Storytelling and Signs by H.L Fatnassi
Everyone is a world. I am many worlds: a watcher, a voyeur into possibilities, probabilities, and potentials. With the development of self was the development of story. I dreamed worlds; I breathed stories. I straddle the line between realms, right foot planted here and the left dancing in otherworlds.
I struggled to listen to the Here. I learned to stress and strain, to pull myself out of dream so that I might listen to you. That connection- the thread that connects us- I’ve tried finding it but it’s only through stories that I feel it.
The pace can speed up or slow down. There are times where I fight Dream. Other times, he has hidden away and I am lonely. When I can no longer tell the day or hour, when I no longer rise from bed as tied to stories as I am – that is the beginning of depressive episodes.
Or when the worlds turn bleak and I cannot escape the possibilities of disaster, the permutations of dread and trauma. That is when anxiety creeps in and I fill my head with lists and numbers because they are the only things that bore the hungry dragon to sleep.
I couldn’t write. For two years, my voice diminished and I lost the ability to speak in any way that mattered. Or I should say, I wrote, but then, locked in the quest for perfection, I strangled myself through repetitive self-edits and rewrites. I stared at a fifty page proposal on my desk, each day reading the first paragraph, trying and failing to uncover the correct wording.
I went on medication. The worlds faded and died. I could function but I couldn’t feel. I turned in that proposal and tried to move forward. The anxiety and depression were gone but so was everything else. Without the worlds, life was pointless.
I went off the medication.
For a while, I was fine. The dreams returned. I functioned. The darkness crept in bit by bit: a panic spell here, a day of counting there. But I felt whole. I pushed the black creatures down into murky wells where I refused to look.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t leave my home or eat food normally. In the worlds, it was Armageddon. It was Ragnarok. My blood turned to lava, coursing through me, burning me from the inside.
Well-meaning armchair physicians and snake-oil gurus had a million cures. Quick fixes that relied on mystical Asian wisdom (had they ever even visited Asia?) or bootstrap American promises (Seriously, I should magic wealth into existence?). Had I tried yoga? Maybe I have a vitamin deficiency? Exercise cures everything. Oh, I exercise already? Had I thought about upping the amount to eight hours daily? I wasn’t allowed to say no. None of it helped. One by one, the stars were going supernova.
I didn’t want medication. I wanted the pain to end (and yes, it was abundantly physical), but I also couldn’t abide by the death of stories. I told him – trepidation in my voice, of course – there is always the fear of getting labeled with Something Really Awful. Tales of electro-shock treatment and self-flagellation. (And before you armchair psychologists give yourself a pat on the back for diagnosing me I am definitively not schizophrenic, schizotypal, or any other word beginning with schiz. Sorry to burst your bubble. You’ll just have to go back to consulting your pop psychology guides). But he did not dismiss the importance of dream, of my ability to navigate the ethereal. Gently, he offered alternatives and for the first time, they worked.
The worlds remain with me. I am discovering my voice once more. I can write, I can reach out. I sleep and I dream.
~
About H.L Fatnassi
H.L. Fatnassi is a recovering storyteller, escaped academic, and Supreme Elven Overlord of Awesomeness (still stuck at level 1). You can help her continue to write and reach out by following her journey through the blog: Storyteller Dreams.
