When your brain snaps

There’s a brief second during a total mental collapse when you have the insight to know things aren’t going to end well. For me, it was the sound of a wet stick snapping. I heard it as clear as anything I’ve ever heard, it was dull and sickening and terrifying. Not quite a snap, more of a pulling apart. Little bits of stick still trying to hold on to the other side of the stick and then letting go. Bit by bit — all in a millisecond.

Nothing mattered after the wet snap and by the end of the day I was in a mental hospital trying to unhear the sound. It took an awful lot of drugs and some really great doctors. The British Transport cops that brought me in were also instrumental in dulling the echoes, and I’ll never forget the way they kept me company as if we knew each other forever as they guarded the door to make sure I didn’t try to leave.

It’s been months since I walked out of that hospital. I left a job, I left a country. I’ve spent all of the time since reading and learning about the way our brains work and why we do the things we do. Bottom line is we’re crazy — but we don’t have to suffer through stigma and ignorance. We control our recoveries, or die trying.

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