Rapunzel, Rapunzel — Barrier Series # 5

Rapunzel, Rapunzel © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Above all be the heroine in your life, not the victim.” ~ Nora Ephron

This post is the fifth in the series of my story, an intimate exploration of art and healing. See the introduction and complete series at My Healing Journey

I was in my mid-thirties, a wife and mother of three children under the age of nine, when I had what I refer to as a spirit breakdown. Most people, including medical professionals, call this a mental breakdown. But truly, it was not my mind that could no longer carry my burden. There was a disconnect from my spirit, from my center, from my wholeness.

For years I had successfully woven together a life that looked much like any other woman’s in my neighborhood. I was married. I worked part-time in the physical therapy department at a local nursing home. I led Girl Scout troops, worked in the concession stands at Little league games, organized a co-op playgroup for my two-year old and her friends. I was active in church and school functions.

And then one day in an early October, I received a jury duty summons in the mail. Two weeks later, I was in a courtroom, one of thirteen jurors chosen to hear an assault case. The case was a first degree sexual assault case; the victim was a woman my age, married with three children, active in her church and neighborhood.

The woman testified repeatedly how she was unable to recall many details of her assault, how instead she’d had an out-of-body experience. She had floated above her body as the two assailants raped her and had observed the attack in a haze. In her dissociative state, she felt no pain, no fear. Even when she returned to her body, after the assailants had run away, she questioned what had actually happened. It was several hours before she went to a hospital, was counseled by a law enforcement/rape crisis team, and the necessary examinations were completed and documented.

This testimony caused quite a stir during jury deliberations. People were skeptical, doubtful. Many of the jurors, including most of the men, did not believe her. They accused her of telling lies to cover her own part in what they thought was a possible illicit affair. However the women on the jury found her testimony very believable. One woman juror, a recently retired nurse, stated dissociation was a well documented medical phenomenon.

I took part in the jury deliberations, but some of the time, as I listened, I felt an overwhelming sense of fear and anger. I felt threatened. I requested a break as I was feeling ill, but convinced myself  I’d contacted a flu bug in the close quarters of the courtroom.

After several days of deliberations, the jury found the men guilty.

“Only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth, and that is not speaking it.” ~ Naomi Wolf

During the following six weeks, I could not stop replaying the woman’s story. Visions of her rape and dissociative testimony haunted me. I began to feel less connected to my life. Time became distorted. I struggled with my regular activities and my children’s schedules. I began having flashbacks from my childhood.

I felt the need to get away from my family. I felt unworthy to be a part of their lives.

I wanted to hide. I imagined myself in a place far away where no one would know me or expect anything of me. I dreamed of hiding in a tall tower, alone with my shame. I wished for a life like the fairy tale character, Rapunzel. I could live alone. I’d have no contact with anyone and no one would have contact with me.

During this time, I had glimpses of my truths; I refused to believe them. I wanted my life to return to normal, yet I vaguely understood I could never be the woman I’d been only a few months before.

Unsure and frightened, I was in limbo.

      – compiled from journal entries and letters, 1990-91

Next: Unlock the Art

Four Walls and a Bright Light – Barrier Series # 4

Bathed in Bright Lights

Bright Lights © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” ~ Pema Chödrön

This post is the fourth in a series of my story, an intimate exploration of art and healing. See the introduction and complete series at My Healing Journey.

I spent several months in the hospital. But after my initial admission, my condition went from extremely ill to critical, doctors transferred me to the equivalent of the critical care unit of a medical unit. But unlike a medical ICU with its high-tech equipment and constant activity, a person who needs a psychiatric ICU needs a different sort of healing space. She needs as little stimulus as possible. It is a time to quiet a system gone haywire from too much input.

By law, a patient must be placed in the least restrictive environment to treat their symptoms – I signed an admission form with a list of my rights – but my condition required drastic measures.

My world for several weeks was in a “Quiet Room” — a 8 x 8 foot cell-like room. The walls were softly padded, the floor was indestructible tile, the only window was covered with steel mesh and fully curtained in black. When covered with an over-sized piece of plexiglass, the space bore little resemblance to a window.

There was a mattress on the floor, a single sheet, a plastic pillow, and a camera high on the wall so I could be constantly monitored on a closed circuit system by a nurse who sat in the nursing station.

There was a door, but no door knob. Staff came in to deliver my meals, monitor my meds, and help me with basic needs. Otherwise, I was left alone — to rest. I craved someone to talk to me, or even to sit in the silent room with me, but rules required the nursing staff to monitor me by watching a television monitor, not to interact with me.

Also disturbing to me was the inset light in the small room’s ceiling. It was an obvious necessity. I understand that now — twenty years later. If I slept in a darkened room, no amount of surveillance on camera would inform them of my activity. If I paced in a darkened room, they could not see me pacing. Or crying. Or rocking myself, trying to calm myself, comfort myself. But I hated the constant light. Bright, with a yellow cast, I felt as if the fiery light was burrowing through my eyes into my brain.

My dreams, which I recorded in my journal while an occupational therapist supervised my safe use of writing materials, were constant chase scenes in confusing mazes, up and down stairwells, through basements and attics, jumps from roof tops only to end up zigzagging through six lanes of night-time traffic. I never knew who was chasing me. They hid from my view. The dreams were on repeat, and so I lived them and re-lived them.

