Chapter 1

“A prince is nothing beside a principle.” — Victor Hugo

The Psychiatric Institute

1st of Jumaada al-awal 1435

(March 3, 2014)

In my mind, which is currently playing tricks on me, I did not see the future. I only saw the past. The death and disease, the violence and destruction, the dictators and the governments choosing war. And so I am a hostage of mind choosing to remain insane, I guess. And in my insanity I am trying to find peace, a struggle which rips me apart and tears me at the seams. My mind is pointed in many different directions. But I want to look up, not down. I want to look straight ahead, on the right side, on the left side, and even behind me. And how beautiful these black swans look on this Sunday Morning Program. So peaceful, so restful, floating in beauty, calmness, and serenity.

I do not want to harm anyone. I do not want to offend, but please understand that we must rationalize peace, not imagine it. Peace is possible within the human intelligence and exists within the mind. Haven’t we determined that we, as human beings, are the most dangerous of all? And if human beings are indeed dangerous, then is not God dangerous as well? Instead of revolving in circular thought, let’s choose to evolve and move ourselves to a higher plane...

I am now safe, away from the insanity of ordinary people. I have decided to be that true bastard of life, shoved out of social circles, shoved out of the game of life every youth ought to enjoy. If you could see my perspective on life, you would truly see why I am a bastard.

I would like to write about my mother. She cares too much about me. She has successfully shoved religion down my throat, bit by precious bit, always in heavy doses. Religion becomes the medicine by which all difficulties are thrown into the breeze. My religion, for now, resides in the written word, so instrumentally powerful against the mood swings I have been having.

She has visited me in this place of insanity, she being the most insane of all. I have tried to commit her to this institution. A sad irony how I am here and she is free. She will never sacrifice her freedom for an institution, as I will sacrifice neither my brain nor my pen for one. I need to grow up. No one has allowed me to be that child who plays in the mud or walks a small, fragile puppy. I’ve always wanted a dog, and I have pleaded with God.

I am the master of manipulation. I can easily tap a psychiatrist’s mind quick words. So let the games begin!

My mother will stumble always, and no one will be there to pick her up. So, who do I have to play with now? No mother, no father, no friends, for I have been left here to rot. Have you ever felt like a human laboratory experiment? Well, I do, and I’m wondering whose watching me.

Charlie Halko died today. He committed suicide, hung himself. Charlie had Parkinson’s disease and was a patient here at the Psychiatric Institute. I cannot understand death yet. His suicide has made death out of us all. When will someone stop all the suicides? When will someone celebrate the brightness and glory of life instead of a death that comes all too often? He was so kind to me. He never avoided the young. He was always young at heart. And who’s to blame? Who’s to blame for Charlie’s cop-out and sell-out? He was the father of children, and his children will continually ask ‘why did you do it, Dad?’ or ‘Am I the one to blame?’ He loved playing football, so I heard, so why couldn’t he play anymore? Goddammit I do not understand death.

Let us live! Please for me, please live. Never die, always remain true to yourself. If you want to do something, then do it, but never sell out on the only thing you can truly call your own: Life.

I write after a few days of relaxation. They have placed me under fifteen minute checks as a result of my outburst over Charlie’s death. For a while I stopped speaking. I only wrote. I didn’t do anything else. This served as my main line of communication to the staff members here. Fifteen minute checks means that they check up on me every fifteen minutes. This gets annoying after some time, so I had to stop writing, and I have for now. But I still must write about another incident here at the Institute.

I smoke cigarettes, Camels, even though I am underage. They relax me when my mood swings become too fierce. Within this hospital we are not allowed to have lighters, simply because many of the patients are depressed and my commit suicide or burn the place down altogether. Every day I check out a lighter from the dispensary, so that another patient here named Karen and I can hang out and smoke. On our way out of the unit, I held my cigarettes and lighter by hand, for I had sweat pants on without pockets. After returning to the ward, I put the cigarettes and lighter next to the coffee machine in the hall. As the day moved slowly into night, I noticed that my cigarettes were missing. Karen and I searched for these cigarettes to and from the unit and all along the grounds. We could not find the cigarettes. I chose not to tell anyone on the staff. I simply carried on with my normal routine.

