Vaughn Williams: mass in G minor
It's raining, thank fuck. Never a fan of hot weather, I've been in bed for a week with a foul cold, getting hotter and hotter from the inside out and the outside in. This last in a series of unpleasant lurgees confirms that I have indeed killed my immune system dead for once and for all, the only suprise, that it lasted for so long.
I walked to the off lisence through the rain, rejoicing through my coughing at feeling cool and clean again. Now I'm sitting with only candles lit, a half of scotch and a bottle of soda by my side, the breeze smelling of gardens after rain- jasmine and lilac and earth. Vaughn Williams goes remarkably well with rain. A lot of english choral music does; it's something to do with the harmonies and the spaces. You could put it down to the climate, but I'd argue it's more to do with a latent streak of gothic romanticism in our religion, most english choral music being religious. It's written for college chapels and cathederals, for twenty-four boys and men by candle light and somehow the image is only perfected with the addition of an engulphing rainy night- fellows, commoners and congregation shaking rain from their foppish hair as they enter. I can sympathise; it was running through a dark court, forcing my arms into my gown, chapel bell tolling my lateness, skin proclaiming my dampness, to shelter from the rain in the chapel porch as the chaplain said the preliminary prayers that, at Cambridge, I felt most beautiful and most like a cliche. I, too, have a streak of gothic romanticim, but mine is less latent.
I digress. This evening, what with the rain and all, and no longer being laid low by fever (hem hem), seemed like a good time to break silence. I haven't written for a while. The paranoia has had me by the throat. It would have had me by the balls as well, but, you know. Being a girl and all. It's a strange, lanky, whispering thing, the paranoia. I've always thought of it as the poor brethren of Descartes' evil demon. It too sits on my shoulder muttering lies, but Descatres' demon decieved him about the whole of reality, and I have a fair amount of respect for that- the grand deception, you know, the big lie. Mine just tells me that I am a Bad Person. It tells me that people are looking at me, and that they are thinking Bad Thoughts. It tells me that I am the centre of evil. It spreads doubts. I have written a couple of posts- all of them, it has to be said, fairly buggered- and been unable to publish them, for the very reason that people might be reading them. I couldn't bear the thought of being in other people's minds, of being thought about. It feels too much like being stolen, and that, in turn, feels like disintegration. Instead, I have huddled in corners and tried to make myself invisible- no mean feat when nature has given you a natural talent for visiablity.
I brought the paranoia up in therapy. It had reached its height, and I had found myself shiverring in the corner of a cafe on Tottenham Court Road, unable to leave because I was so convinced that people were looking at me, and whispering about me, and thinking bad things about me. I was so utterly sure of their contempt and hatred. Casual glances seemed embued with absolute contempt. People were hating me. I could feel it. And they were, I was sure, whispering about me. I was thoroughly miserable. Describing this to my individual therapist, I found myself desperate to convince her of the truth of this. -People, I wailed, were LOOKING at me.
After I'd said this, rather aggressively, for perhaps the fifth time, she asked -And were they looking at you? I was taken aback. All my previous therapists, when confronted with my capacity for neurotic paranoia- the bit where I stop being borderline and start being pretty psychotic, actually- are sympathetic but look slightly worried. I am used to this. I capitalise on it when I want some sympathy or to distract from a particularly stupid thing I've done, because that's the sort of manipulative cunt I am. Never before has anyone asked me if people are looking at me. It occured to me suddenly that I'm five foot ten and I dress funny. Yes, people probably are looking at me. And normally it doesn't bother me; I accept it and keep walking, in the same way that it no longer bothers me when people stare at my scars, or ask me wierdly intusive questions because of them. It's a part of my life, and I'm usually too busy thinking about something else to pay much attention. It's only when my brain is looking for something to fixate on that it starts becoming a problem.
