Fixation Pains 2 editions

"Fixation Pains" is an intense story of love and hate, historical in nature, at times very humorous, plus sad and searching. The inevitable head-first slide through family archives was very difficult via many years of heartache, another break with reality painted with tears and isolation, but a story written as an instrument to regain control over a failing life would not go away. This manuscript screams loudly about inner strength, pitfalls of mental illness, courage, growing up in Brooklyn, New York via many hysterical moments among eccentric and explicit peers, teenage blues and substance abuse, why many young adults commit suicide, freaky fraternal life in Brooklyn College, boundaries of a mental meltdown through obsessions and clinical depression, an adult on edge, war and pre-medication surgical history, a broken marriage, and the dark side of loneliness, with creative passion as a catalyst. It describes in detail the heavy journey through obsessive-compulsive disorder and clinical depression, and a rare and surreal hearing ailment called hyperacusis.

During the 1950’s divorce slept as a beleaguered exception, not a fatuous rule of an experimental society, just one more personality forming twist to haul upon a laden back, and as a family process neared fruition, I denied reality of the parental breakup, not understanding what would become painfully obvious many years later; dad was mentally ill.

Mother became scarred by excommunication, while I hid unconscious desires, snuffed every glorious creative fire, suppressing thoughts of escape for widths of a generation, denying automatic passion, disappearing in diversity, substance abuse, while withdrawn in mental caves, certain of nothing; we both had many things to overcome.

Back in 1969, as inspired students on a restless planet arose in choreographed protests, I gradually drifted into a forlorn disturbance of clinical depression, a circle of solitary madness, and the world as I knew it drastically changed.

Visual cortex, a portion of cerebral cortex of the brain receiving and processing impulses from the optic nerve, would retain only what it wanted to see, just enough to persevere inside environmental threshing machines.

Then 20 years elapsed in an eerie blink of time, and excuses could no longer accept rationalization, as a second altering despair detonated after a brief marriage ended. Soon afterwards I was diagnosed by a psychiatrist. Then the battle against the hearing/anxiety disorder commenced as I struggled to stay afloat. The noises were the enemy as the persecuting volume increased internally.

Life intensified when I suddenly discovered that my ex-marine dad tried to commit suicide after WWII. Electro-convulsive therapy followed, then the prefrontal lobotomy. The Veteran's Administration doctors didn't know any better. Living in Brooklyn, NY was never the same; for both of us.

Talent plus compassion divided by imbalance, equals rage and frustration. Ego and persona clashing beneath serious conflict only allows three choices; breakdown, suicide, or emanation of self. Where would I land?

Margaret Durante, former publicity director of Macmillan Publishing, describes the book as street edged blood & guts.