Cursed

November 29, 2021
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Cursed: all of us down my father’s bloodline—we suffer the same fate. And a cruel one it is. This curse allows demons to roam openly; more’s the pity that only we can see, hear, and feel them. We might receive more kindness if others could experience our lived-in traumas, the fits, and the spells of incurable madness.

We are surrendered to the scorching persecution of our minds over every choice, decision, thought we might make. Yet still it haunts us so fiercely our guts cramp. It feels too much to bear—we are crushed under mental torment. Panic washes over us physically—the sensation before you vomit.

Andrew Zox, Cleo House, Jr., and Eric Hissom, Macbeth, conceived and directed by Teller and Aaron Posner, Folger Theatre
in co-production with the Two River Theater Company, 2008. Photo by Carol Pratt.

That black shape in the corner is coming closer to you—are you scared yet? Terrified…perhaps?… You just want it to end… “Your family would be better off if you killed yourself, you know…”. “Do it for your family…”. The cognitive distortions build on each other. We’re destined to experience some horrific treatment at the hands of doctors. Some of us take medication. Some of us have taken all the medications. They mostly don’t work, after all.

A few of us have been in therapy—one of us for over two decades, yet somehow now worse now than ever before. The curse yet courses through the grey brain cells and throughout the body; no application of therapeutic technique brings relief. And still the mind screams at itself: stupid, sinful, arrogant, hostile, erroneous, irrelevant….

There are times we feel we can carry the world. But such is the curse’s deception, and an indiscretion awaits instead of world salvation, or someone abandons a wife and two young children because they have “found religion.” His grandfather did the same, although we don’t know if that was religion.

And that man’s uncle left his wife of 30+ years under the spell of madness for two whole years. Some of us are lucky to be writing today—we have survived questionable odds. Some of us tragically did not survive those odds, and now there is one less birthday cake baked each year in my family; a mother will never hold her beloved daughter again.

Oh… but that lass suffered so, and I too understand the lure of the promise of peaceful oblivion. But I grasp tightly a mental picture of my husband—I live for him. The “American Way” is that I must live for myself. But there are other ways, and I am at peace with my codependence. It keeps me alive.

My family can’t control our actions sometimes; we can’t control our thoughts too much of the time; we can’t control our feelings all the time. There were six of us, now four, who endure this curse we have no hope of removing. For what else is a curse but a flawed gene line that causes excruciating agony, visions of demons, and no chance of a normal future?