Have you ever questioned your state of mental health? Not your sanity, but your mental health. There are plenty of mental illnesses that don't quite qualify their victims as "insane." We’re all different, that’s one of the greatest things about humanity. People’s minds work in different ways. But what if there is a reason for the way I see the world, the way I see it that is so different from the people around me? What if there is something abnormal about the way my brain is wired? What if there was a solution to the problems I’ve had for as long as I can remember?
I'm afraid to approach my family, my fear of being dismissed as "silly" or "melodramatic" overrules my yearning for answers. I don’t have a collection of friends that I can turn to, not even a small one. I’m even afraid to ask my husband for help. I’m paranoid that he won’t take me seriously, or that he’ll try to convince me of otherwise. I’m not close enough with my coworkers to ask for help, and they don’t know me well enough, either. They don’t know my past. It would explain so much if I could only get some answers. If I could explain why I am the way I am, why I say something the way I say it, or that I say it at all. Why I usually find a way of doing things that are different from the norm. Why I have trouble with eye contact during casual conversations. Why I’m always moving. If I could just have a reason, it’d be so much easier to understand.
It’s interesting how my love of reading caused me to come across all of these thought processes. I’ve always loved to read. It was, and still is, a doorway to a place where I could tune out everything around me, and enter someone else’s world for an hour or two, or maybe even a whole day. I still have most of the books I’ve ever owned, and even now it pains me to think of parting with them.
I’ve always loved words. They are beautiful things, each individual grouping of letters meaning something different, or in some cases, the same. Words are powerful. They can change the world, when spoken in the right context to the right people, and when coming from the right voice. They provide a window to people’s innermost workings, the cogs and gears, the hinges and sockets of their minds, hearts, and souls. But when they go unuttered, they are worthless. Hopefully, words will help me understand.
I’ve never had a problem with speech. I developed at the right age, from what I’m told. But I was always very shy as a young girl. But even though I developed my speech properly, I regularly say things differently than ordinary people would. I also trip over my words, I always have. Very clearly I remember constantly trying to say something, my mind seeing the words I want to say like on a page in a book, and my tongue not getting itself around them as quickly.
I have excellent hearing. I used to attribute this to the years of music classes that I put in during school. Music was my life. Every musician says that, it’s a cliché that all of us believe in. Once a musician, always a musician. Even though I haven’t picked up my instrument in three and half years (at time of writing), I can still read music, I can still appreciate everything I’ve ever known about it. But after I discovered the small amount of talent I had, I felt it like it was in my blood. It was in my cells. It was my very nervous system. I understood my instrument, there was no limit to what it could do at my command.
I started orchestra in elementary school. Our lessons were structured in such a way that our respective sections (violin, viola, cello/bass) met for part of our school day and learned about the most basic rules of music. The following Saturday, we’d come meet at the junior high for a group rehearsal including the entire orchestra. This went on all year, and by the summer we would scratch out a few short tunes, our parents smiling in the audience, so proud that their little boy or girl was more cultured now. This could be their future. This could be something that changed their lives. As that summer passed and all of those tiny little fifth graders progressed into Junior High (how exciting!), we got to have orchestra class. We then practiced daily with the entire orchestra, and our collective talent grew. Some of us developed passion. Some of us found a natural talent for creating melody, harmony, and rhythm. By the end of junior high, I knew that I loved my art. I was decent at it, for someone my age and with my level of learning.
Going into high school, I was told that due to my courseload, the classes I was taking at their scheduled times would not allow me to enroll in the entry level orchestra. I was upset, but there wasn’t much I could do about it as a freshman. By this time, my sister was also in the junior high orchestra, and it was at one of her concerts that I realized, I needed this as part of my life. Watching her perform with her own orchestra, I didn’t realize there were tears streaming down my face until after they were finished. I missed it so much, I couldn’t not go back as soon as I could. I was being deprived of something I truly enjoyed. I wouldn’t stand for it. I spent the next three years of my life immersed in music. I played quartet and quintet gigs wherever I could find them: weddings, awards parties, some weddings, formal township meetings, and more weddings. I was a part of the pit orchestra for the school’s productions of Guys and Dolls and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. I learned about musicals and how much I loved them all. Everything from Phantom of the Opera to Wicked, from Rent to Cats, from The Fiddler on the Roof to all sorts of rock operas, I love them all. I haven’t found a musical I don’t like. There is something about telling a story with music that just sets everything else aside, puts the world on hold for a while, and changes the way we see it all. But what was more important was not only the fact that music changed the way I see the world and the music in it, but it honed my hearing.
