On a walk through the park along Lake Wingra, I was contemplating the nature of deep transformation. I imagined a robot made of small Lego pieces. If this robot wanted to become a bird or cougar instead, what would happen? First, all of the pieces would come apart. The robot would experience a loss of identity, a breakdown, a death. The robot might scramble to pull its pieces back together, but its efforts would only create suffering. Yet, if it allowed itself to come apart, the pieces would reorganize to form something new.
Reaching the end of my walk, I got into my car and turned on the radio. The first words I heard were, “I can transform ya! I can transform ya!” It was a theme song by Chris Brown for the new movie Transformers.
Deep transformation must encompass the part of us that thinks it is in charge of the process. The loss of identity and loss of control is what makes it so scary. In Native American tribes, transformation took place during vision quests. The various deprivations endured during the quest were said to evoke feelings of losing one’s mind.
One month later, my transformation process led me into the hospital. On my last night in the psychiatric unit, I dreamed that I was dancing down the street to beautiful music playing in a nearby cafe. My dress flowed around my body as I twirled and glided through the air, as if my own movements were the melody itself. I felt so much joy.
I entered a mall (which, upon reflection, looked strikingly like the hospital) and began searching for a restroom. I was carrying my notebook and needed to hide it in my dress so that I could continue dancing. (Alas, how many dreams have I spent searching for a restroom?)
I found a forgotten restroom that was completely covered in filth. I could barely step through it. I entered one stall to find only a hole in the ground. I was literally in “an abandoned shithole,” which undoubtedly reflected how many patients viewed the unit.
Soon, several people began clamoring at my stall door pleading, “Morphino! Morphino!” They were in tremendous pain and longed for relief. Morphino, I learned, is the third person plural imperative of the Italian word morphare, which means to transform. In my dream, I understood it as a reference to morphine, but transformation also made sense.
Not all cultures pathologize mental breakdowns as something to be avoided at all costs. Some see it as a necessary pathway from the old to the new. When I awoke, I began to embrace my experience not as a sign of failure but as a sign of fundamental reorganization both on the inside and the outside. Since then, the suffering has ebbed. Occasionally, there is still pain, but what once looked like impending death now looks like an adventure.
A comic fom XKCD:
