not exist, how do I know that you are not some hallucination, some delusion, being manufactured inside me to excuse my betrayal of what I should have cherished. How do I know that you exist?

How do I know that I exist?

Chapter Two: The Savage Heart

I , Abigail Savage, am not suited to the rigors and travails of an ordinary life, fully lived. I do not have the ability to shed these emotions which must be suppressed to fit within the tiny confines of such existence.

 They must be expressed, they must be acted on. Life should be one grand adventure, perilous journeys into the dark recesses of wild places – jungles and hearts – until the glass is no longer half full, or half empty, but it is in a constant state of overflowing until it has been drained dry and adventure must begin again. That is how life should be.

Ordinary life is white bread, left out to dry, with flies landing on it. Sure, you can take a bite out of it, but,why in the hell would you want to? Particularly, if it cuts into your tender flesh when you try, and the maggots squirm between your teeth.

I do live an ordinary life, yes. I slog from this place to that, suppressing my better nature(s) through medication, self discipline, until I am almost oppressed enough to pass for one of you people who actually seem to prefer your life this colourless.
But, I am not meant to live this way. An ordinary life is not acceptable to one who feels as I feel.

Only I can make my life extraordinary. Only I accept that to feel deeply is not to feel wrongly. Only I know that my island is real.

My life was, once, extraordinary; only I didn’t recognize it as so, at the time. Now it’s simply a mess, an ordinary, socially acceptable mess, and the only outlet I have is creating. For hours on end, I remain awake, working on project after project.

So many sleepless nights means a need of more medication. This leads to more anxiety. It is a vicious cycle. Today, it stops. Oh, I hope it stops!

Today, I have sat myself down and have begun to write, spewing forth upon the paper you now hold in your hand, all that was boiling up inside me, seeking to erupt forth from my soul. This is my purging, the emptying of the glass, because elewise done, this life will drown me. Here is my bitterness, my anguish, the engulfing apathy, for your perusal. You might want to wash your hands, when you are done.

Please don’t take as gospel, the truths I offer. They are my truths and morals based upon my life. If you want to take anything as gospel, that I write here, take this: patience is the true path to wisdom and self control.

I have been patient, for so long. I have not allowed myself to be creative in such a very long time. When I let go, and slide down into the pool of creativity, it is like sipping the nectar of the gods. Of all the manias possible, creative mania is the best, deepest craving. It is a sweet slice across the soul that releases the poisons hidden within.

I can create, and should I trade that for “sanity”? I can create as many as 60 portraits over a weekend, and all sorts of silk paintings, usually of flowers, which seem to sell the best. I sign them with the initials IW and Jules sells them at the markets. Now the mania is gone.

The more and more I write, the more and more I become manic again. I don’t really want to be writing. I need to be creating with clay or painting, perhaps some sculpture. The ability to want to create is not within me at the moment, for want and need are not the same thing. That is why I am writing again. Back to the purging: perhaps it will bring life back to my soul.

I have almost reached the pinnacle of patience. I have a seemingly endless flow of answers that come to me in my manic or psychotic states. At what point do I become psychotic, as opposed to manic?

In my mania I create, in my psychosis I buzz around putting myself at risk by drinking and smoking mary jane excessively. “What?” you ask? “Smoking what?” You heard me!  The cones don’t mix well with the medication and half the time I induce a panic attack. This does not deter me from smoking, because the other half of the time I feel great and very creative.

Thank God for small mercies. The Commander was a total waste of oxygen. No amount of good would ever change him.  When thoughts of him enter into my mind, I shut them out by repeating “Be not afraid for tomorrow, God is already there.” Over and over, quelling the emotional upheaval that begins at the sheer memory of it, him. Then I have a cone or maybe three.

“Bastard”

Once I am calm “Be not afraid for tomorrow, God is already there.” I transport my self to the utopia in my mind.

After being locked away for so many years, they simply scare me, people that is. A simple hello is enough to send me into a tizzy, it takes days to get over the guilt I feel at being so pathetic. I need my medication. Does it help? Yes, it does a wonderful job of getting rid of the symptoms and calming the mood. My son Samuel once said that we are a ship, the wake is the past, the vessel is here and now and the water ahead the future. You drive your own ship. Some times it feels as if you are being sucked into the wake, again you are in control and only you can get yourself back on track.

I am confused, I have no identity. Am I 30 or 27 I believe it is 27 but still play the game for the mental health advocates. I keep my past locked up in my soul.  Confusion reins and my identity remains lost to me!

This is not a life that I really feel in. Though I love my children and am happy to be free, I yearn for something tangible. Soft lips against mine, quivering all over. I am not craving the carnal act but the intimacy that it beholds. I will covet myself, chaste till Dante real or imagined, once again crosses my path.  