At the peak of my music experience, my musically trained ear could pick up on different layers of a piece, and something would happen in my head that I still can’t explain adequately. What I experienced when I heard a piece of music was something I treasured and enjoyed, but most of my peers couldn’t understand, so I didn’t talk much about it. Music has layers. Different voices in different ranges create a complex weave of sound that exists all at the same tempo, if not the same rhythm. I could see all of this, without having the music in front of me. I couldn’t just picture the sheet music as I was listening, I wasn’t some child prodigy. But what I could see were the colors and textures of the piece, moving and flowing with the melody, then on the bottom or in the background the low, deep powerful strokes of the bass and drums, or other lower voices. I could watch the harmony dance and meld with the melody, giving it a solid support structure. Complex, high-tempo pieces were my favorite for this. Anything with fast notes dancing all over the staff created an elaborate artwork that only I could see, but reflected the music in such a way that overwhelmed me. This vision, for lack of a better word, happened with all types of music. Classical, rock, a capella, metal, pop, alternative, new age, electronic, anything.
Some of my favorite pieces/songs visually:
- Evan Rachel Wood’s Blackbird
- Demons & Wizards’ Fiddler on the Green
- Rammstein’s Das Modell
- Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade
- Mumford & Sons’ Little Lion Man and Thistle and Weeds and the rest of Sigh No More
- Nickelback’s If Everyone Cared
- Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee as performed by The Five Browns
- AC/DC’s Back in Black
- Mikhail Glinka’s Russlan and Ludmilla
- Graham Colton’s Best Days
- Gustav Holst’s Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity along with the rest of The Planets
- Imogen Heap’s Hide and Seek
- Simon & Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair
- Yanni’s Santorini
- La Vie Boheme from Rent
- Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24) and Mad Russian’s Christmas
- Yo-Yo Mah’s Meyer : 1B
- The entirety of Hans Zimmer’s Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack
- The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus’ Your Guardian Angel
- Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture
- Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody
- Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture
- …and tons more.
I can hear certain sounds at certain times that either no one, or only a select few people around me pick up on. But sometimes I have trouble hearing normal speech. It’s easier if I can focus on a stationary object while listening, but I’ve been reprimanded for this “avoiding eye contact” so many times throughout the years. Oftentimes, after a conversation, I can recall the words that were exchanged very clearly for a brief amount of time, generally anywhere from a few hours up to a day. But then parts of the conversation that was had begin to trickle away, and all that are left in my memory are a few power words here and there. Mostly what I’m left with are memories of whatever emotions I felt during that conversation. I often feel pressured to ask people to repeat what they’ve said multiple times because I don’t catch it the first time. It takes some time for me to be comfortable talking with people, even as an adult. But after being at ease with interacting with new coworkers for a while I feel like they get very frustrated with me, so I resort back to distancing myself from them in an effort to not have “huh?” be my most commonly uttered word of the day all the time. I’m also told I mumble, constantly, which is ironic, I suppose. The one that is constantly having a hard time hearing others cannot make herself heard, either.
