12 – The Peak

There was a time in my life when I thought I was divine. Imagine how difficult it was to overcome a delusion like that as a young man. And as a middle aged man I still believe some of that to be true because it’s easy to accept that everybody is exceptional at times but… 

I wasn’t God. I was a new worldly person who found pleasure in interesting thoughts, storing them away to memory and recalling them to reward myself for having those thoughts. Repeating this process over and over led to a heightened imagination. Thought-imagery became so fascinating to me I would describe it. This reinforced to myself that those thoughts originated within me. I was so committed to having original thoughts that I admitted to seeing things only I could see but I didn’t know it at the time. The descriptions of imagery not seen by others were visual hallucinations. When I stopped describing the images I withdrew further within myself and became enveloped by them, delusions quickly ensued. Sound became more pronounced. Talking was screaming. Noises turned into words as intense and lengthy as the vibrations that formed them – auditory hallucinations. I found myself wandering through the images and moaning at the sounds. Objects appeared as obstacles, slanted, gangly and intimidating. I fought hard to catch up to reality by walking in place away from this existence towards a new beginning. The floor seemed most comforting but was impenetrable. I laid down in mental anguish. The physical world saved me from snapping into a thousand drops of light. I could feel pressure on my wrists which were pressed to the carpet, my nose squished into the shag trying to break through for eternity. Screwed, I no longer wanted to exist but fragments of me were scattered about the house now and forever that I would not leave behind forever. There was no escape so I lept at nothing, the object of my disbelief unloaded. I pranced around until I was pinned to the floor by an angel. Was I still here? To find out I began running to see if I could fly away from all looming objects. Lunging outside at the ground, scraping my wrists again but this time on ice. Standing up again soaking wet with my wrists pointed upward I began to squirt cold light from them. Insanely frightened I fell back to the ground and tried to spit insanity out of my head by pushing air through my pursed lips, a rapid spitting sound only a curious child should make when left alone or when clowning around with his friends about what he does to himself when he is alone. From a fetal position I was lifted into a van by an angel. I felt safe enough to full on piss myself, a warm moistened comfort, before letting God and everyone else know that it was in fact a good feeling. I was really on my way to another plane of existence. I was really on my way. 

Schizophrenia leading to catatonia. Only a snapshot of a very short period of time launching five vanished days I will never forget and can not recall. The madness leading up to this was a gradual descent into my mind that left me with vivid hallucinations and delusions that told a story not unique to just me but should be familiar to others who have gone through a similar vision of fright when peering over the thin line between what we see and what we shouldn’t see. An oscillating line that confuses our intellect into fighting for survival over the threat of the line snapping unless we can straighten it out before what we’ve seen becomes unseen and what we’ve heard becomes unheard. 

I believe most people can identify with madness, a strange journey born out of contempt for those in heaven and in trepidation for hell. Going through a psychotic episode is scary. At one point I couldn’t tell my mouth to stop biting down on my tongue for hours because my brain was sick. At no point was I calculating to hurt innocent people. I fear hell. Above when I attempted to describe a psychotic episode, at that point when I was trying to communicate the end through matrimony with carpet, I reached for an explanation as to how I could remain on this side of the line and fortunately fell flat on my face. That’s how quickly psychotic breaks can happen and travesty. I continue to share the story of how I got to that desperate moment when I marched like a soldier onto the long road to recovery because so many won’t or can’t any longer.