Who am I?

Who am I?

Who am I? To be honest, I’m still trying to figure that one out. 

But, I can tell you who I’m not.

I’m not the depressed woman you hesitate to talk to, I’m not that person putting my family through hell, I am not the miserable pathetic one who can’t get her act together.

The illness I suffer from causes these issues, I admit that. But that’s not who I am.

I will always remember a beautiful woman I met in one of the hospitals I was in. It was a public hospital, set aside for the severely ill, to the point of being unsafe. People with full on schizophrenia, suicide attempts, aggressive drug addictions. 

My nurse had convinced me to take my lunch to the dining area to eat.

I was scared, anxious, depressed, alone. I felt worthless and hated myself so much. 

This woman,  I will call her Beth, came over to me and said hello. I could tell she was on edge, but she gave me a smile and showed me the ‘best seat’ in the room. 

She told me my shirt was pretty. 

She sat near me, not exactly next to me, but close enough to know I wasn’t alone.

Within 5 minutes though, Beth’s agitation grew, and her facial expression changed. She started pacing, talking and acting strange. She looked scared. She began hallucinating, yelling at the voices in her head that was taunting her.

The nurses were quick to sedate her and take her back to her room until the episode passed. 

I had never witnessed this before. 

I was crying for her. 

I looked around the room.

No one seemed concerned for her. Some of them had an expression of rolling there eyes and whispering harsh remarks about the crazy woman.

I noticed that most people were either too scared to talk to her, or not interested enough to see she was a person.

I spoke to her whenever I saw her in the dining area. Most of the time only briefly. 

She always managed to show she cared, even when it was obviously a struggle for her to just be alive. She knew I was at that hospital for a reason, but didn’t hound me for any details. She just accepted that it was hard for me to be alive as well 

She said to me one day, ‘Thankyou.’

I was a bit confused.

‘What for, Beth?’

‘Most people are scared of me. They see my schizophrenia  and immediately back off. People laugh at me and call me insane and psycho.

But you see ME.......you see Beth.’

In that moment, I felt such sadness. 

Not just for Beth, but for everyone else around her. They were missing out on a beautiful person. 

I do admit I was scared by her actions sometimes, but I never saw it as her acting out. It was a symptom of her illness, much like a major coughing attack for someone with a chest infection. 

The person behind those symptoms always apologized later, understanding the fear and confusing her actions caused others.

But people failed to understand that it was scary and confusing for her as well.

All I can say to you, is that there are many people like Beth, myself included, that have been so shadowed by their illness that people stop even trying to see them.

We are people too.

Who am I? I am Bek.