Letters To My Heart - Cancer In My Head

To The Cancer In My Head

Yes, you are a cancer. You devour my sanity - quietly, inexorably , unceasingly. By what other name should I call you?

Others may call you by different names – mental illness, bipolar disorder, or manic depression. But I know better. Those names are too bland for you. They do not convey even half of the persistent, insidious heart of you; that dark essence that can suck all joy from my life. Your emptiness waits patiently in the hidden recesses of my mind. At a moments notice, you can expand from a tiny speck to an all consuming void that fills my mind with fearful screams. Challenging me, you shout:

“Who are you to enjoy life? You are worthless and full of self-centered evil. How dare you think you deserve happiness?”

You went unnamed for decades. There were signs of you when I was younger - like the times I went for days with little or no sleep, obsessing about grand dreams of a life better than perfect. There were warnings like my persistent fears of speaking to anyone, when I hid in out-of-the-way places to avoid being noticed, hoping against hope that I could be invisible. And yes, there were those darkest of times - days when I was sure that I was the most evil of all creatures, filled with sin and worthy only of eternal damnation.

Your powers were amplified with the discovery of drugs and alcohol when I went to college. Your intensity was magnified a hundredfold by LSD, pot, alcohol, uppers and downers. Your power over my imagination and psyche were cemented by the drugs. Under their influence, you quietly settled in, taking up permanent residence.

When I sobered up, I thought I had vanquished you, that you were gone from my life. I was sure I had freed myself of all feelings of “craziness”, but I was wrong. You chuckled quietly as I sat through endless recovery meetings and became a permanent source of income for multiple doctors and pharmacies. You knew that no matter how “sober” I became, or how many coping strategies I mastered, you would grow in strength as well. You waited in quiet certitude that your strength would increase with age. You would grow stronger as time weakened my abilities.

Our formal introduction would take place a decade into my “sobriety”, several years after what I hoped was a happy marriage. On 9/11/2001, I was weakened by the removal of my left kidney as a result of your cousin, renal cancer's, efforts. Afterward, I lost my career as well. I faced the real prospect of losing everything I had worked for, including my marriage.

At that moment, you revealed the full extent of your power. I went from board rooms of walnut paneling to rooms of flat gray paint; rooms where I sat drooling, as Doctors tried to tame you with an ever changing cocktail of psychoactive drugs. You were too wily for them. As soon as one pharmacopeia began to have some effect, you adapted and changed your method of attack, leading me through many new types of illusion. You isolated me from many of my friends in twelve step programs – friends who saw you as a sign that I was “backsliding” - friends who admonished, “Work the steps harder,” or “Open your heart to God and pray more often.” Steps and prayer did nothing to slow your progress.

Hallucination, delusion and paranoia became my constant companions. Multiple experts were consulted. They shook their heads in despair, and eventually decided that electric current applied to my brain was my only hope for a renewed “grip” on life. At first, the “grip” was truly feeble. I often found myself standing in the kitchen holding and staring at a silvery object before asking my wife, “Is this a fork?” Thankfully, due to her patience and kindness, the rejuvenating power of electricity, and, the healing hand of time, I gained a new hold on life. Overjoyed, I decided I should embark on a spiritual quest. I was certain that I could find the spiritual basis for my recovery and that I could share that joy with others.

Sadly, my hope was was false. My dream of finding spiritual truth was simply you wearing a new cloak. I thought I was sailing to a new shore of serenity. I even flew to Japan to study Zen. In the end all my sailing, flying and searching landed me in yet another dark cove, where you held sway. Yet again, I found myself in a land of gray walls, drugs and drool. I recovered once more. But, this time, the joy of the recovery was a bit more subdued, a little less certain.

Through it all, I could sense you hovering there, at the edges of what I hope is sanity. It seems you will never leave me, or miss an opportunity to suck joy from me. Even as I write this, I hear your whispers.

“You are simply whining. Poor, poor, pitiful, you. How sad that you should have suffered so – boo hoo, boo hoo. You make me sick, you selfish, self-centered little shit. Think of all the people who have so much more pain to deal with than you. Shut up. Shut up. Shut the fuck up, you whimpering maggot.”

I shake my head and refuse to listen. You, and some who think like you, may believe that I am a self-centered asshole, that I do nothing more than whine. So be it. I may be an asshole, a selfish maggot, but I am not in the land of gray walls.

I bear you and those who judge and hate me no lasting ill will. You are nothing more than an accident of my DNA and life's circumstances; an accident whose effects likely were exacerbated by my drug use and life choices. Why should I take your actions personally? As for those who judge me harshly, at times I rage against them, but I cannot afford to harbor permanent anger and judgment. Doing so, damages what little mental strength I have left. I need every bit of my reason and kindness to deal with your continued assault on my sanity.

Thankfully, I've found at least a partial antidote for your painful nibbling at my brain. Each word that appears, each line that manifests, every essay that is read by others, is evidence that you, dark one, have not fully destroyed me and my ability to connect to life.

Some days you still hold court in my mind with a cacaphonic chorus of jeerers and leerers. Your courtiers try to convince me that I am not worthy of the gift of life. Sometimes they almost succeed and I can do nothing but hide in movie theaters or behind curtains at home. But those times are less lengthy and filled with less despair when I write. Using my pen or my keyboard, I stack my words one by one. Like bricks in an ever thickening wall, they stand against the despair you send my way.

I know that you continue to munch at my reason somewhere upstairs. Sometimes, I can almost hear you crunching at my thoughts, weakening the foundation that holds me in the here and now. There may come a time when I am unable to fend you off, when I will be placed in the land of gray walls permanently, but, that day is not today. Today I offer this writing as further evidence that your final victory has not come. May that day be far off. May I stand once more – seeing the sun, feeling the wind and dreaming my dreams.