Dreaming My Life

I remember my first admission into a forensic unit after a psychotic break due to cannabis. There was nothing psychotic about it. All I did was set fire to my house with my mum and sister tied up in the cubbyhole after I’d battered them both because my pocket money was late. I wasn’t hallucinating or hearing voices. I was just peed off, irate and exasperated. Anyway, they picked me up from school and whisked me away down the back lanes. I was in there with bog ole scary murderers and everything. One night around chrimbo they plied us with bottles of Port to celebrate. All the patients, including me, were sloshed. Except I was stoned as well, as my mate had smuggled me in some more cannabis. I was throwing up in the crapper and holding onto the floor to stop the room from spinning. One Irish man had a boiling kettle of water, threatening to throw it over the nurses. Another was tossing darts at people. It was rad.

Twenty years later, after a genuine psychotic episode, I ended up back in that same observation room. I thought I’d had a twenty year-long nightmare. I believed that I’d dreamt my whole life. My life was just a deluded fantasy. I woke up after two days of looking at a door and thought what the hell, why here, oh no not here.

I’d arrived strapped into a wheeled cart with a mask on, just like Hannibal Lecter, flanked by a vanguard of nurses and doctors. During my most recent admission, when I was being transported from Clock View to Hollins Park, there was a helicopter present. They obviously think that I’m some dangerous nutter who might go full retard at any moment. The truth is that I’m a big softie, chilled & mellowed out on pregabs!

People say that they wouldn’t hurt a fly. I actually tried to save one from death. It had landed in water and almost drowned. I fished it out and placed Healing Cards in its vision. It responded by talking to me. Its voice sounded like the voice of The Universe. If Deep Space could speak it would sound like that fly. Previously I’d written a short story entitled The Fly That Wouldn’t Die. It’s one of my faves. Unfortunately, this one died. But before it did we had a conversation. It made me both cry and laugh at the same time, what I call the Ultimate Emotion. It’s a wonderful sense, crying and laughing at the same time. I did it one time when I thought my girlfriend had being murdered by hate mobbers (that’s what I call gangstalkers); I was in a despairing heartsick attitude when suddenly I saw Alan Sugar on The Apprentice giving some slick wannabe grief about not selling enough Salt & Vinegar Fudge. He’s some monster enterprising bigwig worth millions and what has he got his wishful up and comers hawking? – Salt & Vinegar Fudge. I burst out laughing. You had to be there.

The psychosis around the second admission, in my early to mid-thirties, was all-consuming. I thought that my nemesis was crafting and fashioning actual matter. I was seeing buildings that weren’t there, and skylines that looked supernatural. I thought he was an omniscient satanic being because he could read my mind and know exactly what I was thinking. Now, by the grace of God, I know that he is just an ordinary guy (be it an evildoer), with access to secret technologies that interfere with the brain. Namely mine. He can’t invent sleek ice palaces on the horizon, and he can’t batter Me.