I’ve also had very self-destructive habits. I spent several years as what society calls a “cutter.” I say this about society because I believe I did it for different reasons than others “like me.” I loved watching my blood seep out of my tissue. It’s a beautiful thing. The same blood that makes our veins blue and our cheeks pink pours out of skin in a way that is its own dance. I became obsessed with my scars and still love them, even today. I love how they feel under my fingertips. I loved peeling away the skin that was trying to heal, to watch the blood spill out of me all over again. But nothing compared to the cold steel of the razor blade against my skin. Nothing. Even now, after so long having not cut myself intentionally, if I get hurt the people around me are constantly telling me to "stop picking." I can't leave things alone. Blisters, scabs, scrapes, dead skin. I peel it all, constantly. My fingertips hardly have fingerprints because I am constantly peeling off my flesh.
Something that I can’t suppress is constant motion. Walking, running, skating, taking a shower, and cleaning, all of these things are fine. But I can’t just sit in a car. I can’t just lay in bed. I can’t just watch a movie. Standing in one place is impossible. Some part of me is always moving. I’m constantly annoying the people around me with my leg jiggling or foot waving. This has been the case for as long as I can remember. I pivot my heel when I sit in the car. I pace or walk around in circles while I wait for the start-of-shift meeting at work. I used to do laps around the house when I was younger and had nothing to do. When I’m at home alone with no one to witness it, as I’m sitting on my bed writing or playing video games, I rock back and forth. I tap my fingers. And when someone, as they always do, glares at me, or grabs my knee or finger, or tells me to “quit shaking!” I resort to tapping my big toe inside my shoe. I don’t know why, and I don’t know where it comes from. All I know is that when I stop moving completely, my muscles get all tense and they start to hurt. Sometimes they start to spasm. It’s very uncomfortable, being reprimanded for an almost involuntary motion. Sometimes I just want to yell back, “How would you like it if I told you to stop breathing?”
Which takes me back to the most important thing of all, and that is the difficulties I have with talking to people in general. I’ve already mentioned that it takes a while to warm up to others. Generally, the timeline is as such:
· The initial meeting that includes a smile, some names, and maybe a handshake.
· [Time period where I tend to ignore others around me.]
· Awkward stage where others try and ask me questions about myself. In order to give the answer justice, I tend to go overboard on details and a simple question ends up taking minutes to answer instead of a few seconds.
· I avoid conversation for fear of the above happening again.
· Gradually, very slowly, I get to know them and they get to know me.
· For one reason or another we separate, either because of loss of employment, relocation, death, etc. The strange thing about this part of the cycle is this: usually I don’t really miss them. That sounds horrible, because while I worked with those people, or while I went to school with them (or whatever the case may have been), I might have honestly enjoyed their company, but most of the time I feel disconnected to them after the fact. They become a name and a face, little else. Does that make me a bad person?
Now, what got all this started is a compilation of several things. I tend to express myself differently than my peers. I have a lot of trouble making and keeping eye contact during conversation, tending to look over their shoulder at a fixed point in the background, or something similar. I’ve been told this is rude and impolite, and so I try to look into their eyes, I really do. But it makes me uncomfortable (much like being still), so I always wind up looking away again. I’ve had to learn to keep things to myself which, in turn, forces me to remain quiet a lot of the time. When there is news of death and destruction all over the globe, I see the faces around me contort into what I know is called sympathy. Much of the time, however, I just can’t bring myself to feel it. Does this make me evil?
I don’t like crowds, I will actively avoid having to be amid a large amount of people. I loathe carnivals and other celebratory events. I’ve never been to a “house party” in my life (You know the kind. Loud music, young people that shouldn’t be drinking but are anyway, no parents, etc.) I can’t stand watching a movie in a crowded theatre, I’d much prefer either waiting to watch it at home or waiting until it is no longer a new release and there will be less people around. I don’t like the pressure to conform to whatever the crowd is doing, I’d much rather just sit back and watch. I’m often terrified that partaking in some of these activities only opens myself up for criticism or ridicule. Supposedly, most people feel the same way, but they “grow out of it.” So why do I still feel these things so strongly?
Everything considered, there’s either something wrong with me mentally or I’m just really, really, REALLY weird and maybe a hypochondriac. But which is it? And how long do I have to go brooding about this before I finally summon up the courage to ask for help? What do I do?
7/2/11
