My Experience With Psychosis

I’ll be showing most of my posts from social media during this time period. These posts are crucial in understanding the gravity of the event. However, there were so many that I was forced to restructure this entire chapter. Anything with a purple bar over it is something I personally do not want to share. Many posts contained photos that I don’t want to share either, so I’ve removed them from their respective posts. The posts themselves are not displayed on this page. There will be links attached to the corresponding text that you can click to read the posts. There’s a lot of them, so pace yourself accordingly. If you see the word (verbatim) that means whatever I just said is exactly how I processed it at the time.

There is necessary context that predates this psychotic event, starting in March of 2021. I had decided I wanted to change my life around and better myself. Fast forward to May and it’s actually happening. Lost a lot of weight, ate way healthier, and was much more physically active. I looked a way I never had before and people responded to me in a way I wasn’t used to. This wouldn’t be the first time I desired or tried to change my life around, but this was by far the most successful attempt.

Fast forward to mid July & I started speaking to my ex again after half a year of no contact. My relationship with her was very intense & chaotic, constantly on and off again over a few years. A toxic cycle with euphoric highs & suicidal lows. Everything about my contact with her that month surprisingly went great until it unsurprisingly didn’t. By this point it’s the last week of July, and after moving forward with a plan I made to see if we were doomed to repeat our toxic cycle, and seeing the results, I had to fully accept that our relationship was truly over. It took me 2 full days of crying and laying in my room before I could send out the message I had typed up basically saying goodbye forever. That entire ordeal spiraled me into a very deep depression, leaving me both mentally & physically isolated. I was in a very bad headspace. I physically felt very heavy. I spoke to very few people, and withdrew my presence from Instagram.

Despite all this, my mood for some reason did a 180 nearly 2 weeks later, which would then be ruined after getting rejected for a retail job at a mall I had gotten interviewed for. Getting hired was a big deal to me. I absolutely needed money if I wanted to build the social life I was finally capable of making for myself and I also thought it would do a lot for me mentally to have the routine experience of actually working a job with coworkers & customers my age. For a multitude of reasons, getting rejected by this place basically meant any chance of getting a job was over with. This deeply upset me.

Fast forward to August 18th & I realized that I had no emotional support in my life—no emotional security—and that this wasn’t going to change as it’s a factor I have no control over. In my mind, if nothing about the circumstances surrounding my attempt at changing things was any different than the previous attempts, then this one was bound to give me the same results. Which means continuing the effort of turning my life around was no longer justified.

I understood that life will inevitably have its bad days & its slip ups. I didn’t have any inherent issue with that. The problem was that I was at my limit, my emotional tank was empty (verbatim) and I truly didn’t have it in me anymore to get through those curveballs or disappointments life inevitably throws at you all by myself. I did consider just ignoring all my feelings, but I concluded that if that’s how I went about life then what’s even the point of living (verbatim). To be clear, I had no doubt in my ability to make those life changes happen. I just didn’t have it in me to take any more emotional hits by myself, and those are par for the course when it comes to life.

So I figured if I’m going to get the same result, I might as well save time and skip directly to what I’m headed for anyway. I never had a life worth living so at some point suicide was no longer a desire out of emotion but rather logic, if nothing was going to change. I viewed the position I was in as being inevitable. As how my life was always supposed to end.

I saw myself as having 2 choices during this time. I could either continue down the path I was on already that summer by maintaining this new image I had created for myself, expanding my connections, and begin fucking like a rabbit, or I could let myself fade away socially & mentally until my mind was so far gone that I could take my life without having to think about it. The goal with option 2 would be to basically create a false reality for myself to live in until my time came so I could skip the mental breakdown I knew I’d have otherwise.

The problem I had with option 1 was that I would’ve had to turn into a narcissist (verbatim) to make it work. This didn’t refer to just being self centered or a dickhead, this meant truly having zero empathy towards anyone around me and doing whatever it took to get what I wanted out of people no matter how kind they were. Any girl I developed intimacy with would be treated like an emotional tissue I discard after one use. I would’ve continued to maintain the image I had created publicly despite knowing I was living a lie, which I knew would drive me increasingly more tense with each passing week. I also would’ve continued feeding into the image I had of myself and allow my ego to spiral out of control as I continued to look better & better. Essentially, the more hollow my life and being would inevitably feel and become, the more energy I would put into this facade, and the more angry I would become.

I knew that if I went down this path that the narcissism & intended sex would’ve just been a massive cope for having no support in my life, and I knew this wouldn’t last long. I figured that by January I’d end up in this specific scenario I had in mind—one that would’ve been a reflection of me more than anything had it happened. I imagined that scenario being the moment where the illusion of the fake reality I willingly created through narcissism would’ve shattered violently like glass (verbatim). Then I would’ve had a complete mental breakdown afterwards, become very violent, and end my life anyway. So obviously, I very quickly knew that option wasn’t worth it. I felt like I didn’t deserve to go through that breakdown and I didn’t like how dangerous I would’ve been during it. The final decision would’ve been the same as option 2 anyway, so option 2 became the clear winner.

I originally didn’t tell anyone anything because I wanted to fade away quietly. I was just going to isolate until it was my time to go, and time my death to be right before the point in which I’d start turning violent because that’s not the kind of person I am or want to be. I knew if I was that far gone mentally I’d start doing the shit I spent years of my life fighting. So from that point on I simply just stopped responding to people. I truly wanted nothing more than to disappear from public consciousness.

In regards to creating a false reality, I didn’t actually know or think that was truly possible. Nothing about that idea was based on anything I was consciously aware of. I just knew that if I isolated for long enough while allowing my mental state to endlessly decline that I could delude myself into thinking everything was peaceful. I would’ve allowed myself to believe the lie. I had a prediction of what my mind would be like. I thought that by December I would accomplish this. As for when I thought I would take my life, I don’t remember, but I do know for sure that the concept of next summer was not even a thing to me. I had no doubt I’d be long dead by then.

Fast forward towards the end of the month and my ex finally offered for us to have the very long overdue talk I had been needing for closure reasons so I could move on. This was scheduled to happen on September 3rd.

About a day or so later on August 30th, my grandmother dies. This was on Monday. Then by Wednesday, September 1st, I had a few people asking why I wasn’t responding to their messages. I mentally couldn’t deal with it cause I knew there’d only be more people asking so that’s when I publicly made it clear on my Instagram story that I didn’t want anyone contacting me. I told everyone I was perfectly fine and that nothing was wrong. I also acknowledged that what I was doing was social suicide but that I wasn’t going to do it physically. This would also be when I turned off the ability for people to respond to my stories & disabled Instagram notifications on my device and my iMessage. I also blocked 2 specific people from being able to see my stories because I knew if they saw what I was posting they would’ve alerted someone.

From that day forward I went out of my way to avoid looking at any and all numbers; meaning likes, DM count, and any other possible notification while using that app. I knew that if I even caught a glimpse of a number that it would affect my mind in some way and I didn’t want anything influencing the things I wanted to express. This account had 800 followers at the time.

During this exact moment I also began writing something that I was going to post straight to Instagram with no actual image aside from a black picture. It was essentially me listing things about myself. All of the things that made up my entire being. Like “sadistic”, “can’t cope with reality”, “lacks empathy for most”, “feels it so strongly for some that it hurts”, as well as “positive effect on many” and “fantasies of a happier healthier society”. The list was long and mostly revealed things about myself that you simply don’t just tell people, as well as things that I had never told anyone. Nearly everything on that list were things I spent years keeping to myself.

At the time, I basically viewed the list overall as things I hated about myself. Somewhat. It wasn’t like they were things I hated because I wanted to change them, it was more like “I’m extremely fucked in the head and I’m disgusting for it and everyone should know”. Despite the intensity of what was going on, I still had my concerns about posting it. During this exact moment I was also having my first ever panic attack. I went to a specific location so I could scream my lungs out, which physically pained me.

It is now Friday, September 3rd, and the meetup with my ex went horribly. Despite the many times I had said goodbye before, and the many times our relationship was seemingly over, this was the first time in my life I understood in my soul that my relationship with her was actually dead. Legitimately nothing left. When I had gotten home from seeing her I remember having this feeling that’s a bit hard to describe, but it was basically me having to forcefully accept that I really did just lose every last thing that ever mattered to me in the span of one week, and that I had nothing left.

I was laying in bed feeling such a dense pain that my life really is about to go in the gutter and there were no alternatives. Everything I thought my life was and the spiral I was heading for were undeniably true now. Things really were just as bad as I thought they were. There was no more second guessing, mild contemplation, or secretly holding out hope deep in my heart that something would come save me; like I had done all throughout my life prior. Any of that shit was gone. September 3rd was the day I realized I was actually going to die.

In the following weeks I had stopped taking care of myself completely. I showered only once a week, with the only reason I even took any was because my smell eventually made me too nauseous to ignore it, on the verge of vomiting, which I simply viewed to be a greater inconvenience than taking a shower. I didn’t change clothes either unless it was after a shower. I was supposed to enroll for college classes which I attempted to do but due to bullshit decided I wasn’t going to bother. All I did during this time was watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel. I quite literally did not do anything else. I was also having very vivid dreams every single night since my grandmother’s passing. These dreams would not stop occurring in intensity or frequency until the event ended.

Shortly after seeing my ex I messaged her asking something I needed an answer to which she ignored for 3 weeks, only to then give me a bullshit answer. Despite my perception of her having already been bad, this had crossed a line to me. She was the only person I told about my grandmother’s passing that I truly wanted to tell, as well as the first person. I couldn’t believe that even with my grandmother dead she was still pulling the same antics as before. I genuinely never expected that from her. From that day forward, I truly hated her. Every last thing about her. She repulsed me.

For the next three weeks I still had contact with a select few people, after reenabling my iMessage. One of them was Anonymous 1 (from Psychiatry’s Mirror), who I had a meaningful past with, but she started taking too long to respond to messages—never responding to my last one. I took it very personally, especially since she was one of the only people who I told about my grandmother’s passing and issues I had with my ex. In reality, my state of mind was very intense at the time which undoubtedly showed up in the messages, and she had her own struggles to deal with. But I didn’t see it that way. I just took it as another person that claimed to care about me that failed to do the bare minimum.

Mid September would be when I found out the high probability of me having ADHD. After this, I had messaged a friend that was diagnosed with the condition and told her everything I identified in my life as ADHD symptoms. Her reaction to this was basically saying that what I got going on was way worse than anything she’s experienced, with a sentiment that she didn’t know it could be that bad, which I did not expect at all. This threw me off completely, and scared me, considering she had expressed serious frustration with her symptoms before.

Around this time I also came to realizing that my father was by no means off the hook for how my mother had treated me. He still wasn’t as bad as she was from any angle, but it didn’t change the fact that if he didn’t do anything to stop her then he’s in the same boat she’s in. The main thing I had in my head was that he never really did anything to protect me. This realization also resurfaced feelings I’ve always had that he will always prioritize her over me. All of this brought about a significant amount of conflict within me, more than I cared to deal with, so I mentally just left a pin in it and put any feelings of love towards my father on pause. From that point forward he was irrelevant to me.

On September 17th I posted a story on Instagram about how badly I wished I could be unapologetically insane on Instagram, but that I’d have to feel the nonexistent consequences of doing so eventually. I had also posted another story at some point after this about how 17 would be the perfect age to kill myself at (however I don’t have it saved).

On September 22nd a friend had messaged me. I’m gonna call her Rachel since she was basically the asian Rachel McAdams especially with that big ass forehead. This girl was a bit strange and for months I had found her a bit frustrating to deal with. So when she messaged me that day asking how I was and in a very tone deaf way to what I had been posting, it agitated me. The whole interaction rubbed me the very wrong way. Her behavior in the past was weird but I just felt it to be fucked up to ask me that question, do it in that way, and then have nothing else to say when the answer I give that you knew wasn’t going to be positive ends up not being positive. This added to my growing anger towards everyone I had known and me feeling like I only had 3 people in my life that ever did right by me. The fact that I already had weird instances with her in the past made the effects of this interaction significantly worse. This interaction made me start hating her.

During the week of September 13th was when the whim of creating a YouTube channel would come to me. On the 18th I would do so. By this point I was already planning to release a video that would basically achieve what that Instagram caption I never posted was supposed to. On September 28th I would finally upload it—what borderline personality disorder is really like. It detailed the numerous changes and developments in my mental well being from the start of 2018 to the day the video was recorded, and ended with what essentially was that same list from weeks ago but with many more additions. Additional videos I uploaded that month were one about ADHD and one about questioning who I would be if I wasn’t mentally ill.

It is now October, and I finally felt like I was out of the public eye and all by myself with no one perceiving me. It was a feeling I enjoyed. I was now speaking to absolutely no one. Everyone I had ever known truly felt like they were so distant and far behind me. I could only feel empathy for those I saw myself in. The lives of everyone else could not have mattered less to me. I had to study my behavior to know what was wrong with me instead of looking inward. I had lost that ability. So instead of knowing where my head was at by simply dissecting my own mind and analyzing it, I had to analyze my behaviors instead from the 3rd person, and then judge where my head was at based on those behaviors.

I also became very angry at the start of this month, which was likely due to my ex having texted me back. I had already began writing a rant for Instagram that I wouldn’t end up posting until 2 weeks later. I also soon uploaded a video on having no morality & a lack of empathy, a video on sadistic nature, and a video about inhumane thoughts & fantasies.

At this time I also concluded that only 3 people had ever done right by me, and all the others had done me wrong in some capacity. I considered those 3 people to have been the only true friends I ever had. The anger I had towards everyone I had ever known really began to boil.

Around this time I for some reason also checked my DMs and saw a girl asking me not to kill myself. I didn’t view this as a genuine display of care, I honestly thought she was saying it to make herself feel better for being a “good person”—primarily because she seemed like the type of white woman to do that. This angered me even more. I thought about saying something wildly inappropriate to her but ultimately decided not to. This would be the last Instagram DM I ever opened.

It’s almost now October 15th, and my brain slipped into this state that I would later find out was self destructiveness—which had happened a few times in my life before. When it happens, my brain physically feels unrestrained with this strange desire to destroy everything non physical I have in my life. For whatever reason, my brain wants me to fuck my life over.

I was contemplating posting the rant since I had first wrote it but the night of October 15th would be when this finally happens. Before I did however (and I don’t remember the full context of this) I hesitated for hours, and then I remembered that my grandmother was dead, and specifically that her being dead was real. That last part is key. I don’t know why this mattered to me so much, but knowing that my grandmother was undeniably dead was the only thing in existence that confirmed to me that my reality was real, and for whatever reason, that confirmation would always trigger my brain to suddenly have no issue doing whatever I was contemplating in my head. Generally, I was struggling with the concept that everything in my life was actually happening.

Another motivating factor for both this rant and all other rants since September till the end of the year was that I always felt like no one ever took me seriously before when I expressed the things I was going through. I attributed a lot of that to the fact that I was able to hold myself together as well as I did throughout my life. So allowing my mind to unravel without a care in the world was something that was partially intentional, as I figured now people would understand that I meant every word I had ever said.

The rant consisted of 14 stories, with the first stating “rest in peace” to several public figures that had died primarily to suicide; Byron Bernstein known better as Reckful, Desmond Amofah known better as Etika, Ronnie Edwards (the Game Theory editor), Choi Jin-ri known better as Sulli, and Malcolm McCormick known better as Mac Miller. Out of the 5 names, 4 committed suicide. Out of those four, 2 (Sulli & Etika) had suicides directly tied to how the public treated them. A public that swore they’d do better after their deaths but never actually did. I then highlighted that people like me keep dying and it’s only after we die that people wish they had done more to prevent it, in which case, why didn’t you?

The 2nd story expressed a few things with one in particular being the idea that even if I don’t die soon I’m not making it past the age of 20 anyway. The concept of living past that point sincerely did not make sense to me. I tried to rationalize it and just couldn’t. It logically didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t understand why anyone in general would want to live past 25 no matter how great their life was.

The 3rd story expressed frustrations with how mentally ill black men are observed and treated by the world; particularly as entertaining spectacles. Which is no surprise considering that black people in general are treated as objects to seek entertainment in. Mentally ill black men are either treated like dog shit until their last breath in which only then do people switch up their behavior, or they’re squeezed for every last drop of entertainment they’re worth. In many cases, both are true. I then contrasted the way black men are treated when they speak on what they go through to how a white woman would be praised as brave for speaking on her social anxiety.

I then discussed how people’s understanding of mental issues is one where they need to be cute, acceptable and allows them to fulfill their savior complex. The moment mental issues are deemed “problematic” is when that person is no longer deserving of any support or compassion. I then also called out people’s false understanding that something being “natural” must mean that it’s morally correct.

I finally ended the story by calling out how people are very progressive towards mental health until the very second they see the ugly side of it, in which they then still label & stigmatize people dealing with issues far beyond their comprehension.

The 4th story then pointed out how the only reason anyone cared about anything I was saying was because of the perception that I was physically attractive and funny, and that there are many people just like me who have neither of those privileges. I then asked all the people who posted something for suicide awareness in September if they’d actually do anything for the people I just mentioned. I ended the story by saying that if I went back to posting what I did prior to September that everyone would continue interacting with me as if nothing happened.

The 5th story started by continuing the point about how shallow the mental health conversation really is, and how only “perfect” victims are valued within it. I then continued by stating that nobody cares about people like me and that it’s okay, because that’s life. No one is obligated to do anything. However my issue is when you lie by posturing yourself as if you do care to satisfy your own self righteousness, only to bail when people like me need you. And then because you bail on those people they end up thinking they’re beyond help and don’t deserve it. I ended by stating that subconsciously you’d rather the person die so you could grieve for a week and get over it because that’s easier than actually dealing with whatever that person got going on.

The 6th story called out how people like to label others as not accepting “professional” help when the reality of “professional” help is much worse than they realize. I compared the way people view psych wards to the way some Christians view conversion camps.

I then called out how people respond when the person inevitably dies—how people use it as an opportunity to feel sorry for themselves and blame the person in question. I suggested that the person in question didn’t want your “help” because they knew you didn’t mean it. I ended the story by stating that people always claim they’ll do better when someone dies, only to never actually do it.

The 7th story directly continued the last by stating how the answer to “how many deaths would it take for anyone to change” isn’t a numerical one, because no matter how many people die it will never be enough. Everyone just cries for a bit and then continues being the same as usual. I then ended the story by referencing my intense disgust for performative people on social media and how both phonies & liars deserve to have their teeth beaten out.

The 8th story referenced how I had no longer had anything to lose and how freeing it felt, as well as how my Christmas birthday sometimes makes me feel like the antichrist. At this time in my life, the feeling of having nothing to lose was one that I could physically feel, and it was this weird 50/50 split between extreme comfort and extreme shittiness. Because having nothing left to lose in your life is an absolutely horrible feeling on its own, however, the freedom that comes with it is the kind of comfort you really can’t get from anything else. Put together, you end up with a feeling you really can’t describe.

The 9th story referenced how I resented the fact that I once thought I was mentally relapsing when I decided to give up on August 18th, when in reality I was just done with all the bullshit. I then stated plainly that I was fucked in the head and it’s a waste of time pretending like I wasn’t. That a part of me even enjoys it. For added context; this feeling was one I typically had during periods of self destructiveness, where I find significant pleasure in the intensity of my own mental state.

