[ WP ] Write the letter that you always wanted to , but never did .

Dear [...... ], 
 
 I need to tell you something, even though you already know. I ’ ve tried to talk to you about it in person some, but it ’ s so hard to vocalize. A letter lets me do it better; gives me time to think, and the ability to phrase. I have a harder time keeping up in conversation now. My words get lost. I called the ginger ale a number field. I told you that I had to get my elephant. I told you, once, that an invisible woman was stealing my words. Every time I turn around it seems I don ’ t know what I ’ m doing. Truth be told, I don ’ t know what I ’ m doing. At least we know the word for why this happens: schizophrenia. 
 
 I skirted around this word a lot. Tried not to believe in it. Told you that I wasn ’ t technically schizophrenic, I was schizoaffective. It ’ s true, there is a difference. But the difference isn ’ t in severity, like I was trying to imply. I still don ’ t have it as bad as I could have it. I ’ m semi-functional. And to the world that doesn ’ t know: I ’ m fully functional, even if a little odd. That ’ s part of why I ’ m writing this to you. I don ’ t think you, or others, know how bad it is, or how completely terrified I am. Despite my mixed up words, I still put on a pretty decent face. 
 
 I hear a lot of things that aren ’ t there. I see them, too. For the most part, they ’ re benign. I hear alarms go off that aren ’ t there. I hear pigeons in my bathroom ( always pigeons, always bathroom, I have no idea why ). When I hear people, I can ’ t quite hear them. I can hear their tone. It ’ s like they ’ re speaking in another room, and I ’ m listening behind the door. I tried to explain to your boyfriend that this was unsettling. I said it made it so I questioned reality more than other people. For instance, when I see a shadow on the wall, I double check to make sure it ’ s really there. When I hear birds outside, I can ’ t tell if they ’ re real birds, or like the pigeons in my bathroom. Your boyfriend asked why it mattered. I couldn ’ t answer him at the time, so I let the conversation die. But I was deeply hurt by that. Part of why it matters is it undermines everything I do, and takes up energy that I don ’ t have. When you go through the day, you get to be on autopilot. You get up, work out, eat, walk down the road, etc. And everything you see makes sense to you, because you ’ ve been taught that you can trust your senses. When you see something odd in the world, it ’ s just an oddity of the world. You can take it or leave it. When I see something odd, I can ’ t tell if it ’ s real. Because it could be made up by my crumbling biology ( thanks, Danielewski, for that phrase—it ’ s apt ). What this does is rip certainty out from under me. I can ’ t trust my senses. That is so incredibly destabilizing. Your boyfriend pressed me on this. Since it ’ s mostly small things—shadows, bird noises, phones ringing—what ’ s it matter? It ’ s not like I ’ m hallucinating bodies everywhere. 
 
 The answer is because I have to know how sane I am. I have to. I ’ m terrified, so terrified, of getting worse. When I have bad episodes, it helps a lot to know that it ’ s an episode. So when something ’ s off, I need to know if it ’ s my brain or the actual world. I don ’ t even know if this is possible, but I hope that if I keep my awareness up, it ’ ll keep me from getting worse. I ’ m terrified of slipping into madness and not knowing it. I ’ ve heard that there are people who measure their lucidity in percentages. 50 % lucid. 80 % lucid. I ’ m probably 90 % lucid. I ’ m very lucky. About every 10 days or so ( is that math right? I have no idea ), I have a concerning episode—something more than just the birds. I don ’ t know how long they last. I lose that time. It ’ s gone. It could have been 10 minutes, it could have been 2 hours. It ’ s like waking up from something horrible. I ’ ll know what happened, I ’ ll have been “ lucid ” the whole time, but not so lucid that I had a sense of time. If I ever get to 50 % lucid, I ’ m just going to kill myself. Because that ’ s half a life. That ’ s just not worth it. That ’ s half a life that ’ s either not remembered, or filled with demons and fear. What kind of life is that? You know how important my cognitive facilities are to me. I ’ m trying to be an academic. I can ’ t be an academic without a mind that works. 
 
 I ’ ll tell you about the last episode I had. It was yesterday. I walked into my bathroom to get ready for bed. I wasn ’ t wearing a shirt. I got lost in my mirror. I stared at it a long time. I have no idea how long. But when I realized I had been staring a long time, it was because I had gotten cold. And then it happened. My body began to burble. My stomach rippled. It was like looking at a glitch. I couldn ’ t move—I probably could—but I just had to stand and watch. I was transfixed on my own body. I watched it morph. I watched it turn dead green. It became a face. My nipples were the eyes, and my belly button was the mouth. Then I was afraid. So afraid I can ’ t describe it. Afraid doesn ’ t cut it. I was horrified. Disgusted. My belly button was a tiny, grotesque mouth. So small, and so grotesque. Like a black hole I kept getting stuck in. Like a hole that would consume the whole world in its smallness. I was revolted, I wanted to get into a ball and hold my head in my hands. I wanted to get away. I wanted to cry. But still I was transfixed. I couldn ’ t get away from it. It was going to destroy me. With its fucking grotesque smallness. I don ’ t know how long it lasted. But eventually I left the bathroom, put on a shirt, went back and brushed my teeth in fear. 
 
 I have a lot of fear these days. Fear of going completely mad. Fear of being perceived as completely mad. Fear of anyone finding out. I feel like if people find out, I ’ d be ruined. This isn ’ t a paranoia thing, this is just the fact that between two otherwise equally qualified people, there ’ s never a good reason to pick the schizophrenic one over the other. Why hire someone unstable, someone who loses time, someone who can ’ t function with any real consistency. If I don ’ t make it in academia, I ’ m fucked. I need the schedule it allows me to keep. I only have to teach 5 hours a week. That ’ s just 5 hours that I have to pull myself together and be in front of people. I can do that. The rest is reading and writing. I can do that in spurts, I can do that still up at 5am, I can do that with all the irregularity necessitated by my condition. I could not hold a 40hr/week job. I am simply not capable of functioning for 8 hours in a row, much less 8 hours in a row 5 days a week. I have to lie down multiple times a day, because my head is too noisy. I have to lie down, and wait for the voices to quiet. Do you know what it ’ s like to be told you have to drill holes in your head? When you ’ re being told that, you can ’ t do anything else in the moment. You just have to wait it out. I ’ m smart, I ’ m capable, I ’ m determined. But I ’ m not consistent—I ’ m literally incapable of that. That ’ s why I lie down all the time. That ’ s why I miss appointments. That ’ s why you hear me telling the walls to shut the fuck up. I just want you to understand that. That ’ s why I ’ m tired all the damn time. I just want you to know that I ’ m not okay. I want you to know that while I ’ m not okay, I ’ m still okay. 
 
 My measure of okay is pretty poor these days. I ’ m not about to kill myself, so I ’ m okay. I hope to be a better okay one day. In the meantime, I hope this helps you know why I do the things I do, why I have to know if the birds are real. 

