Egress is synonomous with exit. P.T. Barnum made the word famous by posting a sign reading "This Way to the Egress" at a sideshow tent in his circus. The visitors who followed the sign, believing that perhaps an egress was an exotic bird, soon found themselves outside the tent again.
The phrase Infinite Egress explains the post-psychotic or manic-depressive episode period because, at once, we find ourselves on the other side of the traumatic experience, wondering how a series of rationale decisions has lead to a mental breakdown. We feel just as tricked by our intuition as the people who payed to see the egress at the circus. And the cycle can repeat itself, despite the conscious behavioral changes we make. One exit becomes many and the egress infinite.
After a psychotic episode at the age of 20, I found no one with whom to the share my experiences. I began to write about the egress but many years passed until I started to understand the process fully. Still, I have suffered three minor episodes and I reject my doctor´s recommendation that I spend the rest of my life taking medications.
By no means do I advocate a no-medicine therapy to anyone, but a fundamental part of any therapy is sharing the experiences of the egress. I invite and will post submissions about the egress: the psychotic experience, the depression, the mania, the brilliance of the insights that are found, and the cure.