Within this unit there is a new patient named Joe. He is a psychiatrist himself with mental diseases and many tumors in his head. His skin flakes and his eyes droop. The drool from his mouth wanders aimlessly to the floor every time he eats his lunch. His speech is incoherent, and he walks very slowly with the help of a cane. For the past few days he has been stealing cigarettes and lighters from the other patients. He has such mental problems but neither the doctors nor the nurses can do anything about them. But he stole my cigarettes from the coffee area. This was no problem for me, but I had to search most of the day with Karen. I was also going through nicotine withdrawals.

Lights out here are at twelve midnight. We all prepared for bed. A staff member named Steve asked me for the lighter back. I told him that I had lost the lighter. He became worried and immediately informed the staff members.

Steve is a young man at the age of thirty. He’s tall and has a full beard, along with rectangular glasses. He plays Ping-Pong with me on his breaks and has complete knowledge of the history of this institution, which has been around since The Dark Ages. Steven said that my lighter privileges were suspended. I understood and found this to be a just punishment for my inability to find the lighter and cigarettes. I agreed with them, for I am a very agreeable person. After my nerves were calmed and my feelings relaxed, Kathy, the head nurse, came up to me. She is very dedicated to her work and, I guess, aspires to be the Florence Nightingale of the institution. But the egotism which marred her brain, like dense tumors encouraging an old person’s senility, got in the way. She told me of my irresponsibility, my failure to follow completely the rules and regulations of the institution. Kathy asked me:

“What if Joe gets a hold of the cigarettes and lighter?”

I told you about Joe. Even though he has the unfortunate habit of stealing cigarettes and silently smoking them in his room, he is never punished for his violation of hospital rules. He has clout, authority, and seniority by virtue of his profession and his age.

But Kathy became angry and immediately searched his room. Viola! The missing lighter and cigarettes were found. My punishment was given to me by another nurse named Candice. She is a sweet gentle woman whom I would love to get into bed with. I get hard every time I see her, and believe me, I tell her all my fantasies. Celibacy is not easy. I have gone without sex for more than a week. Kathy the Nurse decided to ground me for Friday. On Friday the weather is supposed to be perfect for long strolls underneath knotted oak trees with Karen by my side. But as I heard this punishment my mood began to change, and my mind became uncontrollable. The anger and the rage, the frustration. I began to yell violently at Kathy the Nurse, such that my will became so resolute that I would not back down. Kathy then threatened me with seclusion, a procedure used to quiet those who do not comply with unfair rules and regulations. But I looked at her squarely in the eyes and told her to fuck off. She then walked off. I did not back down for once in my life. I stood up for what I believed in. To this I salute myself for being that person who always shoved the punishments of undue structure down the throats of its creators.

I have always found that the way to God is through Hell, the hell of living in an institution such as this. I will not stop until I reach rock-bottom, where the flesh burns and the bones break, where the ghosts chant sorrowful melodies and the living are tortured by demons with thick skins and florescent eyes. Question everything. Never take answers from another. You must find it within yourself to question authority.

I am now paying the price within this luxurious prison. A prison is a prison is a prison. No matter where I am I am always stuck in these prisons of thought. I need help finding answers to the questions I was always frightened to ask. So I sit within this unit, unable to accept visitors. The patients here think I’m crazy. They all whisper their concerns to each other. They all believe I had a mental breakdown. They do not realize that I am a sane person who chooses to be nuts.

The weather today is rainy and cloudy. A dull gray holds the sky in place. The threat of rain hangs over us. But for me I have only my window, my pen, and many sheets of paper. I need liquor, the stimulant which alters my mind such that my pen moves at a faster pace, and my mind races with the wind. My body remains mellow and limp while my mind is able to tap hidden banks of memory.

