Six months; I think that’s all I can take. I can clean those trays and dishes for six months. I mean it’s only three-and-a-half hours a day, but it gets hectic in there and there’s no smoke break in that time either. I mean, it’s really disgusting work.
If I can make it on time every day for six months, I think…no, I know I’m going to request another position. I mean, I can sling hash as well as the next guy, and anyhow, I’d made sandwiches while I was attending that university way back when… Nobody ever told me to wash dishes. Well, that was about a thousand jobs ago…and way before my hitch-hiking days; my crazy days.
Oh God, why did I have to remind myself of those days? Pain, misery and alcohol…in a word: MANIA. Yeah, I’m mentally ill, or at least I was…now, I’m mentally healthy. But those hitch-hiking days… why me, God, why me? Scrambling around the Northeast (sometimes completely bare-foot) like there was some kind of war going on. It was horrible. I’m just glad that I’m normal now.
It was back in ‘85 that I first set out. I did the Albany, Boston, Manchester, Bennington, Albany loop, stopping here and there. I did the Cape a couple of times and other places too. But mostly, it was back to Mom in Rensselaer.
I remember returning home, all the way from Manchester, with a hole in one heel. That was the day of my first psychiatric hospitalization. But they didn’t treat my foot. In fact, they didn’t treat my head either…that’s why I ran away.
I ran away again and again, but I was back the same day. Once, I hid in some bushes in front of a house and eluded them altogether…but they caught up with me the next day. Where am I going with all this? Let’s see…I guess that my perception of reality was distorted.
When I got sick, I thought I was on a mission from God. The Antichrist was coming and I had to save God’s people. Who were God’s people and how was I going to save them? Easy…God’s people were few and far between, and then there were the earthworks. Earthworks are small (or large) lean-tos and similar structures that stand low to the ground, sturdy and concealed. So sturdy that they could be stepped on and still stand strong. Lean-to’s can be built against large rocks, camouflaged with leaves, ferns and the like. I was commissioned to hide God’s people in these earthworks…way up in the North woods.
What baffled me mostly about all of this was the question of identifying God’s people. If they wore dog tags, it would have been easy. Sorry, no tags. Nope…I was left wondering about most of the people I met in those days.
I rationalized that if they gave me a ride, they were probably God’s people. But none of them wanted to live in an earthwork. So, I built them anyway; about ten or twelve of them. I figured they’d sleep anywhere from four to twelve people each. And I made a map of them, so I’d be able to locate God’s people.
God’s people… Churches, bus stations and the streets…perhaps, but, hitch-hiking; that was free, and I wouldn’t get arrested for loitering. Plus, once inside a car, you can have as personal a conversation as you’d like. That way you can actually (in some cases) get to know people better. I would write down their names and addresses in a small book. But I haven’t seen that book in years.
Well, worse eventually came to worse and I started getting arrested and winding up in jails and hospitals. My Dad (the good doctor) would often come and rescue me and pay my bail, which was kind of ironic since he was directly responsible for my first incarceration. He was also the first doctor to give me haloperidol. He mixed it with some ice cream and gave it to me one fine manic evening. I slept like a baby that night, and the next morning I thanked him.
It wasn’t until about five years (and much trouble) later that I finally came to accept my psychiatric disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and started to take my medications as prescribed. It happened just after a half-baked hitch-hiking episode. It was back in the summer of ‘89. I had just been at the US/Canadian border. My Dad came up to Plattsburgh and got me out. He drove me back to Albany and bought me lunch. After lunch, I decided I was going to show everybody. I was angry, lonely and discontent. I hitched out to Utica and became very bored (and cold) as no one would carry me on to points West. So I finally took a ride back to Albany, and my sister took me to a local psychiatric hospital. Well, the doctor who interviewed me asked if I had been taking my medications. That was it. It hit me like a brick. All of a sudden, I accepted the fact that mental illness existed…and, moreover, that I had it.
They kept me in the hospital for two weeks, and I had to practically beg my therapist to discharge me, but he finally did. Soon thereafter, things began to improve. I took group therapy seriously for a change and I had quit drinking in ‘86. Once I started taking my medications, it was all good. My delusions faded out. I haven’t been arrested since ‘87, and that was my last hospitalization.
Ironically, I found God’s people in an apartment program I entered. There I was treated with respect and concern. In no time at all, I moved on.
Now I have a nice apartment in Albany with my girlfriend and we plan to get married soon. Today, I am healthy, happy and free.
