014-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I don’t know how the hell much longer I’m going be up here in Colorado, and I dread going back home to the war zone of a mansion I destroyed during the break that got me here in the first place. The doctor back home, Dr. T—She believes my family is quite reasonable. And she has this whole power trip over me, because of my illness. At least that’s what I think. It sucks that I am not even comfortable with my own doctor.

My family has not been reasonable. It’s such a complicated ordeal. I can hardly begin to spill the details.

I worry about my wife dying. She is 24 years older than me and has excellent health. I worry about the tragic possibilities. And that if I lose her too soon, that I won’t have a clue about how to get what I need in life. I don’t know her contacts, even her family and friends. I won’t have the knowledge, or rather the ability to understand the scope of the issues with my family. All the negligence and illegal acts they’ve committed against me. I have no idea how to put any of it together in my head, but she does. There are so many e-mails and documents that Maureen hasn’t showed me, for good reason. They would stress me out too much if I knew about them.

The family has badmouthed me to my wife over the phone, and there are countless other acts of hatred and abuse and neglect which would be a difficult task to prove in court because both sides would argue… each side.

Probably what’s most messed up about all this, is that I cannot qualify for any public or government help, whether it be help with housing for people with mental illness or even a public lawyer, or social security because I am totally broke but at the same time I have millions in the trust fund. Someone’s not releasing any of the funds to me, so it appears that I have money (millions, which I do… it’s just controlled by the family) and at the same time I am completely broke.

Yesterday, it was like Spirit had knocked me on the shoulder, because all of a sudden, even though I have been refusing to communicate with the family and Maureen is refusing (with good reason) to write them, pretending that she is me, I wrote them a simple, cordial e-mail just asking Someone to release the requested funds so that I can move on with my life. We’ll see what happens with that, if anything at all. They sure as hell won’t communicate with Maureen. They claim she stole money from me prior to our getting divorced along with other insane accusations. Someone is trying to get me to fend for myself against the IRS because they committed fraud with my tax returns and they are trying to force me to sign them, so that I’d take the heat—a palatial dose of heat. A blazing forest fire.

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Happy Christmas 

Happy Hanukkah 

& 

Happy Kwanzaa

2011

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013-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER TWELVE

I’m planning for a smooth day ever since I woke up. I woke up early, and have been waking up early every day for the last couple months, since I’ve been staying here in this garden motel. There’s not much to plan—I have my list of activities that I check off as I do them. They’re just small, mindless activities. It’s no big deal. Playing with Georgie the kitten, having a cigarette and soda every hour… things like that. I had planned to write today, even if it’s not much that I write. And so, here I am. It can get pretty boring here, especially since I have only a little bit of money, and I don’t drive, don’t know the area too well, and besides, I consider myself a loner. I am a loner. A loner, yes… and with only a few interests in daily life… but I miss my wife terribly. About a week ago, she and I had set up a plan to talk to each other at around 9:30 AM, 3 PM and then 7 PM, of course depending on whether she or I have something else going on, like Maureen’s NAMI meetings on Thursday which run until about 10 PM.

I had a paranoid spell last night. Maureen was texting me, and I was convinced that it was my stepmother impersonating my wife. I think the paranoia came about for a couple of reasons. First, yesterday morning, when I was on the phone with my wife, the call was continually being interrupted with a really loud and annoying “scrambled” sound, which then cause me (and Maureen) to think that possibly Someone was somehow tapping the phone lines. Nobody would believe us, if this were the case. Someone has hacked our computers in the past and has attempted what they call gas lighting. When I say she is evil, it’s an understatement. I’m trying to leave a lot of those stories and even my opinions and the hurt she causes me for Maureen’s book. I don’t want too much of an overlap of certain things, and to be honest, even thinking, talking or writing about her can set me over the edge. The second reason for my paranoia is because she had called he front desk yesterday and asked the woman working there to ask me if I had received “the Fed Ex.” I had no idea what she was talking about and it haunted the hell out of me to even know that she had called anyone about me in the first place. So the illness ended up getting the best of me later on in the evening when Maureen was texting me, and I had my episode. Perhaps I’ll be able to write more about the family abuse and how it has affected me, either here within this project or perhaps in another book. But quite frankly, the situation paralyses me so much that I am frightened literally to death, of even mentioning her… of course I mean Someone.

Being a loner is what it is. I mean I know a lot of it is a reaction (or non-reaction) to the illness, but I had been living independently since I was 15. Of course I had my million-dollar bank account readily accessible during those times, so I had people to help me and do things for me. This caused the doctors to think I was too high functioning to have Schizophrenia, and I used to drink (every waking hour) so I was quite social. When I sobered up and had my estate taken away from me, it was pretty clear that I did, in fact, have Schizophrenia. No question about it. The family just made it worse. Gave it a kind of post-traumatic element but not from just one traumatizing event, but continually, most, if not all of my life… abuse, abuse, abuse.

I’m not at all worried about considering myself a “victim” of the illness, but instead a victim of child abuse, even as I am in my mid-30s.

I’ll check in with you soon. Going to read a little and try to get a hold of a friend of mine. Mac Daddy—a true friend of over 20 years.

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012-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A couple hours have passed now. I had phoned my wife following my last writing installment and even though I knew she was and is doing all that she can to get me home, to get the house ready for me, for us, when I return… I still felt like I had to press the issue. The meds I take in the morning somehow don’t feel like enough. It’s a matter of a delicate balance of trial and error, and by 11:00 or noon, there’s been an anxiety within me that feels like too much of the wrong kind of energy in my system. I end up craving the afternoon meds, and the slight sedation they offer by about 12:30, the latest. I am aware that I drink a ton of caffeine in the morning especially, and I don’t want to stop drinking what I do all morning, so this balancing act becomes incredibly, well, I should call it a real art. And it takes a real talented artist to figure out the meds, of course with my input. I meet the doctor again in a few days. I’m scared to admit to the doctor that I drink a case of soda plus a few coffees each day, and smoke over a pack, and dip at least one can of smokeless tobacco every day. I’m scared, even though caffeine and tobacco are abused by most schizophrenics according to what I have read, I’m scared to tell them because I have never seen any other schizophrenics abuse this stuff like I do. When I was an inpatient, never. It concerns me that this, just like my symptoms used to feel so private, is, well… just another symptom. I believe that I am doing quite well in being honest and with my opening up to those who are here to help me. Anyway, enough on that… I mean, hell, I am on a lot of medicine, and have been most of my life. A healthy person would certainly take the amount of meds I’ve been taking and go comatose.

I took the bus to the outpatient office. I didn’t bother being obsessive about packing the little bag I take with me, with cigarettes, the bus schedule, wallet, etc., so I just brought my bus passes for going there and coming back, and left my wallet behind, and left I think everything else I usually pack… behind. I figured I could trust my own head enough to know that the buses run on the half hour and I didn’t need anything. And I didn’t let it bother me. It didn’t bother me that I left behind my phone, and iPod, and books… I knew I wasn’t going on a vacation. I basically said to myself, “Jonathan, just go… and quit worrying about what the heck you pack. Just go, and when you get there, tell the therapist that you are having a bad day, and that you would prefer not to talk about it. Know that she would ask why I am having a bad day, and you can just tell the simplest version of the truth: that it’s just the whole situation, plain an simple.” And that’s what I did.

I was already melancholy when I arrived, probably because when I finished the call to my wife, before I left, I had taken a small dosage of anxiety medicine that causes sedation before I bused over to outpatient. There were a couple of times in the last month where the nurse filled my weekly medicine box with an extra dose. I decided to keep them, in case I would have a panic attack or a spell of extreme anxiety, since the doctor has not given me any PRNs, which means an extra dose of medicine for emergencies, or as they say, as needed.