Today is cold and lifeless. I am stuck once again amongst the flawed persons of life, the ones that could not handle the pains of reality. Many here at one time or another have tried to end their lives, and the lifelessness they feel is a direct result of their inability to stay within certain limits of their own. Life is like a box. We cannot run away from it. We stay within these boxes and finally grow sick and tired of them. Within our boxes we have our religions, and look what has happened, like dominoes falling from one end to the other.

When I try to convince these cohorts of mine that life is much too simple to take their own lives, I get mysterious grins and suspicious eyebrows. We are indeed trapped within a box, the mental box where we gamble with chemical hormones and imbalances, like chips in a poker game.

There is a small toddler named Nicholas. He is here with his father who decided to ingest large doses of fentanyl. He wanted more meaning and substance from his life. His aim was not to commit suicide but simply to take away the anger and the pain of daily living. Fentanyl can only be found on surgical units. This seems most appropriate, because Larry has a job as an anesthesiologist over at the hospital. His family is quite nuclear, not dysfunctional like mine, and his wife is quite beautiful. I don’t exactly know where his life is going, let alone my own. I have not broken nervously yet but will be free of guilt knowing that I have become insane first. What other choices do we have but to be insane? I hate the images we are all comply with- these conceptions of beauty implanted within our brains to become what the system tells us to become. I am sick of following and leading. I need to get out of the way for a while and relapse into the world of roaches and rats crawling up my spine, into the world of my mother who now chases after me, never ending her selfish drive to hoard and smother me. You see, my mother is in her own box, and she wants to include me as her toy, always telling me what to do, how to feel, how to think, under the guise of Islam.

I have to admit that I like to drink. It soothes my anger and frustration. It calms my outbursts, or so I think.

I just met a new patient named Loni.

And so I am stuck like a stick in the mud. And I guess a stick in the mud can do nothing but observe the abusive attitudes of others. This will be my task. It will be a difficult struggle, to put my thoughts piecemeal upon the page. This will not be easy. I have to do it in a way so that everyone may understand. My thoughts wander as a result of this chemical imbalance, and I know I have learning disabilities as well. I am not able to read. My attention span is short, so talking to people does not come easily. I have to work at discussing thoughts. While everyone has called me stupid, I know deep down inside that I am merely a teenager who searches, just like any other teenager. I have no other recourse but to record these feelings.

The psychiatrists here believe that lithium may be the wonder drug. I may have already mentioned this, but I don’t believe medication will solve my problems. My mind automatically shuts off when difficult situations approach it. For instance, what am I to do with the rest of my life? Where am I to live?

Karen and I have become very close, by the way. I think she has fallen for me. I have rejected her, knowing that my true will must rest in fierce isolation- the true lonely person who strives to correct things he or she cannot change. I will be labeled as sexist, racist, loser, and mistake. But as words sting like wasps do, so my thoughts will finally bite back at the structures that plague me.

In the background I hear children’s voices. I sit at a desk with a tall ceramic lamp. A window to the city streets allows me to procrastinate. The wind sways the branches to and fro. I have such a hard-on at the moment that my pants are bulging. I think my walks with Karen have been productive. I kissed her today, and it made me feel good knowing that there is someone, finally, who understands my present situation. The box, that dreaded box, surrounds my temples and squeezes so tightly. The question becomes, where will this all end? I am not sure. Let us hope we can end it all.

I talked about the plight of Joe earlier. He is a patient/psychiatrist who unthinkingly stole my cigarettes. He was a pioneer of what the medical profession calls the EKG. This is some kind of medical device used to measure brain waves. Although Joe is ill, and I do empathize with the man, he is so full of himself. He is also in love with Karen, which does not make me jealous but gives me some perspective into her multiple personalities. She has the ability to care for everyone, if she so desires. Men of the older generation fall at her feet like she’s some goddess, and at this I feel a bit slighted. I have come to need her without the bullshit of pleasant conversation.