The 10th story began by stating the only thing I could achieve in my life anymore is making people like me feel safe with themselves and from their abusers. I then said how I could single handedly reduce the suicide rate amongst borderlines if I was given the opportunity but that the illusion of my autonomy is a joke anyway. For context; I used to feel like for years that my autonomy was barely a real thing. I always felt like everything in my life was forced upon me, and that any attempts to take initiative in my life and try to change something about it were futile. The more it kept happening, the more it upset me. At the time I posted this story, I was feeling the full weight of that feeling, and I remember it being something that had a significant effect on me mentally and emotionally. I sincerely believed I had no autonomy. I continued the story by saying that if there is a higher power and I’m only here on this earth to lower the suicide rate, that I will kill him when I meet him.

The 11th story was summarized what the point of anything I was saying was while restating of a lot of earlier points. The 12th story began by me saying that I didn’t ask for anything that happened to me the last 17 years so why should I feel ashamed about how it’s all affected me? I then said I did the absolute best for myself that I could throughout that entire time, and it’d be weirder if I didn’t love myself as much as I do because of that.

I then spoke on how silly it was that I felt guilty about openly being myself as if I had any sort of responsibility to make sure meaningless strangers I don’t know aren’t disturbed by my existence. I then referenced something that would become a trend later on, where despite the intensity of the rants I posted, I was actually very calm while posting said rants and would carry on with my day after posting them as if nothing had happened. The story continued by saying that if my ADHD didn’t make me forget everything that’s happened to me that I would’ve had my brains scattered against the pavement years ago.

The 13th story consisted of me speaking to anyone that happened to be as fucked in the head as I was and telling them things I thought they should know. I also said that I loved them. At that point in my life the only love or care I had for anything in existence were people just as fucked as me or worse. The 14th and final story was simply me stating that people like me keep dying and I would appreciate it if you could at least admit you don’t care and never did. The posting of this rant was significant to me mentally & emotionally, as it was basically me finally revealing myself to the world with nothing to hide.

In addition to the rant, October 15th would also be when Mac Miller’s Faces mixtape released on streaming services, which I found to be very strange. What was a mixtape that released on May 11, 2014 doing on streaming services on October 15, 2021? On the exact day that I finally post this intensely loaded rant? At the exact time in my life where it could not have been more fitting? For those unaware, Faces is Mac Miller’s most suicidal & self destructive record by a decent margin, and even though I had never given it a full listen prior to that night, I was still already familiar with this fact. The release of Faces became a full confirmation to me that the universe was fucking with me and mocking me. This feeling would only be made worse by tomorrow.

On October 16th my father told me something regarding my grandmother’s death, something he could’ve told me the day it happened but randomly decided to tell me on that day. Then later when I went to go take a walk I ended up noticing my ex briefly as she was walking home. This in itself was pretty wild to me. Not only was I walking around aimlessly for 30 minutes leading up to it but I also managed to catch her walking home in the literal 10 second time span that I could’ve possibly noticed her. The fuck are the odds of that? Especially considering the location I saw her at I had walked through dozens of times before. Not once prior, or since, have I seen her walking home.

These 3 events put together made me believe that my life was genuinely some sort of cosmic joke. That I was nothing more than the universe’s punching bag and that whatever happens to me is purely to amuse it. Because in my mind, that 24 hour time span had mimicked what happened to me the week I lost everything. Within one week my grandmother had died, I posted something significant to Instagram, and I saw my ex. And now you’re telling me that somehow I posted something significant to Instagram, got an update regarding her death, and saw my ex, all technically within the same day? I viewed this synchronicity (verbatim) as the week I lost everything being mimicked on a smaller scale from every angle. And I took this extremely personally. I started writing up a quick rant that I never ended up posting. It’s important to note that the aspect of having lost everything in one week is something I had never let go of since it happened, and it was something that held immense weight on my mind every single hour since the event had begun.

Seeing my ex single handedly tanked my mental state drastically. The mere sight of her had sent my brain into a frenzy. It became aggressively suicidal, self destructive, and unstable. This led to me making a 30 minute uncut ramble on YouTube called “i’m not making it past 20” where I discussed exactly that. Towards the end of the video I had referenced how badly I wanted to rip my head off my own neck. During this time my neck even felt much softer in my mind as if all I had to do was lightly grab my head by the sides and push upwards and it would pull apart like freshly baked bread. I also felt this immense craving for a bullet to sit in my brain. No other thought provided as much comfort. 2 days later I made a half hour follow up titled “what have i become. what has my life become.” where I discussed & acknowledged the fact that my mind was becoming more and more fucked by the day, and how it also struggled to grasp the fact that this was my life now. My inability to cope with reality. This would be the last video I uploaded that month. I uploaded 8 in total.

Shortly after seeing my ex was also when I started to experience scent related hallucinations for a few weeks. Randomly in my room it would smell like my ex or my grandmother was there for a few seconds. They weren’t faint smells either. They were as strong as if they had just walked past me.

The final week of October saw me experiencing a very positive shift in mood, as I was now working full time on a video I had planned to start working on for weeks by that point called “high school rant”. It was going to be the first of a series of entertainment videos labeled “star videos” that were supposed to basically garner the most attention for my channel. By this point I had now viewed YouTube as my golden ticket out the life I had been living and the only way my suicide could be averted. And this wasn’t just some hope I had. It was something that meant everything to me. But because of how badly I wanted things to change, I was extremely impatient. The concept of spending more than a few hours on a script sounded ridiculous to me. This led to terribly produced videos. I was even somewhat aware deep down that these videos were terrible but it never truly registered to me mentally. Unsurprisingly, they did not perform at all. This had a significant impact on my mental state. I got into a cycle of working on a video, feeling good about it, releasing it, and then when it got next to no views after a few hours, I would get very frustrated and angry. Every time this happened it only got worse. There was no real passion behind these videos even if I did have fun making them. They were ultimately nothing more than the only chance I had left to save my life. Despite this cycle being bad for me mentally, it did keep me occupied for the month of November. The majority of my content this month was light hearted, with no rants and 1 ramble.

By mid to late November I had become extremely prideful & narcissistic. My cognitive ability was starting to decline. My mind was becoming foggy. This would be a frustration that only grew as the weeks went by, with me being unable to recite lines for my videos without forgetting them immediately. Even short simple sentences had escaped my mind the moment I took my eyes off them. Writing the scripts themselves was also incredibly difficult.

It is now Thanksgiving, November 25th, and I woke up with a whim to give money to homeless people since I may as well do something for the holiday. I gave away $360 and spent several hours speaking to homeless people. 3 in particular. Harlen, Will & Robbie. I then posted 15 stories to Instagram two days later, the majority of which being me sharing the lives of those 3 men, and the rest being a short rant. (I’ll only be discussing the rant.) It detailed the things the men had to go through as homeless people, my thoughts I had after the experience, and my disdain for people that are performative—who to me are the same as liars. The hatred I displayed for liars throughout this event was not anything new. Even today, there is nothing I have more hatred for than a liar. There are people that have done horrendous shit in this world where the only thing that truly agitates me is the fact that they won’t admit it. Omitting information, bending the truth, pretending, performing, or repeatedly failing to back words with action, are all lies to me. I’ve been getting lied to since birth, and have always considered the people that fucked my psyche up the most to be chronic inherent liars.

On my way to the city that day I briefly noticed a girl who I thought was extremely attractive, primarily due to her body language with her friends. The glimpse I caught of her was so brief that I forgot what her face looked like just seconds after I walked past her. This interaction led to me making a 30 minute ramble titled “the women i’m attracted to romantically” which pretty much marks the beginning of when I would start recording completely nonsensical videos based on nothing. In general, the rambles I would soon upload essentially consisted of me having a thought in my mind, thinking it was somehow worth discussing at length, and then articulating myself so poorly that I ended up with something different than what I intended. It was like going into a kitchen expecting to make a cheeseburger but somehow ending up with a cheesecake, and then showing everybody the cheesecake under the genuine belief that it’s actually a burger.

Overall, the defining trait of November was how loud the emptiness in my life was. It was inescapable. Working on content provided some distraction, but even then, I was never able to truly ignore it. I had uploaded 7 videos. By the end of the month I had gained 8 pounds since the start of the event. I also had seen a superhero movie that made me seriously consider putting on a costume, going to Manhattan, and finding criminals so I could beat the shit out of them as a means of relieving anger. This idea went away though after a few hours, due to how absurd & unrealistic it was. November would also be when everything became entertainment to me. No matter how horrific something was on the news, my brain couldn’t see it as anything more than entertainment. So many things were humorous to me.

It is now December 1st, and like I predicted, things immediately began to go downhill. Historically speaking, December used to be an emotionally loaded month for me, to the point that it simply being December would make my brain unravel a bit and turn noticeably unstable. Even back in September, I was fearful for what it would do to me. This is all due to the final week of it, which sees my birthday, followed by the end of the year, the start of a new one, and then my ex’s birthday, all within the span of 8 days. Each of those events individually used to have a significant & negative impact on my mental state on their own. Them being that close together only amplified the issue, especially with the last 3 events being crammed back to back one day after the other.

On the very first day of that month I recorded a 3 minute video for YouTube that never actually got published that was scheduled to for December 1st, 2022. It was essentially just a “one year from now” video that was extremely negative. I had uploaded 2 videos recently that did poorly, with the last one only receiving 1 view in 24 hours. This had an extreme impact on my mental state and demotivated me almost entirely. I’d been visualizing for weeks the success I could have and yet my career was going nowhere. Throughout the video I also referenced multiple times that I wasn’t sure if I’d be dead by the time it’d be published. At the end of it I stated that despite my failure, I was still proud of myself for at least trying.

On December 5th I posted a video to my Instagram story that started with me saying that whoever reported my rant from October “can go suck a dick”. I then pointed out the ridiculousness in how the story I posted where I said I wanted my brain scattered against the pavement didn’t get taken down yet the numerous stories I posted explaining why, did. I then pointed out how people be wondering why people off themselves without saying a word, despite being the same ones to silence those people or have them sent to the “looney bin” against their will when they do try to speak up. I then said “you will never be able to silence me” and “ignorant fucks like you are why people can’t even die on their own terms”. The final story had additional text that once again saw me addressing people who are performative with the care they display.

Before uploading this video I accidentally caught a glimpse of my notifications, and saw that I had a few mental health tokens sent to me. I initially dismissed this as pathetic. After I uploaded the video I made a proper post on Instagram, my first since August, with photos I took of myself a few weeks prior. After posting this, a girl I had known for years (who I’ll call Aria) added me on Snapchat. My interaction with her reinforced all the negative ideas and feelings I had about human beings in general and the people I used to know.

On December 12th I began filming a video on my ex that took multiple sessions to film. Only one of those sessions took place in December. I then went to a park late at night so I could toss out every gift she had ever given me and piss on them. Everything about doing this on the 12th was intentional. I then posted 3 stories to Instagram. The first one talked about how I felt like if my younger self saw what he’d become he’d be so terrified he couldn’t sleep, but that my younger self is also the reason why I never let myself into turn into a devil incarnate—he was so pure—so maybe if he saw me he’d hug me instead. I ended by questioning whose future would change more if I was able to talk to my six year old self.

This was something that occupied a bit of space in my mind at the time, since I was growing increasingly fucked in the head by the day. Thoughts of violence and sadism and feelings of anger only went up and up. I truly wondered what would happen if a conversation between me and my six year old took place.

The 2nd story referenced how badly I wished I could burn the gifts instead, but because it’s a public park, I can’t. The 3rd story simply referenced that I just took the most satisfying piss of my life, with Drake’s “Best I Ever Had” as the accompanying song choice. Right after I finished posting I then sent my ex a very nasty message that I intended to be the last thing I ever said to her. Everything about that day had been directly fueled by her crossing the line, our last interaction which made me feel like I had been bitched by her, and the time I saw her walking home which was what even made the idea come to me. Pissing all over her gifts was truly the most satisfying thing I had ever done in my life. (It was a fat one too.)

It’s now mid December and by this point the effects of it being December had become so intense that my brain started feeling like it was going through intense physical stress too, so much so that it felt as if it would shut off at any moment. I sincerely thought I would die at any random moment. The unpredictability of this only stressed me out even further. Additionally, the overall stress made me feel like my head was going to burst from the pressure.

I also started to feel intense anxiety whenever the doorbell rang. My heart would sink and fear would fill my body. I always thought it would be cops at the door trying to take me away into some sort of custody or someone from my past who was trying to intervene and get my parents involved. Considering how frequently packages get delivered, this fear was being triggered on a daily basis. I almost went as far as to destroy the doorbell entirely because I couldn’t take it. After this entire event ended it still took me a year to stop feeling that same anxiety whenever the doorbell rang. Someone knocking was worse than the doorbell to me, especially because it was rare. Seeing cop cars also triggered fear that they were on patrol looking for me.

During December my mind had also become on edge, in regards to the intense amount of anger I had inside me. It was an edge I could physically feel in my entire brain, and I don’t have any other way to describe it other than the feeling being slightly like a razor blade. I had so much anger bubbling out the brim of my mind that every single time I walked outside I was hoping, begging almost, to catch somebody doing something they weren’t supposed to so I could physically assault them half to death. It had nothing to do with the bad behavior the person themselves would be exhibiting—I just knew that if I did it to someone that “morally deserved” it, then no one would judge me for it or care. For some reason it meant a lot to me whether or not I was seen differently for these things. In addition to this, I was simply highly irritable, and whatever would naturally make me angry made me a whole lot angrier than it would’ve otherwise. Every minor annoyance became a big fucking deal.

Being in the same house as my mother didn’t help either. We never interacted but simply hearing sounds like coughing, sneezing, laughing, speaking or breathing would set me off bad. Literally anything that reminded me she exists. Even both long prior to the event & to this day, these things would effect my immediate mood. Not to this extent however. There was an incident this month where I accidentally made eye contact with her, and I had an intense urge to rip my eyes out my sockets for 3 hours. My eyes were physically communicating with my body to rip them out, as if they were screaming for me to do so. The feeling was so intense that it was distracting.

During December I had so much anger that I felt I needed to let out my system. It reached a point where I saw a man in front of me while walking home one night and asked myself if I actually had it in me to assault him. It was much less about what would immediately transpire from my answer and more about evaluating where I was mentally. I thought about it and realized that I would gain zero satisfaction from assaulting him. I was viciously angry at the world and the whole human population but he himself didn’t do anything to me. There’s never satisfaction to be had in hurting someone that didn’t do anything to me. This situation highlighted to me how paradoxical some of my feelings were.

On December 23rd I received a series of texts from a friend that didn’t make any sense. I’ll refer to him as Brian. These texts instilled a lot of anxiety in me initially due to extreme guilt I was feeling for weeks from my behavior. It was for those reasons that I even responded to him in that moment and conversed. Like I said, nothing he was saying made any sense. Then he started calling me, and another kid I knew who was known for bullshitting around had contacted me as well, which made me put 2 and 2 together and assume Brian was drunk with this person and fucking with me. What made it worse was that if this was the case, then that means he actually allowed this other kid to peer pressure him into fucking with me despite knowing that I’ve been intensely suicidal for months. What made this even worse than that was Brian had messaged me two weeks prior simply saying that he will always be there for me. So in my mind I thought “Oh okay so you say something solid to me one day and then two weeks later you do this?”. I took this whole interaction personally. It would later turn out he was going through a weed induced manic episode and ended up in the hospital just an hour after he messaged me.

On December 24th I uploaded a one and a half hour video titled “it’s my birthday tomorrow” where I vented out a lot of emotions related to it being my 18th birthday, where I am in life right now, and how both of those things put together creates a new set of shitty feelings. Turning 18 was something I grew up thinking would never happen whenever I wasn’t wondering what such a milestone would look like. To have it be that weighed on me.

On December 25th I went to go give those 3 homeless men the Christmas gifts I had bought them. However by the time I got to Manhattan I couldn’t find any of them. Had I woken up much sooner like I was supposed to I would’ve likely been able to catch Harlen & Robbie. Being unable to find those homeless men ruined my day completely which only compounded with the effects of it being my birthday. In my head it destroyed me that I not only fucked this day up by sleeping instead of waking up sooner to go see them, but it’s also my birthday and this is seriously how it went. Traveled all the way to Manhattan with enough gifts in my bag to leave my back sore for days to then spend an hour or two walking around a surprisingly hot city just for it all to be for nothing. Seeing how happy everyone around me was only made it worse. I became extremely suicidal once I had decided to give up finding them and felt so negative about life that I thought I’d never amount to anything. I then went home that same night and made a short video titled “of course.” speaking on it.

On December 27th I wrote a caption for Instagram since I planned to make a proper post. The post contained multiple photos I had taken of myself, a Christmas edit I found of 39daph, and a meme about Santa going to Chicago. The caption to go along with it was extremely long and started with me discussing my looks and how to transform into a more attractive version of yourself. I then spoke about how I couldn’t find any of the homeless men, then said how Manhattan isn’t as diverse as it claims to be since it’s mostly just Asians and white people, and that the black women and Latinas need to pop out to the city. I then ended by commenting on how funny my glasses look. I intended for this to be the last thing I posted on Instagram before abandoning the account despite the caption not being written in any way to reflect that. This wouldn’t be posted until December 29th due to hesitation.

Something I haven’t stated yet is that I sincerely believed no one cared about anything I was saying. I didn’t think I was even being perceived, which is something I’ve naturally felt my entire life. If I’m not being spoken to directly I assume that absolutely no one is thinking about me or that I exist to them. Never helped that I’ve rarely ever had someone message me first. So in my mind, everything I had been posting was going straight into a void. I could not have been less aware of how it looked posting unserious things online when it was very clear I was in a highly unstable state of mind.

This is contradictory to feelings I had that were a direct result of thinking that what I was saying actually was being perceived by people, but it doesn’t matter. All of the feelings and emotions I had were able to exist regardless of contradiction, nor did I even perceive these things as contradictions.

On December 31st I uploaded a 45 minute ramble titled “the women i’m attracted to romantically part 2” which was an even worse display of nonsensical thought and piss poor articulation than the first one. Truly abysmal.

December overall was an extremely intense month, and to this day, I barely remember any of it. Even just weeks after December ended I had almost no personal memory of anything that happened aside from a few images. My memory of that month has always just been blank. I don’t even remember filming a single video aside from one frustrating incident, in which I had uploaded six. The only additional thing I remember was the entire month feeling incredibly isolating, and not in a comforting way like in the weeks prior. It was like I was the only person to actually exist, and this feeling would continue beyond. I’d say December was the month where I started losing any and all grounding with reality. I was no longer living split between my psyche and the real world, I was now slipping exclusively into whatever reality my psyche was convinced it was living in. This month was also when I started to experience psychological changes I have never recovered from.

On January 4th, 2022, I uploaded the video I had been filming about my ex, and it was a grand total of 8 and a half hours. Despite intending to be a complete retelling of our history and the frustrations I had with her, it ended up being nothing more than an unfocused ramble with significant amounts of dead air. I executed the video so poorly that I barely said anything about the relationship at all relative to what should’ve been expressed.

Something strange that happened during the filming of it was that I was reaching a point where I was about to cry, on the verge of tears, but my brain didn’t let me. As soon as it realized what was about to happen, it immediately made me focus on the rain in the background instead, causing me to forget what I was just talking about. I even mentioned it as it happened within the video. This was not the only time my brain prevented me from feeling sadness during this time period, but it’s the only time I have memory of.

