by Florence //
Who would have thought that schizophrenia could be a teacher in the school of life?
Dear Erin,
I can’t believe that it’s been more than 10 years since you came into my life. If you were a human being born in 2013, you could be running around during recess time like a primary five kid.
When you first came into my life, you seemed to be an insurmountable obstacle. I was terrified of you. I was confused. Why did your presence make me feel as if I was being followed? What had I done or not done to land me in your company? Were you going to be a fixture in my life?
The first year of having you in my life was one of the toughest experiences I’ve ever had.
You were the uninvited guest to the party of my life. You brought a sense of anxiety and guilt that spiralled into inexplicable paranoia and delusions.
Your propensity to connect the dots in wild thoughts made me think that an acquaintance was trying to steal my identity. The delusions you created in my head were so overwhelming that I became catatonic. At my lowest point, I was unresponsive to my surroundings and others, even though I could still walk around. I was hospitalised for a week.
After I was discharged, I took an extended break from my graduate studies in Switzerland, moved back to my mother’s place in Singapore, and depended on my father financially. You thwarted my plans by throwing my everyday life into a disarray. In graduate school, I was devoted to producing as much data in the lab as possible and my life was full of meetings and experiments to attend to. I had nothing to organise my life around when you crashed landed on my life.
To make matters worse, you made things tense between me and my loved ones. When I was first hospitalised, my family took the liberty of contacting my supervisor in graduate school to let him know that I was not going back. I was furious when I found out—they had no right to make such decisions on my behalf when I was at my most vulnerable. I knew they meant well. So, I blamed you, Erin, the intruder that stole my sanity and my life.
But the storm you brought into my life eventually gave way to a clear blue sky with only a few tiny dark clouds. With rest, medication, psychotherapy, and reconnection with my family and friends in Singapore, it felt as if I had left you behind for good. A chapter of my life closed. And then, when I thought I was safe, you came back with a vengeance in 2017.
Looking back, it was as if the stars aligned for your reappearance in my life. I burnt out at work. I was friendzoned by a boy I had feelings for. In the crucible of these trials and the strong emotions they produced, deep seated pain and hurt from my early years started to surface. As sleepless nights haunted me, you started to make overactive connections between the people and situations in my life.
I thought I had you under control, but my mental state quickly spiralled into a florid psychotic state. I was hospitalised for a week again.
My mother told me that when I was in the throes of that episode, she feared that I might never recover.
That encounter with you left me feeling even more broken than before, because I realised that not only my mind was broken, but my heart was too. But it was also after that experience with you that I realised how much I didn’t know about myself. I started considering the notion that perhaps you were only trying to tell me something important about who I am.
With the help of my therapist, I realised that you represented the anger, frustration and resentment I had carried for years. In my family of origin’s dynamic, I was assigned the role of a peacemaker. I did my utmost as a child and teenager to appease everyone in my family, most of the time at my own expense. Over time, I simply imploded and went quite literally, mad.
Thanks to you, Erin, I learnt how to draw healthier boundaries with my family of origin. They learnt to respect my boundaries without giving me a hard time.
It took us 10 years and counting to get to where we are today. Because of you, I had the opportunity to reclaim a portion of my true self. While I am not perfect, I am a limited edition, fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of my Maker.
I’ve come to appreciate a certain beauty in your strength and tenacity, Erin. You were unyielding and headstrong, much like a wild, untamed mare. Your creativity, imagination and ability to connect those dots still astound me sometimes. I can see why some people link craziness with creativity; the line between these mental states can be fuzzy at times. My graduate school supervisor once told me that he thought the best scientists were the ones who were wired differently.
Despite your anger and occasional insanity, you have always been a part of who I was and who I am becoming.
I named you Erin because I have made peace with you. You are welcome to stay in my mind castle as long as you don’t take over my mental faculty completely again. I promise to hear you out and respect your voice. You can rest with the assurance that I will continue working toward uncovering my true self until I pass on.
With love & respect, Florence
In Florence’s day job, she considers it a win if her client cries in session, because this means that, as a counsellor, she has held a safe psychological space for them to emote. Florence took a leap of faith to become a counsellor because she was, and still is, a beneficiary of psychotherapy.
Read more of our Tapestry Stories here.
Illustration by Ethan.