Just now I was in Karen’s room, and I kissed her passionately. She is in danger of losing her grounds card, so she must stay away from me for the time being. I am falling for her so quickly that my mind is unable to process the information, the precise reasons for falling for her. The dominant reaction is to self-destruct. “Step by step, rung by rung” I must climb the ladder, and it can only be done alone. Loneliness fills me, but as usual it is something I cannot run away from. It is included within my box of new and glimmering toys- these toys that have made me what I am today: a mistake, always wanting to create something elegant from the trash and the waste of my days.

Currently it is night time. All is quiet, and my thoughts begin to race. My mind is like a labyrinth, and I am frequently lost within its walls. My head begins to ache, and my body turns restless if these thoughts are not dealt with. Many things in life change, and these changes are coming on strong and powerful. Shall I listen to my heart instead of my mind? I think my heart may have a brain of its own, and I want to use the heart more often. These emotions I am having, they roam wild and nothing will allow me to sleep. I have flashbacks constantly. I hear voices of these people within these flashbacks. My ears never sleep. My brain is constantly awake.

A nurse is coming from behind. No, it is not a nurse, it is Edmund who has been here for thirty-three years. He is pacing up and down the hallway. He is a very lonely creature, even though he has all the money in the world. His father controls a large corporation, and Edmund remains his only son. Their corporation makes shot guns and rifle cartridges supposedly. Edmund is now scaring me. His insomnia matches mine. He seems to know all. He has read many books, but we earlier concurred that there still is no viable explanation for anything. We are trapped within the maze of our own heads, unable to get out. It’s scaring me; it is a nightmare that is real, and if my thinking continues in this manner, my mind is likely to explode. I need to calm my mind. I need to think in a more mellow way. Edmund comes closer again, his feet stomping on the thin scratchy carpet, my back towards him, my eyes staring through the window into the black pit of night and his reflection, and these shivers and bumps are forming along the length of my arms, my blood begins to boil, and here comes Edmund again and again and again. He will not stop pacing. Stop. Please stop Edmund’s awkward pacing.

I want to fall asleep but these recurring nightmares haunt me. The ghost of Charlie will not allow me to sleep unless I give it an answer, a solution to the ultimate complexity of life.

To a large extent, Karen, who is a well-known actress, has tapped those feelings again. She seems to care about everyone. I want her to care about me only. The way I kissed her today! Although she is thirty-eight years old, I have found her to be a wonderful child at heart, always willing to learn from someone else.

My crushes, or the stages of my development at which these crushes for females took place, are now ending. I have had a handful of crushes, and each has driven me to points of no return. I recall my first. Her name was Linda. Her hair bleach blonde and her skin as soft as a baby’s. This was the first grade here in New York City, right on Amsterdam Avenue. I bothered her every day, but she hated all boys. Similarly, all the boys hated the girls. Our gang was led by a big, ignorant grunt named Louie. He had been left back a year, so he knew the ins and outs, the do’s and the don’ts, the hidden system of the classroom. I wanted Linda badly. I thought about her night and day, so much that I bade my mother to buy Valentine’s Day chocolates during this loveliest of all holidays. I gave these to her in the hopes she would fall in passionate love with me. That evening at the playgroup I gave her the chocolates. She gave me a quick and stealthy peck on the cheek to show her surprise at such a gift. I sneaked away quickly knowing that I had an effect on her. I moved her to the brink of poignancy- so deep I wounded her, so infinite her memory to remember my gift. She must still remember it today. I was the first person ever to express my feelings for her. We were both six years of age.