On January 4th I had also begun coming up with a 4 stage plan on how I would recover as a human being. On January 6th I would create the video, and intentionally wait until February 1st to post it. I wanted to get out the new pipeline of content I had planned first as a way of proving that I was deserving of uploading it. On January 9th, HBO’s Euphoria (2019) came back on the air for its second season, which did help by having something I cherished finally back for me to look forward to every single Sunday.

For many weeks by this point I had felt like I was growing increasingly sociopathic, and every day I would have at least one thought that made me immediately ask myself if it was sociopathic or not. Not from a place of any concern for the content of the thought, it was just me evaluating where my head was at mentally.

When I was asking myself if my thoughts were sociopathic, the answer was usually yes after some thought. I would casually have these knee-jerk thoughts to things that annoyed me that were very extreme and made me question them (I will not be repeating them). But January was the first time I started having those thoughts and was completely unable to answer the question. No matter how hard I thought about it, I was never able to generate any kind of answer. I think a large part of why this happened was that I had a mental shift in January where I naturally stopped caring about what other people thought of me entirely. And since I don’t care what I am to other people anymore, my brain isn’t really able to put itself in the 3rd person anymore either, which was how it was evaluating itself for years.

By this point in the month I had been filming these random vent videos here and there the past few weeks where I simply picked up a camera and started talking. There was never any direct intention on how these videos would be used or if they’d even be uploaded, I just simply needed some way to vent. During the filming of one of these videos in mid January I came to a realization about myself that made me turn a whole new leaf regarding the situation I was in. I all of a sudden had this immense amount of motivation and determination to change my life around. I was having several mental breakthroughs.

This complete shift in attitude was so significant that my psychosis had actually gone down during this period. I was so down to Earth and grounded, and it was one of the few times in my entire life that I have ever felt genuine peace. It felt like things were going to be okay. I just had to try, and I had to succeed. So I got to work on a whole pipeline of videos that would start being released on the 23rd.

At some point around here I had went to see a podiatrist due to a strange mark I had noticed on my toe. When I went to go see him in regards to melanoma he told me that due to its size I’d have to come back in a few months to see if it grew to a certain length, and that it was too early to tell for sure if it was cancer.

On the 27th I uploaded a 50 minute ramble titled “i feel like i don’t even know how to socialize anymore” where the feelings discussed were directly tied to the fact that it had been months since I last spoke to anyone. Despite the subject matter, I was in a pretty positive and lighthearted mood.

On the 30th I made about a video titled “sadistic rage” which discussed the immense amount of anger I’ve felt before, how the only reason I never acted on it was because it would jeopardize my future self, and how thoughts are just thoughts and you don’t actually need to act on them. I had already planned to make the video for weeks as part of the pipeline, prior to my radical change, but the creation and filming of this video was extremely heavy. It detailed descriptions of violent sadistic fantasies and urges I’ve had during my rare instances of sadistic rage. The sadistic rage video and the one I’d post the day after received less than 10 views, which impacted my emotional state.

Overall, January was the only “positive” month of the whole event. I was much more down to Earth, calm, and motivated to change my life around. I uploaded 7 videos.

On February 1st I uploaded an 8 hour and 16 minute video titled “flying out the abyss” which was a grand stitching of all those vent videos I mentioned earlier. The overall point of the video was that I still had hope, and that I was going to try everything in my power to make it out of my situation. The video itself contained the progression of my mental state for the past month, and included several lengthy discussions about everything I was feeling regarding what I had done on Instagram since the event began. Both during this time and in general, my brain could only process situations I was in with vivid imagery it created. During the month of January, I viewed myself as having been free falling in an abyss that I now suddenly gained the wings to fly out of.

On the 3rd, I uploaded a video directed at a specific YouTuber I had grown up watching who was well known in recent years for having severe mental health issues and disappearing off the internet. The video explained how much he meant to me and how much him potentially ending his life would impact me. To my surprise, he actually came across the video and reached out to me. I would begin to have private and personal conversations with him.

On the 6th, Euphoria had aired the 5th episode of its second season. It impacted me to the fullest extent. (Spoilers incoming) It begins with the main character Rue (who is a drug addict) having a complete meltdown towards her own mother and sister who are accusing her of relapsing, because Rue was in fact on drugs again. The scene depicts acts of yelling, degrading, violence and property damage. After taking out her anger on her family she begins yelling at Jules, a girl she had a complicated relationship with and meaningful feelings towards. They were essentially girlfriend and girlfriend. However Jules had selfishly done many things that hurt Rue. Throughout this entire opening sequence, I had felt that Rue did nothing wrong. Not once did I think to myself that she was doing anything out of line. Every last thing she had done was the exact same shit I wish I could’ve for years. Rue has always felt like me put on the big screen, but this entire episode made me feel like I was quite literally just watching an alternate reality version of myself and nothing more.

Immediately after this opening sequence Rue agrees to go to the hospital with her mother and sister, but when she finds out they’re taking her to rehab instead, she gets out the car and goes on the run. The remainder and majority of the episode showcases her rampage through the city as she refuses to come home on the run from police, including a scene where the people in her life manage to trap her in an intervention, only for her to masterfully work the situation so she could sneak out of it. Rue doesn’t return home for the entire night.

This episode made me remember all of the things I had experienced throughout my life, including one incident in particular I had long forgotten from February of 2018, where I had gotten into an explosive exchange with my mother and left the house with no intention on coming back. There wasn’t any sort of plan or any items I had brung with me. I just couldn’t stand being in the same building as her anymore. I had no problem dying on the street, but I did have a problem with dying to an unbearable amount of cold. So I eventually agreed with my father to come back a couple hours later.

I considered this and what would transpire for the rest of that month to be my most traumatic memory. I always found it to be deeply upsetting that it ever happened. I was literally a fucking kid. Had the weather been much better, I would’ve slept on the street that night. Lord knows what would’ve happened to me. Not to mention I would’ve had no way to eat or drink.

So through and through, I had found this episode to hit way too close to home. Every last second. This wasn’t television to me. I felt like I was watching my exact self on the big screen. And it would be a turning point. Less than an hour after this episode had aired I went online to see the discussion around it. I had been doing so for each episode since the season premiere. The way people spoke about Rue made me realize something was deeply wrong with me. Cause I never saw anything wrong with her behavior. All of it made complete sense. But that was in no way the majority consensus. I could tell that people sincerely felt Rue’s behavior was concerning and unfavorable. And I didn’t. Which meant that I was the outlier.

This, combined with having that memory resurface from the depths of my mind, made me realize that this entire attempt at a new life wasn’t going to work. Which meant that suicide was 100% back on the table and the only thing on it. Having the February memory come back to me single-handedly made me realize I had too many traumatic memories to carry on my own. If I remember correctly, I simply thought to myself “too much has happened” (verbatim). Which made me realize that if I wanted to skip the mental breakdown I’d be heading for, the one that now looked like it was going to be significantly worse than I originally feared, then I’d have to do a lot of drugs to achieve this. The goal was “to be so high that I couldn’t think”.

Cocaine, ecstasy, and opioids were what I had in mind. I had fully intended on taking all of these drugs simultaneously, daily, and figured that by the end of May I would have achieved a chronic state of highness so strong that I could skip a mental breakdown entirely and end my life without having to think about it. I imagined that it would take around 2 months before I achieved this, and that by June I was guaranteed to be a corpse. The concept of anything existing after that month was not real to me. At some point I even convinced myself that I wouldn’t be a drug addict for doing any of this. I thought that because it would be me doing the drugs that “it would just be different”. There was no logic behind this, just narcissism.

On February 7th I would upload a one and a half hour video that saw me discussing these ideas in real time, titled “i don’t blame rue at all”. After recording the video, my mental state took a complete nosedive. I had spent my entire life trying to hold my mind together the absolute best I could, but I didn’t care anymore. So I let myself go completely. As a result, I actually remember almost nothing between February 7th and March 19th. It’s not that this timeframe was a blank space like December was, it was simply an absolute blur. My psychosis was able to grow significantly stronger without anything stopping it. Throughout this time, all the traits I possessed before only got more intense. I had also gradually developed an intense craving and excitement towards cocaine. The only joy I felt was thinking about how good it would feel.

Around this time I had also witnessed a specific type of violence that was fictional and was able to physically feel dopamine being released in my brain as a result. It felt like a drug high. It made zero difference to my brain whether or not the violence I was witnessing was real. It was all satisfying entertainment to me.

My social media usage went up significantly during this time, with me being on Twitter for several consecutive hours daily, and it severely warped my perception of reality. One instance that screwed with my head was seeing a gay man talk about how a woman at a club called him a faggot and he made a larger point about how straight women have gotten too comfortable being casually homophobic. The tweet gained a lot of traction and the reaction was everyone dog piling on him saying he deserved it, that he was misogynistic for making the tweet, and that he is indeed a faggot—with some going as far to say he should just kill himself. Now in retrospect, all that happened was a bunch of radical feminists (radfems) had hijacked the tweet, but I didn’t know that at the time. It fucked with my head severely to not only see such a hostile reaction towards someone who did nothing wrong but to also see Twitter of all places being extremely homophobic.

There was also another instance where everybody was endlessly hyping up a new rapper called Yeat. I thought he was fucking horrible, but seeing everybody praise him as if he just reinvented music sincerely made me start questioning the validity of my reality. In retrospect, Twitter was just doing what Twitter always does. It’s not like I wasn’t familiar with people hyping up artists to comically absurd degrees. “yb better” had become a trend just a few months prior. But for whatever reason I had taken what people were saying so literally that it made me genuinely think I had been transported to another reality because I couldn’t wrap my head around it. (For the record, I don’t think Yeat’s terrible anymore. He got that one joint off that one mf.) In addition to these strange instances, it didn’t help that I was coming across people so disturbing and fucked in the head that I won’t even repeat the tweets that I saw.

On February 19th I recorded a 25 minute suicide video with the intention of one day scheduling it to upload after I was gone. Unsurprisingly, the video was extremely heavy, even to me at the time. It was something I barely even wanted to record. The content of the video itself was basically just one last ramble with a much clearer focus and understanding that I was no longer going to be here and that my attempt at a career was being hung up for good. The video was so intense to me that I truly felt like I could only even think of having it stored on YouTube’s servers for publication once my suicide was actually set in stone.

By the end of the month I created a plan for what I was going to do next. This plan consisted of how I’d obtain the drugs, a massive rant I was going to post on Instagram, and how I’d prepare for my suicide. In regards to the cocaine and molly, I was going to ask people on Instagram to contact me on Snapchat if they knew anybody that could hook me up. As for the painkillers I was gonna go to local pharmacies and rob whatever I could find. I’d walk inside, jump over the counter, grab whatever I recognized as a painkiller, and run as fast as I could. I knew it wouldn’t be that straight forward though due to staff likely trying to intervene. I was more than willing to get violent to obtain them, even if my own family tried to stop me. And that applied to cocaine and ecstasy as well. The thought of someone trying to stop me from getting or doing drugs felt like someone purposely trying to hurt me. To deny me drugs meant malicious intent. In my mind, being violent towards anyone intervening was simply me defending myself. So overall, I figured that once I put the plan to obtain drugs into motion, there was no turning back, since the likelihood I’d be a fugitive was quite high. Having to violently assault a pharmacist seemed like a guarantee. This whole idea wouldn’t be the first time in my life I’ve exhibited drug seeking behavior for hard substances, however it was by far the most serious and extreme. It’s worth noting that by this point, the only substances I had ever done were alcohol & marijuana.

In regards to the rant, the February memory made me realize I had a plethora of things I had been repressing for years. So I decided to concoct a rant for Instagram that was going to go over every last thing I had weighing on my soul at the time. I considered it to be the release I’ve needed my whole life—“the explosion I’d been bound for”. I also wrote a separate set of stories that was supposed to be all the life advice I had in me. As for why, I don’t know. The overall concept of repressed thoughts and emotions was actually quite important, as I absolutely despised the fact that anything had been repressed to begin with. Meaning, that I experienced anything that needed to be tucked away forever.

In regards to the suicide, I had thought about all the ways I realistically could die and figured a gun would be the most instantaneous, therefore the least painful. I didn’t see any other method being viable. I sincerely thought at least one person on my Instagram could get me access to one. In terms of the gun itself, I was simply looking for a pistol.

This leaves us with the overall plan for the suicide, which was to start with me posting the rant I had wrote, followed by the advice a day later, and then a few days after that I would ask if anyone could get me a gun. After posting these stories would be when I begin robbing pharmacies. I’d then start doing any drug I obtained as I obtained them, eventually acquire the gun, continue ramping up my drug use, and then kill myself about a day or so before the point that I’d become violent. And yes, technically I would’ve already been violent by that point, but again, I viewed that violence as self defense, rather than me harming innocent people.

Overall, the month of February was one major mental free fall. The physical feeling in my brain that psychosis was giving me was flooding the entirety of my mind. My disconnect from reality had begun to intensify significantly, more than it ever had. This month continued the trend of my brain feeling physically different, however the feeling this time was different from December, and would be a feeling that would continue to intensify. I’d say December’s feeling was stress based, while February’s feeling was psychosis based. I went day to day mindlessly just waiting for my plan to begin. I considered my mind to have been “falling apart” and “rotting” “every single day”. My entire mind was beginning to fragment. My brain saw little to no cohesion. All the fragments existed away and independently from each other. Rarely did the development of one fragment impact the other, despite the fact that my psyche was filled with contradictions. I felt so sociopathic that I opened up to someone online about it. Whenever I tried to remember the voice of anyone I used to know, all I would hear is TV static. If I got close to remembering, the static would immediately get louder. I viewed my entire reality as being computer generated.

I mentally did not associate with my physical being anymore. The only time my brain did was when it was acknowledging how good I looked. But even then, when I looked in the mirror, I did not recognize that individual as being me. I had spent so much time in my head that I never correlated it with my face, so my body just felt like the vessel my mind was forced to be in and nothing more. My face meant nothing. It was almost like a different person entirely.

By the end of February, human life no longer meant anything to me, and the reality I was living in was very peaceful. This wasn’t the same peace as January which had sincerity to it. This peace was one that was a combination of psychosis and solitude. It was nice having no bullshit going on in my interpersonal life.

It is now March, and on the 3rd I replayed a situation that occurred years ago that caused me to cut off a friend I really enjoyed having in my life until that point. I’ll refer to her as Amy. Another friend, who I’ll refer to as Ella, had told me something about Amy that made me do it, and I had trusted Ella’s credibility. However for some reason, on that day, something made me think that Ella might have lied to me, for reasons I could only guess. What made this worse was that I already had some negative feelings towards her prior to September—we hadn’t spoken in nearly 2 years. So I was much more to inclined to believe she might’ve lied. Upon this false realization, I had become furious. Not only was I lied to, betrayed by someone I had only recently met when that situation unfolded, but that lie also caused me to ruin a relationship with someone that had done right by me. I was so filled with rage that I had to pace around the house back and forth for 45 minutes while taking constant deep breaths in and out because the urge to walk outside and physically assault the first person I saw was too overwhelming. I needed to put my hands on someone so badly. The feeling was so intense that any time my legs were walking in the same direction as the front door they would pick up speed as if they had a mind on their own so I could walk outside. It took every last ounce of energy in my soul to control myself, and there were a few moments where I almost said “fuck it”—especially considering it was so late at night that no one would be around to witness the assault.

After I managed to calm down enough to no longer be an immediate danger, I began writing Amy an extremely long text message apologizing for how things between us went and that I was lied to, as well as acknowledging the things she showed me that no one else in my life ever did. The message was highly delusional and disconnected from reality, with me even apologizing if the way our relationship went made her want to kill herself despite the fact that barely anything serious had taken place and the fact that we were still friendly with each other for several months after the incident. This message received no response, which did not upset me. Now in reality, Ella never actually lied to me. Worse than that, my relationship with Amy was one that I didn’t even care about anymore. It was years ago at that point and even prior to the event I truly did not care about our relationship or how things turned out. Yet for whatever reason during psychosis, it was like my relationship with her was the greatest thing I had ever been robbed of.

By early March my psyche had reached a point where in order to hold on to the part of itself that would never be violent, it would have to let go of other parts of itself instead. I was trying to hold on to as much sanity as I could. I remember processing this mentally as me holding on as tight as I could, scared to no end, as everything around me on this giant floating rock I was laying on that was inside a volcano was falling apart. I viewed this imagery to be extremely chaotic. At this point I had been crying internally due to how rapidly my mind was falling apart. I knew one day the part of me I was holding on to would be gone as well. The plan was that once I could feel myself losing grip on that part of my psyche, the literal only thing I would have left, I’d prepare for my suicide the next day. The parts of my psyche my brain had let go during this time never returned to me. I don’t think they ever will.

By early to mid March I had started writing dozens of notes of varying length that covered a wide range of things that were weighing on my mind. One of them spoke on the extreme disconnect I felt from my family, to the point of feeling like I never even had parents, and how I mentally didn’t see my father as my father anymore. I simply processed him as a stranger that is allegedly playing the role of my father. At the time, the idea of people simply playing roles had also extended beyond him. Every human being I came across didn’t feel like actual people to me anymore. They were all just characters in the fucked up video game I was forced to play. I was the only person to actually exist.

Another note I wrote spoke on & emphasized that I wasn’t born this way, and it was the lifetime of bullshit I’ve endured that made me into this. Another one simply stated “how you treat someone today will affect how a child is treated tomorrow”.

I also had already finished writing the rant and advice I was going to post to Instagram, however I was extremely reluctant to do so. I kept pushing back the date I would post it due to the understanding that once I set this plan in motion I can’t stop it or go back. Eventually I decided to use the excuse that I’ll wait for my grandmother’s birthday to pass on the 20th and then I’ll start posting my stories the day after, even though I knew deep down there was a real chance I still wouldn’t have it in me to do it.

As for the rant itself, I had planned to start it with a video of me asking people to add me on Snapchat if they were able to hook me up with cocaine or molly, and go on about how it better not be laced because I’m the only one allowed to kill me. At this point in psychosis I had become so narcissistic that I believed I was the only one allowed to kill me, and the thought of anyone else doing it seemed disrespectful towards my own existence, and more importantly, my legacy. I also believed that no one else was even capable of doing so, because my greatness wouldn’t let that happen. I was the only one worthy enough to end the life of someone as great as me. The video itself, while I never filmed it, would have undoubtedly displayed me in a very unstable state, especially considering I had developed some weird twitches by this point too.

After the video would be when I start calling out several people in particular that I felt had wronged me; specifically Rachel, Anonymous 1, Brian, and Amy. I was to air out my personal grievances with the 4 of them. As for the rest of the rant, it was so fucking long that I can’t even summarize it here without taking up valuable runtime. The whole thing would’ve been at least 150 stories, and was to include an additional section of video aimed at people that had something to say about my state of mind yet also would do nothing to prevent people like me from being created either. The rant overall was extremely intense, revealing things about myself that I to this day would rather take to the grave. As for the advice I was going to give, it was also extremely long, and was essentially the same length as the rant.

In mid to late March my brain went through some sexual changes. I don’t care to get into it but basically the way my brain processed sexual stimuli changed. Like a switch in my brain had got flipped one day. Even prior to this happening, I felt the way my brain processed sexual stimuli to be a bit strange and restrictive. For whatever reason, this change had occurred, and has been as present as ever to this day. I’d honestly say it was a change that shifted my brain into how it was always supposed to be.

