Hell may be other people……
“What are you doing with him? He’ll drive you mad!” A self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one.
He was my partner in parenthood. And his long suffering mother was wondering what in hell I was doing with him. It was our very first encounter & I took an instant liking to her since I was seriously wondering the same thing.
Nowadays, he has a Safety Order against me so I cannot name & shame him publicly, as I have so often done.
Let’s say his name is Fozzy. for posterity’s sake.
“Fozzy is a controlling, manipulative fucker!” My own mother’s declaration, once upon a time, when the pair of them locked horns, at loggerheads forever after.
“Well…” I replied. “What does that say about you?!”
The conversation was closed but my Mom’s exact words have stayed with me, as words so often do, long after her time in this life came to an end.
Fozzy is still with us however & now the sole guardian of one sweet child of mine.
Fozzy’s days are numbered, that I can absolutely guarantee. Hell, so are mine! Who knows when anywho is going to meet their maker.
Dante reckoned that hell was other people but I think that’s a maybe…maybe not.
I surely went to hell after a spell spent trying to live with Fozzy for he certainly drove me mad in due course.
My madness landed me my first stint in psychiatric ‘care’.
The treatment I was subjected to for 4 long summer months damn near killed me, much to Fozzy’s unconcealed amusement.
“Ha ha ha! You look like a junkie!” He crowed. We were picnicking en famille under a tree in the grounds of the hospital in which I had been unwillingly installed. So full of hateful Haliperidol was I that I could barely sit, let alone enjoy a picnic in the sunshine with my baby girl.
Four seemingly endless months & the medication just kept coming…Ativan, Lithium, Olanzepine, Quetiapine, the works. Maximum dosage, whatever it took to shut me the fuck up!
Fortunately for me, Faith, & my sanity, the ‘locked ward’ was not actually locked. It was supposedly manned 24/7 by staff at reception. And when the shit was hitting the fan on the ward, as it regularly did with some patient or other kicking up a storm in a teacup down the hall, the reception could be deserted.
Bye bye looney bin…I could & would waltz out the ward’s double doors, making a swift exit from the hospital & a beeline for the beach. So even though I was involuntarily incarcerated from May through September, I spent many a fine day basking on any beach of my choosing from Sandymount to Greystones.
At the end of a long & leisurely day of freedom in the sun, sea & sand, the urge to see my sweet child would be as strong as ever. And so I would pay her a surprise visit, which always came to the same conclusion.
While I was enjoying the delightful company of my darling daughter, Fozzy would slyly contact the relevant authorities & the Gardaí would appear all too soon to whisk me back where I legally belonged, bah!
Go to hell! Go directly to hell! Do not pass go, do not collect your belongings or your dignity nor your sanity. Do you read me Fozzy should you be reading this? Like a bat out of hell or a clam without a shell, I am wishing you all the best, when you go to hell. Straight to hell, you soulless sucker!
Faith In The Ripple Effect 