She brought the chocolates back to school the next day, and I made sure to bother her more. We had our usual battle of the sexes using the water toys in the tub, the yelling of ‘stop bothering me’ next to the bookshelves, and the perpetual poking each other at nap time. We hated each other as well, not hate in the pure sense, but the hate which comes with the union of male and female. We both found that it never comes easily. She dumped me on Valentine’s Day, and my heart broke. I never cried, only became frustrated with her. After this, I stopped bothering her. It’s funny how the end of my first grade year culminated in my intense isolation from the rest of my peers. I was so lonely that the teacher gave up. I never saw Linda again, but I’m sure she thinks of me every now and then as this person who tried valiantly to express an affection, even though it was unfashionable to do so. I miss her. I look into this strange world and ask where have these people gone? I ask myself every day: “To fuck it or not to fuck it.” This is my question. I have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. What else can I do but feel sorry for myself? Once I get out of this prison of madness I will rejoin the world much sicker than before. There is no way out of this box. I need a woman inside with me- someone I can trust and forever hold on to. A woman who will never abuse me, never abuse me.

I am almost out of this hell hole, and the turnover rate flies high. I am getting to know my in-patient peers less and less. We are all drifting apart from each other, and I am not sure of the reasons for this drifting. My depression is becoming severe. Karen has changed so dramatically that I’m not exactly sure who she is anymore. I try to tell my friends about her, but they do not believe she is a well-known actress. In fact, everyone is telling me the opposite. My mind is playing games within this cramped environment. My rational mind of bitter, teeth-clenched reality is slowly passing into fantasy. I see people here, and intuitively I know who they are, but they remain under the guise of anonymity. They will never tell me their real names. They will never reveal their true characters to me, and for this I feel cheated. When I wrote earlier that I was hanging around Karen, I was convinced that she was a famous actress. Now I am not so sure. Many have doubted me, and I guess when so many suspect me of the subtle mixing of fantasy and reality, I have to doubt my own mind. But my isolation had been unraveling, and I was starting to become my true self. Now I am scared to return to the secrecy of the pen and paper to relieve the nervousness and depression. My eyes begin to water knowing that all human beings are actors and actresses. They form their roles and hide their true problems. I have placed all of my eggs, so to speak, in Karen’s basket. She has crushed them so softly and scrupulously. Again, another woman I haven fallen in deep ‘like’ with, and without question I am left to rot in the dusts of her trail. Like my feelings for Linda in the first grade, I identified with Karen. Her sudden change, however, has thrown me into a depression. I cannot rely on her resonant voice anymore, so soft and soothing. I cannot rely on her bewildering looks, her appearances which change as a result of her drive to reduce her weight. She has always been beautiful to me. When I met her on the first day of admittance I immediately knew who she was. Her voice stung my ears and prompted me to compose melodies to pay tribute to an actress who had lost her way. The bitch hardly acknowledges my existence anymore. All women are like this, always turning their backs to men truly in need. These men, who are vile and bestial creatures, need these women to save them from the drowning. I do not choose water to drown in. I choose liquor: a simple, sweet substitute for the pain into which I was born. This pain has grown and nurtured a madness so terrible, so unqualified that the only route left to self-preservation is the route to self-destruction. The implosion of my mind, slowly and dismally collapsing, has fueled my hand, ignited it with the only thing I know how to undertake at this time: masturbation.

Oh there is no escape from these doldrums of loneliness. The impeccable, the innocuous, yet deadly subtlety of going mad and at the same time being alone.

I will never admit defeat, for only the seriously sane choose insanity. I will bring down the pillars of Islam so that the masses will understand the terrible manner in which they treat their young. Let us go beyond the morality of religion and see the power struggle among the different territories. The Middle East is a dictator’s monopoly board. Arab and Jew fighting for territory, and at the same time dragging the world into its problems. Some of my best friends adhere to the Jewish faith, and my friendship will never wane. But both the followers of Islam and Judaism do not understand what they are doing to religions meant for peace, not the provocation of war. As someone once told me, in these games of war, no one wins. We all become divided and indeed fall with the nooses wrapped tightly around our necks. Doesn’t anyone question anything anymore? Why didn’t we know that the War in the Gulf was a public relations scam? Of course we watched CNN. I am so tired of politics and economics. I am so tired of these two disciplines which dominate daily life. I want to exercise my exit option and finally leave this world of self-destruction. The sickness lies within the world, not within my brain. I cannot be cured unless the world is cured. Generals with their minds lost in games. Chess boards and outdated maps, borders, and troops. Why doesn’t anyone notice the people within these borders? Why do we cloud the television with filthy graphics and fireworks from missiles hunting down worthless humanity? These thoughts will plague me until the panacea of peace reigns upon us all.