It is now March 19th, at around 8PM, and something very strange happened. I was no longer angry for the first time since the event had began. All of my rage was gone. Every last drop. I was able to feel emotion again (verbatim), and I was immediately aware of all of this. At the time, and accurately so, I figured that my grandmother’s birthday being tomorrow was why all the rage I had magically left my body. It wasn’t even a drastic change that had rattled me, it was just very simply not there anymore. Nearly everything associated with that rage was gone too. I felt like I was me again. Like I had just woken up from a long dream.

It is now March 20th, and I unexpectedly felt the urge to post something on Instagram acknowledging my grandmother for her birthday. I didn’t plan to originally. However I was scared due to the drug intake I was planning that I would eventually forget her completely and I didn’t want that. I figured that by making a post that stays up forever it would negate the effects of me forgetting. I also had a strong desire to tie her to my legacy. I wanted it to be impossible for anyone to know that I was dead without knowing she had died too. I didn’t want her memory to die with me. So on that night I made a post containing 3 photos I had taken in my grandmother’s room the day she died. The caption was very concise and stated the regret I felt towards her passing.

I then posted on my story telling everyone to be quiet and not send any condolences because my grandmother’s death was absolutely not about to be an opportunity for people to express fake concern. I deliberately chose not to be aggressive and rant about it since it was her birthday and I felt it to be disrespectful if I allowed it to be at all spent engaging with that energy. March 20th would also be the first time I had cried since she died.

It is now March 21st, and my rage was still gone. I had thought that it would come back after her birthday passed, but that wasn’t the case. All I was left with was the situation I was in, the choices I had made, and a mind that was no longer possessed by anger. Which meant that I was now able to look back on the past 7 months from a new angle, fully realize the situation I was in, and what I was headed for. One of the things I had looked back on were the mental health tokens I saw in December, and the thought of them wouldn’t leave my mind. They made me realize that there were people who actually cared, and so the concept that I could ask for help became real to me.

I also looked differently at the rant I was going to go on, which I originally saw as me finally letting out 18 years of rage and pain. But with my rage gone, I was able to realize that I had already kind of did that. In a similar vein, I had also initially thought that the entire plan I had orchestrated was me running away from my past the same way that Rue had ran away from home that episode. With the rage gone, I realized that I had already been running since September. Overall, I realized that many of the things I thought I was only just now about to do, were things that I had already been doing for months.

At this point I was now processing the position I was in through the visual that I was “on a speeding train that’s headed for disaster” (verbatim). I was the only one on it and I wanted to get off. The visual was inspired by Snowpiercer (2013), although I had viewed the scenery to be cold and sunny rather than snowy. “When I was on the train, I knew I was on it, I knew it was going fast, but you get so used to the speed of it that you don’t actually know what it looks like. Even when you know what it’s headed for you’re still too used to it to realize what it is that it looks like. And now I do.” The one thing I kept thinking in my head was “I can’t die like that” (verbatim). I also couldn’t stop thinking “imagine your younger self would find out that his great big future was being so angry that he does a shit ton of drugs and just kills himself” (verbatim). I thought about how my younger self wouldn’t be able to recognize me, and would feel like he couldn’t even talk to me. This made me think “I can’t let that happen” (verbatim). I didn’t know when my anger would come back so to me time was essential. I knew I had to change my life around fast before it was too late.

I very quickly concluded that the only way to do this was to finally leave what was now a 7 month solitude. In my mind, I viewed leaving solitude as asking for help. I knew it wasn’t me literally asking for help but I still viewed it as the same thing. The idea would be to give out my phone number and let whichever kind hearted people that wanted to be in my life, be in my life. I would then just heal (verbatim) for the rest of the year and eventually return to making YouTube videos once I was ready. This was a major decision I had begun contemplating, and pretty quickly I decided that leaving solitude was something I had to do. Cause otherwise I was going to end up an angry sociopathic drug addict (verbatim) that committed suicide. I was unable to imagine anything that would’ve broken my grandmother’s heart more.

However my brain didn’t like what I was planning, so it did everything in its power to stop me from leaving solitude. This would officially be when the isolation of my conscious from the rest of my brain began. An entity appeared in my brain. This entity was one that I could physically feel, and I felt like I was sharing my brain with it. As if the space it took up in my brain was space I did not actually own. It felt like it was at the front of my brain, and I simply viewed the space it took up to be black. At the time this started happening, I simply viewed this entity to be my pride, because technically speaking that’s exactly what it was.

Despite how much it scared me, I didn’t think of it to be fundamentally different than the other times I had to fight my brain on something. But this wasn’t me being introspective. There was legitimately an intruder in my mind, one that was degrading me and threatening me. I didn’t do anything else during the next few days except fighting that entity, and it was very strong. It wasn’t a voice in my head, but it was communicating with me telepathically while staring me down.

The thing that horrified me the most about this entity, my pride, was that it was always there with me since the start of the event. It was like my best friend. It always fed me fantasies of what I would achieve, remind me how I’ve done everything to keep myself together all by myself, and tell me how amazing I already was and how no one else could compare. My pride had held me together when nothing else did during this event. But all of a sudden, now that I questioned it and realized “you’re hurting me” (verbatim)—I was suddenly the weakest most pathetic thing on the planet. This entity, my pride, made it very clear to me that I was nothing without it. That everything I’ve accomplished in my life was because of it. That I owe it everything. And that I will be punished if I disobey it. I sincerely viewed this entity, my pride, to be “a predator in my own brain” (verbatim) as well as a plague. I considered the things it was saying to me to be some of the most abusive shit I ever heard in my life. The whole ordeal made me deeply question who I even was without it.

In the time I spent fighting that entity, which I had only perceived as being my pride, I had immense difficulty doing so. I viewed this to be the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. All things considered. Nothing compared to this. I thoroughly preferred the thought of dying over the thought of letting my pride go. However, on March 25th I came to realize “how easily self love could turn into self destructive pride” (verbatim). This was a turning point, and “in the battle between self love and pride, I won. That’s how I know I really love myself because when I realized that my pride is the enemy, my self love was there—I had enough self love to let that shit go”. After defeating this entity, my pride, I could physically feel it dying and fading away from my brain for the rest of the day. I was extremely happy, and it changed the way I viewed myself in a very positive way. I felt like for the first time in my life, my brain and I were on the same team. We had defeated this intruder together.

However this still didn’t make leaving solitude easy. After everything I had done it was still nerve racking as fuck to finally speak to everyone and admit to them that I needed help. My life was truly never going to be the same as it was before September no matter what happens, and understanding this only made it harder. To be clear though, I didn’t regret anything that had happened the previous 7 months. I had left everybody for legitimate reasons. Nothing about this radical shift in perspective changed that.

By this point I had viewed my life as being entirely up in the air. I didn’t have a single clue what would happen to me. It was scary. But I knew I still had to do it. I didn’t think my life was guaranteed to be saved either by doing this. Everything I was about to do was solely off the principle that I at least need to try, regardless of if I think it’ll work. “I’ll let whatever happens, happen” (verbatim).

On March 26th I would create and upload a 48 minute video titled relapse which was me explaining the deeper reality behind what had been happening since the beginning of the channel, what had happened the past seven days, and that I was finally going to ask for help. I wanted documented proof that no matter what happens to me, at least I tried, and that no matter how small the chance that my efforts would save me is, I still have to take it. As for the title of the video, I had sincerely viewed me trying to save my life again as a relapse. Dying by suicide was something I had long viewed as mere fate for me, so to once again have a moment where I actually thought I was capable of changing my fate, was something I viewed as a relapse.

In the video I also mentioned how the entire month of March felt like it happened so quickly that it felt like it had all happened within a single day. In the video I stated “I let my pride go. It felt so embarrassing—it felt like I was admitting defeat to go on Instagram and just say like ‘I think I’m gonna stop running and I think I just need someone decent in my life’ and I felt like it was me admitting defeat, but is dying an angry drug addict really winning?… I don’t think so.” I also stated “if my future self had an opportunity as important as this one, and he didn’t take it, I’d be mad at my future self for not doing so; so why wouldn’t where I currently am apply to my younger self?” It’s worth noting that despite all this, I still almost let myself say “fuck it” just a few hours before recording the video. I was going to just go through with the original plan anyway and kill myself.

It is now March 27th, and despite feeling intense anxiety the entire day about what I was about to do, to the point of shaking and stalling for hours, I still managed to do it. I posted 27 stories posted to Instagram. The 1st story addressed my disconnect from reality, while the 2nd story addressed how far gone my mind was and how peaceful solitude had become. Both stories referenced that despite everything that happened, I still made the right decision due to how terrible the people I used to know were.

The 3rd story talked about how confident I was in the lives I could save and the life I could create, and how now that my anger is gone I had to find a way out of this so I could help those people. The 4th story showed a DM from someone I had became online friends with back in December, and I stated how they were the first person to ever actually believe in me.

The 5th story addressed how I realized the things I said the past 7 months might’ve actually affected people, and how I had to put an end to this event for the sake of those that cared. I felt so guilty about the stress I must’ve put them through. I then talked about how despite my life feeling like a speeding train headed for disaster, the overwhelming majority of my conscious genuinely did not care about any of this anymore.

The 6th story revealed the plan I had created in February, and explained why I needed hard drugs instead of just weed and alcohol. I ended the story by explaining how I didn’t want to die a drug addict. The 7th story addressed my brain’s extremely flawed logic in how it viewed my plan to become a drug addict, and how I simultaneously viewed drugs as a choice but also something I had no choice but to do.

The 8th story followed up by explaining that if I’m going to die by suicide it can’t be in that way, but if my anger is to return then that is exactly what will happen. I also referenced again how I felt like I was viewing my life from the 3rd person. I then mentioned how despite not caring how I’m viewed due to being unable to control my public perception, I still didn’t want to be known as “the angry sociopathic drug addict”.

The 9th story revealed the things that my fight with that entity, my pride, had made me think and feel, while the 10th & 11th story revealed everything it had communicated to me telepathically. Even though it did contain genuine fears I had in asking for help, the majority of what that entity had told me were things I didn’t even truly believe. The 12th story followed up by explaining the previous two, and elaborating more on the entire situation I had with that entity, my pride.

The 13th story shared some current thoughts and ended with me explaining that my rage was something that was 25% beneficial and 75% something I never wanted to feel again. I explained how I needed that 25% back in order to build that better life and that I needed to find a way to get it without also receiving the other 75%.

The 14th story addressed how seeing the mental health tokens by accident affected me, and how it was the main thing that made me realize there is at least one person that genuinely cares about what happens to me and wants to see me get better. I ended the story by thanking that person, while also acknowledging the possibility that the person may have only sent the token just to do it.

The 15th story expanded on that idea and had me conclude that strictly due to numbers and probability, it is much more likely that at least one person cared compared to no one caring. The 16th story started by clarifying that I didn’t regret anything I did the past 7 months because cutting everybody off and isolating was something I had considered doing for years. I then questioned if all the ranting I did was truly off the wall like I thought it was, especially considering I never had a loving life to return to regardless of whether or not I ranted.

The 17th & 18th story explained my state of mind in August, the shift in change that was the precursor to everything that had happened. “It doesn’t matter how big of an empire I build for myself if there is absolutely nobody I can rely on emotionally for anything.” The 19th story expanded further by detailing my disdain for the people I once considered my friends. The 20th story expanded on the 19th, by going in detail about my frustrations with how I’ve been treated, as well as how my trust issues have severely impacted my life.

The 21st story discussed my realization that if I was homeless I wouldn’t have contacted anybody—I would’ve just let myself die on the street—and how disrespectful it would be to Harlen, Will & Robbie that despite having people I could contact, I would willingly allowing myself to remain homeless. Whether or not I’d receive help wouldn’t have mattered. The fact that I would’ve had people I could contact and they don’t, is what mattered. I ended by stating how “pride & resentment is one hell of a thing”.

The 22nd story saw me expanding yet again on my trust issues and hatred for those I knew. One of the things I referenced was that due to my emotionally vulnerable state & low patience, there was a strong chance I’d develop feelings towards someone that I shouldn’t. This fear in particular was actually one that held a lot of weight to me.

The 23rd story expressed how I shouldn’t even have had to rant in the first place, and that those rants especially shouldn’t have been what was needed for the people in my life to step up and stop being bums. I also made it clear that the majority of people in the same position I was in would simply make the same attempts to reach out to those in their lives that I did and kill themselves upon realizing those people weren’t going to provide anything for them. I ended by acknowledging that even though I don’t like how this opportunity to save myself came to me, I am still obligated to take it.

The 24th story expressed that I simply needed kind hearted people in my life that weren’t on any bullshit, in which I then followed up by giving my phone number. I also revealed that I had unblocked everyone that I had previously blocked, with the exception of Rachel. I then explained that I don’t need anyone to help me with my problems. I just needed genuine people in my life, because the energy that radiates from their being was the closest I was ever going to get to emotional support. Even then, I still wouldn’t need any actual assistance for my issues. I’ve only ever desired comfort.

The 25th story saw me thanking those that cared, and clarifying that I wasn’t suicidal—I just simply had no choice but to end my life. I then said that not everyone that commits suicide does it out of sadness or anger. Sometimes people do it because there is no other choice. Because my desire to kill myself was rooted in logic, and not emotion, I was therefore not suicidal. I then ended by asking people that cared to still display that same care towards others in need even if their efforts with me don’t amount to anything.

The 26th story stated how there was “something I needed to do first”, because I thought it was important that everyone who did reach out knew who exactly it was they were caring for. This was all referring to the fact that I viewed myself to be a sick sadistic sociopath (verbatim), and I hated the idea of someone caring for me that didn’t know how fucked in the head I was. I was going to post again on Instagram revealing those aspects of myself. Despite the fact that I had sincerely planned to do this within days of this series of posts, it unintentionally never ended up happening.

The 27th and final story was actually one that I had wrote in real time, as it explained how what I was doing was genuinely the scariest thing I had ever done. Which to this day I would say is still true. I then explained how I was pretty sure I was having a panic attack at that very moment, and made the connection to how the last time I had one was right before I slipped into solitude, and now I’m having another one as I attempt to end it. I theorized that by leaving this fake reality I had created, I was essentially taking my brain back to the night of September 1st, minutes before I made my original story cutting everybody off.

I then continued by stating that I did not feel safe anymore in any capacity due to me attempting to leave solitude, but that my future self might be winning in life because of the sacrifice I’m making tonight. Which was exactly how I viewed it. The only reason I was able to post those stories that night was because I felt as if my future self needed me to. There was genuinely nothing else capable of making me leave. Viewing it as a selfless action I was making for someone else helped removed my own feelings from the equation as well.

As stated, I was having a panic attack the moment I posted those stories. So I immediately left the house, and walked to the exact same place I did on the night of September 1st, and screamed my lungs out so hard that my stomach hurt. The entire night I was overrun with fear and anxiety. I had no idea what to expect, who would even reach out, or where I would go from here. My life had just became a thousand times more chaotic than I ever intended.

It is now March 28th, and despite having took the first step in leaving solitude, it would quickly prove to be near impossible to actually leave. Opening those messages and responding to them would mean the end of solitude, and my brain wouldn’t let me. On March 31st I would post 16 stories. (For the sake of brevity, I will simply be summarizing all stories from this point forward.)

They detailed; how my brain was preventing me from leaving and going as far as to convince me that everyone I ever knew never actually existed, how I would have to blindly trust everybody that messaged me in order for this opportunity to work and I don’t know if I can, my curiosity on how much of my situation can be attributed to my inability to cope with my grandmother’s passing, my frustrations with my ex, how I felt like there was no point in trying if my future wasn’t guaranteed, how I almost let myself die anyway a few hours ago because of my inability to trust, how my subconscious was rewriting my psyche, how my brain made me feel like I was being drugged, how interesting it would be if my brain made me develop schizophrenia, how me committing suicide would be an act of love, how severe my disconnect from reality was, and more.

In regards to the image I had chosen for the stories, it was from the sixth episode of the second season of Euphoria. That episode is the aftermath of Rue’s actions from the previous, and she is now back home and trying to get sober. One of the key scenes in opening sequence is her sitting at a table with a Jolly Rancher, and while going through withdrawals, she struggles severely to even open it. The days go by and she still struggles. However, as Rue eventually gets past her withdrawals and manages to both apologize to & receive forgiveness from someone she had severely wronged during her relapse, she is now able to eat the Jolly Rancher.

The symbolic significance of this is quite obvious, and I had viewed myself to be in the same position. The intensity of Rue’s withdrawals felt perfectly comparable to how much of a fucking train wreck I would be mentally, emotionally, and physically, if I opened those text messages and left my solitude, which I viewed as entering a completely different reality.

In regards to what I caught a glimpse of (8th story), I was avoiding seeing the notification badge on my iMessage app which would indicate to me how many messages I had received since the 27th. The concept of seeing those numbers was very intense to me. However I ended up catching a glimpse of said numbers unintentionally, and it made me reconsider my decision just enough to not throw the opportunity away completely.

In regards to me fighting my subconscious (8th story), I had basically been at war with my mind since the 27th. It was my conscious verses the rest of my brain, primarily my subconscious and my psyche. I viewed my psyche to be something I couldn’t really interact with, so the only thing I could directly engage with was my subconscious. I also viewed the way all 3 interacted to be entirely different. My psyche was passive and defenseless, while my subconscious was the aggressor. Considering the conscious has the least power out of the three, it was essentially a losing battle, one that would only get significantly worse. And every single morning my mind would reset its progress in the fight, meaning I would have to start all over.

In regards to my subconscious rewriting my psyche (9th story), I was referring to things like how no one I ever knew ever existed, and how I’m incapable of building a future. These were things that I was starting to believe more and more by the day, despite knowing what my brain was doing and the fact they weren’t true. This is why I viewed it as my subconscious rewriting my psyche, and I felt like it was doing this at an extremely fast pace. I visually processed it as there being a component of my subconscious that was at the the base of my grand psyche, and tinkering with it like a mechanic with a blowtorch, while the rest of my subconscious was dedicated to attacking me and monstrous in comparison. I could also physically feel a certain percentage of my brain that sincerely believed these lies to be fact. As a real example, when I first started thinking that no one I knew ever actually existed, it was 30% of my brain that sincerely believed this to be a fact, and the percentage kept growing.

In regards to how my brain was making me feel like as if I was drugged (10th story), this was in reference to the fact that I could physically feel dopamine releasing in my brain since the 28th, the same exact feeling I had gotten back in February. It was creating feelings of peace and happiness. The feeling my brain produced felt so good that it only aided in making me not want to bother fighting it. I then ended this story by saying that I only have about 5 days before my mind is truly gone forever and my psyche is fully rewritten.

In regards to the concept of “crossing over into the real world” (16th story), this was extremely intense to me. I visually processed this in a similar way to The Creation of Adam painting by Michelangelo. On the left side was my reality, and it was very peaceful, colorful, sunny, flowery, and full of life. On the right side was the real world, which was scary looking, moody, realistic, and extremely dark. Each reality was its own bubble. In between these two bubbles was like some sort of energy force that’s not even visible normally but if I were to walk closer to the ledge, this energy force would become chaotic, and very loud. The two realities were very close, and all I had to do was jump out of one bubble into the other bubble. The bubble concept was also significant, since it reflected how I perceived both realities to be ones that did not coexist. It was only either or.

