From the Fields came forth.. By Robert Fullarton

From the Fields came forth..

By Robert Fullarton

Copyright 2017

I surveyed the darkness

At the edges of the fields

And waited for the fierce

Frosts to carpet the sleeping earth

I saw darkness within myself

Appearing like a vision

As I journeyed through

Unto the panorama

That revealed a mystery

Unbeknown to me before

There is beauty and there is tragedy

A world of tears

Like porcelain cups

Or lives thrown against the cliffs

This is winter

I told myself

And youth was spring

From which another man inhabited

The roots of furtive thought

And rich living in which I stole the sun

From the point of no return

The boy was hardened

Like clay into the baking oven

Tested by the rough winds

Of the world

Away from this isle of the dead

By the weeping willows

I ask myself these questions

“what is destiny and what is fate,

What part do I play in the great

Wrestle against the colossus?

How can I live? How can I dream?

When my body has been crushed?

I am one of those men who disbelieve

And fail to take the golden

Opportunity afforded

And delivered as a miracle from God.”

I’ve seen these dreams

Like re-runs,

They speak as voices

From the other side

Over the man made wall,

The man made ignorance

That scoffs in the face of authority,

The outstretched arm

And heart calls through

A man made clamour

Just to reach you

Where you are

Into the corners of a darkened winter

Where the light does not dwell

I aspire to think

“of day being resurrected

And man rising henceforth like flowers

Where once the earth and bones

Were dead, henceforth

The man shall dwell in the court

Of the heavenly gardener

And all the earth is alive again

And man’s song is most beautiful

Once more, with no melancholy

But joy, not so subtle

But so powerful, once more!”

Diary from the ninth circle Part 2- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2010

Diary from the ninth circle Part 2-
Copyright Robert Fullarton 2010

                                                                          

                                                                            I

Sand down a human being through suffering, and you have the innermost being, unmasked, with the façade worn away, there the person’s true nature is seen and it cannot be mistaken anymore! After you have gone through several seasons in hell, you start to care less about your pot-marked weaknesses with society and instead seek spiritual answers, and have deeper questions to ask. Too many view society as the tour de force, the answer and the impetus to all that goes on, it is akin to the Roman society and its “public pantheon of gods”, the God of the universe is ironically and really the God who in private and yet in power speaks to our conscience as the drama of our lives unfold. In fact the modern man or post-modern person experiences and views the social unit or society as a religious experience, being the very thing to aspire to, infamy is the nexus to power, and self adulation is the kernel, but there is a cyclical fear of what others believe and think of us, going on and round, as a poor substitute to the real thing, this desire for love in social acceptance and fame, is an artificial love that cannot replace what the ancients sought in the divine. 
Too many have bought into the apparatus of a powerful media, that moulds the generations and often too many come forth like dolls upon the conveyor belt, implanted with the thoughts of the espirit de corps of the secular order, and often avoiding the deep experiential dramas essential to our progress as human beings. As a Christian I can say for certain that it has not been a picnic and I walk along the rocky road, sometimes, I have to crawl, or dangle over the treacherous precipices of my insecurities and all I lack on the path ahead. But I desire one day to fly above these present troubles, and even to the non-believer I state that a goal orientated, aspired mind, must have such hope and endure for such a hope become a reality in time!

Existence is not dull, we may think it dull at times and it seems unfair, but there is this drama of twists and turns, of plots being unearthed, of pain being so real at times that equates to strength, and when one loves sacrificially one discovers the greatest love, that which replicates the act of divine sacrifice.

  

                                                                                  II

The psychiatric ward in my eyes was Dante’s iconic inferno, the place where sufferers and condemned individuals, rot and burn in pain, they are confined to their own designated area, their turf and their reality of hardship. I met, psychotics, schizophrenics, people with bi-polar, hysterics, drug addicts, alcoholics and post-traumatic sufferers.