I have been wondering, ever since, as the paranoia left its perch and freed me for a while to think normal thought, proportionate to myself and circumstance, about the way we designate reality. So often, it seems to be by majority vote. Psychosis is often defined in terms of experiences not shard by majority. I have little problem with that. What interests me is the narative element- the fact that whether it is real or not is to some extent defined by the way you tell it. Oh, yes, I know the reason- that psychosis is a thought disorder; it's not the event but your thoughts about the event which digress from the normal, and "thoughts" is a remarkably broad church. But all the same there is somewhere a boundary. At some point I stopped telling the truth about the event. People were looking at me, but at some point I started discribing it in the wrong set of terms. Well, at some point I started embellishing and thinking that as well as looking they were stealing bits of me, but we'll leave that by the wayside for now, seeing as it doesn't help my case. I don't really know what my case is. But there are a myriad different ways of telling any story. Mine's a little kooky, sometimes, sure, but "real" is an emotive term. It's pretty bloody real to me. Real enough to make me cut and starve myself; real enough to make me cancel appointments and stay in my house until after dark, when people can't see me so well. And is it true? It's my version of the truth. Yours differs, perhaps, and yours is in tune with the majority. Mine is the deviant one. Well, it is. I accept that. But in the particular, bounding world which I inhabit it's the only truth there is.
My argument is not that there are more than one kind of truth. I'm a finely honed rational philosopher, y'know, and I have little time for that RELATIVISTIC BULLSHIT. Rather, it is that the truth is the same for both of us- my story and yours contain the same grain of truth. It's after the truth that things diverge, and that's just what telling a story is, and that's just what the judiciary is, and in lots of cases that's just what mad is. People were looking at me. I accept that, and so does my therapist. From then on in, it's just a case of how you spin it. My spin might be left-field, but that doesn't make it wrong. Spin can't be wrong- ambiguous is what spin is. The difference, as far as I can see it, is that my spin makes me deeply miserable, makes me doubt myself and hurt myself and sometimes, yes, it's so bonkers that it makes me wonder if I'm crazy. But the real truth is that some people tell their lives as romances, some as sagas; some have Dickens ghost them and other poor buggers pick Martin Amis. Me, I read like a cross between a horror story and a second rate tragedy. The truth's okay. In itself it's neither sad, nor uplifiting, nor funny. If you're laughing, then it's just the way I tells them.
I walked to the off lisence through the rain, rejoicing through my coughing at feeling cool and clean again. Now I'm sitting with only candles lit, a half of scotch and a bottle of soda by my side, the breeze smelling of gardens after rain- jasmine and lilac and earth. Vaughn Williams goes remarkably well with rain. A lot of english choral music does; it's something to do with the harmonies and the spaces. You could put it down to the climate, but I'd argue it's more to do with a latent streak of gothic romanticism in our religion, most english choral music being religious. It's written for college chapels and cathederals, for twenty-four boys and men by candle light and somehow the image is only perfected with the addition of an engulphing rainy night- fellows, commoners and congregation shaking rain from their foppish hair as they enter. I can sympathise; it was running through a dark court, forcing my arms into my gown, chapel bell tolling my lateness, skin proclaiming my dampness, to shelter from the rain in the chapel porch as the chaplain said the preliminary prayers that, at Cambridge, I felt most beautiful and most like a cliche. I, too, have a streak of gothic romanticim, but mine is less latent.
I digress. This evening, what with the rain and all, and no longer being laid low by fever (hem hem), seemed like a good time to break silence. I haven't written for a while. The paranoia has had me by the throat. It would have had me by the balls as well, but, you know. Being a girl and all. It's a strange, lanky, whispering thing, the paranoia. I've always thought of it as the poor brethren of Descartes' evil demon. It too sits on my shoulder muttering lies, but Descatres' demon decieved him about the whole of reality, and I have a fair amount of respect for that- the grand deception, you know, the big lie. Mine just tells me that I am a Bad Person. It tells me that people are looking at me, and that they are thinking Bad Thoughts. It tells me that I am the centre of evil. It spreads doubts. I have written a couple of posts- all of them, it has to be said, fairly buggered- and been unable to publish them, for the very reason that people might be reading them. I couldn't bear the thought of being in other people's minds, of being thought about. It feels too much like being stolen, and that, in turn, feels like disintegration. Instead, I have huddled in corners and tried to make myself invisible- no mean feat when nature has given you a natural talent for visiablity.