Now consciously, despite how the imagery was in my head, I knew how much better it would feel to cross over. My reality was too dreamlike, and I knew it was all a lie created by my subconscious to keep me trapped. The realistic nature of how the real world looked, despite its lack of joy or warmth, was something I valued. I valued feeling Earth’s gravity again. However, it’s for those same reasons that I still struggled at the thought of leaving. Because if everything is so dreamlike and safe where I am now, then why the fuck should I leave? One last key detail was that the painting itself also factored in to my perception of the visual my brain had created, because in the painting the man on the left is isolated while everyone else on the right is trying to reach out to him. The fact that God’s finger doesn’t touch Adam’s in this painting also contributed a huge deal. This entire visual I just described is the exact one I had in my mind the entire time I was struggling to leave solitude.

Overall, by this point in the event, my mind was absolutely fucked. I was being drugged by my own brain, having details about my reality changed against my will, and I felt as if I was fighting against something that was so much stronger than me, with my conscious being isolated from my subconscious and psyche. Every second mattered, and yet, my mind refused to take it seriously. I finally got what I wanted. A fake reality full of peace, where no one could ever cause me pain again. It was all mine to keep, as long as I didn’t leave. The few months I had left could all be bliss, as long as I didn’t leave. I could continue enjoying Twitter, porn, and YouTube, as long as I didn’t leave. I would never have to hurt by myself ever again, as long as I didn’t leave. The feeling of safety and security I had spent so long desiring was finally mine, and was mine to keep, as long as I didn’t leave. My brain and I could be best buddies, no longer would I have to fight it, as long as I didn’t leave. I could retain what little I had left of my mind, as long as I didn’t leave. I knew my mind had created a prison, one where its expansion saw no limits, and yet I was so far gone that I barely had an opinion on any of this.

It’s worth noting that around this time, I had noticed that the sun shining through my blinds only on days where I was posting, so I thought it was a sign from the universe that I was doing something right and needed to keep going with trying to leave. I didn’t take it fully to heart, and its role was small, but it still played a part in my thought process during this time.

It is now April 2nd, and I posted six stories in response to my experience with the YouTuber I had been in contact with, who I referred to as my friend. The stories detailed; how I had to stay in solitude a bit longer because my friend was at serious risk of killing himself the next week and if I left solitude I’d be too much of a train wreck to help him, how if he does kill himself I’ll be “stuck here forever”, how watching him die would be like watching myself die, how Sunday was a crucial turning point and that if all was good by then I’d leave, how I was unable to take anything seriously for the majority of the day, how I had already forgotten everything I said publicly the past week, how I haven’t felt like a human being for months nor have I been able to recognize myself in the mirror, and my curiosity on how batshit crazy I actually seem considering how well I’m able to articulate my thoughts.

In regards to not being able to take things seriously (4th story)—for the majority of my day, every day, I legitimately did not think about anything that was going on. I carried on about my life as usual. I didn’t feel like anything was wrong. It would only be around 6PM each night for 30 minutes that I was able to think and feel some of the gravity of what was going on and actually spend time thinking about what I was going to do. The feeling I would get while doing this was so physically painful in my brain, and it would only get more intense the longer I would think. There was even a night where I forced myself to stop thinking because I thought that otherwise my head would explode. I was also only able to process what was going on by walking to a specific park while listening to 2 specific songs that were the only songs capable of describing what I was feeling.

It is now April 4th, and a family member who I hadn’t spoken to since July had FaceTimed me. It was a mostly lighthearted conversation, and they had gotten themselves into a wild situation. Quite literally something out of a movie. It was also behavior I had never expected from them. This only made me feel more disconnected from reality. At some point they told me that a different family member had attempted suicide back in January. Hearing this had fucked me up severely, especially because I had actually planned to talk to that family member back in September because for months it felt like suicide was what they were potentially headed for. However, upon being unable to schedule seeing them for when I wanted, I decided to drop the idea altogether. I had simply just felt discouraged from bothering to try again. Knowing that I could’ve prevented them from attempting weighed heavily on me, and had me at the absolute brink of throwing my life away. My heart felt black, hollow, and heavy. I wanted to cry so badly, but my state of mind made it impossible. I also wasn’t aware that I wanted to cry, but the feeling in my chest was one that could only be alleviated with tears. The pain in my heart was truly unbearable.

This would mark a temporary turning point. I couldn’t fucking believe that at this point in my life, the worst possible one, I now had more bullshit piled on top of it. All previous feelings I had related to suicide being my cosmic fate came flooding right back. And now I needed drugs more than ever. I needed that gun too. And I needed them both immediately. I began to write a rant that I was dangerously close to posting, yet still ultimately decided not to. It consisted of 13 stories.

They detailed; the fact that I was throwing my life away and why, how I needed someone to hook me up with ecstasy (along with verbal degradation to anyone that wouldn’t give it to me), how I probably had cancer because given my luck why wouldn’t I?, the anger I had towards my ex, how stupid I was for thinking I could achieve any of my aspirations, how much I hated living with my parents, how much I hated everyone in general, how I needed someone to hook me up with a gun, how I can’t die yet because my friend needs me, how anyone that relates to me should ignore me and not let what I have going on affect the perception of their own recovery, my frustrations with the fact that despite all the efforts I made in my life I still ended up here, and how I can’t wait for my rage to come back because it felt so much better than being emotional. As stated, none of these stories ended up being posted. I was extremely close however. I mean by the thinnest thread.

It is now April 11th at 3:30am. I would post 16 stories to Instagram. The first one said that I was going to leave solitude tomorrow night. I then showed everybody the thought process that led me to my decision to leave solitude across the next 13 stories. They detailed; conflict on whether or not I should give up especially considering that the position I’m in now is the same one I was in years ago, how potentially having cancer is discouraging, how this attempt at changing things could easily fall apart, how exhausting it is having dealt with everything on my own my entire life, how I needed people to take care of me for a bit, the intense amount of anxiety I got every time I seriously thought about leaving solitude, how it felt like leaving solitude would make my head explode, how I hated the amount of time it was taking for me to leave due to not wanting to waste anyone’s time, how solitude made me feel so safe and peaceful, how the entire situation was making me feel lightheaded as if I was going to pass out, how it feels like everyone wants me dead despite the lack of evidence, how my dreams were getting increasingly more traumatic to the point of affecting me when I woke up, how my pattern of behavior has intensified the past 2 weeks, how despite everything I was saying I still felt perfectly fine on a conscious level, how my brain was making me think I don’t deserve help anymore, the guilt I felt for existing, and me pushing back against the lies my brain was telling me by remembering experiences I’ve had that directly contradict all of them.

The 15th story mentioned how my friend was doing better but that schizophrenia almost made him cut his dick off, which was in reference to an episode I saw him go through first hand where a voice was telling him to do that and he picked up an object to do it. The 16th and final story revealed that my family member had tried committing suicide 2 months prior, and that finding out this information almost made me throw this away entirely. I ended by stating it is a genuine miracle that I am choosing to accept help.

It is now April 12th at around 6PM, and I uploaded 10 stories to Instagram. They detailed; confusion I had regarding 2 missed calls on Instagram, my sincerest apologies for how long leaving solitude was taking, how intense and severe the effects of leaving solitude would be—including how every memory I’ve ever had will hit me at once, how my inability to leave solitude isn’t behavior that lives up to my own standards, how my brain locked me out from accessing 97% of it, how not even the importance of my grandmother granting me this second opportunity at life mattered anymore, how I wanted to be disgusted by that fact but my brain wouldn’t let me due to blocking everything out, how my brain was pulling every trick possible to keep me isolated and how alarming this was getting, how I might’ve found a way out of this prison due to the understanding that the only way I can win the war against my subconscious is by walking away, how I can no longer connect with past versions of myself, how my brain can no longer be trusted, and how my head was hurting.

In regards to my confusion regarding the missed calls on Instagram (2nd story), I had found it very strange that two different people had both called me twice on Instagram with 15 minutes between each of the 4 calls. This felt too coordinated to me and made me think the two girls knew each other and were preying on me. What are the odds that 2 random girls both decide to call me on Instagram that exact day, both decide to call me twice, both decide to do it in within essentially the same hour, and both decide to space out their calls by 15 minutes?

In regards to my brain locking me out (7th story), I had been growing increasingly unable to access it the past few days. 97% of my brain felt gray and inaccessible, and I was unable to remember anything. The only access I had left to my brain was just enough to function throughout the day. Any attempt to interact with my brain outside of that 3% was denied. I remember feeling very tiny, as if I was nothing compared to the rest of my psyche. I also remember how it felt being increasingly locked out, desperately trying to access things I should’ve been able to. It was a horrifying feeling.

In regards to being unable to access past versions of myself (9th story), for years I had been able to do so. Essentially, over the years I’ve had to kill current versions of myself because they didn’t have what it took to survive. However, those versions of me never truly died. They were still in my head, and were the exact same from when I had to let them go. it’s not like they spoke to me or anything but their consciousness could still be felt from the time period they’re from. I would sometimes think about these versions and what they would say to help me navigate certain situations. During this moment was the first time in my life I had completely lost this ability. I was able to see them but I couldn’t communicate with them.

A short while after these stories I went to the park that I had been walking to constantly in order to think. For several nights I had gone here in an attempt to get myself to leave solitude but it wasn’t working. On this night in particular I had become desperate for something to push me over the edge and make me leave. I decided to take a look at the message previews of everyone that had reached out to me, because I needed something to push me over the edge in order to leave. It turned out around eleven people had contacted me. Half were from people I already knew, including people I never expected to contact me, and the rest were brand new numbers. It took a lot out of me to do this as I was way too scared to do so. Upon doing it, I felt like if I made that jump I would have people to catch me (verbatim). This meant a lot to me at first, however, it still wasn’t enough to get me to leave no matter how hard I tried.

I then thought about how if I give up now, I’d be no different than all of the people that have failed me since I was a child, and there was no way I would allow my six year old self to be failed by me of all people. I was the only one to ever have his back, how could I do that to him? I thought this realization would be enough, but it still wasn’t.

I then thought about my grandmother. I decided to swear to her that I would leave and that I wouldn’t commit suicide unless I did everything in my power to change my life first, as a means to both try and get myself to leave and to make sure that I stay committed to this final attempt at life. This still wasn’t enough.

I then came home from the park struggling just as hard as before to text everybody back and leave solitude. I just couldn’t do it. Then, at nearly 10pm, in a desperate attempt to make myself leave, I decided to look at the only video I have of my grandmother. I expected to have an emotional response strong enough to kick me out of solitude. And yet I felt absolutely nothing. That’s when I calmly said to myself “If this is an environment where my own grandmother doesn’t mean anything to me anymore, then I can’t stay here”. After about a minute I then calmly opened my messages and began responding. To this day, opening and responding to those messages is the most draining thing I have ever done in my entire life. Even though the whole thing only took around 10 minutes, each message I opened and responded to drained me. It physically & mentally felt like I was exerting the same amount of energy that you would pushing a boulder up a mountain (verbatim). It is now April 12th, at 10PM, and my solitude has officially ended. I also now have a headache.

Despite my grandmother being the tipping point, I still almost didn’t leave. It just barely worked. It was like for the minute after realizing my grandmother meant nothing to me anymore, my conscious was distant enough from the rest of my brain that it could leave solitude without my subconscious trying to pull me back. I just had to cease all thinking and do it. I was still quite indifferent towards leaving, but clearly not indifferent enough. This singular moment saved and changed my life forever, and yet the memory itself wasn’t even emotional. I just calmly concluded a line had definitively been crossed and if there is any excuse to escape the prison that crossed it, it would be right now. More importantly, if this wasn’t going to get me to leave solitude, then I was undoubtedly going to stay trapped forever.

It is now April 13th at 2:30am, and I uploaded 9 stories. They detailed; that I left solitude, the panic attack I almost had while replying to messages and my inability to breathe, clarifications about who I hated, how all the emotions stirred during my solitude made me realize I should’ve been better towards certain people, how disconnected I was from reality the past 8 months and that I’m coming back down to Earth now, my appreciation towards those that read everything and didn’t judge, my sincerest apologies to the two women that tried to call, the reasons why therapy is extremely lacking as a mental health resource, and additional thoughts I had now that this was over. After posting this rant I would go to sleep, wake up, and have a raging headache that would not go away for the rest of the day. This headache was severe and significantly worse than the night before. I wasn’t able to do much of anything.

It is now April 14th, and I feel absolutely amazing. Headache nowhere to be found. I uploaded 3 stories discussing it. The 1st story said “it feels so good to breathe. i’ve been outside every single day the last 8 months, but the air has never felt this good to breathe. i take my time now and savor each breath. the breeze feels so soft. it makes me feel like i’m finally back on earth, able to enjoy nature again. the blood in my body feels like it has life in it again. i don’t believe in souls, or spirits, but the energy that truly drives me feels like it is back.” I then spoke on how significant this was before stating “i feel fully human again. i look at other people and i feel connected to them. not on a deep level obviously, but people really used to be NPCs to me before this. computer generated entities. i feel ALIVE. it feels so good to just exist.”

The 2nd story spoke on how I felt like I had taken a time machine from July to that very moment, before describing how I had now forgotten the majority of my solitude, with only glimpses & fragments remaining. I then spoke on how good it felt to be alive. I ended by stating “my emotions still haven’t came back yet but i think they’re starting to. i haven’t been able to just lay here, listen to music, and feel relaxed, since july. i love it.”

The 3rd story spoke on how someone had sent a beautiful tray of flowers to my door, and neither I or my father had any idea who sent them. This was something that had an effect on me. It was quite something to have a random tray of flowers sent to my door shortly after leaving solitude. A tray of flowers that we never found the sender of. My father had messaged our entire block asking if anyone was expecting flowers, and everyone said no. What made the flowers meaningful is that I have a personal & intimate history with flowers in general. There was nothing more symbolic I could’ve possibly been sent that day. Not to mention, I was already feeling fucking amazing. April 14th was the first day after solitude that I felt alive. So even though I wasn’t fully convinced that this was the universe’s way of sending me a message, I certainly didn’t dismiss it.

In the days and weeks after this I simply spent time talking to everyone that had contacted me, appreciating life, and reflecting on it. My psychosis was legitimately the lowest it had ever been, if not gone entirely. I hadn’t felt so alive, so down to Earth, able to live in the moment of every last second. What allowed this, in retrospect, was the fact that I finally felt like I had emotional security. I had perceived the people I was talking to to truly be there for me, and that no matter what was going on they’d be of good support. The impact of this cannot be overstated. During this time, I perceived myself as “healing” (verbatim).

On April 20th I would upload 5 stories that calmly discussed thoughts I had upon reflecting back on my life, past behavior, and personality. At this point in time I was still calm, but I would share things to Instagram without much care at all. This was partly due to the fact that nothing could compare to anything I had posted since September, but part of it was also because I wasn’t fully back down to Earth like I thought. It’s hard to explain, but despite the fact that I was no longer in the intensely chaotic psychotic state I was in before, my understanding of reality still wasn’t where it needed to be. All that’s to say, I would share a lot of things about myself and thoughts I had that I honestly shouldn’t have. But for a combination of reasons, I still did anyway.

Overall, the month of April beyond the 13th was quite nice, chill and relaxed. To a small extent, I was finally able to be a teenager for once. There was still a lot to think about and process, but it didn’t matter, because I sincerely thought the people in my life had my back and that I would be okay no matter what because of that.

However, at around the time that May began, I started to worry that my anger would come back—I was still living in the same house as my mother after all. And I knew that if it came back, no one in my life would’ve been able to do anything to alleviate it. This worried me, and also created its own problem. The sense of security I had was shot now. I also was now having problems going to sleep. Every single night it was a challenge. I felt too hyperactive. I also couldn’t stop intensely grinding my teeth, which quickly frustrated me to the point of anger, especially because I perceived it as an ADHD issue. I perceived both of these issues to be triggered by stress.

On May 6th I would upload 12 stories to Instagram. They detailed; a theory that my father might’ve gave me ADHD and that my mother gave me BPD, that I should not exist, that I was rigged for failure from the start, how this realization made me want to blow a hole in my chest with a shotgun, a significant amount of private family details that should’ve never been shared, how the reason I was sharing all of this was because I can’t be the only person in existence to have to carry all of this, an awareness that I was oversharing, how important it is to know which mental illnesses you’re harboring so you don’t pass them on to your children, the importance of breaking generational cycles of abuse, the significant & negative impact of being smart enough to know what’s going on and how I know much more information than I wish I knew, how I don’t think I can have children anymore, how outrunning death no longer feels possible, and how my parents have no idea the monster they’ve created.

In regards to the realization that my father probably has ADHD (1st story), a strange incident had occurred the previous week that otherwise would have just been him exhibiting behavior I’ve seen my entire life. But the incident was so bizarre to me that a light bulb went off in my brain, especially when I considered several things about his being that I always found to be frustrating. Thinking about how a certain family member on his side turned out only contributed to this theory further, especially because the way their life went is how a lot of ADHD kids failed by the school system goes. In retrospect, I don’t believe he has anything, although it’s more like I have no opinion. I could not care less.

In regards to suspecting my mother as being borderline (1st story), it’s something that had crossed my mind before but it was never something I cared to think about or entertain. I’ve never believed that simply being victimized by somebody means you know their mind better than anyone. Not that it’s impossible, but it would require a genuine study of their being, and this is someone I have always spent the least amount of time humanly possible thinking about. My brain only does so when it’s forced to. Whether or not she has it makes absolutely zero difference on my life either. However, due to the ADHD suspicion, it made the borderline idea gain some credibility in my head, enough to concoct the theory.

In regards to outrunning death (11th story), this would mark a turning point in my mental state. One thing I had wrote but didn’t put in the stories was that I felt like I was a cosmic mistake that the universe had been trying to correct for 18 years. This wouldn’t be the first time I felt this way. This feeling was one that angered me enough to want to stay alive as a “fuck you” to the universe, while also being a feeling that made me want to do what this world so clearly wants me to.

Despite the intensity of these stories, I felt nothing while typing them and uploading them. Even while writing them, I was confused as to why I felt nothing while doing it. Not even a single expression on my face. I found it odd. During this time I would also continue posting comedic things to my story irrespective of any ranting I had done. In my mind, everything I was posting was going straight into a void. Nobody on Instagram was real to me. Especially since I was still avoiding any and all numbers, posts, and interactions on that app. So no one existed to me outside of the small circle of people I interacted with. I would just post whatever I felt like and moved on with my day.

On May 9th I finally went to the dentist and was administered nitrous oxide during the cleaning. I thought that dental cleanings would be the only times I get to communicate with a higher being/see the truth about the world. I also hallucinated numerous sounds and entire interactions with my dentist, many of which kept repeating, however I was not aware they weren’t real.

Starting around May 10th, I began to feel off. The only word I could use to describe it was “melancholic”. That is a word I have never used before or since this event. For whatever reason, it was the only word, and the perfect word, to describe exactly what I was feeling. According to a very long text message I had sent a friend, all the things displayed in that rant caused me to “naturally become more distant. i barely talk to anyone as much as i used to anymore, and ive just been so consumed with listening to music and being in my own little world for a bit. i feel disconnected towards everyone around me.” At the end of the message I said “i’m gonna have to put in so much work. so much goddamn work. and idk i can push through it all. i just hope i can.”