I had to try and comfort several people who were having emotional breakdowns and yet also I met many remarkable people, who told me their unique story, have educated me on the many different personality types, the fragilities and the sensitivities that are often ignored and overlooked within any examination of the human species as a whole. The youth of today lack that element and that essential gratitude that our society lacks, the community spirit, the charity and the patience to see the purely subjective horrors of what one human being can feel are misunderstood. Perhaps indeed community lectures should be given in schools and colleges more often, speeches on the promotion of well being, individual speakers on the stigma and the hardship of former psychiatric ward patients. The young of today should remember that there is a rising trend in the number of suicides, a growth in the number of people being diagnosed, treated and even hospitalised for the rising numbers of mental health patients and suffers alike. This proportionate increase is reflected in the rise of street drug abuse, peer pressure, depression over social conditions and domestic issues. Any person can fall victim to the circumstances of the current times and can go from being a happy and healthy human being to a person inflicted with a debilitating illness.

Everything changes, our perspective is reaffirmed and retuned into place, we seek survival, the love of loved one’s is a bout of madness and sorrow when absent, memories bulge out like razor sharp pains, fear grows until you cannot even face the local shopkeeper or the neighbour up the road. Severe fear of judgment, often a misguided sense of shame and a general prostration comes upon us. The outgoing man will retreat inward and seek comfort in solitude and in turn will make things worse for himself, this cyclic return to depression will reiterate once this man realises that he is lonely, but hardly ever does he realise that he choose often to cut himself off from perhaps a single voice that offered to listen and to care for him. Our world is plunged into darkness and we often forget our passions, the reasons for our striving to live and the motives for rebuilding, and reconstructing the old dreams of childhood. If one woman wanted to be an artist, then she should reaffirm this old desire and pursue it, if one man wanted to be an architect then likewise, he should remember the reasons as to why he aspired to these notions in the first place

I often capitulate myself to negativity and even to immense depression, I have had to learn and still have to remind myself of the possibilities of positive thinking and the fact that my pessimism offers me nothing but a personal spiritual defeat.

One to one private care, counselling and support is needed and I honestly commend the work of occupational therapists in general for the specific needs that often are met at least with one to one coaching. But I believe that a more intimate, truly personal, and more far reaching method and prognosis should be developed for the greater good and dignity of these human "souls in bondage."

My psychiatrist was lousy, in the sense that he would regularly fail to turn up when he was supposed to turn up, his absences were common, and his inability to understand his own patience’s was so obvious that he was a comical figure to several of his own patients. His ineptitude, his apathy and failing methods were the signs that self-reliance was required on my part; otherwise neither recovery nor rehabilitation of any kind would surface at all. I have known the disenfranchised people of our society, so little effort is made by psychiatrists to understand the sense of what their patients actually feel inside. While I was in hospital I met an older woman with whom I instantly connected. We formed a bond an a friendship, we talked, we walked together and I discussed my writing, my philosophy –which I now began to write in aphoristic verse- and of course I found a woman whom I believe I could have loved if their were no age difference what so ever. I loved her sense of humour, her receptivity, her story of heartbreak from a former long-term lover. We connected and became close friends, their were no elements of attraction nor any traits of romance, but a connection of personalities and interests. Time passed soon enough and before I knew where I was, she had been discharged and I never got to say goodbye to her.

Of course such areas are covered in the psychiatric hospitals around the country and no doubt the world at large, but I simply advocate a more impassioned response to individual patients. The cool distance of the psychiatrists given to their patients, the rigid protocol and the health care system itself, running on the necessities of health insurance have bore us another school like atmosphere, where ineptly tuned lectures are given, where quacks come and go, where the patients are the children doting on the psychiatrist and his team who are the parents and the supposed salvation of the children themselves

I knew too many cases that were neglected and often left the hospital felling much worse than upon awhile I did enjoy the occupational therapy, for that was the more essential one on one basis that any patient their arrival. The rush to fill beds, to keep up with the regularity –or irregularity- of protocol, the general sloppiness of the psychiatrists and the money had to flow continually. All dead water had to remain stagnant while the patients continued to drink from foul waters.