Women bring me peace of mind. Yes, they somehow bring me peace of mind. I must start writing about these women to stop the chemicals from traveling so fast within the maze. Women are the true peace-seekers, the only beings that care about the world. Let them stand in the name of peace, for thay have earned that right, and they did it on their own.

It is mid-morning now, and the sunshine blares through the window at the end of this long hallway. Once again I sit at this desk next to my trusty ceramic lamp. I just quit the discussion group. I have trouble speaking in groups, and my alienation is now showing. My mentality will not allow me to participate in trivial conversations with other people. My seclusion is starting to manifest itself. The day, however, is so glorious. Patients are walking to and from their meeting points. I’m not sure where Karen went. I hear the voice in the background now, and although I cannot see her, I can hear her presence.

As usual these psychiatrists are using me and my family to fill their research books. The human guinea pigs of these mental institutions are the patients who stay here. Sex is on my mind, and a blow job would suit me just fine.

Karen has just spoken with me. She tells me that I am setting myself up for self-destruction. The slightest remark may set me off or make me angry. She is a good person who cares so much about everyone, and I guess she takes pity on me. She doesn’t understand, however, that the last thing I need is for someone to feel sorry for me. I have enough trouble feeling sorry for myself. I enjoy self-pity at any rate, for it has a cathartic effect. It allows me to cry without anyone seeing me. It allows me to understand my problems by myself without anyone helping me. I am learning how to help myself. I do not need others to advise me on my many problems. My goal in life is to make sure these problems do not harm other people.

I must reach out, as Karen has suggested. She feels scared, and I guess with all women, they do all the feeling for you. They do the feeling for mankind. Of course we should not stereotype all women that way.

I’m happy I dropped the discussion group. It wasn’t helping me. The psychologist leading the group told me that I had an attitude problem. But she also said that I could leave whenever I wanted to, and no one would stop me. I spotted her feeble attempt at reverse psychology immediately and proceeded to tell her that I had signed contracts for the discussion group, which would prevent me from quitting. She disagreed and called my psychiatrist from her office. She talked to him for a short time. I heard her say that she was not quitting on me and was sick of the power games I had been playing with the other group facilitators as well. She came from the room with an air of arrogance and told me that the Institute was not in the business of spoon-feeding its patients, and as a result I was not welcome in the discussion group. This was all the incentive I needed to walk away. I hold no anger towards the staff. They have valiantly tried to assist other people within the Institute. I have followed the footsteps of the fat man with arthritis and a spotted liver, battling addiction not with alcohol and drugs but an addiction with the mind. The problem for him and me both is depression, and it is depression which leads to his drinking binges.

I don’t mean to be so melodramatic, but these things are slices of truth within the pie of life, and so I have left the discussion group flunking it. The dirty looks on the faces of demure facilitators have given me more incentive to brand these staff members as Nurse Rachetts- all of them, always loving the power struggles with the patients, because they always win They have more power, after all. I guess I see this even within the kind creatures of life.

As my psychiatrist has duly said, I have started to blend fantasy with reality. This is a part of my illness. This blend, however, has been perpetuated by the family and the abusive education I have received from these fake schools in which children are sent, parceled, and packaged. Parents should begin to instill a sense of curiosity within all children. Always ask questions, regardless if they are stupid. There are never stupid questions, only stupid answers. No matter how many books we read, no matter how much television we watch, the questions still remain, and the enigma of life remains untouched, uninhibited even with the help of fragile and insecure teachers.

Chapter 1 »