A few days after this would be when I had woke up one day with an immense amount of energy that persisted for weeks. Didn’t know why. I also was unable to sleep for longer than 5 ½ hours. No matter how long I had been up, no matter how tired I thought I was, I would always be up in 5 to 5 ½ hours. Never a minute under, never a minute over. My brain also felt strange, as if the entirety of it was a highway where everything is going over 120mph, and my conscious was being forcefully swept along for the ride. I’ve never had the words to fully describe how my brain physically felt, but that’s how I perceived it at the time. It felt like everything in my brain was going incredibly fast at all times of the day even when I had just woken up. I would only have a few minutes before my conscious was now apart of that highway.

On May 12th I uploaded 6 stories. The 1st story was me predicting the Queen’s death to be for next week, the second story was me expressing my liking towards Post Malone’s newest single, and the last 4 stories were about my intense hatred for Matt Damon. Even though I viewed these stories to be comedic, they most certainly did not come off that way. They were so bad that I don’t think it’s in my best interest to share what I wrote. For context, I had developed this random and intense hatred towards Damon a few months back, and on May 12th I felt like venting some of that hatred. To this day I still don’t like him, but it’s definitely not as intense as before.

On May 15th I uploaded a story mentioning how long it had been since I last saw anyone. This would also be the same day that I actually finally saw someone I knew in person that I was in contact with. By this point, I was now open to the idea of seeing people, which was a really big deal to me. For weeks the thought of it was a bit intense. On May 17th I was going to post a series of stories I thought were comedic but in retrospect most definitely would not have been viewed that way and would only make me seem fucked in the head. I ultimately didn’t get around to it. This was not the first time since April that I had an idea to post something that I would eventually end up grateful for having never posted. It also wouldn’t be the last time.

One instance includes when I contemplated for weeks since April the idea of posting that I had to go to court next Tuesday for shooting 2 people. I knew that because of my behavior on Instagram in combination with how long I had been gone that people would actually believe me. I found the whole concept to be amusing, and nothing but hilarious. I’ve always been deeply unserious on Instagram, a borderline troll, but the timing and intensity of this idea was horrible in every way, nor was it ever the kind of trolling I engaged in before the event.

On May 19th I scrolled through the photos I had taken of myself from the previous summer, and loved what I saw so much that I posted 9 stories dedicated to showcasing how good I looked. On May 21st I uploaded 4 stories to Instagram. They detailed; my appreciation towards my decision to ask for help (especially since I would’ve overdosed by then), and my appreciation towards the restraint I’ve displayed my entire life and how the lack of it would mean I wouldn’t be where I am today.

It’s important to note that ever since leaving solitude, I was unable to stop thinking about the alternate reality of what was supposed to be happening at that moment. It felt like my life still was playing out simultaneously in a parallel universe. Considering I was approaching June by this point, the month I was supposed to be dead, this was intense for me. And no, none of this was just me going “man, imagine if”. My brain legitimately had this parallel universe constantly playing in my mind and it was always close to me. It was like my brain was split between two realities, with about 70% of it being in the real world, and the remaining 30 in that alternate reality. It felt extremely real to me, and I could feel it. I could visualize exactly what that version of me was doing at any moment. The fact that I would eventually have to watch him die in the coming weeks was one that I felt would impact me emotionally, and freak me out.

By this point the symptoms I had been experiencing lately were now progressing into something much worse. In addition to everything previously stated; my brain now felt like it had gone black—I was unable to remember anything. I was highly irritable, every little thing would throw me into a state of rage. Every time a little thing would happen, it made the next little thing even worse. I was seeing stars in my vision that would persist regardless of whether or not my eyes were closed. I had a mountain of ideas racing in my head constantly. My hypersexuality suddenly intensified in a way I had never experienced before, to the point that I woke up one morning and immediately fantasized about a female friend I had never viewed sexually before for 40 minutes straight. My eyes hadn’t even opened yet, and they didn’t for the entire duration. I wanted to fuck her so badly all of a sudden, including 2 other female friends that I had never viewed sexually before or since this event. The desire was nearly unbearable.

I mentally did not associate with my physical being again. Despite that, I still became more infatuated with my appearance than ever before, full on staring in the mirror for several minutes straight multiple times a day. I smiled a lot too, for no discernible reason.

My perception of reality also took a strange turn. I have one memory where I had hung out with some friends and it was like the entire world didn’t exist to me whenever I blinked my eyes. For as long as my eyes were closed, nothing was real. In general, it felt like my entire reality was this silent screeching that was both lightly audible yet impossible to hear. My brain was a bit tense. It felt a bit like I was living in purgatory. I was unable to understand what this feeling was at the time, because it was like I was disconnected from reality yet still present at the same time. I would look around me and it was like nothing was real yet everything still was at the same time. Made no sense.

Throughout all of these changes, there was a part of me that was aware of how strange this all was. Most importantly, there was a part of me becoming increasingly aware that my anger was growing, as well as questioning why this was happening. I was being forced to spend so much energy every day just trying to maintain my grasp on it, however I would eventually feel myself starting to lose any grip.

On May 22nd I uploaded 8 stories. They detailed; the “out of life” experience I had that morning, me reflecting on my situation, me reflecting on my solitude, me struggling to grasp how my life is real, feelings regarding past versions of myself, thoughts regarding my six year old self, and me denying any possibility that I was schizophrenic.

In regards to the out of life experience I had that morning (1st story), I had woken up from my sleep but I wasn’t actually allowed to enter my brain, open my eyes, and participate in reality unless I made the conscious decision to “load” it up like a video game save file. I considered it an “out of life” experience since people typically have out of body ones. And no, this wasn’t a dream I had. I wasn’t sleeping, and this extremely real to me. And confusing. It felt like my conscious was lightyears away from my entire reality. I remember floating around in nothingness for a few seconds confused at the idea that theoretically if I wanted to, I could pick another universe to wake up in. Or I could just stay where I was at and keep floating. However my brain also felt physically different while I was in this state, and I could feel something moving and shifting in it every second, so I got worried that I would get locked out of reality if I stayed there. So I chose to “load” my reality, and it took a few seconds before I was finally able to enter my brain, open my eyes, and participate in reality.

As for the rest of the stories, I developed this strong attachment to the idea of communicating with my past selves and my six year old self. For some reason I cared about this really badly. In regards to why I kept referencing that age, it’s simply the earliest age I’ve ever been able to remember anything. In regards to my denial of schizophrenia (8th story), the behavior I had witnessed first hand from that YouTuber played a large role in making me doubt that anything was wrong with me.

On May 25th I spent time with Brian and a few others, and Brian briefly mentioned by name someone related to my ex, someone who I also had my own individual issues with. This made me furious and highly unstable, and would lead into May 26th, where I uploaded 14 stories. They detailed; how I was going back into solitude indefinitely, how nobody should ever reference any girl I was once associated with even if it meant lying to me, how being reminded of someone from my past made me extremely unstable, the things I considered doing to alleviate my growing anger, how angry it made me that I was always angry, my regret towards leaving solitude, how I almost crashed my car intentionally due to how angry I was, the anger I had towards my ex, how the possibility of having cancer scared me, how I’m probably homeless in the next 3 years, how angry it made me living with my parents, the reason why I was going back into solitude, how it felt like death was chasing after me and I was barely outrunning it, how if this last attempt at life fails I’m gonna blow my brains out, how I needed to focus, how I’m a genius, how me going back into solitude wasn’t a regression and is in fact the opposite, how I can’t die like this, frustrations regarding feeling like every step I take I get pushed back anyway, how my anger in this context is always accompanied by determination, and how I needed to kill off the current version of me to progress.

In regards to my decision to go back into solitude (1st story), it was for 2 reasons. The first reason was that I was losing control of my emotions and felt that solitude was the only way I’d be able to get a grasp on them. The second reason was that I felt like I needed to focus; that I needed to construct a plan on how I was going to change my life, save myself, and outrun death. I was to return from solitude once I was absolutely sure that I no longer needed it.

In regards to how I was contemplating alleviating my anger (3rd story), I was battling with this for a few weeks by that point. Especially during that one. The first idea was to use people emotionally as stepping stones. Discard them once I received all the emotional support I could squeeze out of them. I mentioned in the story how this was a bad idea because eventually this behavior would be a self feeding cycle that perpetuates more anger out of me. In retrospect, I don’t really know what I meant. I’m guessing maybe it had to do with the idea that I’d be angry I have to use people like this in the first place instead of having the people I actually wanted in my life? I don’t know. The feelings associated with this idea had me write a whole other rant that was dedicated to this, however I never posted it.

The second idea I had was to use drugs, but I didn’t feel like damaging myself. Both ideas come packaged with consequences that I didn’t feel my future self should have to deal with, which was either guilt from “my degenerate era” or a drug addiction that I would be struggling to get rid of. I also came to a final realization that if I were to do these things then I’d still be dying the same angry sociopathic drug addict I just had a whole crisis about a few weeks prior.

In regards to almost crashing my car (5th story); there was a day recently where I was in the car with my father and I was just so generally angry that I was unable to stop myself from speeding. Nothing satisfied me more. I needed my foot pressed against the pedal. I refused to go the speed limit. There was also this intense urge to crash into a tree. And it needed to be a tree. Not a pole, not a car, not a building—a tree. The entire time I felt this urge, I was actively fighting against it. It physically felt like half my brain was pushing as hard as it could against the other half of my brain that made me want to do this. Any energy that wasn’t spent driving was spent fighting this feeling. The only reason I didn’t crash was because my father was in the car, and the concept of getting him killed over shit I had going on was too much for me. Yet still, I had to fight the urge the entire time we were out. If he wasn’t in the car I’d be dead right now. I needed to crash into a tree like a man in the desert needs water. As for the story itself, I toned down what had happened so it didn’t look as bad.

In regards to the event that would happen between summer and college graduation (6th story), I was referring to the fact that my father didn’t actually know that I wasn’t going to college, which was possible due to the fact that all classes were virtual. I thought that in the coming September he would find out, which would lead to a massive fight that causes me to leave home for good. But then if that happens he’d undoubtedly call the cops on me, so I’d not only be homeless but I’d also be on the run from police as well. This was extremely stressful to think about and only contributed further in making me think that I needed to turn my life around fast. I thought my security was guaranteed until the end of summer, which only really gave me about 3 months.

In regards to feeling like death was chasing me (7th story), I felt like death was a supernatural entity that was hunting me down, because I literally thought that life was trying to kill me. Being sandwiched between the concept that I needed to change my life around fast or else I’m dead, and the possibility that I might have cancer anyway, was really intense for me. In my head it was like “wow so even if I change my life around I might have cancer anyway and die”. It was impossible to not feel like the cosmos wanted me out of here by any means possible.

This led to a radical shift in perspective on how I viewed reality. Every month I ever lived leading up to last 2 months was simply black now in my mind—a void. Death had consumed them all, and it was chasing after me. The past, beyond the last 60 days, no longer existed. With each passing day, death had consumed more time. I sincerely felt like I was being chased at all hours of the day, with my only objective being to run. I didn’t even like sleeping because I felt it was taking away precious time that could be spent running, which to me meant making progress in changing my life. To this day I can remember the feeling. Even though cancer wasn’t confirmed to me I basically viewed it to be true considering how my luck had been going my entire life. Or rather, that if my life went uphill it would be true, and that if it kept declining it wouldn’t be. Schrodinger’s cancer I guess.

In regards to the sentiment that I needed to “focus” (8th story), it was something I had become obsessed with. I would repeat to myself numerous times every single day to “focus”. Everything I did from that day forward was in service to that idea. I believed that in order to save myself, in order to outrun death, I absolutely needed to focus. I must’ve verbally repeated that word about a hundred times. My entire existence revolved around it for the next 11 days. I quite literally processed my brain as having the word “focus” at the dead center of it.

In regards to me feeling like “I can’t die like this” (10th story), it was a feeling that was the most intense out of any other for me, and had me on the verge of tears. Knowing what I wanted and that I was capable of giving it to myself made it impossible to let myself throw it all away without giving every last drop I had in me first.

The 13th story (which I don’t have saved) referenced a realization I had which was that the pendulum was swinging the other way (verbatim). I realized that I didn’t actually make emotional progress in my life like I thought I had, I simply just went from being sad to being angry.

In regards to 14th story, I had come up with this idea the day before called “the box of tranquility”, which essentially derived from this new anger management method I had come up with. It was the emotional equivalent of holding my breath, and going as inward as possible to remember who I was and allowing my mind to stay there as long as possible. The result was a state of peace that lasted for as long as I held that “breath”. However I didn’t have much at the time to make this method something that could last more than a few seconds.

I viewed this part of my heart to be a box of peace. This was something I was convinced actually worked, especially because of an incident that occurred a day or so before that. I had went grocery shopping and on my way there I saw my ex’s mother which made me angry and then I stopped at a different store to pick up a glass drink in which the bottle lid wouldn’t come off and I had accidentally cut myself trying to do so which made me even angrier. This all happened in a span of 5 minutes which made me furious but I had also tried applying that method I had created to reduce anger, and it actually worked a bit. The rage didn’t last as long as it would’ve otherwise. This experience confirmed to me that my idea did make sense and that it was possible to keep myself together in the face of everything that was going on. In reality, while this method did do a little something, I certainly hyped it up to be much more than it actually was, primarily due to me desperately wanting something to work.

In regards to the entire rant, it was a very big deal to me when I wrote it and posted it. I viewed it as the absolute last attempt at life with the highest stakes imaginable. I also viewed my solitude to be effective immediately once the stories went up.

Overall in the month of May; the weight of dealing with everything that had happened in my solitude, feeling like death was chasing me, probably having cancer, probably having to fight with my parents and go homeless in September in which I’d also be on the run from police, having to figure out what to do next in my life and especially in such a short time, having to figure out how to do what I need to do next and especially in such a short time, still dealing with the fact my family member had a suicide attempt I could’ve prevented, knowing that my anger was probably going to come back and there was nothing I could do, and being unable to sleep properly at night, all while still trying to actually recover from my solitude, combined to stress me out so badly that I went into a state of hypomania. A state that saw its public peak on May 26th. My entire personality was cranked up to 100 in every single aspect.

In the following 11 days, despite feeling stressed, I felt quite nice. I was fantasizing about the future and felt like I was taking the right steps. I started putting the gears in motion for what I needed to change my life around. I was quite happy. This was accompanied by my brain having never ending streams of thought. I had ideas zipping around everywhere at all times of the day. Eventually, I bought a journal and a whiteboard. I had wrote a template for my journal entries, and at the time it was everything I felt was necessary and had no problem writing. In retrospect, the template was excessive, and had me writing way more than any journal entry actually needed. But like I said, I felt that the template was necessary, and for the time this was true. It perfectly reflected just how many thoughts I generated throughout the day. In a similar vein, I had some other unrelated ideas that I fleshed out and all of them were excessively detailed with unnecessary information. One example being when I planned on writing a document that detailed every last nutrition fact, which I was to share on Instagram when I returned.

As for the whiteboard, this is where I envisioned all of my planning would take place. Every single day I would fill up the entire whiteboard with lists & ideas around a core topic. Some of the things I dedicated an entire whiteboard’s worth of writing to were so fucking bizarre and nonsensical that I’d rather not even share the photos I took. There was not a single day that my whiteboard wasn’t filled to the brim with ideas I was convinced were amazing. On the whiteboard each day I also wrote how I was feeling, and for the few days leading up to June 7th I wrote “SUPERCHARGED!!!!!!”.

Now back in mid May I had already considered smoking weed to help me process my reality, since weed allows me to think more normally with a brain that’s more put together. However I decided it’d be best not to since remembering my past could easily kill me. Then when I went hypomanic and was trying to figure out what to do next, weed felt like the only way I could make progress. I had already been shown before that it allows me to think and access memories that I can’t otherwise. The biggest reason why this mattered was that I felt like the creativity & clarity I needed in order to navigate my life properly and plan my career was only possible if I reconnected with my younger self again. I was convinced that due to the life I lived the traits he possessed had been drained out of me. So on May 25th I put getting weed into motion. On June 6th I would finally obtain it. The night of June 7th I would finally smoke it, immediately after having another nonsensical whiteboard session. It was the greatest high of my entire life. I was outside just walking wherever my legs took me.

At some point I had gotten this urge to FaceTime a very old friend of mine, one that I considered to be one of the three people to ever do right by me, and one of the two people I had blocked from seeing my stories on Instagram. I hadn’t spoken to him since August. I simply wanted to tell him that he was a “real ass friend” to me. When he picked up the FaceTime he was very clearly confused, and after telling him why I called him we had somewhat regular conversation. At some point I made a comment about how everyone probably thinks I’m crazy now, and he said “oh definitely”. This would mark a turning point.

Not only was this the first time someone ever suggested to me that my behavior was way out of line, but I had also blocked him from seeing anything. Which meant that for him to agree that everybody thought I was crazy meant that the people we both knew were talking about me, because of what I had posted, and that everything I had done was so bad that even he found out about it. Almost immediately after him saying that, my entire mental and emotional state had shifted. I once referred to this as having my bubble completely bursted. Over the next half hour or so I would basically keep talking to him about the situation as reality started to set in and I tried to come to terms with it. That reality being; I was absolutely fucking insane and had been spiraling since September, especially May, and have done an incalculable amount of irreparable damage to my public perception and social life, forever.

As the minutes went by, my mental and emotional state kept plummeting. My phone was below 10% so I had to hang up and find my way back home. I was a few miles away by that point, and had no idea where I was. I managed to get home safely anyway after screenshotting directions home, and would call him again. By this point the concept that I needed serious help was already brought up. We stayed on the phone for about another hour, and he kept checking to make sure that I was on the same page as him in regards to getting professional help—more specifically going to a psych ward and getting on medication. They were both my idea, but they were ones he agreed with and he wanted to make sure I didn’t back out. This friend had saw me come down in real time, from my high, my mania, and the 10 month spiral I had been going down, all at once. The result, was me laying in bed on FaceTime barely able to move. I felt extremely heavy. I was talking very slowly. And I overall just felt defeated. The weight of everything since September came crashing down on me (verbatim). By this point it’s around 2am on June 8th.

Fast forward to around 8PM that same day, and after getting high again I had now looked into psychosis since I was already familiar with the term. Everything I saw about it made me think “this is definitely it”. I saw a few sources that said that anything psychotic over six months is schizophrenia. I then took a brief look at schizophrenia and what the symptoms entailed, and while staring at the screen I began tearing up. I softly & verbally repeated the word “no”. Not only did I seem to fit like a glove relative to the prodromal phase, it made me question if I was never actually borderline and was schizophrenic instead. Needless to say, this was intense for me.

In that moment I had 2 memories hit me that I had long forgotten. The first was when I was under the age of 10, and I had woken up and came downstairs to find that the entire floor was covered in tens of thousands of ants. I obviously was freaking out. My father didn’t believe me and was quite dismissive about it. I distinctly remember at one point seeing an ant crawl on my shoulder, freaking out, and running upstairs. It was horrifying. Initially, I didn’t think much of this incident.

Many years later however, I realized that even if my father didn’t care about my fear there was still no way he wouldn’t have had his own reaction to that many ants covering the floor. I also realized that there is no way an infestation of that many ants would clear itself out within 24 hours, if ever. I knew for a fact it wasn’t a dream, so it must’ve been a hallucination. The concept of schizophrenia had then grazed my mind briefly, but I immediately dismissed it because I knew I would’ve had a completely different life if I was anywhere near schizophrenic. A one time incident from several years ago was nowhere near enough justification to even entertain the idea. It was for both that reason, and the fact that I couldn’t come up with any other possible or even far-fetched explanation as to what caused me to see so many ants, that I disregarded the memory altogether. To have both the memory and my prior dismissal of schizophrenia hit me several years later at that exact moment fucked me up badly.

