 INSIGHTS
FROM THE OUTSIDE
A
series of columns
by
Tony Campbell
A new
column will be added periodically.
People around us wish
to understand when we speak of life as experienced with mental/emotional
disorders.
Some understand that
they do not understand. Others believe that they do when they
do not.
We learn that our best
efforts to communicate fall short.
"Insights From
the Outside" represent my continuing effort to define the
undefinable. I hope these columns add to the insights that you
already have.
Send your questions
by e-mail, fax, or mail. I
will respond to your question in an "Insights" column.
You will be notified when your question is addressed in a new
"Insights."
Tony Campbell
THE
VOICE OF LEGION
This is the voice of
Legion (many) living in another world while also living in your
midst.
You see us, but you
do not see, feel, hear, or smell our world. We veil our alien
identity by trying to be entirely like you. One can not fool all
the people all the time; therefore you see clues that we are experiencing
life differently from you and the majority of the people you know.
You may have detected, buy not yet suspected, that our total life
is lived outside the world of normalcy as you know it.
Call it by any name,
but the consequences are the same. You may say depression, mental
illness, chemical imbalance, abnormal, or bipolar.
We go on living in a
world of turbulence, pain, confusion, fear, helplessness, rage,
disability, and loneliness. This existence sometimes becomes so
unbearable that we may be destructive to ourselves and hurtful
to others in vain efforts to break through the invisible boundaries
that confine us away from the beautiful life of which we hear
tales. That life appears to surround us, but we cannot enter it.
We have long known that we cannot tell you of our lives because
your hearing and understanding comes out of the way you experience
life in your world.
There is no special language by which we can tell you of this
strangely distorted existence of ours. But someone must try for
the sake of those living in both worlds.
Therefore, I shall attempt
to use our common language to speak of uncommon things. It is
out of a sense of desperation that I do so. Those of my world
sense that we can begin to join you in your world only as you
begin to enter ours through the door of understanding.
Welcome to our world.
OTHER INSIGHT
COLUMNS:
UNDERSTAND
THAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND
THE
POSSE
THE
STEALTH BOMBER
A
VIEW FROM THE ELECTRIC CHAIR
WE
HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY AND IT IS US
PARALYZED
FROM THE NECK UP
RAGE--READ
MY LIPS
BIRDS
AND BEES
KATY-DID-IT
|
