Dual diagnosis is when your mental health becomes a problem and your mental illness becomes a solution.
I am a liar, you say. We think alike. I am a thief, you say. Think alike. I am a cheater, you say. Alike. I am a bigot, a sexist, a fraud. We are the same. An asshole, a loser, a snob. The same. Blasphemous, hypocritical, weak. Same. Truthful, you say? I say liar! Innocent, … Continue reading Pleasure Meeting You
There is a thought brewing in the back of my mind that is difficult. The thought swells and moves between my ears where it begins to show a struggle on my face. I could change the thought but I can’t change my face from a question quick enough into a smile. So there the thought … Continue reading Facial Expression
When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out? There once was an acid I put in my head. It took years for the molecule to take effect. It eventually did and fit like a fiddle in the middle of a dj set. I tried to poke at the strings … Continue reading One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure
What’s something most people don’t know about you? There was a time in my life when I thought I was divine. Imagine how difficult it was to overcome a delusion like that as a young man. And as a middle aged man I still believe some of that to be true because it’s easy to … Continue reading 12 – The Peak
I have to admit that I’m a little bit confused with all the extra thought I put into nurturing little seeds that have been planted by professionals and amateurs alike about my type of thinking that goes along with being both a recovering addict and clandestine schizophrenic. If I am going to get any better … Continue reading The Germination of My Mind
“Write the first thing that comes to mind,” Eric thought to himself. Then he starts to write the first thing that comes to mind but he fears he will be discovered because of that. He most likely won’t write the first thing that comes to mind all the way through until the end and he … Continue reading The Invisible Prompt
A schizophrenic walks into a bar, past the bar and exits the bar out the back door. He doesn’t want to drink but just to blend-in as if everybody doesn’t know him already, the latest casualty to psychedelics. Before performing as a normal alcoholic he needs to know if the sound of clinking glasses is … Continue reading Return Home When the Streetlights Come On
Eric wants to walk through door number one, a tiny door he would never choose to enter without mounting courage or actually falling from grace. The king riding the tallest steed throughout the kingdom tends to never duck his head to miss the astonishment of onlookers who have only heard him cussing on the turret … Continue reading Sober for Good at the Goose Intervention
“I hope it rains today.” Eric is worried, thinking about his new intrepid thirst for apple cider that he enjoys with medicinal herbs everyday. The fruit trees and herbs in Eric’s backyard need rain for nourishment to grow plentiful enough for him to quench his daily thirst, caring for his own mental nourishment. Along with … Continue reading Cheating Death
There was a time in my life when I thought I was divine. Imagine how difficult it was to overcome a delusion like that as a young man. And as a middle aged man I still believe some of that to be true because it’s easy to accept that everybody is exceptional at times but… … Continue reading 12 – The Peak
I was found at twenty after being lost for some time, seeing the horizon under my feet, people I care about walking with me parallel to the street. Other pedestrians walked like sophisticated dogs, wagging for attention as they hurried by in droves. I walked mighty with my nose to the sky, my eyes fixed … Continue reading In Dog Years
“I’ll get around to it,” Jer said when he was asked to go to the laundromat. On his way out a few hours later he looked around for a piece of fruit to eat but quickly gave up, opting instead to stop at Magoos Pizzaria for a slice since it’s on the way. Every time … Continue reading Time – I’ll Get Around To It
Sometimes when I sit and think, it’s too much for me. To sit and think is too much for anybody. To really sit and think puts too much time on my hands. Sitting and thinking gives me too much time to think about sitting…and thinking. Thinking about sitting is thinking too much. It looks to … Continue reading Anxiety
I used to run around in my twenties saying mushrooms are good sport after I went on a heroic journey that left the automatic asshole in me behind only to be replaced by the trigger shy nice guy for a good solid decade. This turned out to be the greatest augmentation of somersaults inside my … Continue reading The Vitality of Being Nice
My #poetry over time has changed by using words I’ve heard before ever knowing their meaning, and binding those words together to sound similar to each other, telling rhythmically the meaning of what I believe worth finding a cadence and with words I’ve never heard before in that sequence, how to give those words meaning. … Continue reading Tag Words Almost Explained 3
It was not great speaking to you just now. The way you bring up my thirty year past tells me you have a problem with the way you’re living today. You think thirty years and I’m still the same cat. Get your lips off that beer, talking about health, I’ll have none of that. The … Continue reading Letter to a Friend
Another interesting part of my journey thirty years ago out of acute care that is worth noting is I was able to help others by simply getting better before their eyes. Not only did I recover but I had a positive impact on other patients because of the composed way in which I transformed madness … Continue reading 9 – The Compassion
The “next step” of my hospital stay began sort of like how my life began. I emerged from darkness into a bright and sterile environment with doctors wiping away my tears and cutting the cord to my sustenance. In the dark I could’ve cried all I wanted and nobody would come to wipe my tears … Continue reading 8 – The Birth
They came to get me but it wasn’t in the middle of the night. I was led from the sanitized sanity of the commissary, down the ever encroaching hallway passed the curious closet towards the damned doorway, which finally swung open with precise timing. I passed through the archway and stepped into a room with … Continue reading 7 – The Ward
I woke up one morning to the nurse telling me that my unit rival had moved on. I was bummed because when I got him alone in the same room he didn’t poke at me or ramble on feverishly about being Jesus inside the walls and God walking on air like he would say in … Continue reading 6 – The Closet
After one day I was so comfortable in the ICU hallway I began to look like a cowboy leaning against a post with his head down and a blade of grass between his teeth, waiting for his shadow to rise or fall without moving a muscle. I would sit on the ground with my legs … Continue reading 5 – The Hallway
The type of animal that I saw in the mirror every morning in the hospital was close to the chimpanzee but something more bipedal. The last one in a long line of chimps but first from the right on the chart of evolution. God's favorite. The human being. If God has a long white beard … Continue reading 4 – The Hospital
The most interesting weekend of my life involved three separate incidents that happened but I can’t prove them beyond a reasonable doubt because they are so bizarre. The first incident involved stones being thrown on our roof, the sound following me from room to room and thought to thought. I remember there being an intense … Continue reading The Most Interesting Read of the Day
Let me segue back into this part of my life by saying you carry the blues with you wherever you go. At some point I’m going to have to discuss why my experience with dual diagnosis was not drug induced psychosis. The real simple answer is that I didn’t use drugs but a few times … Continue reading Metamorphosis and Dual Diagnosis
Francis Erich McElroy 