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A Map of My Mind
"Being awake was overwhelming because I couldn't escape back into my own mental wilderness."
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By Belia Mayeno
The war inside my brain began during my freshman year of high school. I remember the first time I really started to feel out of control. I had a strong urge to translate the opening passage of a Raymond Chandler novel into Theban script and transcribe it all onto my closet door in multi-colored soap. I still remember the satisfaction I felt when I saw the rainbow of nonsensical characters zig-zagging all over my walls. But just like all the other times to come, like when I bought 5 identical dresses...or spent hours in a train station staring at the ground because it looked like the floor was breathing...when I tried to silence my mind by obeying its wild demands- I didn’t feel better for long. And even worse, all of my beautifully dreamed plans didn’t even make sense to me a few days or weeks later. Amazingly, I didn’t even know I had a problem. It never occurred to me that other people don’t live like that.
But I recognized the dark mood that always came after my sprees wasn’t right. When I was 15, I had terrible insomnia for months. I couldn’t sleep, eat or concentrate. I filled my bed with kitchen knives to scare away the sadness- but it wasn’t quite as comforting as I thought it would be. So I started mixing gin and pain-killers squirreled away from my parents’ cabinets. It was the only way to rest and get a break from myself. I wasn’t suicidal. I just wanted to go into a “mild” coma so that maybe one day I could just wake up and the tumult inside of me would be over.
In spite of all of this, it was hard to accept that anything was actually wrong with me. I believed if I tried hard enough, I could heal myself. It was like expecting someone with a broken leg to just “walk it off.” My family wanted to believe that it was that simple too. I remember sitting with my mom, as she stroked my forehead just the way she did when I was a baby and she wanted me to take a nap. She asked me, with a hint of hope in her voice, “M’ija, are you sure it’s not just PMS?”
When I finally made the decision to go on anti-depressants and mood stabilizers a few years ago, there was a part of me that was sad to say goodbye to those vivid highs and lows. Before, I could concentrate on drawing for 10 hours straight and emerge with an amazing picture that didn’t even look like it came from my hand. Everyone seemed to like me when I was on one of my highs. And when I was depressed, at least I wrote some good poetry. Just like anything else, when you live with pain, you get used to it. And those times when I felt intoxicated with energy, or hid inside the dark cabinets in my head were retreats from the everyday life of clipping toenails and grocery shopping. When I first started the medication, I often felt like I was squinting in the sunlight, everything seemed too bright. Being awake was overwhelming because I couldn’t escape back into my own mental wilderness.
Even now, it’s still hard to trust myself. I might never know for sure if the war inside my brain is completely over. But I am enjoying the cease-fire.
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