My life in metaphors
I have built my house upon a granite foundation of truth. That foundation is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The walls of my house are framed with thick timber. These are my morals, principles and values. They are considered old and outdated, but they are very strong and have stood up against many mighty winds. My family is kept inside the house. I decorate it with special occasions, happy memories, traditions, and routine. The home is furnished with education, discipline and responsibility.
Prior to my psychotic episode I could explore all the outlandish theories in the world, test them against my truth filter, the protective fence around the estate, and either add them to my garden of possibilities, or put them out in the rubbish pile to be burned. It let me keep an open mind and consider many more things than most people are willing to hear out. It's allowed me to find rare and exotic fruits and vegetables for my garden.
But sometime back in September 2015 I was excited and exhausted. We were expecting big things to happen. I wasn't sleeping much. I went exploring in the fields outside my estate, as I had done many times before. But I was too tired to be vigilant and a poisonous mushroom slipped through my infallible gate because I was too tired and forgot to test it first. It took root in my garden and infested the ground. I harvested my vegetables and made them into a salad that I fed to my family. It was a beautiful salad complete with nuts, berries and mushrooms. Husband loves mushrooms.
However, instead of giving them joy through nutrition, I inadvertently poisoned myself and my family. Fortunately, the rest of my family loves to eat bread and meat more than salad and so I took the lion's share of the poison. It wasn't obvious at first. My mind was clouded. I fell into greater confusion. And my family began to see something was wrong. I started going faster and faster. I couldn't see it, couldn't stop it. Eventually I was screaming and convulsing on the floor.
After I got back from the hospital the effects of the poison still lingered, so I ate bread and meat with my family until I could function again.
Not knowing or understanding what had happened, I questioned everything. I ripped everything out of my garden, not knowing which vegetables might have been infected. I doubted the stability of the foundation. I talked to Husband about the possibility that the foundation had cracked. He is a general contractor and assured me that it was solid. He even promised to help me find my footing as I walked through the house again. I considered burning the house down to rebuild with the latest straw from the local market. Fortunately I remembered how I'd seen other straw houses get blown down by wolves and the occupants devoured. Stupid pigs. The structure of my house wasn't the problem in the first place, but I still wasn't thinking clearly enough to remember that.
I'm still walking through the house testing the foundation. Sometimes it feels like there's an earthquake. I hate earthquakes. They scare me terribly. What I think is an earthquake is just my head still spinning from latent effects of the poison. The foundation is solid. Even though husband has reassured me, I still need to walk through every room of the house feeling the firmness of the foundation under my naked feet.
Since the episode I've been especially vulnerable. I'm not tired this time, but the lasting effects of the poison has weakened me and I forget that the gate around the perimeter cannot just be left open. I need it to protect me against all things dangerous that I might inadvertently bring into my house. On Wednesday after my visit with my therapist I found some wild parsnips out in the fields. Some new friends were gathering them to take home. I forgot that they too would need to test them first. Carelessly, I popped one in my mouth on the way back to the house.
Fortunately, I told husband that I had eaten something from the field. He looked in my basket and found the wild parsnips. He tested them and found them to be poisonous. Rather than get mad at me and berate me for my stupidity, he pumped my stomach and stayed with me the next day while the poison filtered out of my system, before it could do any permanent damage.
Husband doesn't like me going into the fields around our house, but he doesn't forbid me. For that I am grateful. But maybe when I leave home I will not gather anything new. I will just leave any new plants where they are until I know for sure that my head has stopped spinning and I've regained my strength. In the meantime, I have saved the seeds from my garden and can replant all of my beautiful fruits and vegetables from previous harvests.
This is the house where I live. It is a good house. It is a strong house.
If it's not immediately obvious, the links here are doors that go to certain rooms that aren't a part of the regular house tour. If you're interested in knowing more about my hospitalization and the path that led me there, use the links.
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