La raccomandazione del mio terapeuta è di tenere sempre fuori l'aspetto psichiatrico. I ricoveri per intenderci. Questo lato spaventa sempre. Eppure, posso tranquillamente dire, a forza di esperienze, che chi ha il problema psichiatrico o riconosce di avere il problema, è più serio di chi appare normale, senza problemi». This is how Lino introduces himself, born in Pistoia in 1979, in one of the many introspective passages of a diary kept for seven years (2009-2016). Pages in which he alternates highs and lows, periods of study and work (as a lawyer) with stays in psychiatric facilities, which he enters and exits to treat the borderline disorder he has been diagnosed with. Lino was one of the finalists of the 39th edition of the Premio Pieve Saverio Tutino, conceived and organized by the Archivio dei Diari, whose purpose is to recover the memory of apparently ordinary people, thus giving voice to those who would otherwise have none (the manuscripts are preserved exactly as they arrive at the Archive, typos included; anyone can participate). Lino's writing follows the rhythm of his health and his states of mind. Work, romantic relationships, a difficult relationship with his parents, drugs, religion: these are the themes on which Lino reflects, searching for the path to take. He seeks answers to his questions, but also simple moments of tranquility, frequenting hermitages and monasteries, places symbolic of Christian mysticism (such as Camaldoli, for example). But even in full isolation, Lino does not always manage to find inner peace. The treatments to which he tirelessly submits sometimes provide fragments of answers to the questions that torment him. Day after day, alternating the chronicle of the everyday with deeper thoughts or moments of poetry, Lino describes the unfolding of his life, which seems destined to follow the interminable oscillations of a pendulum («This diary seems to have reached its end. Another period of my life has been marked: the fall and the recovery. We have fallen again and now it is time for the recovery»).
Lino's Diary, August 31, 2014
Reading the gospel is opening my eyes, it is changing me. It is as if I only wanted the gospel, without worrying about VICES or work. Certainly, the therapeutic path has had its results. But I don't think that's it. About work I am strongly convinced I will manage. But I must change many things. It is necessary to understand what our vocation is, to feel moved by something, by the Spirit, and to let oneself be guided by the Spirit in which we are immersed.
My gaze is as if it were graced. The desire for woman, or rather woman, is no longer something that stands before me, blocks me and makes me feel Bad, But it is as if I pass through it. I believe that the work with the inmates must continue, but renewed, more detached. But I must understand how much what I do is reconcilable with love. Love is our purpose, our being. If we stop, in a forest, or on a beach or wherever you like, we understand that we are made of love.
Every night I went to bed with the fear of death. Now I don't feel the tiredness. A priest, from M, told me: at night, keep watch, close your eyes, and if you don't sleep, keep watch, you will receive from it. The compassionate and so gentle face of M. All this has changed me. (…) I perceive the act contrary to conscience, repentance, sin, impoverishment. Yesterday evening for the first time I was looking at my body, feeling it and touching these thin little legs of mine. Caressing my arms. How beautiful it is to write, I would always and only want to write, but why have I been so anxious about tomorrow! Damned parents, even if I bear no hatred toward them, but I feel I want to stay away. How much encrustation has been placed upon me. And now I only want to reach the nakedness of being. To spread the fullness of this love in the world, looking, touching, grazing, in the awareness that everything comes to you. But I have been a fool, because in reality this faith was already inside me, already Christian, but I didn't believe it. I didn't believe that I believed. I was ashamed of it.
Many people had seen, only I could not see myself. Closed, set apart, in the fortress of reason, of mistrust, of others' judgment. A conception of justice totally wrong. I am not even interested in this justice of men anymore. The only realization of justice for me has become that of freeing my being, my already (…) love, from all these passions, angers, desires for self-affirmation. Freeing oneself from all those false ideals, first and foremost that of justice. False ideals that were born from reason. Only the heart-love produces the one true ideal: the ideal of love.
But we must be careful not to fall into a widespread attitude. Many people reach this love, this self, this awareness, but then they lose it, they deprive themselves of that love, they empty themselves. Instead, I perceive that God is something that must be hidden, even in a simple glance with a person. That God, that love, must be hidden, must be protected. This awareness must be protected, it must not be flaunted as many do, falling into emotivism, even in religion. Because this love that is given to us and of which we become aware is not given to us without anything in return, but we are asked to protect it, to cultivate it.
A commitment is also asked of us. The greatest commitment is that of not falling into temptation. Right after having reached this awareness, this love perception, we are put to the test. It always happens to me this way. And here we must be strong and do violence to ourselves. (…) To manage not to fall into the various temptations that assail us every day. Yet in the morning we rediscover ourselves covered in that love. Here is where the emotivism of many religions lies. They end up putting in second place the aspect of sacrifice toward oneself. And so, it seems that those people of faith have created flowering gardens, in reality it is only flowering smoke, without roots. It will not prosper.