I have opinions. Wanna hear them? How a chronically ill brain works

Here. Hold this

What is it?

Just hold it and I’ll explain.

It looks like a brain.

It is, but it’s a brain with mental illness.

What’s the difference?

Well, that one is in pain.

Like a headache?

No, my good sir. That brain does not have a headache. It has a deep throb like the Kraken has awoken and is issuing its rumbling call to inform those around it that all must bow down to the supreme being that is the root of all neurones, synapses, nerve endings and—

Jesus Christ, okay! So I’m holding a bomb?

Yes. So, it is not a headache. Now, in your other—

Hold on. This is enough.

Oh no, my friend. It’s not. In that hand, please hold this fog.

Fog?  You can’t hold fog.

This fog you can hold. It is dense, like CLAG glue which has had markers poked into it so the blue and brown ink has leaked and when you stir the plastic brush around, the swirls resemble the circles left by squashed snails in the rain.

Okay. Specific.

Imagine you have that in front of your eyes at every waking moment.

That’d be awful. I’d be constantly shaking my head to loosen the fog or something.

Yes, people would be concerned.

I wouldn’t be able to think properly or anything.

No. It would be awful. Now, please hold that fog in that hand. Don’t drop the brain. It’s trying hard enough to cope without being introduced to gravity. So, now you need—

I haven’t got any hands left!

Hold the fog and the brain together.

But we’re talking about seperate things.

Ah, now. See, there you’re wrong. Everything is combined. Let me show you. Hold out your now empty hand. Put this in it.

What is it?

Fatigue.

So…basically tired.

No. Fatigue like you have run three marathons in three days but still the dishwasher needs emptying so you try to do that and your eyeballs that are looking at the handle of the dishwasher can’t work out what a handle is and, as they’re such tired eyeballs, you decide to go to sleep but the bedroom is too far away so you lie on the floor knowing perfectly well that you will not sleep and will continue to be fatigued forever and ever. Also, the dishwasher does not get emptied.

Wow. That’s beyond exhaustion.

Yes. Now, hold this one with fatigue, please.

More? What’s this?

This is a collection of moods and chemical disorders that have not been carefully medicated by professionals so now those emotions are swimming without safety vests in the North Sea, dodging oil rigs and cargo ships while trying to gauge the infinitesimal levels needed to maintain the balance for the various disorders in the brain you’re holding over there.

Wait? All this is going on AT THE SAME TIME? How does anyone with these four things—

Oh! There are more but four is a good number to start with.

Okay. But with all this stuff going on, how do they function? Go to work? Drive? Stay alive?

They do because they need to and what happens is, well…it becomes too much and you see what is happening to the brain over there. That ache? That kraken? That awakens fully, and the person with that brain must go to hospital.

This is KJ’s brain, isn’t it?

Yes. She was very ill.

Now?

Getting better. The fog is clearing gradually, she doesn’t have to sleep for an hour after being up for ninety minutes. She can drive safely. She’s present.

What about her writing?

KJ became very ill in October 2023 and, even with some help, was becoming more ill each week. The fog and fatigue were taking their toll. The emotional imbalances were so extreme that many people were very concerned. Yet, through it all, KJ knew that she had a story to tell. Some days she wrote 17 words. Most days none at all. In 2024, for the last two weeks of the manuscript for her latest book, KJ was in a psychiatric hospital getting the care she needed and in the middle of that stay, she wrote two small chapters. The fog was lifting, the fatigue was fading.