Control: A Mind on Fire…
I, Dalton Lewis, have the reds — I’m on fire, writing 28,000 words in thirteen short days. Why? It’s National Novel Writing Month. I’m crafting a fantasy tale of terror and intrigue that will be 50,000 words because that’s the goal length of a NaNoWriMo book. This one will feature philosophy and philosophers. Really! I’m doing some research, developing interesting and unique characters and everything. Really! Me. Research. And each character should be unique and interesting. I know.
My mental illness tries to crush my mind and body. My schizophrenia flared up. Why? Because it is always there. The schizophrenia is always there. The paranoia says, I will get framed and killed. The paranoia says, someone will steal my stories. The paranoia says, I won’t get along with the successful writers. The paranoia says, my family will die and I will end up lost and alone.
I live through this. I am used to this. For nineteen years the voices have talked to me — yeah, that long. I am not new to this. I should know by now to ignore the bad patches when the voices say particularly horrible things to me — but no, they occasionally break down my defenses and say something that makes me freak out and scream at the walls for a while.
I go to the bathroom. I eat dinner — pot roast. I halfway watch college football while reading a couple of good books. I roleplay with friends quite successfully. I make sense and talk to people and play a character and make interesting suggestions. I refer to popular video games and people understand and agree with the references. I live my life with the schizophrenia there, constantly there, constantly bugging me.
Through it all I continue to write and read. I have written at least ten books and read fifty despite a continuous fight with voices inside of my head. That’s an accomplishment. For those of you fighting with a mental illness — you can do this. I have 7,500 downloads of my novels. I have some bad reviews, sure, but I also have plenty of five-star reviews, too. Some people have loved my books. That’s why I do it.
Do I want to hurt myself? No. I don’t. I’m proud of myself, trying to be the best person that I can be in spite of the fact that it’s hard to pay attention to the world around me. I admit it — sometimes I have trouble remembering people’s faces that I have known, or their names. I have trouble paying attention to the world around me. Things seem to happen. Time passes very fast to me — without me remembering the individual days very well. Still I fight on — continuing to write the best stories that I can and reading and exercising and trying to lose weight and stay alive.
It’s hard to stay alive with contemporary America’s food choices and the meds making my body’s metabolism so slow. The meds also don’t help one to live forever — according to Finnegan. I need them to be able to function, though. The medications make it so that I can focus on the world and — mostly — zone out the voices and the stories.
If you want to support my writing — thanks. Plenty of my titles are available for sale on amazon. Also, my novella Miserable Existence is free for the next couple of days if you want to check it out. It’s about religious beliefs and middle school. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08F3YQBHC
Thanks, and take care, friends.
