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An Unsent Letter
Update: 7/14/06
I have watched your grip on reality become more and more tenuous as the months progressed. I have watched your personality erode to almost nothing. I claimed that I loved you. But how can I say that when I have allowed you to degenerate so badly, and haven't said or done anything?
Schizophrenia is treatable. There are anti psychotic drugs, such as Haldol, which are injected once a month. They can make the voices go away, and gibe you back your life.
There is a wonderful story called "Flowers for Algernon." In it, a retarded man gets an operation which turns him into a genius. But the operation is not permanent; his mind degenerates back to his previous, retarded state.
While intelligent, he had fallen in love with his teacher. When she realized what was happening to him, she broke off all contact with him. She couldn't stand to watch his mind leave him.
That is how I geel about you. If you don't seek psychiatric help, I can't associate with you. I can't watch your mind go.
Face facts. Jewsus does not tell you where to park. The voices are coming from your own mind. You don't have bone cancer: that's your own mind telling you a lie.
Please Read: 1/10/05
I can't go on just biting my tongue, not saying how I really feel. I think it is more than likely you will not want to have anything to do with me after reading what I am offering here. We have more in common than we have differences. At the same time, there are things that I have to say. It would be an act of irresponsibility on my part if I were to remain silent.
Let's start with a web page I wrote about you some months ago:
Click here
I feel that I know you very well. From the talks we have had, I have come to some conclusions about you. I thought I could just overlook what I knew about you. I can't do that any more.
Years ago, I remember talking to someone who claimed to be psychic. She mentioned that when she was a child, she would see and hear things that other people did not.
I responded with the thought that it sounded like the classic symptoms of a mental illness called schizophrenia. She responded that, yes she had been diagnosed as having schizophrenia, but she was really psychic. She had amassed a group of friends who believed in psychic powers. They supported her in her belief that she was not mentally ill.
Do you see the sheer perversity of that? Here was a woman who was mentally ill. She needed to get psychiatric help. But she didn't, because there were people who were willing to support her delusions. They wanted to believe that psychic powers were real.
It was a loop, consisting of each side exploiting the other. And in the end, this poor woman was harmed, because she did not get the help she needed.
From what you have told me about yourself, I am convinced that you also suffer from schizophrenia. Click here to read about the symptoms of schizophrenia.
From what you have told me of yout childhood, it fits. Schizophrenia frequently is associated with brain damage.
This is no attack on you. I think you are a wonderful person, with a winning personality. And it's because I love you that I have to tell you this.
Which brings me to that church we went to last night. Within less than a minute, I realized that here was a room full of very troubled people. Psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder-- it got to the point that I would mentally catalog each new mental illness I saw.
And here is why I found the place so disturbing: these people needed help. But yet they are never going to get that help, because they have all come together to a place that actively discourages them from getting the help they need. Instead, their problems will be encouraged. It's the very worst place for those people to be.
As a real world analogy, let's say that someone sets up an alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous. Only this new group encourages its members to keep on drinking, and to see themselves as not having a problem: everyone else has the problem, but not them.
I care too much about you, I care too much about myself to allow things to go on as before. Believe me, I thought about just going along, spouting the empty words and pretending to believe something that I knew wasn't true.
You're wonderful. You're almost worth the complete loss of self respect I would have if I went along with things. Almost.
It's up to you now. You can take the easy route: just say to yourself that everything I have said here came from the devil. That's the easy way out. It would take no time at all, and you could go on with your life, and I would be just one more in a long line of suitors who have come up short.
Or you can take the more challenging route, that is, the truth: that I am someone that cares about you, and that the points I have made are valid. It would mean more of a challenge than the easy path, but in the long run you would be better off for it.
Finally, I am not trying to attack your faith. I know it is important to you. But I think that you would rather have a faith that was based on reality, and not based on the whims of mental illness.
I love you, and I had to say this.
1/11/04
I considered taking down this page. After talking to you today, I realize how necessary these words are. Remember when you said that you were waiting for Jesus to tell you what to do about me? I responded with "sometimes the voices in your head do that." That was sarcasm on my part. Hearing voices in your head is a sign of schizophrenia. You didn't get my point. To you, having voices in your head is not only acceptable, it's laudable: something to work for.
Yes, seeing and hearing things that aren't there must make you feel special. But it's not normal. It's a symptom of mental illness. Reality is far, far better than any fantasy, no matter how comforting that fantasy might be.
In fact, let me be even more blunt here. There are two possible outcomes: you either admit you have a problem and seek psychiatric help, or we break off all contact. And I mean ALL contact.
I can't sit idly by and watch your mind degenerate more and more. I had assumed that you would get better. I was wrong, and I admit that it was irresponsible of me to sit back and let you spout off your delusional ideas without comment.
Schizophrenia IS treatable, but first you have to admit that you have a problem. I love you, but I am also angry at myself for not sitting you aside months ago and telling you these things. I admit that I was an enabler, that is, by my silence, I aided and abetted your mental illness. I should have spoken up right away.
My first web page about all of this
My second web page about all of this
Send E-Mail to: charmark_8@hotmail.com
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