Is it worth staying here?

If I could, I would start this text by saying that I have spent the last few years traveling around the world with just a backpack on my back, learning new languages, learning about different cultures, enjoying other traditions and discovering a little more about myself from the contact and reflection of the unknown. After all, the relationship with others allows me to observe, listen, and share stories …

However, my real trip was intensive care at a clinic specialized in adults with severe psychiatric symptoms. For months, angels and demons arose from places inside me never thought of. Anguish, depression, bipolarity, burnout, panic syndrome, post-traumatic disorder … In other words: mental illness.

Psychology, Psychiatry, and Neurology came into action, in a kind of interdisciplinary investigation, to diagnose my brain and my mind.

Like a large part of the world population, I grew up hearing that depression was foolish. Or better: any type of mental disorder was considered “lack of shame in the face or lack of what to do.” After all, just like a doctor told me, “sometimes it is better to break a leg than to have a mental illness.” Ironic, because I already had both legs broken simultaneously.

Well then! For months, I’ve been in a room with cameras and microphones, talking, day after day, with various specialists about my mental health. In view of what they classified as “rational sobriety and the ability to report facts through third-person stories” as if I were not myself, it was found to be only a problem of Metaphysics: impenetrability.

My mind and body did not want to occupy their own space at the same time. And since my inner self was no longer aware of who I was, it was difficult to accept finding a solution to an enigma that had existed for years.

However, the being called Edsandra did not even accept needing help. Gradually, she collapsed, until she was forced to demand support.

In a ring of constant internal fights and disconcerting physical falls, medicines were prescribed to relieve pain from deep wounds caused by continuous cuts. To this day, some scars remain dormant.

In a popular context, we could say: the strident voices inside the head of a human, apparently calm, can imply “abnormal” behavior, different or deviant, understood as a sensation of madness.

The fact that an individual has a mind programmed to believe that he is not enough for anything in this world can cause him to hate himself and then decide to eliminate the image reflected in the mirror. This is often converted into a suicide attempt.

Thus, a little conclusive diagnosis would be to say, “the person appreciates life, but needs to relieve the constant pain and unbearable collusion with herself.” Something like losing belief in yourself and in all of humanity.

So, there is no use judging and crucifying someone for having chosen not to want to live anymore. Sometimes, he or she just gives up. If we could all understand, or at least try to understand the pain of others, we would stop attempts at exorcism by saying that this or that is the only way. And, honestly, it was not that same being, so proclaimed by abstract voices, who gave us free will — the will to free choice?

The issue itself is not religious, but spiritual — understanding: incorporeal, mental – and even scientific.

Instead of numbing the next one with a thousand and one questions about this or that, how about we just listen? In place of countless incitements of the positive — “Come on, don’t be like this!” or “Get up from that bed. Let’s enjoy the beautiful day outside.” — how about just remaining silent, or just letting someone know that you will be there to hear what is causing pain in your loved one? Instead of evangelizing, how about just being silent and listening with your soul? Instead of commenting, criticizing, dramatizing, judging the attitude of the actor who committed suicide, how about reflecting on what led him to give up on life?

How many times are we silently crying out in pain, and in the face of such a loud and hysterical world, we are unable to hear our own voices – who will say those of the next one?

I have just returned to virtual social lives and I am amazed that almost everyone has an incredible need to be the focus of attention. Practically, mere citizens have become experts in something, mainly, about the lives of others. I remain impressed by how everything needs to be posted or commented on. And, given this bombardment of information, we contaminate our brain, making our mind sick.

Is it so necessary to compete with so much apparent poverty? Why this avalanche of superficial confetti, when it all starts with our small and simple private daily attitudes. Do you want to talk about ethics, morals, and politics? How about starting with the return of the wrong change that the bakery girl gave you?

Those who feed social inequality are the ones who plunder the national coffers. Those who create so much noise are usually the same voters of the power. A country’s beloved sweetheart is the fascist herself assumed before a nation. The same medical health plan that sustains a transformation for a better life is also the one that denies care to an accident victim and increases, in the middle of a pandemic, the monthly fee for the Brazilian elderly.

There is no point in pointing the finger at the other because you are this other. And all of us, in some degree of insanity, are hypocrites. Enough of the lame excuses, saying that it is the fault of this or that. Let’s take responsibility for our acts. After all, we are not poor beings, but only the results of our choices. This is a fact. Period.

Anyway, I’m not here for any moral lesson. Who am I? I would simply like to ask you to reflect before speaking any words to someone with a mental disorder. In fact, if you are human, you have a good chance of also being or having been infected by the virus of egotism. And as far as I know, no narcissism vaccine has yet been discovered.

I now remember a woman, whom I started to call aunt, shortly after arriving in Europe. At age 96, a few hours before she passed away, she said that she would leave the mirror hanging in her room for me. After a talk, she took three sips of red wine because she would like to sleep well that night. She simply fell asleep and left, as if she herself had decided the time to go. She was so lucid and sure that she didn’t want to stay here anymore. She did not kill herself; she just let her time come.

She had said that she was tired, and this was the time. This woman knew the significance of the importance of a mirror. Not the one to check if we are well-groomed or whatever, but the reflection of our own spectrum. It is there that we must look to see if we are well with ourselves.

Over time, we accept to be a semi-open book so that others can read some passages. When we choose to exist, we learn to respect our fragility, limits, and vulnerability. We begin to understand that we need not be ashamed of feeling different. After all, it hurts to ask and not get help.

However, the whole process of liberation from mental ills requires a long walk, and to accept being sick is the first step. Trying to resist is not even worth it, because that way, we fall into a deep well in the middle of a tunnel and everything gets even darker.

Looking at myself in the mirror and saying that I am enough to be in this world is still a daily battle. However, I decided to choose life, but I am still in rehabilitation. And even though I stopped taking medications, I still have days of darkness with doses of many doubts. Thus, when I hear someone say that they do not want to lose the one they love, I ask them to understand the difference in love with the word attachment. Only a few good friends strive to understand what I mean.

So, instead of continuing to make noise in an unrestrained lament, how about practicing silence by clearing your ear for the noises of pain muffled throughout this world?

It is not your duty to care for others. But, if you manage to have an attitude of love for them, free from selfishness (including virtual), perhaps the world can become a better place and many of us will arouse the interest of continuing here.

By Edsandra Carneiro

Photo by Luis Galvez em Unsplash