I had a lot to learn. I had to know that rehabilitation and recovery are continual; they never cease while we seek a constant change for renewal. Often we can only rely on ourselves but if we find a mutual friend then we should count our blessings and be exposed to the kindness of others and new people who have come into our lives.

A silent transformation into the unknown is required and that is what happened, slowly but surely, a refinement of old perspectives and a eclipsing of old dilemmas.

Diary from the ninth ring- Part 1 -The psychiatric system, a personal story- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2010

Diary from the ninth Circle- Part 1

-The psychiatric system, a personal story- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2010



Those with mental illness will suffer a “death” of some sort, for the old personality dies, the public face hangs down until it crumples at the sides and simply droops down to be replaced by the candid expressions of human fear and anxiety. When the mask is worn out, the gravest human angst appears and the fear of being human, fear of the unknown and the fear even of death emerge in their own right.  The deeper and often heavier human being emerges from the fire, the smouldering process of transfiguration, change and transformation

I have learned on too many occasions that the institutions, the psychiatrists and even the health care system cannot offer enough help for the specialised care of the individual patient. A generalised prognosis is given with an often-generalised diagnosis, a generalised method for treatment and for many these will not be the requisite path to follow. Little enough attention is focused on the symptoms themselves, often too little time is given to the origins of these symptoms, to the development of neurotic behaviour, hyper sensitivities, to our domestic history, our upbringing and development. The sensitivities that have manifested themselves in a physical manner need to be acknowledged and accessed in a manner that is not solely geared around medication. The so-called professional approach by the psychiatrist, going by the book, will insist on the clinical procedure, the austerity of a clinic or psychiatric ward- that often reflects the loveless and abrasive centres for mentally “unfit” or even a sort of lonely prison for the “unfit”. I myself have indulged in these thoughts, have experienced these very sensations- of dread, loneliness and fear- and of course have learned that from the start it was the patients themselves who carried the weight of the illness without any serious form or relative treatment or any practical help whatsoever. I have often witnessed patients leaving a psychiatric ward in a serious state of tension and aggravation- hurried off by their doctors so that new patients could come and fill the beds and numbers- and of course these patients return within weeks, feeling just as awful as before, if not worse. They have been given the gruff, often unsympathetic, treatment, by the team of doctors and form fillers who have little time, empathy and dedication for the individual patient. What matters is whether the patient is covered by health insurance, their medication and the unbroken chain of clinical processes that run day and night while names come and go. I myself have been a name on a register myself twice before in a psychiatric ward, have fought with nurses and have lost my faith in psychiatrists in general.

I tell you all that the toughest thing at times can be to live, the most menial of matters can seem trivial and impossible when our mind is swamped with fear, adrenaline, anxiety, sorrow, angst and the monstrosities of terror.

We may have given our troubles and fears the silent treatment for years and now we have finally come to know these fears through conscious terror. 

Breathing exercises are brilliant for lowering anxiety, for helping to expand and remove certain catarrh and phlegm from the lungs –so this is especially helpful for people who suffer from asthma like myself. I could even state that people with acute anxiety or panic disorder are often rushing and running at a pace to fast for their body and their mind to operate at. The body is simply flooded with adrenaline, the mind is aroused, the arms are clammy and sweaty and perhaps even a certain hyper vigilance extends over the feelings and general sense of fear given by the individual. A slow and gently given practise to time management, meditation, relaxation, claming walks and exercises, even praying can have its benefits too and all such attempts are made for a long term recovery, or a sense of self competence in the face of these overriding symptoms and habits. 

