Breakdown


Breakdown

 

It was a family decision that I be put in a mental hospital. My family witnessed my odd behavior. They watched my delusional and psychotic self wander around day by day acting completely bizarre. I would walk around singing Christmas songs because I wanted it to be Christmas everyday, simply because Jesus was born on that day. I thought I was the chosen prophet and I was going to save the world. I was also having delusions of grandeur. I was completely psychotic. My family must have been so afraid and I know that they felt completely helpless.

I vaguely remember what happened the night my family urged Junior to drive me to a mental hospital. I could barely make sense of the events that led me to that night. The thing that is clear to me is that I was in another world. I was in the world of the insane, but my body was lingering in reality. People saw my body wandering around, but I was a lost child trapped in a make-believe world.

There were so many people who stared at me: friends, their families, neighbors, and strangers on the street. They were walking by thinking, “What the hell is wrong with that girl?” I remember being on my knees at Melissa’s front doorstep. I was singing, “Oh come all ye faithful.” I whirled around an imaginary staff. Like Moses, I was going to part open the sky because it was time for the great end. I awaited the Lord to come down from heaven in a chariot but he never came. Instead, Melissa ran out in panic. She didn’t know I was there until she just heard the singing, the singing of that mentally ill girl, me. Melissa’s neighbor watered her lawn in her muumuu. I saw her from the corner of my eye and she was just staring. The saddest thing was I didn’t realize that they were actually real people. In my mind, I thought they were demons. I remember the paranoia and chronic insomnia as I studied the Bible day and night. I was manic and hyper-religious. I thought that my own family wanted to kill me and I was always running away from them. I ran three miles to my friend Erika’s house. She wasn’t home but her mother opened the door. I kept telling her that the world was going to end but she just stared at me. She looked at me the way everyone else looked at me, with bewilderment and concern, but at that time, I didn’t realize it.

I remember some things but not everything. I worshiped the sun in Erika’s backyard. I thought I could control the sun with my special powers. Erika’s brother came home and once again, he just stared. Finally, Erika got home and I heard whispering. It was her family whispering with Erika. That is when Erika came to me and said, “Mari, I think I should call your mom.”

Junior picked me up. He brought me home and I just sat on the living room couch. I just sat there quietly not making a sound, but inside, my mind was screaming. I looked up and saw Junior making phone calls. He wrote something down and said, “Mari, we have to go somewhere.” And that night was the night that changed my life forever. That was the first time I was taken to a mental hospital.


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