Mental illness is far bigger than most of us could ever imagine. Thoughts or ideas get locked inside of the brain of the person suffering and they become concrete as to what that person believes to be fact.
“They tried to expand Alabama, but it fell apart,” he told me in a convincing voice. I asked, “Is there anything outside of this area [Birmingham, Alabama].” He then replied, “I don’t think so.” He then suggested that all of the other states are gone and we, where we were sitting, are surrounded by ocean. “If you walk that way [pointing] you’re hitting the ocean and if you walk that way [pointing] you’re hitting the ocean,” he explained.
He fully believed that Alabama was an island surrounded by the ocean and all of the other United States were gone, crumbled away. It went as far as him telling me that if I got on top of a nearby building I would only see ocean for miles.
“People assume you aren’t sick
unless they see the sickness on your skin
like scars forming a map of all the ways you’re hurting.”
― Emm Roy, The First Step