I slowly approached the door feeling a strange combination of fear, shame and excitement. The house was a small one lost back in a bundle of old growth hemlocks far from the road. It was made from natural edged wood hand planed and lovingly put together. None of the angles were straight and none of the boards were square but it held a strange kind of appeal that most square houses did not. The door started to open and my heart skipped two beats.
I spent 5 months visiting my brother almost every day as he suffered from terminal stage-4 non-small cell lymphatic cancer that was caused by smoking. Every day I tried to understand how he saw the world and how he viewed what was happening to him through the veil of his Paranoid Schizophrenia. This story is my interpretation how he viewed the world. I am writing this as therapy for myself mostly, but also as a way of showing how terrifying life can be for people with severe mental illness.
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They were calling him back again, moving backwards in time was always harder than moving forward. Near the end there was so much boredom, sitting around waiting for something, never sure what. There was less pain, the nurse would come every few hours and give him another dose of Oxycodone. Near the end he knew he was addicted, but he didn’t care. Normally it was not permissible to dabble in the addictions of men, but for his rank and pay grade no one would really notice. Besides he was so close to retirement anyway.
Continue reading “Losing His Place In Time – Love, Cancer And A Failing Mind”
Awaken Spirit 
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