That ache; that need for a different life to this one

Please note: this piece contains descriptions some readers may find upsetting.

I have a gripe with hope. In the niche world I inhabit it is one of the holy grails. That combination of hope, resilience and responsibility that will bring us to new worlds of wellbeing and, which if we cannot manage it ourselves, kind professionals might take on for us. Holding precious till they can pass it back again for us to glory in. It sounds good, golden even; to climb out of despair, regain motivation and energy, resume our lives. Despite that, it is not a gift to be given or taken lightly, especially when we are not too sure of its reality.

To dare to breath in the possibility of hope when so many people I know see only paleness drifting in front of them for year on year. Ah! What liberation but what devastation when we find people playing politics with our lives; giving us ready made, paper cut, Guardian read, visions of the route to wellness and happiness.

I have had too many friends given the prospect, the dream, that life could be different. The treasured vision that they could flourish and find meaning, maybe even normality.

I know the urge; the knowledge that the pills we take; far from bringing instant ease can remove our ability to feel or to notice colour in the sky and our hearts. How I despise that sludge of a chemical cure; how I too would love to find the thrum of spontaneity. The gloss of the promise that without medication and without treatment we could escape from oppression and that glare in which we doubt we ever will have a life again.

I saw friends who took that plunge; considered it long and hard, dreamed of the lure of being real again and vital and a part of, and, for a time, they did find something better and kinder.

They wrote books, made pictures, thought of work, made new friends, drew themselves in a new image and celebrated the bright sensations that the discarded tablets had now given them access to. They said:

'No longer will I sit in blank waiting rooms where we do not look at each other, to speak to doctors who do not seem to care'

They said;

'The highs the lows; these I send to the past.'

They said of the delusions and visions;

'What right do you have to decide what reality actually is? With what authority do you say this is illness, impairment and failure? Maybe, just maybe, it is an awakening and a journey and a discovery and a better, kinder, nicer way of seeing the world. Maybe with love; with support and compassion and community we can escape this twilight life with nothing to remark on, no one to talk to, no one to value us. Of course, I believe in this journey, this new reality, this new paradigm.'

Later when we wondered how they were doing; wondered why we hadn’t seen them for months. We heard that the dark days had come to them again but no one had noticed their absence, their fading presence. It wasn’t until the the funeral notices were in the papers that we learnt what the absence meant and shuddered at the untidy flats, unmade meals, unmade beds, alienated friends. We wondered; could we have helped? If we had known? But we did know, if we are honest with ourselves.

Then weary, we gathered ourselves to celebrate the life of another one, one like us who was given hope, seized it with all their might and courage, little realising that it was a vision, a false vision which only brought despair.

When you have yearned for something to live for; when you have taken that leap of faith in the promises of the enlightened and fallen through it into the long drop into darkness because that gift of hope was as fragile as paper stretched over a void, then life becomes even more brutal than we thought it could be.

And at the funeral we remember their spark, their colour, their ambition and think of the last hug we gave them, when they were brimming with joy, the last conversation when they had plans; what plans!!

For a brief moment, we wonder whether it was worth it, those moments believing life could be different. We wonder at our acceptance, at the jag we get every two weeks, the pills we take and think maybe, maybe it would have been better to have dreamed so strongly, to have ached for something better than this.

A possibility where we can be truly present with those we love and with a sigh we know our friends did have that but the fall afterwards was worse by far than we could ever imagine and at this point we curse those who preach answers for our salvation; turn our impairment into a football to kick around in debates in pubs and seminar rooms and wish that mental illness did not enthral those with dreams of our liberation because sometimes their vision is our ruin.

I feel too old now for hope but I am not too old for quietness and sitting by the seashore listening to the call of the seabirds, remembering so many of those friends and thinking tonight I will sleep with my dog resting his head on my legs, tonight I will kiss my partner and tomorrow her daughter will hug me before she goes to school, while her brother will delight in our frustration at his last minute dash down stairs.

I did not reach for the wonder of liberation but I am alive and almost dare to hope I will be with this family for years to come, with love and friendship and intimacy and a tightly held absence of an answer to my condition or even my life.

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