Musings of Mereology

I took a girl I was dating to a party at my friend’s apartment. What the party was for, I don’t remember. I don’t remember what we did, what we talked about, and who all was there. However, I do remember the drive home.

After several hours in a tiny room full of people talking, playing games, and drinking, we left. When we got in the car, I said, “hey, I just want to drive home in silence. We’ll talk when we get back to my house.”

I said that in order to give myself some time and enough quiet to decompress after socializing. I wanted the silence to give me back some of the energy I had lost. That’s not really what happened, though. There was silence on the drive back, but that silence was marred with the feeling that what I said was rude – that what I wanted wasn’t correct. This silence was as loud as the screams of a different couple.

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Where is the line between self-care and self-absorption?

Self-reflection and self-obsession?

Healthy coping and rudeness?

Knowing yourself and narcissism?

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I’ve started to write a book. A memoir, of sorts.

This blog exists.

I do public speaking where I tell my story.

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I was at a wedding this weekend. As most conversations go with strangers, I was asked what I do for a living. I told them about speaking and the non-profit focused on people with schizophrenia. “Oh, that’s really cool” or “Oh, that’s interesting,” the nearly scripted responses that I get from people. (And when the public speaking comes up, “Oh, wow, I could never do that.”)

The conversation always follows the path of “how did you get into that?” And then I have to disclose my illness. And once I say schizophrenia, it explains why. Why I am the one speaking. Why I am a good candidate to tell my story.

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My life with schizophrenia is interesting. (Is me saying that narcissism or just true? Is it both?)

Or is it just the schizophrenia, and not the me part, that’s interesting? Are these things mutually exclusive or inclusive?

It’s the intermix of mereology and objecthood, of which a modern philosopher could talk endlessly about, but I am not that philosopher. So, let’s go to the next and final points.

Here are my three takeaways from these thoughts that plague me:

1. 1. Schizophrenia is interesting, and because of my life with it, I have a unique perspective.

2. 2. My unique perspective has changed me.

3. 3. My unique perspective allows me to have conversations that others are often deprived of.

Deprived might seem like a drastic word choice. Maybe you’re right.

But, when I was at this wedding, after sharing the brief introductions, one woman talked to me about her anxiety, about her life with bipolar, about the mania that everyone observes and how she feels about being “monitored.”

At my same friend’s apartment on another day, the party started with 30 minutes of a person I’d only briefly met a time or two was telling me and everyone else about her life with depression, the isolation she feels, and the lack of space she’s found to be open and honest.

Schizophrenia has opened and probably always will open conversational doors for me.

If I say my diagnosis, we skip past the pleasantries. I find out what a person wouldn’t say to anyone else, and often times, really wish they could say.

At the end of the day, my schizophrenia dictates my life. This blog and whatever else I do in the future are all here to express the ways in which my life is different.

I have the same reality of everyone else, but what makes me unique is that I also have a separate reality that you don’t. The worlds and screams and time travel and chaos and thoughts that don’t make any sense that swim around in my brain that you don’t experience.

Life with schizophrenia is different. It’s interesting simply because it’s different. It’s opened doors and bonding experiences I never asked for, but that I’m so glad have existed.

So, is talking about my schizophrenia in such a public way narcissism? Is it self-care? Is it self-absorption and delusions that I’m special? Or is helpful to let you know what my mind does that way you and I can both be more real with each other?

I don’t know. I’m going to think about it, or, more accurately, keep thinking about it.

How you want to define my life of blogging, writing, talking about myself in public and private, that’s up to you. I know why I'm doing these things as a form of self-care but also as a way to start conversations with people. But, maybe you think it's something else. And, well, that's okay (but, oh god, please buy my book when it comes out!!!)

Self-care or self-absorption? You have your thoughts. I have mine . . .

Thank you for reading and indulging me in my thoughts of myself.