Searching for the utopia of my childhood real or imagined has become a full time occupation. I couldn’t remember my last name for many years it was Julie who showed me the truth. The truth makes me cry.

I am totally lost, a lost soul longing for freedom.

Chapter Three: Abbey rode

   The authorities still call me Abby Parker. Isabella is my name, they say. They believe it! To them I am Isabella, this is the way I have been born, and this is the mold into which they will squish every acceptable bit of Ms. Savage, before trimming off all the bits that are not Grade A Prime and ready for public consumption. It is hard to reject her, this Isabella. She seems a nice one, and when I am not causing her trouble, she is a good mother, a good friend, and, despite her steady lifestyle that would send me clawing at the walls, I think I could love her. Still, she is not one of us, from the island, and even if she believes she is me, I cannot stay. She hampers my progress. Imagined or not, I will find, again, my little utopia.  


Which life is real, who am I? Does it matter? People with fancy badges and gavels, they say that the birth certificate for Abigail Savage is as forged as the passport for one Abigail Parker. They say that it was very wrong to make them so, and that only the papers for  Isabella de Warnaar are real, because only Isabella is real. They say this loud and clear, and I remember the sounds of sea gulls at the beach, and wonder if the sounds are in competition, may the loudest caw win!

So, for the purposes of relieving my soul, which shakes in fear of a possible mundane truth, while stoking the fires of my creativity, and, perhaps reaching the eye of someone who will recognize me as the lost girl from the island and come to my rescue, I place before your eyes, my memories.


Chapter Four: Aye, Aye  Commander Blighe!

In the beginning of my life with the Commander, they, being the mental health professionals, preferred to keep me medicated. Nothing cognitive to offer, only tablets and more tablets. Being medicated stops all the mania; it also brings an abrupt halt to all creativity. How is this not cruel and unusual punishment? Or, a hate crime against one who cannot help the “accident' of their birth?

Down my gullet they went: Valium, 20mg’s daily,and Zyprexia, 40 mg’s daily. This all made for one very sleepy little Izzy, or Abby. Yet, let us not forget the 2000 mgs of Lithicarb. I prefer to think it is Izzy who was medicated, forced into near unconsciousness, because. in my heart, I believe that I have dwelt in utopia, and if I can keep hold of my sanity, shed this sleeping Izzy, it is to utopia that I may once again flee.

 I remember nothing of Abigail Savage's life, in truth. Abby Parker is the demon that keeps me awake all night, and my soul hollow and empty. It is hard to breath,in the anxiety-grasped carcass I have become. I breathe deeply, inhaling in defiance, to remind myself that I am still here. No matter who I am at least it is real, this breathing, and I am alive; and coping with love in my heart, surrounded by faith.

I am Isabella, here in this reality or facsimile thereof, and, since my release from the clutches of the Commander, I have attempted, through many means, to disprove it as imagined falsehoods, to tear down its walls or find the  door by which I may depart. All to no avail. My reality does not exist, here in this one not of my construction or desire. The island did not exist as far as I could tell. Perhaps my real life is the serenity I draw from the imagined memories.

I’m simply venting. Venting is good when it is not aimed at another and its only result is freedom form the misery locked deep within the soul. Venom, however, is a different story.

Venom! I release this with my words and, slowly, it becomes nectar; smooth on my mind, no longer invoking the anger inside until it becomes a tangible cloud of darkness, filling the air and blocking out all the good this place has to offer. So much has spilled forth, leaking out from  my very bone marrow, so that, since those dark days of my incarceration, I have become easier to live with, less volatile, so that it is tangible, thick in the air. Soothing me as the days since my incarceration increase, and I become easier to live with, less volatile.

The day we walked out of that home was the day I took Ean’s father away from her. She loved him with a passion I did not yet understand. Something was going on in her mind I needed to set it free. Until I find my utopia I don’t believe that I can help her. She needs to feel the reality of her life. Her reality is a lie like mine.

Am I too focused on my own recovery should my focus be on her and the boys first? The babies are fine and love the new house and all the grass they have. Soft grass without bindi’s. How we managed to get away still has me mesmerized, we even took the kid’s bikes. Julie had explained the bikes away as the commander buying new ones every year and the kids would always donate last years bike. We had to buy helmets.

To them I have taken away the only father they have ever known. The person I knew was not the same man they knew. He was the giving man, every trip away he would without fail return with gifts, my self included. These gifts were always well thought out, exotic fabrics or perfume for myself and the state of the art toys for the boys. Ean always liked to look beautiful so mainly clothing from around the world. Then occasionally they would see bruises on me or hear a scream or cry. They knew but we all choose to ignore it.

I had to find utopia and quick otherwise I will be lost to my children forever.

Even now they doubt my supposed identity. They all believe the lies the commander told. That makes me Abigail Savage and I simply don’t remember her. Not remembering her was killing me.