I was back within the hour – usually going to outpatient is a 2 hour ordeal on average, depending on how much I talk, or hang out, or wait for the bus, or sidetrack to the gas station to pick up a pack or two of smokes, while I’m in the area over there… closer to downtown.

The nurse asked me about my kitten, Georgie, and I was elated to talk about him. I smiled and remarked to the nurse that that was the first time I had smiled all day. As calm as I was on the “PRN” I took, part of the chaos of the mind kept telling me contradicting ideas: 1. I seemed calm, she, the nurse, would assume I was on my as-prescribed meds, so that if I was to tell her I felt anxiety and nervousness, she would say that I seemed calm. And in fact she made the comment that “it changes.” My mind just went blank again. 1,000 thoughts came through and then dropped dead. So I have no idea what I was going to write for a #2.

Just to say that the nurse asked me if I was still keeping up with my list of activities that I created the other day in order to keep some structure and I let her now that I was.

Regarding Georgie, she and the case manager who had entered the room at the time said that I was a really nice person. I felt a lightening bolt of joy, on the instant.

As with my wife, the nurse and case manager came up with suggestions, the few minutes I was there in the office, just wanting to get out of things I could do. They knew I wasn’t into groups and things, and I just again, reminded them that I am pretty much a loner, and that I want to do things with my wife, if anybody, that I didn’t care how dependent I am on her. I told her that just the ten short minutes on the phone were “charging” me up. I could maintain stability at least until the next time we’d talk. I also mentioned that I am good doing things or interacting with people for only 15 minutes, maximum. I didn’t say but I use those 15 minutes to recall very specific details when I need to be uplifted, whereas on a five-hour field trip, I’d grow easily tired and not have specifics that my memory could hold on to, but instead more of an overall good or bad time.

I returned to the hotel, I noticed that the hotel staff was able to purchase my sodas, so that was a relief. A couple cases had been put in the fridge and the rest on the counter, or rather the desk that is half way in the kitchen and half way near the main part of this studio apartment-like room.

I had a soda and a smoke outside and started to cry. There is so much pain and grief, and as my wife often points out to me that I have a lot to cry about. She is able to see that and to know that and to share that with me. God, I love her so, so very much. It scares me when I get those intrusive thoughts that she is going to die tragically. I am not having those thoughts right now, thank God.

I wanted to write about you (my readers) joining me to cry, rather asking you to join me. I mean, there are times when I feel such anger and talk about killing babies—just coming up with the most horrible things to think about or write about, and then there’s this certain sensitivity in me that feels like the polar opposite. And I am not just trying to tell you that I cry. My life sucks. I have it bad. No. I know that everyone’s got his or her own demons. What I want to convey in this writing session is to let me cry and whine and tell how crazy things are, but knowing that I just hope you can relate and see some of myself in yourself, and no matter what the particulars are in each of our own life stories… Read this with anger in your heart, read it with compassion, read it with hatred, even hatred for me. I am purposefully writing a lot of depressing things without fears like conveying my story in some prefabricated way, and possibly not having a happy ending. I don’t care how depressing this project is to read. I am doing it for myself and thus for you, no matter how this thing turns out.

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Reaching Hell and Happiness

12 NOON

22 December 2011

The Hot Club/Bed: New Mexico USA

Dear Little Journal—

[transcribed from my written private journal:] 

Having been away from you in several months, more on the computer, coming out with this whole real me, authentic, raw, sometimes in your face material and insights, even confessions, in a way--acknowledgements—but lots of inspiration + HOPE—this kick I’ve been on since last year—at last.

Have had some major (some flitting) epiphanies/realizations recently.

EXAMPLE: choosing to go with the being myself 100% thing--as long as it’s nothing illegal, slandering etc., which it’s not. Sometimes I want to tell someone off publically, on my website or Facebook, but instead I imagine doing so, in my head, until it goes away—I let it go and will then blog about how I overcame whatever it was. Imagination kicks butt.

ANOTHER ONE: Not letting public feedback dictate what I write, post or do, I’m safe and feel such liberation just being whomever the heck I am at any given moment—always a human being with human rights (and wrongs) and a hefty dose of complex mental health issues. LOL.

I laugh a lot.

Maybe only one or two people in the world might ever fully get me but that no longer even concerns me, if they do or don’t. I come from a place of love and it’s really there—the love.

Having major blood sugar issues (again). I deal with them and keep a sane mind intact throughout. I take these challenges the best way that I can, and choose which battles to fight, most of which I just let go.

When in schizoaffective reality/lens, it’s so indescribable in words. A real private war. Yet a non-violent and peaceful one, lately. I deal with my symptoms without ignoring them, just like my thoughts, voices, etc., into la la land. All that I see, hear, feel, etc., comes in at once. No separation, yet I think I do quite a lot, in general just considering I’m a schizophrenic—that alone. People must expect a lot less out of me. I often hear that they never know what I’m going to do or say next—Maybe that makes me interesting in way—unique and different than most other people.

I’m bedridden until I see the endocrinologist—have some times during the day when I can get up. But often physically numb these days—my extremities. Sometimes I’m symptom-free (it seems.) Likely just need to increase the diabetes medications. Not up for anything else, like injections.

I could die today, knowing that I have reached hell and happiness. 

HAPPINESS! Never thought that was going to happen—and this just before I turn 36 in a couple weeks. Landmark? I did it! I’m my own best friend. And I don’t even know myself—like they say. You never know anything. You know?

Oh, and I’ve been asked to do some more public things like interview for a magazine on mental health, and maybe I’ll take all that I do further, like speak to kids and things in school. For now—just keeping the status quo and talking with friends with Sz, Lupus, Bipolar, and other things, too.

I think I make a difference and I’ve reached most of my goals so far, batting average is pretty darn good—I like the analogy. I’m batting better than expected. Just keeping things real and honest and open knowing there’s a lot of stigma and mean, difficult people out there—just choosing who I want to be with and what I want to do.

Although some of my darker novels and writing, even films, are written in a bitterly dark, way, and quite sexual in nature (yet that’s a big part of my schizophrenia)…

OFF TRACK: [Sexual...same with another friend of mine with schizoaffective—I recently heard from her—just diagnosed a few years ago, and same kind of story—her family says it’s because of all the sins she committed. I have so much to say, to offer these friends of mine, without preaching dogma—I can’t stand that. I just tell them what’s worked for me.]

…BACK ON TRACK: I bet most people won’t/don’t see in my transgressive literature (hardly commercially viable—and Grove Press already passed on one of my books—not up for book touring anyway/promotions…) An artist at heart, I guess.

I build it whether they come or not.

The novels, to me are about Ben & Georgie (and yes Claudia) but to me, the protagonist/s are in there, in search of innocence and peace of mind (indeed, obsessed with Claudia, but…) they even pray and they’re seeking meaning in their lives and their minds.

To me, those books, like the actual Porcelain Utopia novel series (about 1,000 pages) is about the same hope and resiliency, seeking/yearning I think is very realistic, as well as its style, its tone, and the language I used. When nothing was real (at the very end…) Basically Buddhism ala Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller, if you ask me.

Jonathan Harnisch

011-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER TEN

Sensitivity has me by the ass. I don’t know what the hell I’m feeling. I’m still here in the garden motel. I’m still an outpatient as far as the Sz School is concerned. It’s been weeks, actually a couple months, I think, since I checked in with you last. My wife was able to bring up one of the kittens from home when she visited a week ago. His name is Georgie (of course) and he is cuddling with me as I write this. I feel such a deep love for him, that it brings tears to my eyes instantly if I think about it too much. I think about Georgie’s inherent innocence, mostly, and of course that he is just adorable and funny and has his own individual personality. That he has unconditional love for me.

