Certified at 35

Certified at 35

Certified at the age of 35. I felt less than five, little more than three. They dragged me kicking and screaming, raging into the psychiatric ward.

I felt like an accident waiting to happen, or a bomb about to explode. My head felt like it was going off.

I could hear all the important people in my life ticking me off. 'You don't make the grade,' said old school teachers. 'I don't love you,' said ex-boyfriends. 'Go to hell,' said my enemies. 'Get a life,' said supposed friends.

The mental hospital was now my life. I felt stifled, almost set upon with a rifle.

I felt myself shrinking the more I talked to my shrink. I could no longer pretend I was fine. I could no longer shine. However, I could secretly pretend I was divine, at times, like a goddess or the Virgin Mary.

How I wished I could just shrug off my illness. But my illness held me tight. I was put under the microscope, nurses and doctors examining and controlling my every move from morning to night. I felt at a crossroads: choose the easy, safe, narrow path, or go deep into the heart of the vast, unexplored jungle.

I felt stripped and bulldozed, as all my possessions were taken off me, and I could do nothing to get them back. I could pull no strings, as even my shoelaces were done away with. I felt as dispossessed as my clothes.

I wished I could get back on my feet, take off in my own private helicopter to greener pastures.

I felt uncared for, both by myself and by others. As I stared out the barred window, I caught my neglected appearance in the glass. I felt like a stranger as I took in my lanky, heavy hair and body.

I wished I could be light years away, when life treated me well. Life was once easy. Now everything was effort: getting up, looking after myself, moving around, stringing a sentence together. I felt stripped of my powers.

How I wished I could prove myself as a strong, successful individual, stand on my own two feet rather than being dragged through the mud by those professionals and the patients who rubbished me for not conforming.

I longed for home. But there was no turning back. I felt chained to the mental hospital.

I felt as enraged as a bat out of hell, as I found myself getting battier. I felt hard done by. I wanted to scramble over the walls of this deep, dark dungeon, but failed time and time again. The system had clipped my wings.

Childhood

In many ways I still feel like a child. Wild and out of control, like a mad car or raging inferno. I miss important cues and literally push into all of life's queues, interrupting conversations and generally getting ahead of myself.

Still I feel myself losing the race, particularly to those who don't understand the complexities of my illness and see me as annoying and troublesome.

A lot of the time I feel I am getting nowhere. My life is not mild, though often it can seem very still, when it's hard to get off the bed, or chair, or sofa.

At other times I run riot like a two-year-old. I used to pace around the psychiatric ward for hours on end, unable to keep still. 'You're going to make a hole in the carpet,' said the nurse. There are many holes in my life.

My life is not in my hands. I rely on a disability pension. My money gets managed by state trustees. I am given a hard time about how I spend my money. Often I feel like a kid deprived of pocket money, or a beggar. In the workplace, I'm told what to do and how to act by individuals half my age.

I do need guidance and control, as I find it hard to restrain myself. I will make bad headway if I am not shown the way. I am very taken in by appearances; someone just has to smile and I will give them what they want. I can't tell good people from bad people. I am susceptible to dangerous strangers. I need to be protected.

With my OCD also at play I am (as Freud would have it) stuck in the oral stage of development, wanting to consume and gratify myself all the time.

I am desperate for attention. At school I did all kinds of strange things, such as walking down the middle of a fully seated assembly hall or breaking out laughing and crying in a quiet classroom.

These attempts to get attention isolated me. I was laughed at or pushed aside. Kids would imitate the way I walked and make fun of my nervous gestures. I was bullied and ostracised (not only at school but also later, in the workplace, before I was diagnosed) until I would cry. On camp I could only dream of imaginary friends.

I have come a long way since then. Even though I was diagnosed a schizophrenic just after university, where again I made a complete fool of myself, coming out with my disability in later life has opened many doors where before there were only walls. There is now a lot of pleasure and fun in my life, a lot of opportunities.

I can laugh at myself rather than being laughed at, and the world does not seem such a terrible place. I have many more friends. I don't feel as alone, or that I am going nowhere. But I dream of becoming fully independent and finally feeling like an adult, able to take control and manage my life.

Isabella Fels is a Melbourne poet and writer. Her topics include her own particular illness schizophrenia. She has been published in various publications including Positive Words, Mental Illness Voice, The Big Issue and The Record.

Person behind glass image from Shutterstock