Sergey Vassiliev - The realm of tormenting dreams

For many years I have been looking for the reasons for what happened to me in anything, but not in the responsibility of my family. But nevertheless, leading experts of the city chose a simple final conclusion, i.e. a disorder of brain biochemistry, no more assumptions, and I already took it as my own personal defect, independent of anyone, which, I must say, put me in a very unpleasant situation, because it was a real muck, it turned out, that I myself was guilty of what was happening; I thought that was an congenital defect, and, thus, I considered my case as fatal. In this first my maniacal nightmare, all thoughts were mixed in my head, the confusion in my spiritual world was incredible; to be a god, a real one, in which I was absolutely convinced, and to be for some reason in captivity, and not in the best places. How? After all, I was truthful with everyone and wished everyone good. But I still tried to find myself. It’s not for nothing that I was here, there is a sense of my being in this disgrace, and I saw in the need to be placed behind the grill a kind of profound providence, the doctor told me so, without letting me to leave on Christmas holidays: “Take it philosophically”. In addition, and, I must say, I understood this literally and thought that he was just pretending not to let me leave, and that I would be back home before the holidays, I really wanted to get out, but the doctor, as you know, brought another meaning into this tip, namely that the New Year in a madhouse is “not bad”. Philosophy helped me, of course, greatly in my grief, but being at home on holidays is sacred, and, of course, I hoped until the last.

Meanwhile, the delirium gradually began to go away, and I already understood that I was in captivity of the disease, and already agreed with my stay in the house of sorrow. I was happy such return to a normal state, and a good, already sober mood as if accompanied the outcome of the sad event. Soon I was dismissed and back home. And then a tremendous shock happened, something inside, like a swarm of bees, hit me with alarming threats. Thoughts and feelings rushing outside were a part of this swarm, probably its basis; I could not understand that kind of expressive and suppressing pain. Suddenly, with all suffocating, oppressive nightmare, I saw myself as just tiny, and this black cloud stung again and again, without giving me any rest, wanting to finally destroy me. I must say, this was impossible to anticipate. It’s like as if, for example, you are horribly morally tortured, bringing to intolerable frenzy and torments, which one under no circumstances could seem to imagine, only in case of some direct intervention into the organics of brain. I looked at my hands and body to stay in my mind, and did not find any explanation of this muck. All thoughts were focused on this, like a nightmare which more and more blackened and killed me as time passed, and which reached the limits of suffering required for itself and almost intolerable for me, and which tormented so fiercely that I felt myself like in the hands of a real executioner. And it was not possible to get away from such a situation. I realized that my parents are near, like protection, but the demon of psychotic depression was not at all dependent on anything external and seemed to know this perfectly, gloating in his action.

Well, such a symptom suddenly revealed itself in the nature of my soul. And no one knew how to cure this, how to help it, I still took handfuls of medications, medics added antidepressants and generally better drugs, but the disease strength completely ignored doctors’ attempts. Sometimes I was so oppressed that I felt as if I was drowning, and in the very end of life I could take a breath – and then was again lethally drowning. I had no self-control and asked my parents to find me similar persons, because there are people like me who suffer torments similar to mine, because it should go somehow, maybe they know how. Then suddenly I was getting the relief, on the one hand. The irritation of this infernal swarm of anxious feelings receded, but it was replaced by the results of such evil intervention into the mind, that was a state of “thoughtlessness”. The feelings were terrible: I did not feel at all that I could think, and the ability to argue was seemed to be lost to such degree that the inner emptiness, which I strongly felt all the time, was like ringing in all my body, leading me to panic. I felt to be a completely empty person, literally an idiot. And this thought, being the single in my head, pestered me with its uncompromising rightness, no less than the former imaginary murderers, depriving me of life. Emptiness and bad mood deprived me of the ability to feel life and at least somehow participate in it with my soul, which, I must say, I was completely deprived of, judging by my sensations. I remember how my beloved friend Dimon accompanied me on a trip to the parapsychologist in St. Petersburg for help, and my never-ending complaints to him, a reliable friend, to the only one who listened to my roar without tears. And the parapsychologist, I must say, at that time also reassured him, saying that everything would be fine, but how wrong he was! For many long months I experienced inexpressible feelings, staying in which, you can not think of anything else.

Soon I was looking for salvation from the guru of psychiatry in St. Petersburg, I really wanted to get rid of the defile that was destroying my inner world. Curiously enough, but the professor did not find me in need of help, at all. I began to tell him that I do not feel my thoughts, that I say and do not feel what I said, I don’t feel my mood and my life in my judgments, and he replied me to this: “So what? I do not feel it either. What makes you think that you need our help?” He said, if only this is the case, then it’s nothing special, in general. I was at a loss, I almost began to ask to admit me into a well-known research institute and finally broke the professor’s resistance. But I must say, with great reluctance, even with some disdain, he glanced in my direction during his rounds, I was not the first to suffer, although I was undoubtedly full of indignation, and was completely bewitched by the soul oppression happening in me so deadly. But in order to prove to the doctor that he keeps me here for good, speaking before the assembled commission, I told about everything that had happened to me before, and then they began to treat me with sufficient attention. But the fact is that the specialist’s mistrust occurred because I was a very good artist and, being in a terrible depression, did not inspire any trust to the guru, who could not see in me, with all his experience and elderly age, any signs of depressive mood, which I masked, on the contrary, by a brisk and lively behavior. So in my childhood, I automatically hid the pain, which was unprofitable and even dangerous to show to my parents. And now such a crazy optimism, born in childhood, played a cruel joke with me, and not only with me; yet I was admitted in the most severe hospital unit.

This hospital was unusually calm, compared to my turbulent life where I could take a rest of the maniacal state. Here, except for rare cases, everybody was calm, at least externally, and mostly asleep, spending time in bed and wandering peacefully along the small corridors of this clinic. I zealously sought and waited for the pacification, which, as it seemed to me, should emerge and had been earlier inside my soul, but I did not find at all at that moment. It was not possible to argue, neither to recollect my thoughts, the emptiness and the resulting anguish, accompanied me at every moment of my life, and whatever I did was very bad. Trying to imagine my interlocutors, to somehow study them, I began to mentally create their psychological portraits in my mind, but it stopped in such a way that having collected the idea of my comrades, I saw this idea empty and meaningless, because, besides the very visual representation, I still I could not go further, and these anxious faces, gathered in my imagination, pressed me only with annoyance and anxiety, showing me the futility of the efforts of my analysis. And no matter how hard I tried using all my strength and will, the irritation and terrible depression only grew, not allowing me feeling at least any satisfaction from life and communication. Although there were moments when the warmth of my interlocutors nevertheless could be felt in conversations, giving hope for the opportunity to escape from the clutches of this nightmare. After all, I felt it was the interaction with people that should lead me to good health and help to eliminate these symptoms, the full idea of which could hardly appear in those persons who never was prone to mental disorders. This kind of torment is totally unlike anything else, even by the fact that it is practically uninterrupted and sophisticated, giving no respite to the person who is not able to get rid of it, blinded by his/her psychic actions, being in the situation of extreme discomfort.