Tag Archives: war

The Cost Of Terror

14 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in travel, writing

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This morning schizophrenia doesn’t seem like such a big topic. It doesn’t seem quite as pressing as usual. It certainly isn’t on the forefront of my mind.

I am thinking of Paris. I am thinking of all those innocent people who lost their lives and how their families are grieving and how the witnesses will probably suffer psychological disturbances for the rest of their lives.

I am thinking there was a time when I used to say, “Mom, I’m going to ride my bike,” and I would be outside until my mother blew a whistle to call all four of her children in.

I am thinking of a time when I went door to door by myself, in neighborhoods that were not my own, and sold Girl Scout Cookies.

I am thinking about a time when I walked to school and back home again, or walked several miles to a friend’s house.

I am thinking of a time when schools didn’t have metal detectors.

I am thinking of a time when flying on a plane was unusual, and most of the people I knew had never done it.

I am thinking about a time when going to another country was exotic not something people did for business or their annual vacation.

I am thinking of a time when I had never heard of the word terrorist.

I am thinking of a time when we were not at war.

I am thinking of a time when murder wasn’t on the nightly news.

I am thinking of a time when we owned bb guns and had never heard of an AK47.

I am thinking of a time when I was so excited to go to a baseball game or a move theater and my safety never occurred to me.

I am thinking of a time when the only monsters I knew of were under my bed or in my closet, but would disappear as soon as my parents or brothers turned on the lights.

I am thinking of the loss of innocence and how we never get it back again.

I am thinking of all the murders we have to try and live with on a daily basis. How much terror is too much terror? What will happen to us if as adults we can no longer grieve the sheer number of those murdered? Will it destroy our hearts?

Having Dreams and Having Schizophrenia

19 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, travel, writing

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I frequently tell people not to let schizophrenia steal your dreams. I have said, “Your dreams may change, but don’t let schizophrenia steal them.” What does that mean for someone who has symptoms every day, but still has a heart full of dreams they want to experience?

There is a writing fellowship that I want to apply for, and if I were chosen, it has the potential to change my life, but as a participant, I would have to go to another city for a month.

The first consideration is getting there. I rarely travel without my husband (on a few occasions I have flown to one of my parent’s houses by myself). What if while I was there, in a strange city, by myself, that I had a panic attack? My husband and I rarely spend any time away from one another. I feel like my husband is an extension of my body, and to be removed from that would be disorienting and painful.  If I had symptoms of paranoia (which are frequent for me) there would be no one to talk to me about reality. I know I would experience extreme homesickness which can make a person physically ill.

I’ve never lied and said that having schizophrenia is easy. I have said, “We need to work harder than other people,” and I believe that is true. We have to work harder just to get to the place where others are waiting on the start line. In order to get the finish line, we may have to battle monster after monster and still keep our feet and arms moving.

This disease is not for the faint of heart. I believe people with schizophrenia are some of the strongest and most courageous people I know – we fight real stigma, discrimination, and at the same time we fight the war that goes on in our minds. We also know that there are often casualties of war – I’m not going to let my hopes and dreams be one of those losses.

Those things and more are the mountain in front of me, but I have decided to submit an application to the program. If I get to the point where I am actually accepted into the program, I will begin worrying about the gear I will need to make that climb.

The strange thing about having a good life while living with schizophrenia is that you constantly have to overcome obstacles to get to the desserts. Where do we get the energy and resources to put up the fight every day? I don’t know. I do know that some days I am better at making my way up the mountain, to the finish line, to the dessert table than others.

No matter what, I keep moving though and I know there is chocolate lava cake just around the next corner and I want to get there, sit down, and take a bite.

Let’s get moving, there is certainly enough cake for everyone, and it’s no fun eating it without your fellow warriors.

From the Universe to the Personal: How Big is Your Worldview?

29 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by in mental illness, schizophrenia, writing

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Two nights ago I stood on the roof of my building with my husband to look at the moon. It was a pinkish orange color. It was the first time in my life that I saw the moon look like a basketball that I could pluck from the sky. My husband thought it looked like a balloon. On every other night that I have seen the moon it is like a flat disc cut out of paper and placed on the sky. Two nights ago, you could see that it was round and full and three dimensional. I was also lucky enough to see a shooting star for the first time in over ten years.

Climate change is a threat to us all. We need to work together to lessen our impact on the environment. We need to pollute less, plant more trees, practice sustainable agriculture, walk more, drive less, stop buying, buying, buying.

There are wars in various parts of the world. People are frightened. People are dying. People are running to save their lives. We need to teach children about peace, harmony and tolerance. We need to curb power hungry people, greed, and extremism.

In the United States the stock market has been falling for over a month. The government may shut down again in a few short days. We owe billions of dollars to other nations. People live in the streets. Children go hungry. We imprison more people than any other country. People don’t have access to the health care they need.

In California there is a drought. There are wildfires. There is supposed to be a heavy rainy season that will bring floods and mudslides. There is always the risk of sink holes and earthquakes.

My mother has leukemia. My husband has an autoimmune disease.

I have schizophrenia.

