Madness

This weekend I read "The Harmony of the Spheres" a short story by Salmon Rushdie from his book East, West.  After finishing the read I had realized that I had not been able to so closely relate to story in quite some time.  My best friend from high school has recently been displaying many symptoms of schizophrenia.  He has to me always been a little different, but I usually found his antics and far fetched thoughts rather entertaining.  He had always been very smart and achieved very good grades in high school.  This last spring he took a semester off because he had been struggling with his classes.  I had talked to him about his situation on many occasions and he assured me that he would be able to succeed in the future.  That is way it came much to my surprise to hear that again this spring he had withdrawn from the university in which he attended.  I had talked to his girlfriend from high school about it, which I was also close to, and she said that he was making a trip to visit her and suggested I meet up with them.  I was unable to go do to school, but I did manage to talk to my friend while he was on this trip, a convers ation that would change my life.  

         He had called me from his ex's phone and quickly began asking me a series of questions.  The questions started of normal although the tone in his voice seemed strange, see at this time we were all unaware of our friends mental struggles. His first questions were simple "did you go to school today?" "What class did you go to?" Then the questions began to grow in intensity, as he then began to ask if I had a physical relationship with his ex-girlfriend while we were in high school (which I never did).  I talked to his ex after he had left and was extremely concerned because of the manner in which my conversation with my friend took place, he seemed very angry toward me, something I had never experienced in our friendships history.  She went on to tell me that he has lost his mind, she was afraid it was too late to do anything for him.  She told me of his stories, he was an undercover government agent, and all his friends were criminals in which he had to keep surveillance over.  He had told his ex that she was the reason for all of his problems in life, only to drop down to a knee and propose to her moments later.  He ended up leaving her house and wandering the streets of San Francisco.  His uncle picked him up in an alley 4 days later.  Later I found out that he, life Eliot from the story, had a situation in which he was driving.  My friend had in fact began driving into oncoming traffic on a two lane highway, only to drive off of the side of the road into a ditch in a last second effort to dodge an oncoming semi.  His ex told me that he seems to have mixed thoughts about me, talking as if we were friends only to then begin to rant on how he is sure I betray him by having an affair with his ex.  His parents did finally have him sent to a ward, but he was able to check himself out after only a few days.

         I am not sure why we lose our minds, or become in balanced.  My friend used to keep this piece of paper in a secret hiding spot in his bedroom.  He snatched it from me the day I found it and told me that it was a list of his life goals, and that I couldn't read it.  Perhaps, maybe he had begun a path in which these goals were no longer going to be obtained.  I am not sure, maybe it is as Eliot suggests, just a chemical imbalance in your brain.  Whatever the cause the affects are enormous.  The story really made me think, considering the fact that Eliot does indeed eventually take his own life, I pray that my friend's life will not end the same way.  

         I think that people sometimes over analyze things.  In my friend's case, after dropping out of school the first time, I believed that he felt a sense of failure towards his family, and embarrassment towards his friends and peers.  He was also a virgin, though I believe this to be only a positive attribute, during my last couple visits with my friend he had spoken almost non stop of the subject of sex.  He would give me play-by-play recollections of girls he had "hooked up" with, but not gone all the way. He told these stories as if I needed to be taking notes, as if he were some type of pick-up guru.  He spoke to me as if he was proud of his abil ity to stay strong and not give into temptation, but then when asked about his sexual history by outsiders he would often lie, and claim he was very experienced.  I am not sure if this contributes to his sickness, it just seems to me now after hearing his rants about sex and women that it makes sense.  Also the way, in which he treated his ex on his visit, they had dated their entire senior year and never done "it".  This was his choice, but on his visit he blamed her for not letting him.  I feel now that he wants to in fact have sex, but struggles because he has never done so.  I think he regrets not having sex with his high school girl friend because this is what he contributes to the lack of sex he is having now, the fact that he is a virgin.  I think he believes he made the wrong decision in high school, one that is irreversible, and now he regrets it.  Some of you might think that the sex theory is absurd, to be honest, thinking about it to me does seem a little far fetched, but with the way everything has played out with him, the way he was when I thought he was fine, and the way he is now, it almost just adds up.  Plus I feel that I have known him throughout the spread of this sickness.  I believe I met him before the mad seed was ever even planted, I think it began to germinate as soon as we graduated high school, and blossomed this spring.  

         When I think about the contributing factors of madness many things come to mind as possibilities.  That is just it; I believe that there must be a number of things, or a series of events that must take place.  I think that with my friend it was many negative events in his life, many unsatisfying decisions on his part, so many he can't face them.  I am not a doctor, and I am not trying to pretend to be one, these are just my thoughts on the subject and my personal experience with it.  I think that with Eliot it is the same as my friend.  I believe that Eliot had done many things in his life in which he wishes he could change, sleeping with Mala for example.  I think that this event may have been a catalyst for Eliot's sickness; this decision could be comparable to my friend’s decision not to have sex.  Either way when it comes down to it I believe that mental sickness is one of two things: 1) a chemical imbalance in the brain or 2) a series of unfortunate events causing a person to abandon all belief in reality.