I couldn’t tell night from day with the window covered. I didn’t understand what had happened to me, why I was here, nor how long I would need such extreme care. And I was angry and disoriented and terrified.

I describe this time in my life because this was me hitting the bottom. I could no longer function in the state I was in. I couldn’t go back to the life I’d enjoyed only a few weeks earlier. My only choice was to acknowledge my fears, as stated in the quote by Pema Chödrön, and move closer to my truths.

— based on journal entries, 1990-91

Next: Rapunzel, Rapunzel

No Escape – Barrier Series # 3

This post is the third in my photo/story series on my journey of healing and recovery. See the introduction and complete series at My Healing Journey.

Barrio Brewery

No Escape © 2012 Bo Mackison

“We can spend our whole lives escaping from the monsters of our minds.” ~ Pema Chödrön

The time comes when I need a safe environment. I need protection from myself. High away – no escape, no contact. High away. Plastic windows and bars to protect those inside from themselves, and to protect those on the outside, too.

Administrators make attempts to brighten our environment – primary colored lounge furniture, pictures on the walls – but none of that offers protection from the hurried words, the rigid restrictions, the mind-numbing drugs, the incessant blare of televisions and radios.

Or the voices that only I hear.

~ based on journal entries, 1990

————

The photographs that make up the Barrier Series are a set of photos that symbolically follow the story of my mental and spirit breakdown and healing process. The photos are not related to any specific places where I might have had treatment. The series metaphorically correspond to the phases I moved through during recovery, as I focused first on staying alive; second on regaining basic functions, and finally on regaining my wholeness.

This photograph represents a difficult time in that process. Unrelated events led to an awakening, necessary but brutally painful, that led me to assess the reality of my past. It was devastating. I was suicidal and extremely ill; I required in-patient psychiatric care. And although it was a difficult time for me, it was excruciatingly painful for my family, including my husband and small children.

The place I stayed is a place no one would want to stay for any length of time. And yet, I was fortunate to be in a hospital that provided me with my greatest likelihood for survival. At the time, I was not appreciative of the efforts and time my caregivers expended on my behalf. But as I look back on those years, decades ago, I am overcome with deep gratitude for these people. They worked with dedication to keep me safe and protect me until I was ready to take over that work myself. It wasn’t an easy job for any of us.

Next: Four Walls and a Bright Light

Boarded Window – Barrier Series # 2

This post is the second in my photo/story series on my journey of healing and recovery. See the introduction and complete series at My Healing Journey.

Warehouse in Winter

Boarded Window © 2011 Bo Mackison

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ~ Viktor E Frankl,in Man’s Search for Himself

Cold.

Winter.

This barrier, a solid barrier.
No light, no sunshine, no blue skies,
nothing natural except the brittle vines.

Impenetrable barrier.
The frozen exterior the world perceives.
The bushes are skeletal in their winter bareness.

Dead vines cling to the bricks,
hang from the window’s edge,
collect in piles on the ledge.

The decorative bricks offer some respite,
though the window is covered with boards.

But wait, it’s been patched neatly, with blue painted boards.
Boarded closed, but with care,
Is there something inside worth protecting?

And the vines?
Dead for now, but the hidden roots,
alive, are protected under snowy depths,
warm enough in the warm earth.
These roots will send forth newly alive green shoots in the spring.

This phase, the deep winter of my spirit-break –
a period of dormancy.

A winter phase waiting for the thaw and spring’s return.

                 — based on journal entries, 1990

——–

The second barrier correlates to the time when I became unable to function, to keep up with life’s day-to-day expectations and demands. It was as if I constructed a barrier much like this one deep in my  interior, providing myself with space and time, waiting for the passage of winter and spring’s thaw.

It was a time of silent waiting.

Next: No Escape

Barbed Wire – Barrier Series, The Beginning

This post is the first in my photo/story series on my journey of healing and recovery. See the introduction and complete series at My Healing Journey.

Barbed Wire

Barbed Wire Barrier  © 2012 Bo Mackison

“Your life with its immensity and fear . . . is alternately stone in you and star.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, from the poem Evening

Before there was a beginning, before the crisis and a diagnosis, there was a dream.

I see the world. It is there. When I reach up, I reach into the cool air. When I look up, I see a bright blue, cloud scattered skies. Yet the world is beyond my reach. In this dream I have repeatedly, I’m trapped in a tiny enclosure, an enclosure tall on four sides, but open to the sky. I struggle to  unlock the gate. When I try to move forward, I’m blocked by a cold steel fence and chain-link wire. Barbed wire adds an extra degree of isolation.

Barbed wire – a common fence, a stereo-typical barrier.

And then I am no longer dreaming. I am living my life in slow-motion, denying there is a problem.

I know I am in a separate place. I cannot reach out to my family and friends, I cannot communicate with them. They are on the other side of the barrier, and even if I managed a whisper, no one can hear me.

I am cast in fear, held down by a weighted stone. My only relief is a connection, however slight, to the natural world. When I look out the window, it is snowy and cold, but I do look up at the sky. I can always see the sky.

The human spirit focuses on that which is beyond vision.

         — based on journal entries, October 1990.

Part 2: Boarded Window.