Reprinted with kind permission from The North River Journal, Artists for Mental Health, Inc.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Confusion to Clarity
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Monday, July 18, 2011
Confusion to Clarity
Six months; I think that’s all I can take. I can clean those trays and dishes for six months. I mean it’s only three-and-a-half hours a day, but it gets hectic in there and there’s no smoke break in that time either. I mean, it’s really disgusting work.
If I can make it on time every day for six months, I think…no, I know I’m going to request another position. I mean, I can sling hash as well as the next guy, and anyhow, I’d made sandwiches while I was attending that university way back when… Nobody ever told me to wash dishes. Well, that was about a thousand jobs ago…and way before my hitch-hiking days; my crazy days.
Oh God, why did I have to remind myself of those days? Pain, misery and alcohol…in a word: MANIA. Yeah, I’m mentally ill, or at least I was…now, I’m mentally healthy. But those hitch-hiking days… why me, God, why me? Scrambling around the Northeast (sometimes completely bare-foot) like there was some kind of war going on. It was horrible. I’m just glad that I’m normal now.
It was back in ‘85 that I first set out. I did the Albany, Boston, Manchester, Bennington, Albany loop, stopping here and there. I did the Cape a couple of times and other places too. But mostly, it was back to Mom in Rensselaer.
I remember returning home, all the way from Manchester, with a hole in one heel. That was the day of my first psychiatric hospitalization. But they didn’t treat my foot. In fact, they didn’t treat my head either…that’s why I ran away.
I ran away again and again, but I was back the same day. Once, I hid in some bushes in front of a house and eluded them altogether…but they caught up with me the next day. Where am I going with all this? Let’s see…I guess that my perception of reality was distorted.
When I got sick, I thought I was on a mission from God. The Antichrist was coming and I had to save God’s people. Who were God’s people and how was I going to save them? Easy…God’s people were few and far between, and then there were the earthworks. Earthworks are small (or large) lean-tos and similar structures that stand low to the ground, sturdy and concealed. So sturdy that they could be stepped on and still stand strong. Lean-to’s can be built against large rocks, camouflaged with leaves, ferns and the like. I was commissioned to hide God’s people in these earthworks…way up in the North woods.
What baffled me mostly about all of this was the question of identifying God’s people. If they wore dog tags, it would have been easy. Sorry, no tags. Nope…I was left wondering about most of the people I met in those days.
I rationalized that if they gave me a ride, they were probably God’s people. But none of them wanted to live in an earthwork. So, I built them anyway; about ten or twelve of them. I figured they’d sleep anywhere from four to twelve people each. And I made a map of them, so I’d be able to locate God’s people.
God’s people… Churches, bus stations and the streets…perhaps, but, hitch-hiking; that was free, and I wouldn’t get arrested for loitering. Plus, once inside a car, you can have as personal a conversation as you’d like. That way you can actually (in some cases) get to know people better. I would write down their names and addresses in a small book. But I haven’t seen that book in years.
Well, worse eventually came to worse and I started getting arrested and winding up in jails and hospitals. My Dad (the good doctor) would often come and rescue me and pay my bail, which was kind of ironic since he was directly responsible for my first incarceration. He was also the first doctor to give me haloperidol. He mixed it with some ice cream and gave it to me one fine manic evening. I slept like a baby that night, and the next morning I thanked him.
It wasn’t until about five years (and much trouble) later that I finally came to accept my psychiatric disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and started to take my medications as prescribed. It happened just after a half-baked hitch-hiking episode. It was back in the summer of ‘89. I had just been at the US/Canadian border. My Dad came up to Plattsburgh and got me out. He drove me back to Albany and bought me lunch. After lunch, I decided I was going to show everybody. I was angry, lonely and discontent. I hitched out to Utica and became very bored (and cold) as no one would carry me on to points West. So I finally took a ride back to Albany, and my sister took me to a local psychiatric hospital. Well, the doctor who interviewed me asked if I had been taking my medications. That was it. It hit me like a brick. All of a sudden, I accepted the fact that mental illness existed…and, moreover, that I had it.
They kept me in the hospital for two weeks, and I had to practically beg my therapist to discharge me, but he finally did. Soon thereafter, things began to improve. I took group therapy seriously for a change and I had quit drinking in ‘86. Once I started taking my medications, it was all good. My delusions faded out. I haven’t been arrested since ‘87, and that was my last hospitalization.
Ironically, I found God’s people in an apartment program I entered. There I was treated with respect and concern. In no time at all, I moved on.