I have to put him in his cage when housekeeping comes. It’s part of the hotel’s policy, and I understand why. The ten-hour trip my wife made to bring him here, by car… it was extremely difficult for me to even think about Georgie being in the cage that long. But supposedly he did fine. I never want him to be uncomfortable, and yesterday when he and I were playing, I scared him by accident pretending I was a big monster honing in from above who would kiss and tickle him once I came close enough. I felt horrible when he saw me hovering above him and he shuffled as quickly as he could off the desk he was lying on, knocking over the computer and scurrying under the bed in complete fear.

I thought of my parents, when they’d do that kind of stuff to me.

A few weeks ago, I saw Steve at the outpatient house. He had called, asking if we could meet up and if I could write down some of the inspirational audio books I’ve read for him. I wrote him a three-page list, and he was grateful to receive it, as I heard from another outpatient whom Steve had told excitedly.

I already don’t feel that this writing session is going well. Things are hard today, and I want to go home. I have to take the bus to the outpatient office to pick up my weekend meds in an hour or so. Oh, God.

The family is being extremely unreasonable. I don’t want to even write about it. I’ll leave it for my wife’s book.

The keys on this laptop are falling off and I am plain uncomfortable. I was disappointed when the sun came out which is not a good sign. I feel like I am forcing this writing.

Actually, I’m sorry to my readers, but I am going to stop where I am now, and just listen to my iPod and finish the rest of my sodas. I might not be able to get anymore until next week. I have been drinking a case a day and I know that’s not healthy. I don’t want to meditate. I want to be with my wife, and have this all be over with. Am I giving you enough details? Rather, I hope I am painting you enough of the picture of what this life is like, with the ups and downs, and the confusion, and the love, and the hatred, even the black and the white. My mind is blank now. I’ve got to go now. Things are really hard now. I don’t want to force this writing, though possibly by forcing things out, it might show. I mean in a good way. Most of my life is forced (or enforced). This might help you and me. It isn’t easy, and things in general do not always have to flow with ease. That’s just the way it is.

Boy, this was hard. I hope I made it good.

Back to the E.R.

Restored Post from December 22, 2011

Smashing Pumpins' "Soma" is keeping me afloat on repeat.

But, darn it:

Back to the E.R. at 9 AM-1 hour from Now.

Nothing schizophrenic, thank God.

[Can barely stand up at all, or move right, "Dizzy as Desi Arnaz," due 2 blood sugars. Seem to be unbelievably low-haven't had sugar in couple weeks. Very good boy. Doing amazing through these daily struggles as I open up about them-laugh at them.] 

L.O.L.!

[Healthy Dose of Mental Health LOL!]

"...Can't be beaten by anything U can laugh at. So Big Loud LOL! :-O"

Posted from iPhone

012:

Interesting finding this while rebuilding Porcelain Utopia. I have since lost 100 pounds, reversing my Diabetes Type II.

Jonathan Harnisch

010-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER NINE

Have I created a new genre of sorts—of literature? Not fiction. Not non-fiction. Not memoir and not the publishing of a diary.

Instead, maybe closer to publishing a blog, or better, like publishing a novel that resembles Facebook/Twitter posts.

As I sort through what I am currently writing, I am fascinated by the idea that this could and should be written as a thought-by-thought, moment-by-moment piece. I ponder the effects of structuring this writing in what I might call “Reality Literature,” similar to Reality TV.

I am not already famous and nobody is really going to buy, much less read, a 1,000-page book written by some no name, like myself.

I’ve been saving all of my incoming text messages. If I could captivate you enough, then it’s worth a try, to write “everything.”

After all, I am a schizophrenic near billionaire, who, while overcoming existing struggles, has lost everything. The goal is to get my things back: my money, my house, my documentary footage, etc.

I am so looking forward to installing what I’ve handwritten on to the computer. Maybe I’ll start when my wife falls asleep—early as usual. For sure she’ll be tired upon coming—and upon my tugging on her immaculate living colorful getting bigger all the time, as I continue tugging it—little clitoris—She’ll make her little shower and probably fall asleep.

She’s the typical guy, married to me—the sensitive wife—with all the transgressive writing I pull off. That’s the Brad Pitt-in-Fight Club version of me—who I want to be. The voice inside—the Georgie of the Ben—He wants to be cool. Even when I am not even “collect.” Cool and collect.

“Collective.” Yes. We are one.

And over the last week or so that I’ve been writing, must say that Georgie—his “real name—“ although he is not real, His real; name is Tom. Tom Bishop.

What I did—writer’s secret—I took an old fashioned name (from my late great grandfather) and made it cutesy—George to Georgie

Simultaneously, I borrowed the name from the little boy in Stephen King’s epic novel, It. His name was Georgie, and because King’s Georgie was a literary character (device, sure) and he “literally” died in the book, It, I felt like I could at least resurrect the name.

I have one cat and two kittens. I didn’t name the 5-year-old myself. His name was Xiphias, and since the heavy metal whore who gave Xiph to me (because her husband was beating him…) She screwed me over, bad, so I recently just changed the spelling to Xipheus.

The two little ones, even though they are bro and sis: the boy is Georgie and the girl is Claudia.

My wife, I write her in as Kelly, because there is not one woman named Kelly who isn’t supremely hot.

By the way, please write me if you can prove otherwise. And Maureen, my wife is hot, too—actually hotter.

009-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER EIGHT

My wife, Kelly, (having come a long way now, I’ll let you know her name is Maureen. Just as I am Jonathan…) had her psychic mentor/advisor for the last ten years, give her a quickie reading over the phone regarding the time frame—as to when we’ll be getting the legal help we need, and especially since I called Bobby Banks about getting help last week. The reading was slightly unclear, as the numbers were 3 and 4…is 3 or 4 days, or weeks, or months—whichever one, it’s going to be 3 or 4 something…before the lights are turned on.

Wait. Let me start afresh.

I’ll be getting access to one of my laptops—the junkiest one I have, since I broke all the good ones in my violent rages from before I got into treatment.

My wife, Kelly (Maureen) will be arriving here in Colorado—at the motel, hotel, whatever—where I’m staying, in about 4 or 5 hours.

I treated myself to some caffeine—I mean more than a few cans, more like half a case—for many reasons, besides they really don’t do anything to wake me up. Most of my life is spent as Zombie.

1.) Kelly (Maureen) is coming and I want to be alert. 12 cans of Sugar Free Red Bull but the meds still have me Zonked.

2.)  General celebration. My finding-Buddhism-without-having-planned-to-do-so… (I texted Kelly about “just being,” in some detail, and she said that what I was describing was very Buddhist.)

3.)  Coming back from a 2 ½ hour trip to get meds; some melted in my bag from the dew of the sodas in there, and the spillage from the almost-empty cans in the bag…my man purse…

4.)  I spit (spit-tic) on my last clean white shirt—

This pen is running out of ink. Perfect timing perhaps.

It’s the only one I have.

Heck-to-hell.

Hell-to-heck.

Have to get a pen from the front desk.

OK. Got it.

008-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER SEVEN

It’s a new day now. The sun shines bright as I suck in the last draft of my cigarette, and suck the very end of my fourth cup of coffee.

I notice Steve is still waking up, slowly, as he sits at the other patio table. I want to talk with him, to check in with him but I don’t want to interfere with his just-getting-out-of-bed-leave-me-alone state of mind, which I, too, seem to get every morning.

So, now that I am sitting at the desk in our room, and have lodged a lower-case dip in my mouth, and those four cups of coffee were brewed strong, they’ve definitely given me that Edge which feels like it’ll last all day… I feel pressed again to sit here and write to you—I don’t know who you are or where you are, but I still write to you, from here, from the past, from this ongoing Trial with the Mind.

The main reason is, that besides the fact that this writing is totally saving my life and helping, last night was hell again. The evening had my mind racing (God, when is this going to stop…my prayer trails on…) filled with frustration, antagonism and confusion…“Cognitive Symptoms…”

But now to the point (if I can get there…)

I fell asleep around midnight (again) and although I generally need twelve hours of sleep, thank god for having to pee real badly, again, ‘cause by wake up call at 8 AM, I was just getting up…to pee. So I stayed up.

