Happiness Is Just Out Of Reach

With a mental illness, happiness is always out of reach. Like the donkey reaching for the carrot on the end of a stick, chasing happiness never brings it any closer. I find myself striving for success and surrounding myself with people which would, for most people, bring one closer to success.

For those with mental illness, 'going for it' and being around a lot of people, exposes your Achilles heel and actually puts a target on it. As you reach, you get knocked back down by people and situations and just life itself. And if you decide to no longer try to achieve and avoid people, you end up alone and unfulfilled. I’m a Ferrari driven to Sunday morning mass.



When I was a kid, I remember reading Flowers for Algernon and wondering about the main character Charlie. The story goes something like this. Algernon is a laboratory mouse who undergoes a surgical procedure to increase his intelligence which it does. The same procedure is performed on Charlie whose IQ triples from 68. As Charlie become smarter, the relationships around him fall apart as he is too smart to be able to relate to anyone or comprehend his origins.


As Charlie peaks, Algernon begins to decline and dies. Charlie realizes he will soon lose his intelligence as well. As he starts to backslide, people who attacked him on the way up, reach out to him as they feel sorry for him. Charlie can’t deal with returning to his old life and he moves away.


The most often question raised by this novel turned short story doesn’t seem to me to be the most relevant. We’ve all heard the clichéd quote “it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” That’s a bunch of bullshit designed to make people feel better about a failed relationship.


The question I have for Charlie is: “Are you better off having been to the mountaintop and come back down to ground zero? You’re at the same place you started from after having had this amazing adventure. You should be at least as happy.” But is he? Would you be?


Being mentally ill, at least the way I am is like perpetually being Charlie at the end of the story. I know what I could be capable if my biochemistry was normal. I call it ‘all engine, no transmission.’ I’ve been to the mountaintop. I’ve rubbed elbows and kneecaps with billionaires. I turned a failure into Bobby Fisher.
Me, and many like me, are much more intelligent than those around us. I’ve been evaluated at the genius level but does that necessarily make me happy? Being smart enough to understand your own tragic situation seems like more of a curse.


I can comprehend concepts and situations without prompting that most can even fathom if given a push in that direction with a detailed road map. The lemmings around can’t see anything other than what’s directly in front of them. And they perceive their processionary existence as the pinnacle. They are the doctor graduating at the bottom of the class or the last person to make the MIT cut. The matrix is their reality and their belief that the puppets are actually alive keeps them grounded.


I wish I didn’t see as much as I do. Ignorance would be a gift at this point and I’ve moved far past truth that sanity is no longer possible. I can’t buy into the lie. The foundation is decaying around me and neither Charlie nor the carrot can satisfy me.