Despair

The Look. I'll never forget it. I know she's heavily medicated, the maximum Clozaril you can safely give a person without totally sending their brain chemistry into an out of control spin. But The Look is still there. Then she begins to have The Conversation. The Conversation begins with one of two voices, her voice or The Voice. Her voice is meek, soft, muted by fear and pain. The Voice is harsh, bitter, straight from the deepest darkest recesses she can muster. The words from both voices are garbled, unintelligible. Hearing them gives me a chilling glimpse into why it would be so much easier to believe that devils and demons are responsible for these behaviors. It is much easier on the soul to believe an outside force is controlling these viscerally disturbing behaviors and emotions. To think our brains and our minds could turn on us like this is too much to bear at times. I listen, I try to pick up what The Voice is saying, I cannot make it out again. I try to intervene, to try bring her back to the reality I know away from the reality she's created. It takes a moment, because one or the other usually has something else to say and I know I'm still just a faint beckoning barely heard in their Conversation. And then I see the Look. That pained, fearful, sad expression. Whatever The Voice told her, it was atrocious, hurtful, spiteful, malevolent. Whatever I say, whatever I do, I cannot help her avoid The Look. I can help it subside, to lessen, but it's always there at the end of every Conversation. She will not tell me what The Voice told her. Perhaps she doesn't remember exactly what it was, perhaps it's just too painful for her to tell me. And that is the part that would make it so much easier to believe that devils and demons possess and hurt her so. Because the thought that we as human beings have the capacity to hurt ourselves to that extent, to bring ourselves to fearful tears and have no control over it - that is Despair.