I went to the nurse’s station, and got my morning meds. I noticed one of the pills was missing so I showed the nurse (one hell of a fat bitch…) my hand indicating that the Klonopin was missing. I picked up their mistake, their human error…This would happen six more times, and each time it frustrated the hell out of me because they had been under the impression that I was a drug addict (my family told them so, but it’s the furthest thing from the truth—that family of mine, as they try to get me institutionalized or homeless, as they try to destroy me and my wife—the Living Colorful Bitch.)

I showered and dressed, had coffee, and said my Good Mornings to the only two other guys who were awake at the time—watching TV with the volume off—Albino Bob and Catatonic Chris. Their affects were Das Blunted.

I learned that the doctor, the Head Master, drives a Honda. Is he in it for the money, or is the Honda just a cover-up? He would be seeing me later in the morning, which I was excited about. I am still excited that: 1. I will be meeting with him and, 2. The later in the day, the better.

I usually set up all of my appointments for later in the day. I am always in better mental shape around 3:00 in the afternoon. But here in Sz School, I have to see the doctor on his time, not mine.

I came to realize—to actually, sincerely realize—that I can’t plan the next day, nor am I able (is anyone able?) to plan any future. I mean I can plan an appointment. I can plan to bring up a certain issue to discuss with the doctor… But last night, I “planned” to get up real late. I planned to be a dick all day. And I planned to not talk to anybody—maybe just Steve.

But the weather was pleasant when I awoke and the overall landscape of situations, the overall mood of the staff—the way I perceived Reality—and in this morning’s case, I couldn’t have planned for such a positive outlook. I couldn’t plan (or execute the plan) that I would not hold the Big Grudge against myself for ruining everybody’s life—from last night—things all just fell into place. Naturally.

The Divine, the Universe—it did what it did. It put me in the place I am in. It set me up for being OK…for right now at least.

I’m a believer in the New Age concept of what’s called “manifestation.” I hadn’t a clue of my thoughts about going to sleep last night, that I’d been manifesting anything good, as for the impeding morning hours.

I have hope for a more sustainable peace of mind and LIFE. Deep inside me, underneath the trapezoidal confusion from last night…I must have manifested my waking up on a good note.

My thoughts are petty and small, my heart is huge—what I really feel is HUGE.

It would seem like no big deal—waking up without the imp of the mind on my back…

Pestering…

But it’s exciting for me—(I know, Ben, I know. Don’t get too excited. It won’t last forever).

It’s just that I feel I have a running start for the day ahead, and perhaps the week ahead. After all, today is Monday.

I usually love Mondays because that’s when things happen.

I enjoy my own space and time…and maybe even some TV. And there’s usually more to observe on the news, out the window—on a Monday—rather than say, on a Plain ‘Ole Sunday, when all that’s on TV are the Evangelical Broadcasts and…infomercials.

My plan for the doctor’s meeting coming up, is to see about my blood test, which may or may not be ready…the results, I mean…and to tell him that my Sz can get bad, but not just bad, really bad. So much for use of good words, like “bad.”

(I write this weeks after the fact, still transcribing from the notebook I had when I was in inpatient—and rarely did I write, but now, it’s been taking me weeks to transcribe, maybe ten pages so far, of hand writing…not to bore you, I’m just trying my darnedest to finish the notes from then and put them onto the computer, because at the very moment, I am utterly messed up…and once again, as rare as the moments come when I have enough motivation to write, or to do anything for that matter, I seem to have caught a glimpse into what could be at least a ten minute writing session…so please bear with me).

…That it gets “bad,” traumatic, terrifying…that better? The split mind, the cement holding the Self (good, innocent Ben) together, crumbles. The Sz part of the split, might not be collapsing, but controls what feels like a good 85% of the regular Self, the healthy Self, while like right now, the Ben Self can barely even remember the attacks that happen—the Sz has that much control, and a certain kind of amnesia is rampant.

I’m still in the fog. I have things like group therapy that I kind of have to do—to get over with—I rarely do anything, I fake my way out of the group events, and certain therapies, and junk.

I do my darnedest to stay involved and not think that the day is another day in hell…but it is nearly impossible.

See? See? I already find myself slipping again. I guess that’s why I get to see the doctor soon.

I am crying again, now…I miss my cats so much.

Why can’t my brain just basically stay intact? Somebody needs to find a cure for this thing.

Soon…

OK, I’m staying…I’m staying positive. (Ben, stay positive. Go downstairs and have a smoke. Say hello to someone else. They just might be able to help—the facility in general.) Help sustain the brain even ever so slightly, more than it’s being sustained right now. I see myself in others. I see them in me, too.

I promise not to bring up Georgie or Claudia… or any of the fantasies from this point forward. I mean that, but I’m afraid I might not be able to mean that unconditionally, because if something happens (and I know I am projecting…), I need to make sure I have a place, or rather a person, with whom I can dissociate if I feel the need, or if it happens on its own…

I’ve got to just stick to My True and Only Self—The Ben in me. Maybe, just maybe—the, dare I say it without tearing up as I am—maybe even the Jonathan in me.

The home (the Sz School)—as more clients came in and went out—the place became more of a school for the Druggies and Alkies. Clients started to drink beer from the gas station and drug up on cough syrup. And nobody was being kicked out. The place became more of just a business and some sort of legal crack house if you catch my drift.

Staff became more and more distant, and although I continued to believe that the M.D.—the head guy—really knew his stuff about Sz—I made a valiant effort to move out, having only been there that one-week, and a day.

So I have to keep this short because my hand is already cramping up—

I’ve been living in a little garden motel. And now, as an outpatient, my only requirements are to take the public bus in every day to get my meds, which, of course, is a royal pain in the ass. Besides, they keep messing up the meds. Convinced that I am addicted to the benzodiazepine (Klonopin)—because my stepmother convinced them I was, while I am not. Rather, of course I am addicted, but I am not abusing them—that’s what I mean—the nurses on staff have been leaving out my 3X/day doses of the Klonopin. Once I show visual proof that the pills are missing, they eventually give in to what they’re calling human error—but 5 times or so!

I’ll write more about this on the computer when my wife is able to bring it to me, but I made contact with some old friends in L.A. (ironically near Long Beach), and it appears that I had simply left the circle for five years—five years of paranoid delusions that they had been out to get me—all the time, it turns out, they had been waiting for me to come back, at some point, with their undying love and prayers.

One of them is Bobby Banks (from Porcelain Utopia Parts 1 & 2) and it looks like he wasn’t after me, wanted something from me—nothing like that.

Now, Bobby is working his ass off to save me. And it actually looks like I will be getting my old life back. I hope I do, and that I am not just being carried along, given the run around, etc., from the ‘ole boys back in California.

My wife’s book, Money and Madness (I recently read her first chapter and I love it so far…) will be running kind of parallel to this PU series of mine…So I’ve got to keep some details, like the big-family-legal-mumbo-jumbo for her book…Unless it gets too overbearing for me, and I end up writing for therapy…

About them—about Those Nutcases, as I call them—the Living Colorful Rich.

For here, for now, I will continue to write about whatever it is that I am writing about, whether it can be labeled as “stream-of-thought,” or “transgressive” or “coming of age.”

I’m actually going to make it.

Georgie always said that, so I must have said that.

I’m going to be just fine, though I can never deny the Big Sz.

As my phone charges, I keep to myself, until, as Bobby just texted me, “The Calvary is Coming!!!”

007-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER SIX

Throughout the morning, I’ve been Zombie again.

With a few more cups of coffee, the anxieties started to melt away.

I’ve actually been at peace for the past three hours or so, knowing that the terror will eventually have to come back. It’s just the nature of this split mind.

