On a dark summer night without a hint of breeze, ignorance is bliss.'
Phew, what a bloody awful cold-open. I wrote that (three pages of that) when I was eighteen, and thought it the very best horror opener ever to be written. Ignorance is bliss, isn't it? Knowing what I know now, and being very much older, I can see how overblown yet formulaic it is, but back then, my ignorance allowed me to think myself brilliant. Oh, to be young and foolish (which is a nice way of saying, pig-ignorant).
This blog is about the gift of ignorance. Of all the things I've lost, I miss my ignorance the most. Being ignorant makes the world a simpler place, a far more enjoyable place. The fact is, the more you learn, the more you realise you don't know shit. If this post were being written by the boys and girls over on Sesame Street, it would be brought to you by the letters M & I. The I is for Ignorant. I can't remember what the M was for. Seems fitting, given the theme.
Approx. 150,000 people die each day. Every. Single. Day. Every single person of that 150,000 figure leaves behind real people, whose lives have been torn apart by their loss. Every single person - no matter how famous of infamous - is a fragile human being, with a real, private life we don't know about. But the bits we do know of make them real to us, make us mourn for them when they die, make us grieve for their family and friends left behind, consumed with guilt at a cross word, an unreturned phone-call, at not kissing them goodbye the last time they parted. Universal feelings, no matter how young and poor, or old and rich the person was. They died, we grieved. Friday, April 9th 2021 claimed the lives of three particular people, each death sad in it's own way.
One died old, having lived a wonderful life, at home, with his loved ones around him. A wonderful end. Sad for those left behind, but not a tragedy by any means. My interest lies with the other two people, the ones that expose ignorance in far too many.
The first is DMX.
Overdosed in 2016, rehabbed at least three times, overdosed and had a heart attack earlier this month. Life support switched off on April 9th. Would anyone be surprised that a man who had lived that way died at only fifty years of age? Unlikely. No great loss, always going to happen, he made his bed, etc. No, that's too easy. That response is ignorance at it's finest.
Bipolar, abusive, broken childhood, introduced to alcohol at seven by an aunt, sent to a children's home at ten, homeless and addicted to crack at fourteen. Fathered fifteen children, in trouble with the law throughout his life, jailed thirty times. In spite of this, he was a successful rapper, songwriter, actor. He made history on the Billboard 200 charts, sold over 74,000,000 records, made a success of his life.
Read that start again; mentally ill, abused, introduced to alcohol as a little boy, homeless and on crack cocaine by fourteen. Repeatedly tried and failed to kick his demons away from him. Bipolar isn't just a case of having mood swings, it's deep depressions, highs that can cause psychosis, elevated risk of suicide, elevated risk of self-harm. Add to that already established drug use from a horribly young age. Addiction isn't a lack of self-control, it isn't being weak-willed or being too lazy to change. It is a compulsion, a form of self-harm, a disease. It isn't just an indulgence, it is an illness, and in a person with other mental-health problems, it is deadly.
The second is Nikki Grahame.
Nikki died aged thirty-eight. She had suffered from anorexia nervosa since a chance remark in her gymnastics class when she was just seven years old. That age again: seven. Known for being manic as anything on Big Brother in 2010, typical of someone clearly nutty to ant to be thin and just not eat. Was always going to happen, some people just don't want to be helped, do they? They love the drama. No, too easy. Again, that response is ignorance and then some.
Through her life, Nikki was admitted to at least twelve psychiatric hospitals and clinics, in an attempt to help her break the cycle of self-harm that anorexia is. She tried to commit suicide several times, suffered with OCD (which is not having to straighten your tins out in the cupboard, as some stupid people cheerfully believe makes them OCD, it is an horrific disorder which ruins lives) and terrible depression and loneliness. Nikki was a qualified beauty therapist, actress, and author of two books on anorexia.
Anorexia isn't not eating because you want to lose a bit of weight. It isn't something that can be switched on an off. It is a compulsion, an addiction, it is a mental illness. Don't believe me? Reread the previous paragraph, it was psychiatric facilities Nikki had to go to for treatment, not fucking Weight Watchers or Greggs.
So, what is the point?
Ignorance is the point. The ability to have passed through life so blinkered, that you can view these two deaths as being their own fault, the they made their own bed philosophy. How does someone get to adulthood without being confronted with mental illness, whether their own or a close friend or family member? How do they stay so dumb to what others are going through? How?
I grew up ignorant, delightfully so, seeing black and white, and castigating others for their faults and failings. Some were evil, some irritating, some overly-dramatic, some miserable, drunks, liars, idiots, you get the idea. I remained ignorant until I was around twenty-five, when I discovered that my sister wasn't just a typical miserable, strange teenager (having been one myself), but one suffering with a whole Smörgåsbord of serious mental illnesses. How stupid was I? (And please don't think I had had an idyllic upbringing, I was badly depressed (brushed off by a GP as just being a teenager, I'd grow out of it), self-harming, isolated, and very, very bright. Yet clearly also dumb as a bell.) But I started to learn, and the more I learned, the more ignorant I realised I was.
It's an odd fact that the more knowledge we contain, the more aware we are of our short-comings, but there we are. I became aware of mental health problems that I'd always thought of as character weaknesses, including addiction and eating disorders (and I barely ate for many of my teenage years, among other reasons it being another way to control and punish myself), and stopped sneering at those suffering from them. I tried to always be patient, to always be kind.
I became alert to the looks, the words, the eyes of those struggling, and saw that that personal terror was everywhere, people struggling and desperately hanging on everywhere. And I wish I was ignorant again, wish I could just dismiss, and not be haunted by this newfound knowledge, of how afraid they must have been, of how helpless their loved ones felt, of how aware we all need to be to others and ourselves.
Ignorance really is bliss.
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