Rob Krabbe's Blog: From a Krabbe Desk - Posts Tagged "the-king-laments"

The psychiatrist sat nervously pretending to write notes, keeping a flitting eye on me, trying not to have me notice. We had finished our interviews and all the testing and retesting (which must have been a bad sign). I could tell by the look on her face what she really wanted to do was prescribe me heavy doses of anti-psychotics, starting with an injection of Haldol or something equally as affecting, rendering me “safe”. This was during a period in my life when most people kept one eye on me, not sure what I would do next. A period when I finally went to a shrink because I had run fresh out of ideas and self medication techniques. What most people did not understand is I have always been “self aware,” meaning I always knew that the voices are not part of reality so I knew when not to do what they said, you know . . . murder someone.

Most psychiatrists meet the patient at the door with a prescription pad in one hand and a session timer in the other. If you’re a psychiatrist, I am certainly not talking about you. Instead, Doctor Nina Patel offered a lightness for a moment.

“I am a Hindu,” she said. I thought that an odd way to begin telling me what was what. “You have said you are a Christian, though you are not religious in the traditional sense?” I nodded, not sure what she was trying to set up. She smiled, trying really hard to put me at ease. She spoke slowly and clearly as if I was found to be hard of hearing and she was nodding at all the right moments. She knew some psychology, too, it dawned on me.

“I just wanted to say: it is good that you are a Christian and not a Hindu.” Then she nodded silently and knowingly, one eye brow raised, head tilted, issuing a dramatic pause in that way that said “listen to the words i have spoken until you agree with them, I’ll wait.” She may have been waiting for what she had said to sink in or just appreciating her own wisdom. About five minutes of awkward silence later, I must have had a look of befuddlement and curiosity on my face, for she then gave me the punch line. “Because if you were a Hindu, my friend, you would have to come back to earth like two hundred times or more, just to work off the bad Karma.”

With this she exploded into a kind of tittering laughter that has entertained me to this day. Every time I think back on it I chuckle. I also laughed and I was not sure why. Whether I found it very funny, which I did, or her explosion was so loud and forceful it cause the eruption in me, or more likely it just plain irritated me and I worked to cover the more negative emotion.

Is there some kind of affectation that betrays an epiphany? I must have had one hell of a “tell” on my face because she picked up the slack and said “Now don’t get me wrong, but you are not well.” She waited for some kind of disagreement that would never come.

“See, you are gifted and creative, but you are not at peace within yourself and it has caused some symptoms that turn your gift into an illness and a nightmare.”

It was then and there I started a ten year walk to wellness. A place in the arms of God, after twenty years of just thinking I was “special” in some way, He let me know I was and not just a walking insanity.

“Wellness” does not mean I am not mentally and emotionally enhanced to this day but it means that I have since declared a truce in the war that raged within my own soul and mind for decades. I am now a very creative musician and writer, said in a nutshell. Said on a doctors journal, “ultra rapid cycle deep-sine bi-polar with psychotic features.” Seriously, once I declared a truce with myself and my demons, I was actually able to be held, to be seen. The battle had kept me from seeing God himself.

I found that together we stand, mind, body and spirit; God, family and faith and now I prefer my own father’s definition: “My son, oh he’s an artist type, (looks around to make sure no one is listening) a musician. He’s not like normal people.”

So I lament the old days of deepest struggle and bless today that I am at peace with both the medical definition and the reality of mercy. Thankful that I am not at war within anymore. I am an “artist type,” highly creative, to the point of illness, that I prefer to call mentally eclectic. Just on a place on the same scale as all human beings, 99.9% being defective in some way. I am in good company, in fact. Most of the most creative and gifted people were basically nuts.

Today I was just sitting here enjoying my coffee and realising that no matter what becomes of me, at least I don’t have to come back to life as a Mondravian blood worm.

So I thank Doctor Nina Patel, and I thank God that I am more and more sure He is there, every day I live, and doesn’t require me to come back again and again or even look back at a past that is dead and gone. Now on to my work for the day, blessings to you all.
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BTW for those who have emailed me about the “King Laments” blog series. I have been taking as my inspiration the book of Ecclesiastes from the bible for that project which i just think is some of the best existential stuff from ancient texts available. I will get back to it, I promise.

I have in mind to finish writing the entire book's worth, into verse. I am just running out of time on a daily basis, finishing my new novel and now I have been contracted to do a Biography which may very well include having to do some media, interviews etc which I really, really . . . don’t prefer. Anyway, I will keep on, keeping on. And I will post it here on Goodreads, as the chapters come, and then make available, the entire thing on amazon in printed form and for Kindle or eBook, once it’s all published here.

So to all who read this blog on various servers, thanks to you, and blessings!

Rob