There are still a couple of hours until I have to do my Schizophrenia School chore, which is that I assist with the preparation of dinner.

Now, since the time for doing this once-overly-dreaded-upon-chore is closer than it was yesterday, and last night, ironically I have a lot less anxiety about it. I know it will be done soon.

Note: I did a fantastic job, later on, and the house of roughly 15 people loved the meal. Thank heavens! Made me feel good though I never wanted to do it again—and certainly didn’t need to, for I’d be transitioning to outpatient status before the next week would come.

But for now, this place I’m in, that I call Sz School—which it technically is—is a sort of halfway house. Or, how they describe it: Assisted Living—an alternative to the Ward—a common ground for people with severe mental illnesses, namely those with Sz.

I probably will not incorporate many of the other patients (or characters?) here into this book project. Mostly because I still barely know any of them, and as usual, I have little or no inclination to socialize with anyone except El-Steve-O.

Some, or even most of the Schizophrenics here have totally blunted affects. That’s the state of mind where I want to be—it appears to be, as I see some of these guys just staring off into outer space, that they are blunted inside, too. (Steve-O told me that he asked one of them, and they are actually still beyond torment in there…) But that’s where I wish I was—in a place they only appear to be in…I guess it’s just that outer appearance that’s appealing. Sometimes I just want to go totally numb and limp. Their moods, their energy levels seem to never change—all of that appears to be their outward projection of their inner peace and great sense of “bliss” (if that’s the right word?)… Well, anyway, you see where I am going with this, I’m sure. I just hope that they’re not dealing with the demons, and torment (no matter what Steve-O told me), the terror, which otherwise seeps through every wall of The Inner Void.

My definition of “joy” is being able to stare into The Black Void, like it’s some kind of scrying mirror and being deeply embraced by it, with the epitome of fearless love—unconditional love.

My idea of joy is peace of mind… to just … float…

Anytime I pass anyone, I can (I’d die to) just smile, with no questions, no introductions, no having to get to know one another, and never, ever having to take that big Buddhist breath, feeling more and more alive and alert and having to come out of a lifelong meditation. I long for the blunted, non-violent affect I see in some others. I yearn to be present in the place where I see these other schizophrenics suffering, all by themselves.

I ask myself, “Are they worse off than me?” I question this, because they all seem to be less aware of reality. “Is it their meds doing that to them?” I ask myself. I ask myself lots and lots of questions, needing to be satisfied with the answers, and craving to understand the world at large with a full and complete understanding.

I’ve read quite a bit about Sz since I was officially diagnosed, and I know from my reading that each Schizophrenic has unique symptoms and general conditions.

Nonetheless, Steve-O and I feel like identical twins—our symptoms, we both even have an addictive personality. It’s like without him—for example, if I never met him—if I was put into a single bedroom, I wouldn’t be able to see myself in anyone.

They say that everything happens for a reason, so my rooming with Steve had to happen. Even if I was to never see him again from this point forward, I’ve already learned that I am not alone in my own miniature world. I’m working on cursing less. Screw it—about the Tourette’s—if I want to clean up my act, even if I am not required to, then that’s what I’ll do. I don’t truly believe in anyone “healing” from anything—at least by means of the mind.

Especially when the mind is fractured.

The noun itself makes better sense: Fracture.

The split mind:

I observe the part of me that is split, between the innocent, fragile, and vulnerable—Ben. The split part is the tormented Schizophrenic part of the Self—the psychotic mind that lacks any Divine sensations—the part that needs the medicine.

The psychotic breaks where the actual split is—that’s where…well, one could imagine them as a picture. Where the edges overlap—doing so-so—dealing with the symptoms but still connected to the awareness of it all.

When the rubber holding the split together turns to cement (from stress, from the environment) and it cracks, the side of the split that is purely The Illness takes over completely, like the Hitler of the Mind. Start hallucinating like John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. Complete paranoia overcomes every aspect of the Innocent Little Ben.

When the cement cracks, that’s when I become basically impressed with the need to be chained up in restraints, although believe me, restraints and psych wards are hell, but when that stuff cracks—and I’m having a break, it is literally you, me (whomever) versus the entire galaxy.

It can honestly get that bad. The worst acid trip one can imagine.

I never, ever want that to happen to me again—a “relapse,” as they call it. I wish it upon nobody, not even Hitler himself. (Hitler? Hitler’s dead, anyway.)

I’m better off with the profoundly smaller “episodes”, even though a one-hour episode (I call them “spells”) can seem just as terrifyingly dreadful.

I’m going to take a break now—a break from writing—now that I’ve broken more ice. Some of this is quite difficult to write. Fears arise that concern me. I want to present something special to my readers and I want what I write to be written well, and clear. I want to give you something you can enjoy and embrace. The fears that surface concern my questioning myself. Am I doing this right? Is my story line too similar to others’ with similar life scenarios? I resolve some of these fears with the knowledge that some of our life stories follow similar scripts, in general, but it’s how we react to them and cope. The fact that some of us have similar storylines, I think it makes us have something in common. I believe that the desire to be unique can be quelled by replacing it with the feeling that we are not alone, and that regardless, we are all definitely unique.

Aside from the Schizophrenia and the Porcelain Utopia—I’ve just got to use the bathroom. Nothing crazy. Just have to pee. Thank God for that.

MADE THE MARK. THANK YOU!

Dear Readers,

This morning at 5:45 AM, it's official, we've reached the mark, over 100,000 hits since the inception of this blog & website:

   Thank you all so much! -JH 

Because I'm Schizophrenic

17 December 2011

Dear Readers,

Just an update, not expecting this post to create any sort of buzz. I would be writing this in my personal journal, but we’ll see, might just post it up on Porcelain Utopia.

My own time…

While I got 11 hours of sleep last night, from about 4 PM to 3 AM—that is 11, right? My sleep is still off the mark, and while I met with my psychiatrist on Thursday, then my psychologist Friday (yesterday)—I have had a pretty solid good 2 weeks past. Then besides the Internet, TV and phone services going on and off, all I want to do is take one single day, especially today, and not do any “work”—if you call this work—and spend the day without a shower, in my PJs, watching James Bond, and the Twilight Zone DVDs I own. And no meditation, nothing bad and nothing great—

I cannot.

Instead, I’ve been feeling “off” and frustrated, alarmed, confused, wanting to help others, to talk with friends on the phone—to catch up—to kill the time—nothing Zen about it.

Just spending the weekend hanging around.

This “thing” (the artist in me?) keeps “telling” me to create, do—do—do. Make. Help. Communicate. Work. Make sure to post inspirational blogs in between the transgressive fiction chapters of Porcelain Utopia so to keep the audience… inspired.

I cannot depend on public feedback to dictate what I do and don’t do.

Ahh. Big breath. I’m working on CBT techniques to get through this one—a tough one, but I’ll do it. What is my heart telling me? —No matter what the public feedback will or won’t tell me… What do I feel like writing and doing? Transgressions, raw writing, the light and the dark, inspiration, gangsta rap music and love songs—Zen Buddhism and erotic fiction—

All of the above…

Given the time and feeling of the moment.

For this moment, I choose to write these few things that are on my mind. Posting them and then letting it all go.

Nature vs. Nurture…?

I’m human and my sleep is off. Naturally I’m feeling “off” today. I still have tools. Some minor things were bothering me, real petty things, like a Facebook post someone wrote—silly to get all pissed off about it. It was about some celebrity having lost weight. It sounded like everyone was so grateful and mesmerized by her losing weight and ‘setting a good example for the children.’ Why should that bother me? I mean, good for her. I actually can relate. I lost 90 pounds, having gained 100. Anyway, I thought it was hysterical. Like, what a big deal? Yet disturbed by the enthusiasm.