The second memory that hit me in that moment was one where I had heard a voice in September of 2020. Despite the fact that someone hearing a voice is likely more concerning to people than seeing ants, the ants memory is what fucked me up much more at that moment. I think it was the idea that whatever was wrong with my brain at that point could’ve dated all the way back to my single digit years, and that an innocent memory I never thought much of could’ve been indicative of something so much more horrifying this entire time.

In that moment I also looked back on who I was when I went manic, and it made me genuinely believe that another human being, or more like a demon, had inhabited my body. When I thought back to all the times I smiled in the mirror, I was horrified. All I could see when I looked back on the brief flashes I had of my mania was some sort of spirit, instead of me. It felt like I was being imitated the entire time, and that this imposter was doing all the things that were expected of my character (verbatim). This coincided with feeling like my personality while manic was me cranked to 100. This was all based on a scarce amount of memory however, because I was now unable to remember anything from May. It was simply blank space. In regards to mania itself, I don’t remember how I perceived myself in relation to it at the time, but do know I was convinced that something on the manic spectrum had took place.

Minutes after this schizophrenic realization I posted on Instagram, a proper post, with the primary intent being damage control. It was short & concise with me acknowledging that I was in the middle of a 10 month psychotic episode triggered by my grandmother’s death, that I might be schizophrenic, and that I was going to a psych ward. I ended by saying that if I really do have schizophrenia I will never be seen as a human being ever again. A few people did reach out to me saying that even if I am schizophrenic they’ll still see me no different, which I appreciated.

Considering that committing myself to a psych ward would both be an absence my father would notice & be a hospital bill he would inevitably receive, I had to tell him what was going on. So right after I posted on Instagram I walked into my father’s room and told him everything he needed to know about the last 10 months so he could take me to a psych ward. I had also established that grief counseling seemed like a good idea. This was essentially about 30 minutes of me rambling to him nonstop.

The following weeks after June 8th were the most agonizingly chaotic of my entire life. It took me 30-45 minutes every night to fall asleep. While doing so, I would keep hearing shit that didn’t exist. One minute it sounded like I was on a highway and a truck is honking cause it’s about to hit me, then immediately after it sounded like I was at the beach with the waves crashing, while hearing mosquito buzzing that didn’t exist—buzzing that I heard no matter what scenario my mind played for me. These auditory hallucinations were as real as they could get. And while all that is happening there was somehow 2 songs playing at the same time that were a certain distance from each other in my head. This was all happening to me every single night, for 30-45 minutes, until I was finally able to fall asleep. Sleep which itself was terrible. At some point I even dreaded going to bed, in a fearful sort of way, because I didn’t want to go through it again.

My brain also tried doing what it did back in March, which was convincing me of things so that I wouldn’t do what it didn’t want me to. This time around, it tried convincing me that mental illness isn’t even real, because if mental illness isn’t real then there’s no need to go to the hospital.

I also believed that I was effectively in a Black Mirror (2011) episode that I couldn’t escape, which was freaking me out. I didn’t think I was quite literally in one, just effectively so. It’s hard to explain. I felt like the same day was replaying itself over and over and had been since September, which meant that nothing had actually happened since then. I believed that I was simply under the illusion that each day was different. I processed my entire reality as being a Rubik’s cube, with my room as being at the center of it, and the outside world being the rest of the Rubik’s cube. Which means no matter how much the cube is rotated, it doesn’t actually change my reality. It only appears that way. This correlated with me feeling as if every single day was simply being replayed over and over, where sure, I technically did do something different, but when another day began it would start right back from the top all over again. I thought I was under the false belief that time was actually moving.

I also replayed certain things in my head that I didn’t realize the first time like how nearly every new person that contacted me on March 27th had blocked me before April 12th. I didn’t think much of it at the time but upon replaying it, it broke me. It fucked me up so bad to think that even that far back I had already scared off so many people. The amount of shame, cringe and embarrassment I felt over everything I had said was legitimately agonizing. Every hour I’d get hit with a reminder of something else I had said and I would die of cringe all over again.

The more intense the stigma around schizophrenia felt, and the more intense the embarrassment of what I had done for the last 10 months felt, the more I disassociated. Whenever it reached the point of being too much to deal with, I would slip into a delusion of believing I died on September 3rd, and that who I was was simply the mental remnants of the soul that used to inhabit that body—that soul having died on the 3rd. The feelings described earlier of thinking my manic self was an imposter contributed to this feeling, as I now felt like I myself was imitating the person who used to inhabit this body, having now inherited his memories and aspirations. I sincerely believed that I had no soul. This delusion was accompanied by me contemplating suicide, since, if this isn’t my life or my body then what am I doing here? While all of this was a general feeling, anytime the intensity of thinking about anything related to social embarrassment or stigma became too much for me, this delusion would hit me hard after sitting on the back burner. I could physically feel the delusion hit my brain every time. It was like going into a deeper dream in Inception (2010). A sea underneath a sea.

I would later speak on this in a community for schizophrenics, and someone had told me it sounded like Cotard’s syndrome. As a side note, schizophrenics have ironically consistently been the most down to earth people I have ever talked to. Truly lovely people.

During the month of June I was also dealing with multiple intruders in my brain. There was no other word I used to describe them other than “intruders”. Originally there was only one, it was faint, but then I detected more of them. What horrified me was that while the one intruder that was primarily in my brain was somewhat passive, I could tell that it wasn’t the worst one—that there was actually “a whole gang of them in my head”. I perceived myself to only be staring directly at the main intruder that made itself visible, which I would later realize was the exact same entity from March, my pride. However the reason why I perceived it as being somewhat passive and not as much of a threat is because I had already defeated it. This entity, my former pride, felt like as if it knew it couldn’t do anything to me, but was still staring at me to let me know it was still there as a means of intimidating me. It was mocking me and knew I was scared of it & I knew that it knew I was scared of it. Back in March, this entity was both a legitimate delusion as well as a vessel that made me interact with myself introspectively. In June, it was strictly just a delusion.

All of this was a physical sensation that made me feel like the front of my brain, nearly half, was occupied by black space that these intruders lurked in. I perceived the main intruder, my former pride, as being directly in front of me, while other intruders were at the roof of my head hiding in the shadows. I could physically feel each intruder in my brain, which was why I was able to detect there were more of them. I think I perceived six in total.

Not knowing if I had the strength to fight all of them if it came to it is what made me live in fear of them. Their entire presence just felt like my brain trying to tell me what will happen to me if I ever disobey it again like I did in April. I remember feeling like I was quite literally being circled by wolves. It was at this point that I realized that whatever was going on with my mind was way out of my depth, and I absolutely needed a hospital. Not that I didn’t already want to go to one, but this single handedly made me desperate for assistance. The feeling of having intruders in my brain did not go away for several months even as things calmed down, and I was under the belief that if another psychotic event were to ever take place that they would full on attack me.

There were obviously many angles in which the possibility of schizophrenia was soul crushing to me, but the one that impacted me the most was the idea that I was bound to get worse. I couldn’t handle the thought that by the age of 22 or 25 my entire reality would quite literally be hell on Earth, which was enough on its own to make me contemplate suicide. But where it really got bad was the concept that even if I did build the future I wanted, I would end up ruining it anyway to a psychotic episode. This was honestly the most devastating thing about anything I had to come to terms with that month. Of course, it became a major driving factor towards why suicide seemed like the only logical option. The only thing to hold me down for my entire life, my ambition, was now for the first time rendered completely meaningless. Which also had its own set of effects since without my ambition I have absolutely no center to my being.

There was also a third angle where this impacted me which was that there is no life on this earth capable of being built that would juxtapose the anguish and misery schizophrenia would cause me. Having a life that juxtaposed all the bullshit I’ve ever endured was another thing I spent my entire life believing was possible that was now being pulled from underneath me.

It’s hard to articulate, but the chaos going on in my mind and my heart that June was the equivalent of a city getting hit by a category 5 hurricane. My mind and my heart were in absolute agony, my brain was doing whatever the fuck it felt like, and suicide very much seemed like the only realistic option. I truly did not see any other alternative. I only stayed in contact with one person that month, which was Brian, and it was only occasional. To this day, I actually have no idea how I didn’t kill myself that month. Not in a literal sense, but from a personal point of view I have never understood how I didn’t blow my brains out.

On June 28th after a hospital visit and meeting with a psychiatrist, I posted on Instagram update followed by a rant on my story about said hospital visit. The caption for the post was primarily me formally ending the ride I had put everybody on since September 1st, and saw me mentioning that I remembered almost nothing that happened between October and March, as well as how my historic habit of internalizing everything and sharing nothing is precisely why this event had happened in the first place. This was reflective of my new attitude towards “professional” help, which was fueled by obviously many things, but especially by me realizing that whatever I got going on was far beyond my capabilities. The caption ended with me referencing my Cotard’s syndrome, and how the only reason I wasn’t killing myself was because my brain won’t let me throw my potential away—even though logically I should’ve ended my life years ago.

For further context, I wanted to end my life really really badly in June. I mean real bad. Emotionally, it was all that I wanted. But my brain was truly offended at the thought of me throwing my potential away, so, unable to really disobey what it wanted, I was unable to actually kill myself. I viewed myself as not having permission (verbatim). In retrospect, I don’t truly know what caused my brain to do this, considering the most heartbreaking possibility I was dealing with was the concept that no matter how great of a life I build I will ruin it anyway, but discovering John Nash shortly after the 8th might’ve been why.

On July 14th at around 6am I was very sleepy and ready to go bed, however I wanted to post something on my story as a means of damage control. I would tinker with what I had wrote for nearly 3 hours before realizing that it actually didn’t matter what I said because everyone already made up their minds months ago and that the perfect sentence I was looking for didn’t exist, which was what I ended up sharing on my story that day, in addition to promising that I would never rant, isolate, or speak on my personal life again. During those three hours I had a shift in energy that went from very sleepy to as if I could stay up much longer if I wanted to.

When I woke up later that day, I would find out that my brain had gone black again. I was unable to remember anything. My brain once again felt like it was this speeding highway. And I was now slightly irritable. Immediately this scared me as these were some of the exact symptoms I had dealt with during my hypomanic period. Thankfully, nothing else would happen, in addition to the symptoms themselves being relatively mild, and a few days later they collectively vanished.

It is now August 14th and I would come to the grand realization that if I wanted my career to happen then all I needed was to just “do it”. Meaning that I simply needed to physically do the things required of me, instead of always just thinking about it. This very simple realization had a significant impact on me. On the night of the 15th, I would talk about it on my story. The first story read “I feel whole again. I feel more like me than I have in like a decade. Most of my general memories have came back to me. I haven’t seen my life as a chronological timeline for years until now. It feels kind of amazing. All that shit about past selves as separate entities doesn’t really apply anymore. I feel like an actual person that has grown over his lifetime, not a fragmented mind like before. I don’t know why this change has happened but I’m better for it.”

The second story referenced how it felt like my six year old self was finally free, and how this felt like as if he was a trapped soul that was finally able to leave my body and be released into the sky. This wasn’t just a vivid visual to me, this was something I truly felt was taking place. I physically felt a shift taking place in my body and reality. I understood the reasoning behind all this to be that because I finally figured out the only thing left to make my plans happen, he was no longer needed. For context, my six year old self was a concept that existed in my brain for a few years by that point—starting in 2019 the earliest. It’s actually very hard to articulate the role this concept played in my mind or how it manifested. It was both very important, and yet nowhere near as psychotic as anything else I had experienced. It was real enough though to feel as if a part of my soul that had been trapped for so long was finally set free. The concept of any younger or past version of myself existing in my psyche has never returned to me since. I wish I could better articulate the significance of all this but unfortunately it’s not really doable.

It is now October, and I would start to feel very strange from the first day. I’ll be reading my journal entries to illustrate what took place. On the 2nd I wrote about how my brain made me question if embarking on this career is the right decision, and that there’s still time for me to turn back. On the 6th I wrote that my dissociation had been intense as of late. On the 9th I wrote about how scary it was that I wouldn’t remember anything that was happening to me if I wasn’t journaling it, and that the dissociation was intense now.

On the 10th I wrote about how my dissociation was largely responsible for me no longer having any drive or ambition, making me content with living a “normal” life. On the 11th I wrote about how I realized the extent in which my grandmother’s death had affected me and contributed to my dissociation. I also wrote about how I had trouble sleeping the previous night, having woke up several times throughout, and having been worried each time that if I didn’t go back to sleep fast enough that something psychotic would happen to me.

On the 12th I wrote about how even though the Post Malone concert was good, the dissociation was still felt and very much present. On the 13th I mentioned how I had wrote something on Discord regarding my dissociation. The message reads:

“i’ve been disassociating to the extent that the word itself doesn’t even sound right for how bad this really is. it’s like the existence of existence doesn’t feel real to me. it is so indescribable outside of that. usually when people disassociate they’re able to at least say what life actually feels like to them instead. but i can’t. and i’ve disassociated before as well as depersonalized, it feels nothing like this. every day i wake up and i usually feel fine, i don’t think anything of it. but when i get a chance to reflect, it doesn’t feel real. i’m literally going through like 7-8 different transitional periods all at once at such a young age which i assume is a great factor. i’m not asking who am i or what am i doing here or any of those existential questions. it just simply, truly, feels like none of this is real. that the existence of existence itself has no solid ground to stand on. like at any second this will just end, cut straight to black, and that’s it. this whole thing is freaking me out. i think i went through too much in too short of a period, and this is the true lasting damage it caused. i also went manic this year which i know causes physical brain damage. it sucks being so ill to the point that you can’t even tell what’s illness, what’s a physical brain issue, and what’s just current circumstance”.

In regards to the transitional periods, I only remember seven, which were; the transition from high school to the real world, the transition to a post Covid world, the transition from my psychotic event to recovering from it, the transition to embarking on my career, the transition to navigating life after my grandmother’s death, the transition from solitude to trying to rebuild a social life, and the transition from being a teenager to a grown adult that needs to keep up.

On the 14th I started off by writing about my efforts in understanding the root cause of my increasingly intense dissociation. I wrote “I’m living a life without actually living it. Having myself do all these things that serve no purpose to me emotionally or even mentally really. Over and over. Yet I’m also too scared & afraid of getting hurt again. So I’ve just been spiraling. Shit got so bad this night I started breathing & moving funny. I thought I was on the verge of full blown schizophrenia, or at least some type of psychotic break. I was genuinely losing it, and I knew it.” I then talked about my realization that the reason why I had been spiraling the past two weeks was because of a prior realization that my career is going to fuck up a certain side of my family. Finally, I spoke about how in a desperate attempt for help, I called a family member (the same one that called me in April) just to have a normal conversation with them. This conversation helped me a lot in calming my brain down.

In regards to my career fucking up the family, I was referring to how none of them know any of the shit I’ve endured in this house or have actually seen me for who I really am. Anytime I interact with family it’s always a facade my brain immediately puts on. They’re all under the impression that I’m the same kid they’ve known since I was single digits. Even then they didn’t know the half of it. Considering how honest my career is, and that I’ve always anticipated large amounts of success, it’s inevitable that one day they find out about me. So I figured that when they do, they won’t love me anymore. Even if that isn’t the case, I know my family will never look at me the same way again. They’d be lying to themselves if they did.

One thing I didn’t write down, was that I was also stressed about how my success would impact my home life. I don’t have it in me to deal with another whiny braindead repetitive fucking argument. My patience for bullshit is in the fucking gutter. It was and still is stressful that I might end up doing something I can’t take back should shit hit the fan here.

On the 15th I mentioned how I had to stop watching HBO’s The Leftovers (2014) because it was fucking with my mental state too much. I also mentioned how at 12:04am I felt a brief sharp pain in my brain. On the 16th I wrote about how I rewatched my first video and was shocked at the things I said. This was in reference to how upon viewing that video, I genuinely thought I was crazy, but in a very specific way. By this point in the month my brain had started to mentally disassociate my being with anything related to my past or previous traumas. My brain wanted to separate itself badly. So upon watching that video back, my mind viewed it as if the details described never happened to me, and I was watching somebody else speak. During this period of time, the thought of social stigma weighed very heavy on me.

On the 17th I wrote: “I went to the dentist and the laughing gas experience was fucking crazy. For the most part, it played out exactly the same as my first ever visit. Same doctor too. The same sounds and sequence of events happened. It fucking terrified me. It got me thinking maybe I truly am schizophrenic. I thought ‘how do I even know any of this is real? What if I’m just the creator of this universe and I’m all alone outside this reality?’ I thought about how bizarre my emotions were towards people like my ex who seemed more like weird concepts. Or rather, I viewed them as if I never even knew or met them. During this intense ass experience though I told myself to just chill the fuck out because what I was doing wasn’t doing me any favors. I think the gas was stronger than usual, considering it felt hard to breathe here and there. A higher gas to oxygen ratio. Thankfully I looked it up and yes, you can hallucinate off the gas however, that still makes me question my own reality.”

I then wrote about how my brain had dissociated from everything around me, and was rejecting my life, my past, my reality and my identity. I referenced how terrifying it was, especially due to the fact that I couldn’t understand why any of it was happening and my inability to even describe it. In regards to the dentist; even though yes you can hallucinate and experience delusions off nitrous oxide, it’s worth noting that in the several dentist visits I’ve had since, these two instances were the only times I dealt with this. Future visits also made me realize that the thing they put over your nose wasn’t put on comfortably at the time this happened, rather than anything to do with the dosage.

On the 18th I mentioned my sleep issues, the fact I was still dissociating, and my sudden intense insecurity regarding people’s perception of me. On the 19th I wrote that my insecurity was still present and getting worse. How my brain was rejecting my weirdness and suddenly cared about appearing masculine.

Before I continue; back in August I got to wondering why I went manic in May and not at any point prior in my life, as well as why symptoms emerged back in July. My best guess was that it was stress induced, but that wouldn’t have made sense because I’ve been in both mentally stressful and emotionally stressful periods of my life several times before. Never was close to going manic. So why May? Why July? What about those months was different than any other point in my life? That’s when I realized that March 27th was the first time in my life I ever decided that I actually want to live. I didn’t want to die. Combine that with being in a position where my life will likely either effectively or literally be taken away from me, and now I’m able to feel a unique level of stress I never experienced before.

I then thought about July, and realized that I had a concert at MetLife Stadium coming up on the 16th, in which I would be driving 5 other people. This was significant for three reasons. The first being that while I don’t have a fear of driving, the most common cause of premature death I have been exposed to growing up were car accidents. Anytime a death hit the news of someone who died too soon, it was more than likely due to a car accident. I’ve always been fearful of dying the same way.

The second reason was that I had never even been behind the wheel until mid May, and had only gotten my license a week before the concert. I had never driven such a distance. I was being tasked with driving all the way from Brooklyn to New Jersey with other New York City drivers. For those not from here, you could put a million dollars on the line with the only condition being that they drive adequately for 30 minutes, and a New York driver still gon’ fuck it up.

