Kaleidoscope
She could already smell them on the counter as soon as she entered the breakroom. Their sweet, surgery scent wafting through the air, appealing in their aroma. Educators get few perks at their jobs. Here, one of them was the occasional box of free doughnuts.
Crossing the space, she gleefully peeked through the cellophane window of the cardboard box. There was the usual assortment of fried cakes of sweetened dough. A few topped with a sugary glaze; others frosted with an additional crop dusting of colored sprinkles. Still more were covered with a thin shell of chocolate. Each more alluring than the last.
Being able to resist the temptation no longer, she opened the box…
…and out flew a kaleidoscope of butterflies.
I was being held in solitary confinement in a holding cell not far from the nation’s capital. They’d taken away all my clothes and given me an anti-suicide smock, affectionately known as a “turtle suit.” I didn’t know how long I’d been there, as the only window was a small porthole out to the hallway that had the same sterile fluorescent hospital lighting as my cell, neither of which were ever shut off. I just knew I’d been there a few days by that point. That’s when I noticed the ripple of movement under the door.
As there was less than a quarter inch of space there, this was an especially odd occurrence and had my full attention. Besides, the grungy orange and green color was stood out against the rest of the space that was otherwise a cold mixture of clinical white only broken up by the cold steel of the toilet/sink combo that constituted my bathroom. As I stared at it, the puddle came together and grew into a humanoid form in a method not unlike the non-Arnold Terminators from the movies.
Speaking of, the shape that the puddle formed was that of horror icon Freddy Krueger, knifed glove and all. You’d think I’d be disturbed by this development, but I was mostly intrigued and relieved by the break in monotony. Especially since he sat down on the padding on the concrete bench that was serving as my bed at the time and plainly stated, “You know I’m a hallucination, right?” He stuck around for a few hours after that, keeping me company.
You know what? For a murderous dream demon, he was a pretty chill dude.
Years later, when I was a Peer Support Worker seeing clients, one of the most surprising things I learned was just how many took comfort from their hallucinations. Freddy was the first time it happened to me. The other times were pretty disturbing. Also it wasn’t something that was generally talked about in our training classes and certainly not in pop culture. Not that I ever pay any attention to what the media has to say about mental health these days, but some of those old biases are pretty hard to kick, yeah?
Even when patients tell their clinicians that their hallucinations are positive, I’ve seen those same doctors try to medicate them out of existence far too often without thinking about the context they serve in the person’s life. A particular case a therapist friend once shared has stuck with me for years. A warning though, as it gets pretty rough. Feel free to skip to the next section:
This friend specializes in particularly challenging clients. Those with court-ordered guardians and the like, and that other providers won’t touch. Her secret? Treating them like people and not diagnoses on a page. I know, right? This particular client had lived with her voices for years. They were of the friendly sort, frequently chatting with her as she went about her daily routine; often in public. The “problem,” was not that they made the client “a danger to self or others,” but that it made other people uncomfortable. Can’t have that! Now there were other issues that impacted her ability to live her day-to-day life, and she definitely needed support, but the voices were not one of them.
Many of us who have received our treatment from community providers that handle indigent care, or in other words treatment for the poor and needy, are used to being bounced around from one med manager to another. In this case, when she got assigned to a new one, all this clinician heard was “hallucinations,” and immediately prescribed the voices to oblivion.
Not long afterwards, she tried to take her own life. This was nothing close to anything she’d ever done before, and wildly out of character. When asked why, she said it was because her friends had gone.
That was an extreme case of course. However, it proves the point that context is key to a person’s diagnosis, and that not all symptoms of a person’s condition are “bad.” Even in cases of psychosis. When I was working with the person mentioned in the introduction, she told me how much they loved their hallucinations because they frequently gave her insight into both herself and other situations that she was dealing with in her life. She also had a robust support system that she trusted to let her know when she wasn’t doing well. You know, I have to admit that I learned a lot from my clients over the years.
I had to ask: What did the butterflies mean?
“No idea. I guess I really wanted that doughnut!”