“OK. Seems like schizophrenia is watching through the peephole. Waiting for me. Ready to attack. Ready to ‘seduce’ me…”

Shortly afterwards, I started feeling ‘unloved by all’. Once that belief landed, I thought:

‘OK. Time Out. Now!’

Two very minor feelings eating me away, like I was old wood for termites, I took a shower—cleansed myself for real, and metaphorically. I thought of the CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy) techniques I’ve been getting more involved with—with my psychologist, and on my own; also through books using the CBT model. What evidence is there in rational support of my feelings? I ran what I call a “reality check” and it was confirmed: the Facebook dialog was, in fact, said jokingly. I was interpreting people being overly concerned about some B-lister ‘turning her life around,’ yet it was, in fact, being written by all involved in candid humor. And as for the feeling ‘unloved by all’ bit? Sorry to say this but F---- THAT! That is simply NOT true—AT ALL.

That’s when I knew…

I knew then, when that feeling came up. I just knew it. I just freaking knew, OK—2 ‘Good Solid Weeks’ and, so what, but the Sz wants to seduce me again. It feeds on fear. It feeds on confusion, sleeplessness, and stress. I was “alone in the bar” and “this a**hole tried to pick me up.” That’s what it felt like. Excuse the weird analogy, but that’s what I kind of saw in my head, a momentary daydream—of the schizophrenia—and me both looking for…something. I didn’t take it. It didn’t take me.

I dried up, dressed, told my friends I’d talk to them another time, just that I’m going through some lack of sleep issues. I left it at that. That was covered. I was safe and sound. The feeling of not being loved—as crappy as that feels, believe me, I did not let that one last inside me for much more than a minute or two. The feeling of “I’m unloved by everyone,” comes up a lot, and this time it was that precise feeling which, instead of eating me up for hours, was eliminated from my entire being nearly on the instant. I knew. I plain knew: Ah ha! Schizophrenia/Schizoaffective—that was clever, but now, “You’re acting ‘insane,’ Mr. Schizophrenia, as you try to use that same trigger/feeling/’action,’ expecting the same result. Guess, what? Schizophrenia—right back at you, you S.O.B.”

A horrible feeling actually enlightened me (‘opportunity in the negativity’)—there you go: I have spoken before about the “patterns” within the chaos.

Truly-known-to-me as “thoroughly insightful—” enters my very own beautiful, wonderful wife, Maureen—she writes me and tells me the greatest things, memorable things. I know she loves me. I just received this message from her a minute ago:

“Being human is hard enough, sweetheart, add schizoaffective disorder—and geesh, dang near impossible.”

-Maureen Cooke-Harnisch

*   *   *

“Hate me…because I’m Schizophrenic”

The last thing that was on my mind.

Just write… just write…

One of these apps I have that shows statistical data for this website showed me that someone had actually, and I don’t know how many times this has happened, but he/she had landed on my website this morning via a Google search that was typed in exactly like this:

“my friends hate me because i’m schizophrenic”

This just broke my heart. Apologies for my language, but f@#king broke my heart. Maybe it wasn’t true? Like Harvey Milk would have said to his homosexual friends and followers, but for me, Schizophrenic to Schizophrenic:

“Hey man, believe me, stigma is everywhere and those are not your damn friends.”

I would do anything to find out who ran that search, and just embrace him (or her) and take away everything in the world that causes him/her to even have the idea. “Friends? Hate? Me? Because? I am…”

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!! THIS IS ONE LONELY ISOLATING DEBILITAING AND DEVESTAING DISEASE. I WOULD RATHER LIVE ON THE STREETS LOVING MYSELF THAN TO GIVE A DAMN ABOUT WHAT THE HECK OTHERS THINK OF ME—

…Because I have schizophrenia.

Maybe I would say all of that differently. Now I think I understand why some people rally and protest and activate politically. Boy oh boy, I weep. I weep on this one.

If you are reading this, the person who searched that sentence and somehow landed on my page: Porcelain Utopia. I don’t know who you are or where you are but:

I love you.

Love… Respect. Honor—Just for typing that in—For feeling that. I know the feeling well. But please let that go. I could probably say it more compassionately but I write this in haste. It’s not you I’m disturbed by and it’s not you causing me to say this as I am—out of pure fury—it’s against those “friends” that hate you because you’re schizophrenic. It could very well be the truth. People do hate other people because they have schizophrenia, but please take my word on this. Please, please, please…

Don’t let that bring you down.

It is so not worth it, my good friend—wherever you are in the world. Please believe me, don’t let that bring you down. You rock! You are perfect just the way you are. And with all sincerity, thank you for typing that in, wherever it took you. Wherever you go from there and however it all turns out for you. I’ll likely never know.

You made me not feel so alone. Don’t let it bring you down. You’ll see.

Just give it some time.

Jonathan Harnisch



 

 

006-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER FIVE

Sad and upset, I wake up in tears, crying this and that. Last night was a nightmare, and so were my dreams—my dreams were utter nightmares.

Proudly, I have succeeded in lowering my caffeine intake, having had only five cups of coffee, yesterday. Until noon or so—then I cut myself off, being my own bartender.

I wanted to be asleep by 9-10:00 but even meditation couldn’t save me from the constant worry and terror in my head. I knew I was going to have to help cook dinner for the house (the students?) the next evening, and big deal! But for the love of God, I couldn’t stop stressing out about it. I knew I’d have to actually get up and out of bed by morning. My goal was 10 AM.

So it’s now 10:30. I had morning meds and two cups of coffee. With my coffee, I sat with Steve-O and started crying. I said, “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” even though I should have known. Staff was keeping tabs on my crying spells and no sooner they added the mood disorder part to my Sz. Re-diagnosing me with what’s called Schizoaffective Disorder. I’m still sticking to calling it Sz, and not SzA. Enough is enough.

I should prepare (regarding my need for Steve…) Just in case one of us is discharged before the other. Even though that time will (and would) come and I’ll figure something out.

Steve had nursed a Red Bull between 9 and 10 last night, when the two of us were having what seemed like contagious, identical symptoms—symptoms: the Chaos of the Mind. Steve was totally wired, so much that he took off all his clothes and went out for a jog around the residential neighborhood. Thankfully Steve returned, not arrested.

I was quite empathic to Steve-O’s emotions and feelings of being wildly looped, from the caffeine. Thankfully, our concomitant symptoms ended about a half-hour later, and we just talked like we were in summer camp, about our experiences with the Sz, and how we were never going to get to sleep.

Midnight came, and we were both dead asleep.

005-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER FOUR

I don’t need to still be angry. I’m still afraid but, heck no, not angry.

I’m afraid of what the outcome will be if I do this, if I do that, or if I don’t do a single thing.

I need to come back.

I feel like I’m channeling something.

I-I-I-I-I feel like all the self-help books I’ve read over the years are doing a number on me.

I feel like the current moment is some kind of Opening Act for another moment.

Using the word—the letter—“I”—to open every sentence. Maybe it’s not a bad thing, not totally selfish. Maybe I need to say “I-I-I…” to really dig deep and see who or what this “I” is.

After all, you and I are still in the same boat together, in many respects.

The Universal “I.” The Collective Self: Humanity.

In the stillness I seek in between writing breaks, it’s the strangest thing—all the New Age stuff I’ve already read, all the Spirituality I sought—

To hell with selling out! I think I am just starting to comprehend some of this stuff—way after the fact. I feel like a woman in love—I feel it in my gut—my belly.

Might not have to look into others to know, to see, to be, to believe my self.

My God, if I could come to the point in time when I can see others in myself, instead of the other way around? Maybe that’s what it is… Maybe, my goals keep changing.

See? Right there: Maybe I am changing my goals.

Maybe I do have…my self.

This is way deep.

At this point, I lie in bed with this notebook, and it’s like a constant splitting of epiphanies—totally embracing me.

