I’d like to share a story that doesn’t directly respond to the topic but relates to it. For a couple of years I’ve been sorting through what came to me in a dream as a previous life. I’m female in this life, but in that dream I experienced myself as male, and I was aware of very specific things about him. I was able to identify this person and then locate a great deal of information about him. The multitude of unusual links between him and myself have led me to accept the reality of past lives.
This man married a lovely woman who developed schizophrenia so severe that she had to be institutionalized, and she remained so for the balance of her life. Her husband continued to support her and pay for her care. But, deeply involved in his work and unable to interact with her in this condition, he never saw her again. They died apart, wretchedly and fairly young, he first and she some months later.
When I was about seventeen years old I was introduced to a young man who’d had a psychotic break as a teenager and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. At the time he was as a patient in a mental hospital. While not able to return to society, he was sometimes released for a weekend for a visit with his former school friends and their families. He understood his condition, and there were times one could tell he was struggling with his thoughts. Otherwise, he was a quiet, very serious person given to much pondering, not exactly the sort a girl anxious to have fun would have been drawn to. But I was. There was a sort of familiarity about him, and I felt totally comfortable and at home in his presence.
I began to visit him at his hospital on a regular basis, and we would just share our thoughts about ourselves and life and, especially, about music, one of the special things we had in common. It was a friendship rather than a romance, and, except for those few times when I sensed he was trying to keep a grip on this thoughts, I was focused on everything about him except his illness. Sometimes he would spend a weekend with my family, who, in contrast to me, felt they were walking on eggshells in his presence. One afternoon when I was visiting with him at the hospital he told me he’d made something special for me in his occupational therapy workshop. He produced a silver ring and, before I could say anything, he slid it onto the third finger of my left hand, where one would normally wear a wedding band. I don’t know how he managed to do that, because once on my finger the ring wouldn’t budge past the knuckle. There it stayed for about 18 years, and it always seemed appropriate to be wearing it, though we weren't married. Looking back on that friendship I can see it was the first time in my young life that I felt impelled to be kind and caring toward another person, to seek to know another for his own sake. This young man drew me out as well and showed me great kindness and understanding in turn throughout the several years that we were in touch. On one occasion, without my asking, he got leave from the hospital and, holding himself together, traveled hundreds of miles to help me through a very difficult situation. This was many years ago when medical treatment for schizophrenia was scant and consisted of electric or insulin shock, so I’ sure this wasn’t easy for him. I feel he was my first real friend and, from the emotional standpoint, sufficient for a lifetime. He’s still dear to me.
My friend and I eventually drifed apart. Somehow he was able to marry and even have a family. I went on to graduate school and work in another area. In time I had a sudden, frightening breakdown of my own. I never sought a diagnosis or help for it -- in fact, I couldn’t, because I was unable to perceive where reality lay. And so I struggled with it quite alone, like the schizophrenic wife in the previous life. I had a friend who realized what I was going through. She never probed me about it or showed any pity, though she frequently invited me to share a meal. Only once she said to me, “You’re never far from who you really are.” It helped release me from fear and self-absorption. I began to observe her more than myself and recognized her non-judgmental acceptance of me as well as her consistent cheerfulness. One day I thought perhaps I, too, could be cheerful again. That opened the door to recovery for me, which came by itself within a few days. Considering it now, years later, I see that this friend helped me in much the same way that I had helped my schizophrenic friend when he was hospitalized. I also see that the man whose life I think I once lived should have done something similar for his ailing wife but didn’t or couldn’t.
My schizophrenic friend died fairly young. We weren't in contact then, and I don’t know the circumstances, but it was around the time that I decided I should have his ring cut off my finger.
Back to the present, I have photographs of my old friend as well as some of the schizophrenic wife of the man whose life, it seems, I once lived. Recently it occurred to me that these two are one and the same. I scanned pictures of them that were taken from the same angle and superimposed one over the other in Photoshop in alternating transparencies. I saw the same face shape, the same nose and mouth, the same arch of the same eyebrow, one feminine, the other masculine. I’ve also learned that the woman died the same year that my friend was born. To be honest, I can’t persuade myself of a shared identity without knowing with certainty that the woman died before my friend was born. That’s something I may not be able to find out, as her death occurred in another country during war time. Still, it seems to me that they are the same. And if they are, it tells me, among other things, that we reincarnate with others we knew previously. We also carry unfinished business – incomplete growth in some area – from one life to another and are given the opportunity to overcome what we once thought was an obstacle. In my personal experience mental illness was more the courier of a message, rather than the message itself.