I've been trying to write a post for several days now, recounting the highlights of my past year and reflecting on the one forthcoming. The intention was to publish something to coincide with the turn of the year into 2025.
However: instead I've been spending the past several days at the bedside of an elderly friend who is dying. She is now in her final hours, and I left the hospital this afternoon with a heavy heart. She is in a lot of pain, and for one brief moment this morning she gathered enough strength to say my name repeatedly, and to exclaim “oh me oh my!” I will forever remember these as her parting words.
This friend knew all about the mental health system: she had a diagnosis, and a history of hospitalisation, and medication, and electro-shock therapy. She experienced her fair share of difficulties and suffering throughout her life, but also enjoyed many gifts including a comfortable lifestyle and a wide network of friends. She was wrung out by the system for decades – yet she came to a place of peace in her final years and considered that last chapter to be the happiest of her life.
I guess I don't really want to say much more about it just now – except to mention that when I write about madness and the need to change our responses to it, I often think of her. She was one of the madfolk; she was one of ours.