Pray the Demons Out

It may come as no surprise that neurological conditions fascinate me.  While it is completely understandable that they are burdens to their bearers, the madness that spills from a broken mind is a creation wholly unmarred by the incarceration of the waking world.  There is no leash holding the bits of the bearer of that condition to what is known or what can be realistically conceived.  The mind is shattered, and each shard is cast into an unknown, unheard of, fantastic realm that no one else can see.

What is most captivating of all is the courting of the threshold of normalcy that is undertaken by the bearer of such a condition.  She flits over it with uncertain feet, uncertain fingers calming uncertain lips, wondering whether to chase the music to which she now dances.  He speaks to it because it demands his words, pulls them from him beyond the reach of his will, and he wonders whether to wander where the wind instructs him.  In the end, she may choose to continue her dance and he may choose to continue his conversation, and once they have crossed that threshold and stepped into the sunlight of their waking dream they will be slapped with the label of 'epileptic' or 'schizophrenic' and yanked back into the prison of normalcy by well meaning peers.

I mention epilepsy because it is very closely related to migraines, particularly those with aura.  They are so closely linked that having one increases the likelihood of having the other, and the border between them is not always distinguishable.  The epilepsy most know is the demonic possession of old.  The epileptic is the contortionist, the linguist, the grotesque performer whose erraticism makes the blood curdle and the skin bubble.  However, as it turns out, it is not simply bumbling and barbaric, but also silent and precise.

In last night's episode of Monday Mornings (TNT's answer for a mob of House addicts going cold turkey), a young man was brought into Chelsea General Hospital by his mother because he was a compulsive writer who was also epileptic.  She had been concerned that writing had become an addiction for him, and so had stripped him of his laptop, paper, and writing implements for one weekend to try to make him "normal".  During his resulting epileptic seizure, he had found a pen and written all his thoughts on every inch of his exposed skin.  Ultimately, he chose not to remove the potentially fatal lesion the doctors found in his brain because that would rob him of his creativity and, hence, his identity.  One of his doctors agreed, and it was then that I learnt of all the great writers who have had epilepsy.  Dante, Poe, Dickens, Moliere were all at least suspected to have had epileptic seizures.  Of course, this does not even begin to take into account all the composers, artists, actors and generally creative members of society for whom this was reality.

Very often, creativity is the reflection from the scattered shards of a broken, degenerate, fragile or hurt mind.  When beauty erupts from the depths of all that brooding volatility, what is treatment, really? What is normal? Almost all the artists I have ever admired were at least mildly mad.  Would their paintings, stories or music be as enthralling had they not been? I have always been told that my dreams and imaginings were strange, that my stories must come from a twisted place.  When I speak of my voices and shadows, the primary reaction is usually the facial distortion of one who is unsure of whether my tales are fiction or fact.  The secondary reaction is more varied and much more amusing, from "you need to get help" to "we need to call a priest/preacher to pray the demons out of you".

I sometimes wonder what 'fixing' my twists and demons will truly fix.  As in the case of the young writer, what does one's identity become if the flaw that once was daily life becomes a faded memory? Is identity truly the same? Can one who is accustomed to weaving worlds from untraceable mist resign oneself to this grounded life of horizon-less asphalt? Can a fluffy, new, fulfilling personality be plucked from a hat without scorching the hand of the one who will never again see the full extent of his gift and solace?

My favourite stories have always been those that dwelt on madness.  They have always been populated by characters who saw people who were not truly there and were troubled by great oppression that did not truly exist.  Whether Alice in Wonderland or Hamlet, whether irreconcilably insane or in paced descent, madness cannot be controlled.  But is there such a thing as 'mild madness'? If it does exist, can it be fixed? And, if it can, if the creative product it spits forth is the only shred of comfort keeping the scattered shards of a mind in sight of each other, should it be fixed?

...

The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil; and the devil hath power
T' assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me...

 William Shakespeare, Hamlet