Tea Party

Hello, my name is Brandy Thorpe am I am diagnosed with an illness that has handicapped my life as an individual. Some may say we are not our illness that we are more than our illness, But I have not found the strength or community that proves that to me. Those I have spoken with think my illness is real in this sense that it is not an illness at all, but a fact of life. Growing up I believed in my illness as spirits and ghosts of course now as I am on medication, I can only see it as my imagination. In my 30s the illness became too strong to handle day to day life. Years of believing it was real has caused me to be confused about who I am, what I am supposed to accomplish with my life, and to be an outcast. This illness Is schizoaffective. I am also diagnosed with bipolar and personality disorder. I am still my disease.

So, what is it, and illness, or real life? Ill let you decide. So I am on medications of all sorts for all the hallucination, mind confusion, depression and mania, meaning my writing is of more of a sound mind, but the truth is I wish to escape society (which I need the medicine for) and work out all that I have experienced. I grew up with this illness at a more minor level, but still problematic. It was however a part of who I was, and now I am simply numb (part of the illness, part of the medicine) from all of what life seems to offer.

The hormonal imbalance started when I was an infant, with unexplained actions and anger. My mother did not take too many pictures of my childhood, because like on video, I was disagreeable and glared at the camera. I hated my parents growing up and, in a way, they hated me. I had some problems with defining who I was, which got in the way of my friendships during teenage year, which, yes is normal, so what is the problem? I would see spirts and ghosts as a teenager and started to be an Emotional Sensitive Person, which is a blessing. Yet my mood swings were extremely hard to handle. Moving on everything was normal, just a little different.

I will admit this is difficult to write about because everything comes in blurs and moments, no real consistent story. Well my problem comes from incidence such as seeing a man during my teenage years that would visit me in my room, a ghost, I presumed. Or an Indian that asked to be my wife and other Indians would encircle me waiting for my answer. Another ghost, such as playing a Ouija board and being woken up by crowds of people (spirts/ghosts) in my room keeping me awake as they had a ball in my room. Or when I went hiking on my neighbor’s property, I did the common thing of walking in a story of my own making as I walked and wondered on their property. Nothing to uncommon right?

Well all the hallucinations hit the fan when I was thirty and MET the man that stood at my bedroom door all those years ago. He was REAL! I flipped, when I first met him, I saw a flash of bright light and I flipped, I wasn’t myself anymore. The bright light I figure was something of spirt, I also felt my mom and dad present with me, it was weird. You could say the light was that of love, but that is another story. He will go into my other story (real of course) of the fascination of men I happen to have. Yet for now since that bright light I have never been the same. Be well, more to come.