In my head

Parable About Mental Health 

Dialogue

They’re after me, all of them. I know they are. I can feel it. I know I’m having a nervous breakdown.

My dear, there is no such thing as a nervous breakdown. Doctors don’t use the term. It’s just a way of describing several emotional conditions. You know, paranoia, depression, anxiety…

I don’t care what you call it, I’m having a serious crisis. I’m going to explode!

Now, now, dear, don’t talk like that. You know it’s all in your head. None of what you’re feeling is real. You know that, right? There’s nobody after you.

All right, I admit I exaggerated a little when I said they were all after me, and maybe not all of them are. A lot of them, yes.

Please, honey, don’t talk like that and don’t think like that either. You know sometimes you can be a little edgy. Not exactly hysterical, but kind of out there.

That’s not true! I know my feelings and I know what’s going on in my head, and it’s not pretty, I can assure you. It’s no fun having them coming after you all the time. It’s really hard to breathe sometimes.

Dear, after me? There’s nobody coming after me, that I know of.

No, no, and please don’t call me dear all the time. This isn’t Maine, you know. Anyway, if it were Maine you’d have to pronounce it deah to be accurate. When I said it’s no fun having them coming after you all the time I meant me. It’s no fun having them coming after me.

All right, deah, calm down. I just misunderstood. It isn’t always easy to follow you, you know.

Stop it! You might ask who they are. It’s the consideratething to do. You don’t even know that and you’re telling me I don’t know what I’m saying. Do you think this is all in my head?

Sweetheart, don’t get yourself all wound up over it. You’re right - I don’t know who they are and didn’t ask you because I don’t think they exist. It’s just your over-active imagination, don’t you think?

(Yet again, one thinks of that yellow wallpaper and the woman inside.)

So you don’t know who they are, but you can stand there and say they aren’t coming for me? I bet you don’t even think they exist.

Baby, I don’t even think they exist. Sorry, but I don’t.

See? I was right. One hundred percent right. You have decided they don’t exist, so if I say they do, I am the fool. Or the crazy person. Is that the way you see it? Yes, I’m beginning to see that.

Deah, I simply haven’t seen any type of “they” hovering around you. If they were, wouldn’t I have noticed? We spend a lot of time together, so I’m pretty sure I would have seen something or somebody. Of course, if there had been any chance you would suffer any harm, you know I’d be right there to defend you.

Right, right. I’m still dumfounded that you choose to simply deny their existence when you don’t know who or what they are. 

Well, sweetie, there’s nothing there, nobody lurking in the background. Absolute blank you’ve got around you. You are safe with me. 

(There might have been a low chuckle at this point.)

I need you to understand what is happening to me. Let me explain before you just brush me off as some paranoid lunatic.

Fine, dear, let’s hear it. Tell me everything and then maybe you will be able to see straight again. I have a few minutes now, so go ahead.

All right. Here goes. For starters, they are taking over my bedroom. The very space I need to have as a retreat. Yet they are there and I don’t have any part of the room for myself.

(Some head shaking occurs.)

Honey, what is it that is taking up your space? Doesn’t your bedroom belong to you?

Exactly my point! We all need a place to retreat to. But when I try to walk in it, I keep stepping on windmills, or books with poisoned letters, things like that are dangerous. When I open my closet some dark swallows fly out. If I open the top drawer in my dresser, the Orinoco runs out and my steps disappear as if I were some character in a Cuban novel. If I turn one lamp on, a woman in a medieval outfit starts singing and dancing. Another lamp shows me an axolotl in an aquarium, staring at me. The axolotl is a cute little animal, but it doesn’t belong in my bedroom. Nor do all the other animals.

(Muffled laughter)

You’re funny, dearest. Those things are clearly all in your head, not in your room. It would be pretty crowded if that actually happened. Messy, too.

I just told you it was crowded! Nobody should have to live like a sardine. I get lost walking on some of the paths in woods, on city buses, in catacombs. I am desperate not to have to solve crimes, or serve as a handmaiden. I can’t keep reciting poems about snowy lanes, hearths, owls, slants of light, or the prediction that I will die in Paris on a misty afternoon…

Oh, dear, are you predicting your death? Are you planning to end your own life? Please say that’s not going to happen. None of the things you describe are real, you know. Remember that.

Well, if you had read Vallejo, you would have figured out that the I in I will die in Paris was him talking, not me. It was me quoting him. It’s a very famous poem and I have it memorized. It takes up space in my brain.

All right, lovey, I admit I jumped to conclusions, but you aren’t always clear when you’re referring to yourself or somebody else.

See? That’s the point! That’s exactly my point! You haven’t heard the half of it. I mean, whether it’s a drawer, a shelf, a chair, the floor, a mirror, they all have something attached to them, occupying space. I mean, how many tables have been important in a novel or a play? And beds? Everywhere I read there’s a bed. Some of them, to be honest, are not permanent inhabitants of my bedroom. They come and go. But they’re always ready to explode - and do explode - out of my iPad or laptop. They can take my breath away.

Dear, this is starting to sound worse than weird. You apparently are saying that things you’ve read are coming out of the woodwork to hang out with you. Have you offered them tea, like they do in lots of mysteries? Do you have a ‘leave your metal at the door’ signed posted?

Now that you’re starting to understand my situation, you’re belittling me. As if I have a choice! I enjoy being alone sometimes. The idea of hanging out as you call it has never appealed to me very much.

Now, now, dear, you’ve misunderstood me. That wasn’t my intention at all. What I meant was, you can block those things, those people and places out of your mind.

I’m sorry, but do you see what you’ve just said? You first said they were in my head. Which also means you’re agreeing that they exist. In my head.

Yes, dear.

Now you’re saying I can block them out?

Yes, dear.

So do you understand that if I were to block all of them out I would essentially have nothing left, there would be no me, a person thinking about them.

Oh, no, sweetheart, I don’t want anything like that to happen. Just tell me what you want me to do. I’m sure we can make this work.

All right. Here it is in very succinct form. I can’t sum it up any more:

When you hear me talk, always remember that I could have been just a wordsearch. (Mindless game.) You can see that, surely. Everything I say, though, has to be something I have read, things like sonnets, haikus, epics. Not just lists of things. If you take my readings away, perhaps my bedroom will be empty and airy again. I will breathe easily in my newly uncluttered space. However, there will only be a very shredded and folded me. Next to nothing. I am not what-you-see-is-what-you-get. That is why I know they are coming for me. Fortunately, I’ve decided I can live with that.

I’m happy for you, dear.

Please don’t call me that.