Crossroads and crosswords

I've decided that my life is essentially a crossword puzzle. Those of you who saw my essay about living with NLD know that I have a lot of trouble navigating space and make my way around with no sense of direction, so words are used to compensate for the void. And that's exactly how a crossword puzzle is filled out; finding the right words to fill in blanks and trying to make them fit together. That's where words and space converge; crosswords and crossroads. It's the interim where my life stands on tiptoe, trying to find a harmony between the two.

The horror of diagnosis

A lot of horror movies feature themes of psychiatric hospitals and patients. I can enjoy some of those films as long as they're well-made and don't generally vilify people with mental health issues, but I notice that the theme seems to be prevalent because mental illness frightens the public. It can be scary to see someone behaving erratically, but a lot of the fear is based on lack of information or on misinformation—much of which is spread via this type of media. It becomes a cycle. And while there should be a difference between fearing a mental health issue and fearing the actual people who have it, these fears tend to become intertwined. Although a person with a psychiatric disorder can be violent or predatory, it's almost always because they had an inclination to be that way in the first place, not because of the disorder. Sometimes the fear isn't entirely projected onto others, though. Sometimes people are afraid of developing a similar condition themselves.

I used to think mental health-centered horror films were purely told from an outsider perspective; from the narrative of someone encountering others with psychiatric conditions. That's undeniably a huge part of it. However, there's also a common theme of the main character finding themselves in a similar state. So many horror tropes seem to mirror the experience of entering psychosis or having an episode. Demonic possession may represent being taken over by a force (in this case, a psychological one) which is completely unfamiliar and terrifying to them, but coming from within. In that way it might seem like even more of an imposition than an external force would, because it can feel like self-betrayal. The same is true for plot lines involving alien abductions or ghost hauntings. It symbolizes a problem that intrudes upon your life and your mind, refusing to leave. This problem could be trauma, or it could be an innate condition. Paranoia of the main character can look very much like the paranoia suffered by a person in the midst of psychosis. The story trope of nobody believing the protagonist, and either mocking or persecuting them for talking about what's going on, is very true to life for those who manage day to day with mental health issues. So is the sense of isolation and dread which manifests physically in the scenery of horror films. The sudden, startling movements which are frequent in these films can be similar to hallucinations. And in horror movies, magical thinking is always real. It feels just as real to many who struggle with it.

Of course, there are numerous other mental health conditions other than psychosis-based ones. But horror movies tend to most strongly evoke themes of psychosis-based disorders. I have a lot of friends who have experienced these things and describe them in similar ways. I myself have depression, anxiety, and OCD. I've never been in a psychosis, but even the problems I have remind me of some of those themes.

The cycle

Raindrops on a window split apart and join together, mimicking both mitosis and its opposite. They depict life's origins. They show both the return to our beginnings and our separation from them as we forge new identities. Throughout our lives we stray from our roots and return to them over and over again.

Rains feeds the ocean, the subconscious mind, full of murkiness and unfamiliar things we come to recognize. The subconscious gives birth to conscious ideas, like aquatic creatures evolving to dwell on land.
               Both conscious and subconscious thoughts have life cycles. They're born, feed off of other thoughts, breed further notions, and pass on. Sometimes they're reincarnated as more evolved ideas and then materialize as more raindrops on the window.

My dreams are becoming more Freudian.

Last night I dreamed about an anxious mind taking the form of a haunted house. Each room was a separate lobe in the brain representing its own fear or memory. The doors that connected them were linked thoughts.
              I guess we do carry our homes around, but we don't always have to be stuck in the same rooms. We can renovate.