That Special Thing

"How long was I supposed to wait for you?"

--email for Morpheus called "On Cheating"

I only wanted to live until thirty--I've had that plan since I was a kid--figuring that was enough time to do all there is to do (besides raise a family, which I was never very interested in)--if live is a buffet, then you can sample it all by thirty.

The voices say I won't live to be twenty-nine.

I'm twenty-eight, and I've found that time has gone by quickly doing things that I wasn't particularly interested in, and I'm not referring to the time I spent dancing.

Illness has derailed me in so many ways--financially and socially. I've lost months, and this is time that cannot be returned to me.

I know with some certainty that there will be another psychotic episode knocking on my door in the future. The severity will depend on the medications I'm on and how well prepared I am. I've been through various forms of hell--depressions--manias--but nothing is like being psychotic. A few nights ago, I was asleep, all I could see is black, and next I heard was, "Lace, you are dead." I jumped awake. The voices are daily now. I cannot imagine passing that down with bringing a child into the world. The saddest aspect of being psychotic is, of course, losing friends, pushing them away either by the delusions or because they try to help and you refuse to take that help.


I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do... ---Virginia Woolf


I know that pain.

Sometimes I find myself talking to the voices, and I try to stop--because they're like animals. You can't encourage them. I tell them to "shut up," but of course it doesn't work.

"We're just a part of you, Lace," one of them says.


When I was a teenager, I couldn't image having a psychotic disorder. I know I was depressed, but never this. I don't know what special thing is going to make me different and allow me to succeed when so many others with this disorder do not.