The Eden Express_ A Memoir of Insanity - Mark Vonnegut [2]
Looking at mental health problems the same way we look at other medical problems is factually correct—the best bet for reducing the disabling symptoms and the only way to lessen the stigma and blame that traditionally double or triple the pain.
There is nothing good about being mentally ill except that it gave me a strong and undiluted desire to not be mentally ill. That has been useful. Being so useless has made me permanently grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to be useful. Being so unable to take care of myself has made me glad for the time I’ve not had to be dependent on the wisdom, good intentions, and skills of others.
I’m honored that people still want to read a book I wrote twenty-seven years ago. I wish I had been able to write another book between then and now. I’m still trying. But my biggest joy and best education and proudest achievement has been being able to show up for work and life and not cause too much trouble a day at a time in spite of my hysterical, somewhat dramatic, nature.
MARK VONNEGUT
September 2002
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION SCHIZOPHRENIA
MOST DISEASES CAN BE separated from one’s self and seen as foreign intruding entities. Schizophrenia is very poorly behaved in this respect. Colds, ulcers, flu, and cancer are things we get. Schizophrenic is something we are. It affects the things we most identify with as making us what we are.
If this weren’t problem enough, schiz comes on slow and comes on fast, stays a minute or days or years, can be heaven one moment, hell the next, enhance abilities and destroy them, back and forth several times a day and always weaving itself inextricably into what we call ourselves. It can transform only a small corner of our lives or turn the whole show upside down, always giving few if any clues as to when it came or when it left or what was us and what was schiz.
If it seems I tell too much here and too little there, I’ve honestly done the best I can. I honestly don’t know which parts of what follows are schizophrenia, just my particular schizophrenia, living in our times, trying to be a good hippie, or whatever.
If I had had a well-defined role in a stable culture, it might have been far simpler to sort things out. For a hippie, son of a counterculture hero, B.A. in religion, genetic biochemical disposition to schizophrenia, setting up a commune in the wilds of British Columbia, things tended to run together.
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TRAVELING HOPEFULLY
It is a better thing to travel hopefully than it is to arrive.
—R. L. Stevenson
JUNE 1969: SWARTHMORE GRADUATION. The night before, someone had taken white paint and painted “Commence What?” on the front of the stage. The maintenance crew had dutifully covered it over with red, white, and blue bunting, but we all knew it was there. We sat there more or less straight-faced, listening to how well educated we were, how we were supposed to save the world, etc. Most of us were wearing arm bands to let the world know exactly where we stood on the war. “What a swell bunch of moral people,” thought I. “With us on the loose, corruption and evil don’t stand a chance.”
To pass the time, to try to figure out where I was and get some sort of lead on what the hell to do next, I had written my own commencement address.
“Members of the class of ’69, parents, faculty, etc., greetings. Here we are on a fine sunny June day to celebrate and commemorate the graduation of 207 fine young men and women from this fine institution of higher learning.
“One of the things I’m taken by when I look out on a group like this one is how hard people have tried to do nice things for you. The financial cost of your education alone is staggering, but it doesn’t begin to tell the story. In a process that goes back generation upon generation countless sacrifices