Now I have a nice apartment in Albany with my girlfriend and we plan to get married soon. Today, I am healthy, happy and free.
Reprinted with kind permission from The North River Journal, Artists for Mental Health, Inc.
If I can make it on time every day for six months, I think…no, I know I’m going to request another position. I mean, I can sling hash as well as the next guy, and anyhow, I’d made sandwiches while I was attending that university way back when… Nobody ever told me to wash dishes. Well, that was about a thousand jobs ago…and way before my hitch-hiking days; my crazy days.
Oh God, why did I have to remind myself of those days? Pain, misery and alcohol…in a word: MANIA. Yeah, I’m mentally ill, or at least I was…now, I’m mentally healthy. But those hitch-hiking days… why me, God, why me? Scrambling around the Northeast (sometimes completely bare-foot) like there was some kind of war going on. It was horrible. I’m just glad that I’m normal now.
It was back in ‘85 that I first set out. I did the Albany, Boston, Manchester, Bennington, Albany loop, stopping here and there. I did the Cape a couple of times and other places too. But mostly, it was back to Mom in Rensselaer.
I remember returning home, all the way from Manchester, with a hole in one heel. That was the day of my first psychiatric hospitalization. But they didn’t treat my foot. In fact, they didn’t treat my head either…that’s why I ran away.
I ran away again and again, but I was back the same day. Once, I hid in some bushes in front of a house and eluded them altogether…but they caught up with me the next day. Where am I going with all this? Let’s see…I guess that my perception of reality was distorted.
When I got sick, I thought I was on a mission from God. The Antichrist was coming and I had to save God’s people. Who were God’s people and how was I going to save them? Easy…God’s people were few and far between, and then there were the earthworks. Earthworks are small (or large) lean-tos and similar structures that stand low to the ground, sturdy and concealed. So sturdy that they could be stepped on and still stand strong. Lean-to’s can be built against large rocks, camouflaged with leaves, ferns and the like. I was commissioned to hide God’s people in these earthworks…way up in the North woods.
What baffled me mostly about all of this was the question of identifying God’s people. If they wore dog tags, it would have been easy. Sorry, no tags. Nope…I was left wondering about most of the people I met in those days.
I rationalized that if they gave me a ride, they were probably God’s people. But none of them wanted to live in an earthwork. So, I built them anyway; about ten or twelve of them. I figured they’d sleep anywhere from four to twelve people each. And I made a map of them, so I’d be able to locate God’s people.
God’s people… Churches, bus stations and the streets…perhaps, but, hitch-hiking; that was free, and I wouldn’t get arrested for loitering. Plus, once inside a car, you can have as personal a conversation as you’d like. That way you can actually (in some cases) get to know people better. I would write down their names and addresses in a small book. But I haven’t seen that book in years.
Well, worse eventually came to worse and I started getting arrested and winding up in jails and hospitals. My Dad (the good doctor) would often come and rescue me and pay my bail, which was kind of ironic since he was directly responsible for my first incarceration. He was also the first doctor to give me haloperidol. He mixed it with some ice cream and gave it to me one fine manic evening. I slept like a baby that night, and the next morning I thanked him.
It wasn’t until about five years (and much trouble) later that I finally came to accept my psychiatric disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and started to take my medications as prescribed. It happened just after a half-baked hitch-hiking episode. It was back in the summer of ‘89. I had just been at the US/Canadian border. My Dad came up to Plattsburgh and got me out. He drove me back to Albany and bought me lunch. After lunch, I decided I was going to show everybody. I was angry, lonely and discontent. I hitched out to Utica and became very bored (and cold) as no one would carry me on to points West. So I finally took a ride back to Albany, and my sister took me to a local psychiatric hospital. Well, the doctor who interviewed me asked if I had been taking my medications. That was it. It hit me like a brick. All of a sudden, I accepted the fact that mental illness existed…and, moreover, that I had it.
They kept me in the hospital for two weeks, and I had to practically beg my therapist to discharge me, but he finally did. Soon thereafter, things began to improve. I took group therapy seriously for a change and I had quit drinking in ‘86. Once I started taking my medications, it was all good. My delusions faded out. I haven’t been arrested since ‘87, and that was my last hospitalization.
Ironically, I found God’s people in an apartment program I entered. There I was treated with respect and concern. In no time at all, I moved on.
Now I have a nice apartment in Albany with my girlfriend and we plan to get married soon. Today, I am healthy, happy and free.
Reprinted with kind permission from The North River Journal, Artists for Mental Health, Inc.
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