Author Shelly Goodman Wright

While flipping through the ON DEMAND movies the other night, I ran across a movie called “The Snake Pit”. The title intrigued me so I pushed play and right away I felt drawn into the story. Filmed in 1948, a woman sat in some sort of courtyard, her mind racing about her day and routine tasks she’s going to accomplish. Right away I thought, “yep that sounds like me”. As I continued to watch, another woman joined her just before a loud alarm went off and other woman quickly pulled the lady in the courtyard alongside her as they both briskly walked into a building. Instantly the woman in the courtyard notices the bars and women in nursing outfits--locking and unlocking doors while they spoke her name. She had no memory of coming here, no memory of the people who apparently knew her, or memory of time which had passed.

As the movie progressed showing her success’s and her backslides, we come close to end where she ended up in the lowest level in the mental institution--The Snake Pit. In an overcrowded room surrounded by the crazies of crazies, she begins to realize “I’m not as bad as some of these people” and that’s when she starts to recover.

I wonder sometimes if I’m crazy worry about such silly things. The mundaneness of ritual chores not done will not cause the world as we know it to end. So the floor stays dirty one more day or the laundry in the dryer doesn’t get folded right after the cycle—it really is not a sign of Armageddon. So why do these feelings crop up? Why do I get “the mean reds” as Audrey Hepburn said it so bluntly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”? I don’t really know the answer. It could be over use of one side of the brain over another or could be a hormonal imbalance. But like the woman in the movie, The Snake Pit, when I look around at others around me, I know how blessed I truly am. How lucky I am to be where I am at and to have the kind of loving family who support me and my dreams. But most of all, I’m blessed to have a God who loves me unconditionally. Once again I climb out of the pit of despair and realize my greatest calling is to serve He who loves me most and maybe help someone else who might be going through the same thing.

And then, when the time comes and I’m back in the pit, I’ll remind myself all over again.