And I have to remind myself: “Ben, don’t worry if these intensely intellectual and spiritual epiphanies, and flitting feelings of bliss and grace, will end. Just go with them. Let it all stop if it all stops.”

The mind chatter is OK. The terrifying thoughts I am having right this moment are OK. They’ve nothing to do with me.

They’re just thoughts!

You may not be able to discern what normal disagreements or misunderstandings are.

But for the love of God, don’t worry about it.

More than that: Don’t ever worry about anything.

The chaos in me is the chaos of God—the community of me, and of you.

Don’t worry about how you’re coming across to others.

I reply to myself:

I can’t beat it. I can’t beat the universe. It keeps changing, like the weather.

I dive into it.

As painful as it is…I let it go.

I’ll lose Claudia.

I’ll be attacked by symptoms.

But I have to trust…everything.

Trust. Trust. Trust.

Trust: I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

Trust: I don’t need to find myself through Georgie, or porn, or scat (or anything). The truth is inside.

“There’s no place like home...There’s no place like home…”

—The Wizard of Oz

004-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER THREE

Georgie slept a full 15 hours last night and all day, he was a complete zombie.

I, however, didn’t feel like a zombie. I felt “zombie.” Coffee wouldn’t cure the no-energy. I’ve been cutting down my coffee and nicotine intake, now being the Second Day. (Well, I quit the caffeine-in-a-can junk—just sticking to regular coffee, hoping that I won’t ever resign to being a damn “tea freak,” as one of the techs suggested when he heard I was cutting down, if I ever put an end to the plain coffee, way down the road).

Dropping in, tuning out…

I pack smaller and smaller doses of dip; the Skoal Straight smokeless tobacco junk—and gave up masturbating for good. Fact is, I have nowhere I can go to get energy drinks or tobacco, and I’m not going to spank off with a roommate sleeping in the same vicinity—other than Georgie. Still haven’t even said hello to my roommate. All I know is that he’s a heroin junky with Sz. He’s only been clean for a few days, and that scares the daylights out of me.

I’ve barely been talking about sex, fetish, scat—gross stuff—not sure if this is a good thing or not.

My roommate—with his diagnosis of schizoaffective too, involving a mood disorder—he doesn’t have a fully blunted affect. Neither of us have a fully blunted affect.

He’s been reminding me of Georgie—of that part of me—that facet. A little worried, I don’t want to screw up any more identities. I mean sometimes, actually quite often, I believe that because this kid (my roommate) and Georgie (Ben?) have so much in common with each other. I need to keep the roommate separate.

The kid—my roommate—He’s 21. He’s a junky. He’s a schizophrenic, and a porn addict. “The porn,” he said, first thing he ever said to me, “it messed up my head, you know?”

His name is Steve. Steven.

Time passes and we start talking. For real.

I like it, that I’ve got Steve the Schizophrenic living with me. And he’s already been telling me that I have been helping him, along the way.

Thing is, this kid has been helping me. I know how to connect with him. He’s all screwed up, like me, and he’s worried and concerned about himself and his reality, and their reality. Always making sure he hasn’t done anything wrong, constantly needing reassurance, all the time, like me, we crave it. We give it to each other.

It’s kind of like with Kelly and me. When I’m doing well, I can “help” (God I hate that word) Kelly get through her frustrations. I can help Steve-O to know that, “Hey bro, it’s only the illness. It’s not you. It’s just the illness.”

He tells the staff here when he’s on a symptom-trip, “Oh, hey, it’s just the illness. Ben taught me that. I am who I am, and it’s all OK.” (He makes me sound like a Saint.)

And here I am worried about helping others.

It’s all coming from the stuff Georgie’s been telling me all along. Maybe this is the stuff I’ve got to hear—the stuff that I’ve got to really hear—implying a reaction on my part. All this stuff.

I wonder if I’ll ever decide to literally synthesize with Georgie. To be myself, Ben (Jonathan), but to allow my safe alter ego to incorporate with the Ben-ego without having to bitch and complain and agonize about my “selling out,” or not being able to be that Transgressive Prodigy—I mean all that I’ve already written in Parts 1-3—are they even considered transgressive? I read back on some of it and it doesn’t even seem transgressive at all, maybe just slightly. I might end up deciding to become a self-help book writer and not just a self-help book reader (audio book listener) and self-help book antagonist. Screw it—who do I think I am—Screw it, if I sell out by helping others. I haven’t even sold in. How could I sell out so fast?

Maybe a real honest Ben is better.

Maybe it’s all you’ll get for now.

Maybe I’ll wimp out that way and join the public speakers circuit. Sail away on a cruise with Ben Schreiber: the Self Help Guru. The kid with the heart of gold.

I’ll get carried away, like I am right now. Like a Buddhist monk, into a whole different mindset.

003-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER TWO

I wake up and Kelly seems to have spoken aright, we’re in a regular house as we slept through the night.

Intake procedures were a breeze. As for my “goal’ on the Overall Goal part of the Treatment Plan, I wrote (what I want? What I need?) …To “be myself,” I wrote—no more, no less, and I signed it BJ Schreiber. Just hoping that Ben is good enough on his own, that I am actually an OK guy.

I peel open a banana and introduce myself to a few other schizophrenics while I eat.

Oh my God, I am not alone, after all, I discover to myself.

I’m going by my alter ego’s name, Georgie, as I meet these guys, and the staff; the intake papers have me down as Ben.

I’m just not ready yet to be Ben. Not this morning.

The fear that I don’t want to become a sellout, helping others, that I can actually do some good in this little world makes me think of the 500 billion galaxies everywhere (and nowhere). I’ll do what I can right here and now.

This one’s for you guys. I’ll try my best to heal, and to share my stuff as Claudia used to want it—I’ll play the game the best I can, so that I can help you—so that I have something to do. (I’m just starting to transcribe some of this on to the computer from the notebook, and I’m dying to edit as I go along, but I need to keep it real and raw and right, just as it was… Enough! I re-write with an angry heart.)

For now, I’m heading off. I’m not happy with the room I’ve been assigned because I have a roommate.

Away from our comfort zone, our safety zone, I feel pressed to continue writing. There’s no writer’s block. I no longer get writer’s block. I do get a gigantic lack of motivation to write, but this is my industry. Whether or not there will be huge gaps between installments, as there already have been, still got to float on, and on, and on.

I’m putting out my best effort to be as raw, and candid, and honest as I can be. Not trying to help you, but trying to help myself (even if just for a story, based on fact), as it may or may not be—might help you and might inspire you.

I still don’t really get it.

002-Light Under the Shade-Memoir

CHAPTER ONE

I find myself on some sort of road trip. I feel like I am in a dream, but I wouldn’t bet my life that it’s a real dream; possibly, my sense of Reality is a little askew at the moment, or rather, as usual. There’s no foggy border around what I perceive so it must be Real. I feel drugged up, quietly subdued and psychotic, having taken a slight overdose of Benadryl. I’m sprawled out in the back seat of my car. My wife, Kelly, is up front, behind the wheel.

I’m terrified of all the uncertainty in my head. I’m exhausted, from life as it is, dealing with the illness. All I want is to dissociate and blunt my affect, which is why I took all the Benadryl. I took them because I want to dream a bit and imagine that things are better than they are currently.

Having just passed through a nasty hailstorm, under which I thought we were going to die, literally, Kelly pulls off the road. She checks us into a Comfort Inn. The ten-hour drive is too far to make without a nap half way across the state.

Kelly and I have adjoining rooms. I’m not napping, so my lights and TV are on. I’m giving Kelly her own space.