I brought the paranoia up in therapy. It had reached its height, and I had found myself shiverring in the corner of a cafe on Tottenham Court Road, unable to leave because I was so convinced that people were looking at me, and whispering about me, and thinking bad things about me. I was so utterly sure of their contempt and hatred. Casual glances seemed embued with absolute contempt. People were hating me. I could feel it. And they were, I was sure, whispering about me. I was thoroughly miserable. Describing this to my individual therapist, I found myself desperate to convince her of the truth of this. -People, I wailed, were LOOKING at me.
After I'd said this, rather aggressively, for perhaps the fifth time, she asked -And were they looking at you? I was taken aback. All my previous therapists, when confronted with my capacity for neurotic paranoia- the bit where I stop being borderline and start being pretty psychotic, actually- are sympathetic but look slightly worried. I am used to this. I capitalise on it when I want some sympathy or to distract from a particularly stupid thing I've done, because that's the sort of manipulative cunt I am. Never before has anyone asked me if people are looking at me. It occured to me suddenly that I'm five foot ten and I dress funny. Yes, people probably are looking at me. And normally it doesn't bother me; I accept it and keep walking, in the same way that it no longer bothers me when people stare at my scars, or ask me wierdly intusive questions because of them. It's a part of my life, and I'm usually too busy thinking about something else to pay much attention. It's only when my brain is looking for something to fixate on that it starts becoming a problem.
I have been wondering, ever since, as the paranoia left its perch and freed me for a while to think normal thought, proportionate to myself and circumstance, about the way we designate reality. So often, it seems to be by majority vote. Psychosis is often defined in terms of experiences not shard by majority. I have little problem with that. What interests me is the narative element- the fact that whether it is real or not is to some extent defined by the way you tell it. Oh, yes, I know the reason- that psychosis is a thought disorder; it's not the event but your thoughts about the event which digress from the normal, and "thoughts" is a remarkably broad church. But all the same there is somewhere a boundary. At some point I stopped telling the truth about the event. People were looking at me, but at some point I started discribing it in the wrong set of terms. Well, at some point I started embellishing and thinking that as well as looking they were stealing bits of me, but we'll leave that by the wayside for now, seeing as it doesn't help my case. I don't really know what my case is. But there are a myriad different ways of telling any story. Mine's a little kooky, sometimes, sure, but "real" is an emotive term. It's pretty bloody real to me. Real enough to make me cut and starve myself; real enough to make me cancel appointments and stay in my house until after dark, when people can't see me so well. And is it true? It's my version of the truth. Yours differs, perhaps, and yours is in tune with the majority. Mine is the deviant one. Well, it is. I accept that. But in the particular, bounding world which I inhabit it's the only truth there is.
My argument is not that there are more than one kind of truth. I'm a finely honed rational philosopher, y'know, and I have little time for that RELATIVISTIC BULLSHIT. Rather, it is that the truth is the same for both of us- my story and yours contain the same grain of truth. It's after the truth that things diverge, and that's just what telling a story is, and that's just what the judiciary is, and in lots of cases that's just what mad is. People were looking at me. I accept that, and so does my therapist. From then on in, it's just a case of how you spin it. My spin might be left-field, but that doesn't make it wrong. Spin can't be wrong- ambiguous is what spin is. The difference, as far as I can see it, is that my spin makes me deeply miserable, makes me doubt myself and hurt myself and sometimes, yes, it's so bonkers that it makes me wonder if I'm crazy. But the real truth is that some people tell their lives as romances, some as sagas; some have Dickens ghost them and other poor buggers pick Martin Amis. Me, I read like a cross between a horror story and a second rate tragedy. The truth's okay. In itself it's neither sad, nor uplifiting, nor funny. If you're laughing, then it's just the way I tells them.
posted by tattybluetrees at 1:41 PM
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