If You Don’t Like to Read About God, Skip This Post

05 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by in writing

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I saw a three-year-old boy in a red shirt and blue shorts, and baby shoes on his tiny feet. He was face down in the sand on the beach with the waves the only life left near his body.  And I wept because his death was man-made and with no consequences for the world that let him down.

Several of my nieces and nephews are atheists and we have had many discussions about Christianity, religion in general, faith and belief in God. So often, people will say “If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?” And my response is always the same, “The majority of suffering is man-made.”

I believe that God gave us most of the resources to prevent suffering, but we choose greed, politics, hatred, self-interest and a number of other things as a reason not to respond. There is no good excuse for anyone on the planet to go hungry. We have the resources to feed the world, and yet, there are people in the United States who are hungry, and people starving in various places of the world. We have the technology and money to provide clean water, and sanitation to the world, and yet it doesn’t get done. We have the means to vaccinate children to protect them from so many diseases that cut their lives short. And then there are the unspeakable tragedies of war – man-made killing and suffering at its most extreme, violent, and hateful.

Of course there would still be death and suffering even if we used our resources to truly help one another, but how different those deaths would be, and how different the experience of suffering would be if the person who was ill, or injured, or who had lost their home and family to an earthquake or tornado, knew that the world was a caring, gentle place, and that people would work together to ease their pain as much as possible.

Open arms. Open hearts. Open wallets. Action. Dedication. Compassion. Love.

You can tell me that “A Good God wouldn’t allow so much suffering.” And I will tell you that humanity is responsible for most of that suffering.

I saw the father of the three-year-old weeping. At first he held his three-year-old son, and then when that boy drowned, he held his five-year-old son, and when that boy drowned, he held his wife until she too died in his arms. There are only people to blame for the suffering of these lost lives and for the survivor’s grief. People created this tragedy.

God gave us the resources to ease each other’s suffering, but the resources are divided unevenly causing injustice, tragedy, and war. No matter how much you want to blame God, it would be more accurate to point at people, and in some cases, a mirror.

It’s About You

06 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by in hope, writing

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There are times when I need to look out the window, see the man working in my neighbor’s garden, and wonder about his life. What is it like to work hard out in the hot sun all day? Does he make enough to feed his family, if he has a family? Does he have to work two jobs? Who is that man? What is important to him? What are his struggles? What gets him out of bed? What does he dream about? Is he happy, or does he want more? Once I have thought enough about him, I need to think about the other people I encounter. Only in this way do I keep from feeling sorry for myself, see the struggles of those around me, and get out of my mind long enough to care about the people who surround me. No matter how little we appear to have in common, no matter how good someone else has it, we are all aware of our limited days. We are all going to die, and that knowledge alone should bind us together to celebrate our every breath, our every heartbeat, our every step. The fact that we will all die, should break our hearts open with compassion. It’s hard to know there is a finish line and all of us will cross it.

Yesterday, my husband and I went to the photography museum. There was an exhibit called 7 Billion Others. We listened to women talk about how they had no idea about nutrition and vaccines until Doctors Without Borders came to their villages. We listened to a woman from Rwanda talk about how her baby was thrown in the air and cut in half by a man wielding a machete. The same men that participated in the murder of her child (in front of her eyes) cut off her arm, and pierced her in her upper chest (a wound that went all the way through her body). They also jumped on her and stripped her naked. We listened to a miner (without any teeth) talk about how dangerous his job is, but that he does it every day to feed his eight children. We listened to stories about famine, wars, diseases like polio and malaria. We listened to the struggles of many people we share this planet with.

We also learned about people around the world and their fears (one man’s greatest fear was that God didn’t exist, another man’s great fear was that God does exist). We listened to hopes, dreams and what people think the meaning of life is. The people interviewed talked about love, and laughter, they talked about family.

It brought me out of myself.

I have clean running water. I am never truly thirsty or hungry. I have a refrigerator and air conditioning. I have a comfortable bed and access to laundry facilities. I rarely drive, but I do have a car, and I have the ability and means to take public transportation. I have Internet access. I have a cell phone. I have clean clothes. I have at least a dozen pairs of shoes. I have a roof over my head. I have access to medication and doctors.  This is a short list of all that I have.

I also have paranoid schizophrenia. I battle my symptoms every day. I deal with social isolation , a lack of motivation, social anxiety, panic attacks, paranoid thoughts, and long periods of inactivity. Even with all that, I live a privileged and easy life compared to many people on the planet. Even when you throw in psychosis, and the terrors and suicide attempts it doesn’t come close to what some people have experienced.

Today, I refuse to give space to me and my struggles. I will give space to you. I will think about you, wherever you are. I will think about how much you’ve seen, how hard you work, how you try to keep your child fed, healthy and alive. I will give you a place to be seen and heard in my heart and head.

May all of us find a way to help each other, to lighten the load, to lessen the fears, to increase  the laughter, to grow our hearts, and to share the gift of the life we have been born into so that when it comes time for us to pass away, we can know that maybe there were times when we were lonely, but we were never truly alone.  It’s our journey, let’s find every possible way to live it together.