I contemplate my newest single diagnosis: Schizophrenia. I was actually diagnosed with Sz when I was a kid. I just didn’t remember. I didn’t want to remember. The doctors I’ve had in the past usually appeared to diagnose me with hesitancy, which meant to me that the diagnosis wasn’t concrete or definite. For now, we know it’s plain old Schizophrenia, and of course I have Tourette’s syndrome. I’ve had Tourette’s, since I was just a boy. It’s a pretty insane hand of cards I’ve been dealt, but at least I can stop collecting so many labels like they’re stamps.

I can accept Sz as the all-in-one explanation for my strange and bizarre experiences. Everything—every event, every memory, and every person—it all makes better sense to me now. There’s finally a reason for things, or at least a single name, label, or condition. I can start looking to manage and treat this condition from somewhere—from right here and now—and let the healing begin, again.

I’m not alone. I’m still of the lucky few—lucky that I can maintain my uniqueness and eccentricity, and be able to share with others just how disorganized the mind can be, while still having even the slightest access to conventional reality, as long as I can keep my awareness of this condition. And so are you; you’re lucky. Believe me, we are all together are and we’ve all made it this far, haven’t we?

According to my new doctor, within the Porcelain Utopia, this rabbit hole of a heaven, nothing has changed. Only the diagnosis has changed. It’s been clarified.

Oh, and here’s a big one to swallow: my new doctor, let’s call her Dr. T… she suggests to us (we are passive, submissive, so she is actually not suggesting anything, she seems to demand) that we have to (she said we “should consider,” but we take it as an imperative must) become role models. Can you believe that? We have to help others. We have to share everything and keep it real, and genuine, and authentic.

Here I am and here we are, trying to write another installment of Porcelain Utopia—Part Four (otherwise known as Light Under the Shade) as I attempt to keep the content cool, on the edge, and hard core. I rewrite all of this so that it comes from the heart and soul—the higher self.

If I turn into a sellout, (the band, Green Day comes to mind, and how they were accused of selling out) I swear, I’ll stone myself, if that’s even possible. I’ll jump on my face. Wait, that is definitely not possible. That doesn’t even make sense.

“You have this gift…” we recall Claudia telling us, telling Georgie (after all, Claudia is his girlfriend, even if only in my fiction), that we “owe it to the world,” to do it for her, if anyone else. Claudia, the princess of Long Beach was the reason we moved to New Mexico in the first place.

And now we’re on our way to the institution. I was told it’s a sort of schizophrenia school. Oh, boy, I’ve got to write from the heart now.

We remember the Dream Telepathy (a chapter in Porcelain Utopia): the whole conversation about why should we help others when we can’t even help ourselves?

So this was the start of what Georgie and I were thinking, just a few minutes ago, at about midnight, when we were sharing a smoke near the lobby outside, while Kelly caught a few Z’s.

Some other things have changed, too, since Lover in the Nobody (initially, Part Three of the Porcelain Utopia series). The whole scene at the end, when we realized, sure, that we didn’t count, but that nothing was real.

The truth makes us feel sick. Here’s some of the truth coming out, like vomit:

Georgie has stopped watching pornography, if you can believe that.

As for me, I was hospitalized and had a big break, a schizophrenic break, from reality. (Reality?). The break started full force the moment I wrote about going to “bum a smoke” on the last page of Lover in the Nobody when nothing, even ourselves, existed.

I felt screwed. I felt trapped.

But, things have changed.

Now, we are about five hours from Sz School. Somewhere near Trinidad, Colorado, the so-called Sex Change Capital of the World. My last impression of Colorado was from when I was still a boy, skiing. I remember Colorado being Health Freak City. What it really is: an alternative to the ward.

Please, and I swear, anyone out there, if there is anyone out there, we’re sorry. I’m sorry; I must have acted like an arrogant jerk all this time that’s passed. Please, if you are religious, pray for us. If you are a New Ager, please send us white light.

Please, help us.

We’ll do our darnedest to “help” you in return. All we have are our experiences to share. They might help. The whole ‘help’ thing scares the daylights out of me, out of Georgie, and all of us.

Not to make light of it anymore. We really are mentally ill, and there apparently is a real world out there, right here, and all around us. We used to use sarcasm and hypocrisy to cope with it in our earlier writings and even with the ways we behaved in general.

We didn’t know what we were doing.

And because of that, the Family—the Living Colorful Rich—they coerced us to sign over everything we had to them.

The Trust Fund—A new illegal Trust Fund—We got karma-lized.

All the bad karma (we’re mean and vindictive little bitches) and the good (we’re loving and generous with huge hearts of gold)—it doesn’t cancel out the good and the bad. Instead, the good and evil contorts, gets confused, and perplexed. It makes everything even more complicated than it is already.

The consequences have come.

We’ll be there, at the schizophrenia school by morning. (Morning. Mourning.) We can’t sleep. And the Bennies (Benadryl) are wearing off. Our throats are opening back up, less psychotic feeling, less dissociated by means of the Benny itself.

Our affects are afflicted with fear, and possibly disappointment.

Please allow us a break before morning. Allow us one more time out, one more second with our freedoms—freedoms of self, of delusion, of our nothingness. Just give us another spring break, like from school, like in college, or school in general. Feels like we’ve been in prison, and the court has us departing from prison, and we’re going directly into rehab from prison, jail, or the pen. Lindsay Lohan had no break to party, and have her Last Hurrah, between her two-week jail sentence and her being escorted straight to treatment.

None of this is even court mandated—it’s nothing like that. It has everything to do with my family controlling our lives, and our money. We couldn’t just go and work at Starbucks because we are disabled. We used to make $10,000 or so a day, just on interest, and now we’re in dire straights. Sure, we’ve been spoiled all our lives, but our finances have been taken away at he drop of a hat. Now, we come across as whiney babies, through manipulation. We can’t even afford kitty litter, my wife and I. The poor little kittens we’ve got at home have been flooding the flowerpots, and the weeds took over the property. That’s no way to love, certainly not unconditionally, by taking everything away so drastically. It’s no way to look after our best interests as Living Colorful Trustees. They took away the estate. That’s nearly $250,000,000. Georgie helped with the software development for the start-up companies Price Club and Amazon.com back in ’91—the year the Internet was invented. Pops was an investment manager (a crook, nonetheless), and we were all but 15 years old, thus the set-up of the trust fund, as far it’s known.

The doctors think it’s a mere delusion, no wonder. But I have the paperwork on file to prove it; same for the hit TV show they took, which aired for two seasons on A&E. We wrote what’s called The Treatment. It was a three-year long project.

All of my work turned into pure nothingness.

A break, just until the morning—that’s all I want, just until we wake up in Wonderland. Boy, at the moment, I am full of complaints.

Kelly just woke up from her power nap and we have to float on. Yeah, right, float…whatever floats the boat.

­Now Kelly has the car running. We must continue on to the facility for the Schizophrenics, like us.

I have decided (not Georgie…me…) to write Kelly on a memo pad, to communicate, instead of talking. Giving her the silent treatment, like the little baby-game, the schizophrenic—B.S.—boy, I am really getting the audience empathy I’m aiming for. I say that with intentional sarcasm. This sarcasm will soon end, as you’ll witness.

I just hope there is one person out there who relates to my situation—somebody we can help. Are we even doing any good, so far?

Mom and Pops took the house. No more New Mexico. No more Long Beach.

I am taking dictation from the memo pad thus far. Want to capture every single thought—all of the erroneous chitter-chatter. (I know. We know it might not be possible to capture everything.)

We can’t write in the car. It’s too turbulent.

“OK, Honey. Coming!” we call out to the woman behind the closed window of the car. We grind our Winston into the pavement and take off. (We’ll type this out later on because it’s too shaky in the car now. We’re lying down in the back seat, like babies being chauffeured to school.)

“About the ‘School,’ it won’t be as bad as the hospital,” Kelly assures us. “Less rules and stuff. Anyway, are you comfortable, back there?”

We think, “Sure, honey. Sure we are. Just jolly-pip-pip hooray…”