43. Smoking

 

Some mentally ill people smoke. I did. I chain-smoked 2 1/2 packs of Camel Lights per day. They were a dollar a pack when I started smoking them.

When I lived in supported housing there was a guy who sold cartons of cigarettes for the same price he paid on the military base in Monterey.  The cost was less, which helped because a good portion of my SSI check went to cigarettes. 

Smoking gives a mentally ill person something to do. You can spend hours smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee, soda, or even beer, while you're stuck in a house all day because of your paranoia. Each drag on a cigarette and its dose of nicotine gave minor comfort from the mental pain.

Cigarettes literally become like friends. You take them everywhere you go. I remember thinking one day while standing at a bus stop to catch a bus home, that all I needed were cigarettes and alcohol. There were periods of courage when I'd go to a bar during the day, drink up to a six-pack, and chain smoke.  Back then you could smoke in a bar in California. This would occupy me for a while and then I would go home. It was a pleasure that broke up the painful, paranoid hours spent pacing in the house. 

Years later, after my mind had healed some and I was preparing to go back to school, I quit smoking. My mom died of lung cancer during that time and the fear of getting emphysema caused me to cut back to a quarter pack a day.  I smoked the whole pack but only took a few puffs of each cigarette. 

I then read a book about how to quit that taught me how to mentally prepare to quit for good. I followed the suggestions and was able to stop smoking.  It took effort every day for the first month or two but it wasn't difficult. I never again had the desire to smoke, and it's good knowing my body has cleaned all the tar out of my lungs. 

42. The Tape That

 

The tape that gave me hope was a cassette recording of ocean waves breaking and crashing on the sea shore.   With mental illness came a psychic pain that was almost too much to bear.  For months I survived the pain by giving myself permission to kill myself in the future.  This thought was enough of a relief valve for the pain that I never made an attempt on my life. 

Also, my dad gave me strength one night when he told me that I wouldn't commit suicide.  His words prevented me from ever making an attempt, but they did not stop me from exploring the possibility. 

I called a pawn shop to find out what it would take to get a gun. I searched the house for my dad's shotgun, which I never found.  I imagined putting it in my mouth and pulling the trigger. Chilling thoughts today. 

I calculated how much medication I would have to take to overdose, and end my life. I constantly imagined what suicide was like, hoping it would end my pain without spiritual consequences.  Then I found a book that stopped that. 

In it a man who had actually committed suicide was brought back to life by doctors.  He said his spirit had gone to a dark, awful place, where he had the feeling he would be for a very long time. That kept me away from suicide as well.  The pain of mental illness was so terrible already that I couldn't imagine committing suicide and causing more pain to myself. 

Suicidal thoughts plagued me for many years. That cassette tape I had of the ocean crashing on the shore saved me.  I listened to it so much that it finally broke. It gave me the belief that even in the midst of suicidal pain and loss of peace of mind, that peace was possible.  The ocean, at that point in my life, represented peace. Hearing the waves helped me through the hardest four months of my entire life. 

I stopped taking lithium. My doctor had prescribed it thinking I was manic-depressive. Soon after, the mental pain changed enough for the better that I could manage without suicidal thinking.