I’m in rather (quite?) a dissociative state now from yesterday/last night but I really want to write about this now. Let’s see what I can do. Apologies in advance for messiness, errors and severe “out-of-sens-ed-ness.”
Yesterday, it was my mother’s birthday. She’s nuts. Totally crazy. So am I but at least I am dx’d and being treated. She is not. She is in tremendous denial. Nonetheless, I needed to call her. I was extremely anxious as talking to her is immensely painful. She rambles on non-stop, all about herself…ugh. The Asperger’s was really kicking in as I was totally stimmy. I was going to my friend J.’s for dinner so at an appropriate stop via transit, time for Valium.
Our conversation was decidedly atypical. It was relatively brief, all about me, my mental and physical health and even more. A few years ago, she would not even acknowledge these things–again, complete denial. After this phone call, I was tremendously relieved, despite its surprising nature. I was quite happy.
Now, regarding some of the “even more,” I need to give you some background information. A while ago, I was thinking about my great uncle (my mother’s uncle.) He was always considered “odd.” So much of an understatement there. He would have been “medically dx’d” as “retarded.” I had brief memories of him as a child but now, since my own dx. of Asperger’s, a massive sledgehammer has hit me over the head: He’s Autistic! Even after a few, simple questions to my mother, suspicions confirmed.
I had suggested to go for a visit to see them. Them, meaning his older sister, as well. She has devoted her entire life to taking care of him because he can not function on his own. I had made this suggestion prior to having my tonic-clonic seizure in September. After that happened, my health became such a nightmare, that plan needed to be put on hold.
So, during the telephone conversation last night, I tossed it onto the table again. Of course, not a problem. However, there is some urgency to the matter. They are old. I need to see him in action, this example of a possible genetic link? This is awesome! Although, this was not my trigger as I had suggested it before.
After J. and I had dinner, something was wrong. I began to feel my anxiety rise again. I couldn’t figure out why. Yes, the telephone call was atypical but I was happy about it. And in thinking, recent conversations? My mother has been more caring about my life of late with all that has gone on–getting laid off, health going down the toilet etc… I fought off taking another Valium. I can fend off this anxiety…yes, I can.
On the way home, I gave in. I pulled out my bottle of pills, stared at them for a bit and just popped another Valium. Then, I began to dissociate. When my thinking started to become a little less fuzzy, my brain virtually screamed at me: “OMFG!!! WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?!?!”
What did I do?
I didn’t think at all about the time I proposed for the visit. I “thought” it would be nice if we did it some time around Christmas as they are all alone and on their own. Fuck me. Christmas has always been kind of triggery for me as my mother made it so disastrous. Now, I’m tossing more family members into the mix that may bring back flashbacks, I have no idea… All I do know is that I’ve now created a field full of landmines for myself. And I’ll be walking across it wearing a blindfold.
I’ve got some time to try and prepare myself, but I’m not sure how exactly to do that, not knowing what the hell I’ll be getting myself into. I might be able to figure something out, though, as I’m surely not thinking clearly at all now. Even if I’m still reeling from all of this tomorrow, I think I should call Merlin #2. I can get in before I make the visit, no doubt? He wants me to start seeing a therapist anyway, but no. This requires immediate intervention.
I could be as dissociative to appear in a coma, yet still realize that?
Louis Wain is a favourite artist of mine. I’ve never really thought of him as an outsider artist, as he enjoyed a great deal of commercial success in the Edwardian era. However, he’s now probably as famous for his mental illness as he is for his actual work, so I suppose it’s a justifiable label.
His most successful works depicted anthropomorphised cats, such as the ones on the left. In the Edwardian era, these were hugely popular, and there was even a series of Louis Wain annuals. It’s even commonly suggested (not least by Wain himself) that the popularity of cats as a household pet is in part due to these cartoons.
He was born in Clerkenwell in 1860 and was a sickly child with a cleft lip. He wasn’t sent to school until the age of ten, and was never what you’d call a good pupil, preferring to play truant and go off exploring nature. He trained as an artist and became a teacher and commercial illustrator. In 1883 he caused something of a scandal by marrying Emily Richardson, his former governess. The concept of a younger man marrying an older woman being considered bizarre and perverted at the time (whereas the other way round is, of course, absolutely in line with the natural order of things). Sadly, Emily died three years later from cancer. To entertain her during her long illness, Louis bought a black and white cat named Peter whom he taught to perform tricks. His pictures of Peter gave him his first major commercial success, and things took off from there.
His cartoon cats were, as he saw it, a means of getting closer to human nature. He would satirise current human trends by depicting its practitioners in feline form and even produced cat-caricatures of prominent figures of the day. He also produced semi-realistic portraits of cats (although they almost always had cartoonishly large eyes) and, famously, abstract “pattern cats.”
Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the popularity of his cats proved to be a fad, and by the end of the First World War his work had ceased to be popular. What made things worse was the fact that while he was stylistically versatile, he only really had the one subject. He never quite got the hang of art that didn’t involve cats. An inability to adapt, coupled with his appalling business sense, resulted in his being reduced to poverty. Many of his sketches from this period were actually done in lieu of payment for goods and services.
And at this point I suppose we should get on to the reason he’s classed as an Outsider. From an early age, Wain was seen as something of an oddball. His speech tended to be disjointed and often zipping off on strange tangents. A drink he rather enjoyed was Bovril and soda. He developed strange beliefs about the properties of electricity and its effects on people. Worse, as time went on, he became increasingly delusional and violent towards his sisters (with whom he lived following Emily’s death) and in 1924 was institutionalised at the Springfield Hospital in Tooting.
The initial diagnosis was that he was a “neuropath,” although he was later rediagnosed as having schizophrenia. A theory gaining increasing popularity is that he actually had Asberger’s Syndrome, which at the time wasn’t understood. This would certainly fit with his erratic behaviour, as well as his obsessive cat-painting. A popular but stupid theory has it that the progression of Wain’s mental illness can be traced in the abstraction of his work. That is to say, the abstract cats illustrate the way he actually saw the world at that point. As theories go, this is up there with “Hey, The Magic Roundabout is a bit weird, they must have been on drugs, amirite?” Detractors of the theory, including Yr. Humble Chronicler, make the following points.