I continued to study law in college, the semesters came and went in sequence, I worked, tired and slaved over the case law, the legislation, the various books and assignments that were designated to me, and of course for the first time in my life my over all grades improved. A blossoming and unveiling of knowledge, Intellect, a craving for information and an interest in the world of factual information took possession over me. When I wasn’t working for an assignment or studying for an arduous exam, I spent most of my available time in the college library, perusing through various collections of stories, novels, books of philosophy, ancient Greek and Roman history, drama and poetry.

While my love of literature blossomed, my anxiety grew, through mental exhaustion; I grew fatigued with other people and with my college work. I had been previously diagnosed with having Severe Anxiety Disorder –but I did not dwell too much on this diagnosis I had been given from the Blackrock clinic after I had gotten an MRI scan done-and of course I was not susceptible to the full effects of my anxiety. I was negligently ignoring my worsening state of depression that was fuelled with insatiable moments for binge drinking, for self pity, moodiness and anger. A sort of self loathing often poured forward within me while I was out and about, perhaps even coming home from college on the bus at the end of the day. 

An awareness is vital for us to seek a recovery. I have spent the past three years around a community of people, blighted by the troubles of their past, the crises of the present and waiting in vain for the pains of the future to reimburse within them again. I can question forever on the reasons and the preventative measures that could and should be adopted and met for the extremities of variable conditions and disorders that are prevalent in our society today. My mind has registered many faces, remembered many heart wrenching stories, trials of persevering humanity and enduring questions that have made me feel like an out and out nihilist sometimes at the sense and sum of suffering that has come either genetically, neuro-chemically, or through domestic and social abuse of some sort. I have witnessed courage on every front by the patients and attendees themselves, but often have seen the patients and attendees sit and wait, unresponsively for the clinicians, psychiatrists and therapists to perform a sort of instant miracle or magic trick to their specific needs. I myself have been in this mind frame too often throughout my life, I have known what it feels like to be utterly desperate, to be helpless to be clinging to the precipices of human dignity and fortitude. I know what it is like to feel a sense of life slipping away, a closeness of death, a soul shattering fear that can devour you. I have seen train wreaks, corrosion and catastrophe in the faces of human beings. So little self control, so much antipathy for life and a sense of catatonic shock seems to echo through the core of these human beings, who have fallen on hard times.

When I was 21 years of age, the symptoms of a psychosomatic disorder were already beginning to show themselves. First of all I was suffering panic attacks at night, terrible insomnia, an irregular heartbeat. My stomach was beginning to cause me terrible trouble. I would spend endless nights with severe stomach trouble, nausea, feelings of sickness, acute abdominal pains and acid. At the end of a marathon of trips back and forward to my local GP I was told that I had acid reflux and had to adopt to a new lifestyle, with a wholly different diet and this meant that I would have to sacrifice or cut down on my drinking and smoking. I was depressed with this intial diagnosis and stupidly enough I did not make the dietary change required but merely took the medication prescribed to me. While I was working hard one evening on an assignment for college, I began to go into a cold sweat, my heart began to beat faster than it had ever beat before, it thudded so fast that I nearly fainted in the hallway.

But I had absolutely not idea what was going on, I was oblivious to this experience and to reassurances from family that I was not going to die. This was the beginning of decline in terror and anxiety, into fear and reclusion, my lowest ebb was dawning and many more panic attacks were to follow, some would last up to six hours and some would hit me while I was flying on a plane. I stupidly on my first encounter with this terror drank myself into a drunken stupor and of course this was, me pouring petrol over the blazing fire. Things went from bad to worse; I spent many days in bed trying to recover from both my nerves and my stomach.

I continued to write throughout this time, found renewal through my faith and my adoration for writing. I even managed to finish my final exams for my college degree and achieved a positive result overall. But the kettle was long due to over boil, I had not properly dealt with my nervous disorder, had gone for a gastroscopic examination in a private hospital and was told that I had no peptic ulcers, no bacteria in my gut but told that my stomach trouble was caused by my nervous disorder. I did not believe this and I only reluctantly accepted this after months of constant tension.