On Saturday, Mr. Boy checked himself into a psychiatric hospital because part of him wanted to kill himself while part of him did not. He checked himself in voluntarily and without persuasion from any other person. At some point, he stopped taking his medications, and taking them helps him stay healthy. He is exactly where he needs to be to get better.
I'm a big proponent of self care. Steps we take to ensure our health and well-being are both good and necessary, and when the step we have to take to do that is putting ourselves in a situation where we can't harm ourselves, we should not be afraid to do so. Yet, we are ashamed when we take this step to protect our lives. We feel like worthless failures for ending up in a position of vulnerability we cannot control. I have been on Mr. Boy's side of this equation. When the best thing I could do to survive was ask for help, I felt broken - not because I wanted to die (that felt normal at the time) but because I needed help not to. The physicality of living is an unconscious process. When it becomes conscious, we feel broken. Despite the modern understanding of such brokenness as illness, we feel it as shame.
So Mr. Boy feels ashamed that he "let himself get to the point" of needing to take this step. I'm grateful that he's taking this step rather than killing himself. But I'm also ashamed. I'm ashamed that the strength of his life and our relationship is not enough to give him reasons to live, even as I know that it's not about that, and if it were, any reasons for him to stay alive need to be internal to him.
I find myself talking around Mr. Boy's illness. My boyfriend, I say, is in the hospital. They're monitoring him; he'll be ok. I told my parents he was in the hospital, but refused to answer questions about why or where. They were supportive of me when I ended up in psych wards, but somehow it feels like my failure that Mr. Boy ended up in one. I told them he's likely to be in the hospital for a few weeks, which is true, but have not elaborated.
With people I am not quite so close to, I find myself worried about how they'll judge Mr. Boy or me if they find out he has a mental illness. The stigma surrounding mental illness is real and often unconscious. I have no way to predict how my friends and coworkers will react. In addition, there's a part of me that views this as a private matter. It's something that is nobody else's business. Most of my friends still do not yet know Mr. Boy, so they have no investment in the situation other than how it affects me. And I feel like it shouldn't affect me. Mr. Boy is sick, and is getting medical attention. There's nothing else to say, and there's nothing to worry about it.
But it affects me. I feel like part of me that is in relationship with him is on hiatus because he can't respond to me with a sparkle in his eye. I feel sad that my dearheart wants to kill himself because I see how valuable he is in the world and it hurts that he doesn't see it. I feel torn as I place my commitments to my job and my own self care such that I can't go see him every day (the hospital has very limited visiting hours). I feel shut down as I put my worries over his well-being aside to get through my day. I feel that my love for him is being strengthened by this experience and grateful to be able to pray about it honestly. I feel lonely, like no one has ever been through what I've been through even as I reach out to people I know have been in my situation. I feel distracted from the joys and sorrows of my friends and the world because my thoughts, when not focused on work are focused on him. I feel amazed that I can care that way about another person. I feel angry that he has to go through this. I feel honored that I have become close enough to him that he wants to see me even though he feels broken. I feel overwhelmed by all of this. I feel vulnerable, and not the calculated vulnerability that I can use to be an effective organizer, but scared, vulnerable, and squishy (I'm looking to see if anyone has a pointy stick). I feel like the person I would go to to help me deal with this is absent, but that what I want to be able to do is curl up in his arms and cry. I feel like I can't express this in my daily interactions. I find myself directing the shaming anti-sissy rhetoric that my flaming boy disdains at myself. I tell myself to man up or butch up, that crying is something I need to wait until I'm home alone to do, that it's not ok to feel less than happy or fulfilled, that I need to pretend that everything is fine, and I need to protect myself from the inference that I am weak.
And it's hard to talk about. Even with the select few people I've reached out to, it's hard to say what I mean. I don't even know that I've managed to here, but at least I tried.
Because I don't know how to close this with my own words, here are Rainer Maria Rilke's, as translated by Stephen Mitchell:
I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings
They yearn so high that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles around your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
Don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision, as upon a tree?
If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.
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