A Dried Blossom Blowing in the Wind

Posted on March 26, 2006 in Class Psych Wards Psychosis

Every now and then, someone comes in a therapist’s office or support group in a state of high mania. The person does not want to go into the hospital because s/he has an unemployed spouse and child. S/He knows that s/he isn’t in the greatest state of mind, but has to keep at the job instead of going into the hospital or taking time off to rest because the alternative is to attempt to live off disability.

Under these circumstances that is plainly impossible. So against all psychiatric advice s/he keeps plugging at the job.

The sublime revelation that can come out of this is that this person may be more in touch with reality than the therapist who counsels her/him to drop all things or the support group members who try to suggest that what is good for the baby is to stop working, thus becoming able to pay the mortgage or rent and, of course, the food for the baby and its mother. As I have learned from many of my online and real life friends, being in mania does not mean you are entirely out of touch. It might be described as a messed up puzzle which is trying to rearrange itself, but keeps getting broken apart by the bipolar wind of the person (not of planets). Pieces of the picture remain discernable and the puzzle can see that it is at once chaos and a picture.

I suggest that no short term solutions can work if they focus on the patient alone. Advice without support is a dried blossom blowing in the wind. What the fellow needs is financial security while resolving the crisis. And our hateful Fundamentalist nation will not see that this family is worth saving by public assistance.

I’ve seen a few people come in under these conditions. And some give the “quit your job” advice. Most are people who live safe lives (like me — but I don’t give the quit your job line). If they follow the advice, they provoke a whirlwind and walk in its path. The most maddening part is that when they come out of it, those who advised them will not acknowledge that they did no help.

Out of the carnage of my own battles for survival, I divine upon these entrails and find that I am sick of those who promote drastic measures without offering realistic, concrete support.

We cannot blame every social malaise on downtrodden invididuals. Often it is the failure of the well-off to offer the tiniest part of their income to help that is the real problem.

I’m tired of people being made sick by the conflict between societal expectations and personal needs, by the greed masking as Christian mercy, by the rustle of a dried blossom blowing in the wind.