The third reason was that I was driving 5 other people with me. If anything happened to them, even just a scratch, that would 100% be on me, which also means that now I’m also responsible for the suffering of their friends and families that have to live with a loved one being injured because I fucked up. Needless to say, I was fucking stressed. The drive to the concert was actually very smooth, but the drive back was the worst driving experience I’ve ever had. I’ve never been so tense and irritable on the road. So overall, I was able to conclude that when my stress is too high, I am at the very least liable to go hypomanic. Of course, I did attribute the time I spent staying up when I should’ve slept to be the much more direct trigger back in July.

On October 20th a major event occurred that I wrote about at length. Essentially, I had recorded an extremely long video that day at around 4PM. It was simply one of those vids where I picked up the camera and started talking. Towards the end of the video I had made this intense realization that freed me from the stress of my family one day finding out the real me, which was that I’d be miserable living the life and being the person my family would accept from me. Immediately after I finished recording, I went outside with the intention of going to the nail salon. A few minutes after leaving however, I started to get heart palpitations. I had gotten palpitations before in my life and knew they weren’t inherently a cause for concern, so I tried to ignore them, thinking they’d go away after a few minutes. But they didn’t, and had gotten more intense. By this point I’m getting concerned, and questioning if a manicure was the right idea. About 15 minutes later I reach the salon and they tell me they simply couldn’t see me that day. So I decided okay I’ll go get some food then.

About 10 minutes later I reach the place I intended to eat at, but by that point the palpitations got so bad that I questioned calling 911. This wasn’t something I considered lightly. I’ve always understood the gravity of calling emergency services. So I tried calling my father to tell him what was going on and to ask if calling an ambulance was really the right idea. He didn’t pick up however. By this point I start looking online to see if what was going on was actually serious enough to call an ambulance or if it would just pass, and the things I saw basically suggested that if what I’m experiencing makes me feel the need to call 911, then I should probably call 911.

After a few more minutes of contemplating I decide that calling was probably necessary, however I still hesitated for several more minutes because I kept asking myself if the bill would be worth it. Ultimately I decided fuck it, cause I’m not about to potentially die on an avenue like this. Immediately after I got off the phone, I started to feel lightheaded. Six minutes later, the ambulance arrives. They said my heart rate was 144 at the beginning, which eventually went down to 100.

After just a few minutes in the ambulance I suddenly felt a massive amount of tears ready to come out, however the feeling was somewhat brief. For the majority of my time in the ambulance, the only thing I could think about what was the fuck I was gonna do when I got out. I saw no point in leaving until I had an answer. This was both logical & emotional. Emotionally I didn’t feel safe leaving until I had some idea of what would happen after I left, and logically I had to do something & absolutely anything to relieve stress if it meant not ending back up in an ambulance again. I was already aware that the reason why this was all happening was due to the realization I had (which my brain wasn’t happy about) and the weight of my life. So I was scared while sitting in the ambulance because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do if stress was the reason why I ended up there. Ultimately, I decided that I was holding on to a lot of emotions that needed to be released. This led to me deciding I would tell numerous people the emotions I was holding onto, as well as my father about all of the things I felt like we needed to talk about for years.

It’s worth noting that the EMTs were phenomenal. They were very chill and personable, and I felt like I could say whatever the fuck I wanted, although that might’ve just been due to the situation at hand. When you’re sitting in an ambulance because life has been doggyfucking you raw it’s hard to give a shit about being proper. Thanks to the EMTs I felt extremely comfortable and by the end of the 50 to 60 minutes I spent in there I was calm enough to leave. On the very off chance those EMTs are seeing this, I made sure to look at your name tags before I left so I could write them down. If either of you or your families ever need anything please reach out to me, no matter how far along in my career I am. I will find a way to give it to you. I don’t care what it is.

Leaving the ambulance was strange as my limbs felt very unreliable with a sharp tingling sensation. My entire body felt so heavy. I then ate my food, and then walked to a park where I intended on messaging those people I needed to release feelings towards. On the way there, the palpitations came back but not as intensely so I was able to ignore them. At the park itself, I screamed as loud as I could, which physically hurt. Despite intending on messaging multiple people, I only messaged one. A girl I was intimate with in September & October of 2020. On October 31st of that year I had woken up and for reasons I couldn’t understand at the time, everything about her agitated me. Every text that came through felt like a dreadful inconvenience. Some things would ensue afterwards and for a variety of reasons I decided to just ghost her instead of talking about it. This fucked her up badly initially. I didn’t have half a fuck to give when I first did it, I just wanted her out my life. Many months later, prior to the event, I started to feel guilty about it, especially when realizing the reason why my brain suddenly wasn’t in love with her anymore. For anyone that has seen my other videos, yes, this is the story behind “the snow bunny incident”.

My guilt only grew more and more as time went on. I even considered apologizing countless times, with messages occasionally even drafted up. During the psychotic event, I felt even worse, as I hated the thought of being the reason why someone might’ve decided to stop being a good person—thus perpetuating a cycle. The guilt was also a physical sensation in my brain, one that grew as the guilt grew, and went away after she accepted my apology and wished me well. Writing this chapter has made me realize I used to have physical brain sensations much more regularly than I thought.

After getting home that night I considered speaking to my father about everything weighing on my mind regarding him, primarily the issue of him having never acknowledged how terrible his wife was to me and having never took me seriously as a child the countless times I tried addressing it to him. I knew I couldn’t have a relationship with him if he was unable to just admit that my childhood was real. However, the probability of this was quite high, and I wasn’t emotionally capable of handling a reality where I basically had no father anymore and any personal connection with him would cease until I’m dead. I already mentally saw myself as only ever having one parent. I really didn’t want to have to mentally see myself as an orphan too.

In the journal I wrote: “I don’t feel larger than life. I don’t feel like my future me. I feel clearheaded of all that. I feel like ME. I feel human. It’s insane to think I ended up here. It hurts so bad. To be so stressed I have to dial 911 cause of heart problems? Jesus Christ. I feel kinda lost. Confused. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say to dad tomorrow if I even say anything at all. Feels like maybe I really am just insane, and nothing more.”

On the 21st I wrote about how human I felt that morning and how I had spent the night until 4am thinking about what I would say to my father, overall concluding that it likely wasn’t a good idea. I then mentioned how at 7pm I had slipped back into the mental state I had been in for the entire month, which made me question if I should do it anyway.

After writing this journal entry at 1am I tried to go to sleep, but couldn’t. At around 5am, I had suspicions that I was about to go manic, which began stressing me out. My inability to sleep felt too reminiscent. About 10 minutes later, symptoms started to appear. My brain went black. I was starting to see stars. My head could only move at a fixed speed and was restricted to the X and Y axis, meaning exactly up, down, left, and right. Suddenly nothing in the universe existed except my room, my father’s room, and the hallway between. My perception of reality had also shifted in a way that is indescribable, other than comparing it to a video game cutscene from the very early 2000s. Beyond terrified of having a full blown manic episode, I immediately decided I had to go into my father’s room and say everything that was on my mind to alleviate the stress.

I walked in, made him wake up, and immediately started ranting. I was talking so fast that after 30 minutes my throat started to feel like someone had cut up the inside of it. I choked over my own words several times. I ranted for about 45 minutes before he stopped me. To my surprise, this entire interaction went well, and he had given some acknowledgement that his wife fucked up and that he should’ve done some things differently. This was enough for me at the time.

It’s now 7am, and I had successfully “aborted” (verbatim) my manic episode. I now had a raging headache however, and felt so much sharp pressure against my head that it felt like it could kill me. I went to bed afterwards and was never able to remember the majority of anything I had said, and whatever I did remember were things I was shocked to have said at all and never had any intention on saying.

A few hours later I woke up to drive to Stony Brook University for the weekend like I had already planned with Brian. On the first night, I was made painfully aware of just how bad my Cotard’s syndrome was. It was all I could think about at one point, and I had realized that Cotard’s was the main problem I was dealing with mentally.

I had a great time at Stony Brook that weekend and got to spend time with quite a few people. During one hour of my time there, I was having such a good time with the people I was with that I actually felt my Cotard’s go down a bit. The whole experience relieved so much tension in my life and changed my perspective on things. On the 24th I wrote about how my Cotard’s was actually gone when I woke up that morning. I felt like a regular human being, and I loved it. My body felt so much fuller too.

In regards to Cotard’s; leading up to October 22nd I kept having thoughts related to how technically everything that is ever going to happen has already happened in the grand scale of the universe, which also means I technically died already. Remembering that I was having these thoughts was the only thing that made me realize I was dealing with Cotard’s on the 22nd because in reality I did already think I died due to those thoughts. It’s why I felt like I was in this weird limbo/purgatory, because my brain was simultaneously acknowledging that I am both dead and alive. It also explains the feeling I had mentally, which is impossible to explain, but it was a feeling that made me think of my existence at all times as being in the middle of the timeline of the universe.

As for the Cotard’s itself, the only way I could describe it is my entire reality felt like silent screeching. It was so loud, and yet I couldn’t hear it at all. Everything around me felt like it was simultaneously there and not there at the same time. My mind felt like it was split between the current day and the end of the universe, at all times. When interacting with anything in my reality it was like as if the intensity of knowing that it’s gone in the future made it impossible to view it as actually existing. This whole experience was very reminiscent of what had happened to me in May, especially with the concept that nothing existed when I closed my eyes. However in October and the months to come after, my Cotard’s was significantly more intense than it was in May.

One thing I didn’t get to mention is that back in October I was following a daily schedule that had me in bed by midnight. I was consistent with this, however because of Cotard’s, I was now convinced the world didn’t exist between 1am and 7am, because I no longer had proof.

As for the progression of Cotard’s, it persisted for many many months. Nothing really helped, and it was extremely difficult to try and manage. The only reason it has gone down enough for me to claim that it’s no longer present is because I eventually was able to focus mostly on my career. Before that, I was unable to stop thinking about my mortality. However this has been an issue since I was a child, and because of that I viewed Cotard’s as being continually fueled by my existential thinking, even if it wasn’t the reason why it was there. I viewed that reason to simply be that I was dealing with way too much for my brain to cope with.

I used to think about death and the afterlife since the age of 6. I would stay up after bedtime for at least an hour as a kid just thinking about it, primarily heaven and hell, since I grew up Christian. That’s not to say I was thinking anything profound at that age—I used to stay up at night unable to sleep because I was worried that God would make the Titanic fall out of the sky. For no other reason than the fact that he could. But regardless, death & the afterlife was always on my mind. At age 12, I had dropped religion and allowed my mind to map out ideas for years until September of 2020. A few times when I was child, if I thought about death in a specific way, it would terrify me so much that I couldn’t sleep unless one of my parents was there with me. It was like the grim reaper was right next to me. And even though I don’t remember what the thought path was, in hindsight this was me having my first encounters with the idea of nihilism, primarily the idea that there is no afterlife. So to be dealing with a syndrome in 2022 that benefits greatly from both nihilism & existential thinking—I truly didn’t think it would end unless my mind became too occupied with other things to give a fuck.

In relation to death itself; Cotard’s made me doubt that I could actually die. I thought about jumping off a Manhattan building several times. Not for any suicidal reason, but because the concept of dying was so questionable that I wanted to test it. Normally when you think of things that could kill you they produce a certain feeling. While Cotard’s was still active, that feeling was nonexistent. It wasn’t like I thought I was invincible per say, I never had any visual of what I thought would happen if I did something deadly. I was simply just not that convinced that jumping off a building or throwing myself in front of a train would actually cause harm. I would say my Cotard’s was no longer an issue at the beginning of 2024.

This officially concludes the psychotic event, even though I mostly perceive it as having ended on June 28th. In the months leading after this event, I retained & developed numerous problems sleeping that I never had before, with my quality of sleep not returning to anything desirable until early 2024. My perception of time for the second half of 2023 was extraordinarily fucked. For at least a year after the event ended, my brain physically felt tired as if it had just been exhausted and was recovering from some kind of physical stress. This wasn’t a faint feeling either, this was a constant noticeable and strange sensation. I also came to learn that several of my memories from the event were completely wrong. Meaning that the memories I had created during the psychotic event were legitimately incorrect at the time of creation, due to my extremely warped perception of what was actually happening, which I would later realize when presented with the facts of what I actually said.

My brain was absolutely fragmented during this event, and when I reflected on things, I couldn’t believe how much I had cared about things I never cared about before. How my brain made the most inconsistent & emotionally charged connections to things that have no relation to each other. It truly felt like psychosis had fully scrambled my mind and created ideas & conclusions so fucking intense that they wholly consumed my mental state. It was so bizarre playing things back and seeing my psychotic self go in absolute circles about the same few things over and over and over in a such an intense and vicious cycle. It was like as if psychosis severely reduced my reality to just a few things, boxed me in, and then had my mind go off and racing within that small box, and everything I interacted with in the real world could only be reduced to it. I spent the entire event publicly vomiting every last thought I had.

In regards to the sleep issues, they had been persistent ever since May. Despite not being the same, I was still having significant issues regarding my sleep. These did not go away until maybe around the summer of 2023. It’s worth nothing I’ve never had issues related to sleep prior or since.

To this day, the most horrifying information my brain has ever processed was realizing what had happened to me during this event and the fact that it could happen again. It’s a fear that seriously makes me physically feel like someone is breathing down my neck with a grip on my shoulders. If it turned out I actually was bipolar, I don’t think I would’ve had the strength to accept that. And I mean that in the most extreme way you can imagine. And I don’t even believe I experienced full on mania. What I perceive as hypomania is enough to make me feel this much fear.

I could never hate someone enough to wish them anything on the manic spectrum. I could only ever wish it if it meant it would shed that person’s ignorance towards those that suffer from it.

A few times since this event ended I’ve had what I consider to be “manic nightmares” for lack of better phrasing. They’re basically nightmares where I’m in fear of going manic, and then it happens shortly after, in which I try to scream so someone can help me, but no sound is able to come out of my mouth. And as I’m in the manic state, everything I had just witnessed during the initial panic becomes inverted in a way & horrifying. Every entity I saw before will now also start laughing at me with large smiles as I’m in a state of horror because I couldn’t stop it. Everyone is mocking me.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of information not present in this chapter both for the sake of brevity and because I simply do not remember. It pains me a bit to think that the scope and gravity of this situation was not accurately captured across any of my videos. In many ways though it’s impossible to express it. The way my brain was, especially in 2022, is not something that words are capable of capturing. It’s something you would’ve had to experience to understand. All of those stories I posted, the intensity of what was going through my mind while writing and posting them, there are no words that can capture it. When I read them back, yes, they were still a lot, but the way they look with a clear mind does not align with my memory of how I perceived them when I posted them.

When someone says they were at war with their mind it sounds very metaphorical. Cause if they were being literal, what does that mean? How does one legitimately go to war with their own mind? How is it possible for your conscious to become isolated from the rest of your brain? What does it mean to have intruders in your brain? How is it possible for your own brain to drug you? Maybe my words did excel, and they made you naturally understand that everything I stated was fully real, even if you can’t wrap your head around any of it. But I don’t know. Does anyone actually understand the miracle it is that I’m still here today, not rotting in prison or a casket?

None of this even begins to address the emotional toll this whole event had on me for months on end after it was over.

Now even though my psychotic event has been covered, I honestly do not believe it was the first time I’ve experienced psychosis. I would accredit that to January 2nd, 2019 at 4:28pm. I was spending time with my ex when she said something that threw me off and made me suspect something of her, something that would lead to an argument days later. In that moment however, I remember feeling as if “a cord had snapped in life” (verbatim). It was a very strange sensation. It was like a cord had both snapped in my brain and just life itself, while a brief image flashed. This was something for a very long time I always wondered about, because it was too strange of a feeling to ever forget. Whenever I think back to how long I’ve been dealing with certain feelings & sensations psychosis has been responsible for, they always trace back to 2019 as the earliest point possible. Prior to that year, my mind and reality wasn’t anything like this. Night and day.

In the months to follow after that moment, I remember feeling as if my entire reality had randomly just gone left (verbatim). And I meant that literally. For some reason I couldn’t understand why it just felt like my whole reality was just not what it used to be. It felt like everything was wrong. It felt like, truly, as if my reality went from being this straight line for 15 years to now having took a sharp left for no discernible reason. A line that was going further left by the week. I even disclosed this feeling to some friends at the time.

By the final months of the spring semester, I had developed a detachment from reality. I had never experienced this before. It’s important to note that “detachment” and “disconnect” are two different things to me. I was still on planet Earth, I was just always detached from it. Like the same feeling you get when you space out for a bit, except this time it was at every hour of every day.

In September a series of events would start that would be the most emotionally chaotic and stressful period by far that I ever had with my ex. We did absolutely nothing but argue for several months. I consider 2019 in general to be my most emotionally unstable year to date due to how the second half of it went. In November specifically, the weight of everything got really bad for me. One morning, in the early hours of maybe 2 or 3am, I was listening to a song in particular, and in that moment I had this epiphany that the reason why everything was happening to me was because I was actually in a coma and need to kill myself in order to escape it. Because why else would this be my life? For 2 whole days I sincerely believed this and thought everything was fake and orchestrated to get me to commit suicide. And of course I contemplated the action. I also thought that in the real world I was actually 35 years old, that my ex and I were already married, and that she was there at the hospital bed trying to get me to leave my coma while a few doctors surrounded her and a bright light was shining on my face.

In April of 2020, I experienced a shift in my mind that caused me to forget basically everything since September of 2019, as I was now entering a new period of my life. It was all suddenly a distant memory to me. In August, after two minor occurrences at the end of July that had impacted me greatly (and more than I realized), I slipped into a very depressive and silently angry mental state. This would quickly be the first time in my life I ever dealt with deeply sadistic desires. Desires I initially couldn’t understand the cause of, until I soon realized it was linked to repressed anger. Regardless, these sadistic thoughts were the first time in my life I felt like I had a part of my psyche that wasn’t actually me. While not as severe as what happened in March of 2022, it is still very reminiscent of it; having some sort of an intruder in my mind that I felt the need to fight against. I remember the space in my brain that it took up feeling black, and as if I was somewhat prey to a predator. This was very scary for me, and persisted for months, until I eventually conquered it.

In Mid August I had publicly acknowledged that I was borderline, which led to me receiving support I felt I didn’t deserve, primarily because I felt so guilty about the pain I caused my ex, but also because I knew what I was capable of that no one else did. I also felt extremely exposed, and for weeks would feel as if everyone on the planet was watching me. This all caused me to become very unstable, and led to me spiraling over the next three weeks. By week two I was seeking drugs, primarily hydrocodone, but any pill or cocaine I could get my hands on was fine by me. One of the people I had asked was a girl I knew that worked at a veterinarian office, since I knew the drugs they have tend to overlap with the drugs that humans take. However she claimed they didn’t have any painkillers.

By the 3rd week I had become intensely suicidal, remarkably so. The world was so dark to me, my reality was tunnel visioned, I was speaking to no one, I felt so isolated, and I thought my death was coming by next week. My mind was so vulnerable that there was a song and an album I had come across that I made myself stop listening to because I thought listening to them in their entirety would break me psychologically.

On September 3rd or 4th I’d like to say, I was in my room thinking about my suicide. Ever since a child until that point, I was always thinking philosophically. Constantly questioning & fantasizing what the afterlife really is, trying to piece together the truth. However in that moment I realized something—that either all life on this earth matters, or none of it, because that is the only thing that would be consistent with the universe, which I deemed to be a consistent universe. The idea that human beings are special was inconsistent to me, because if there was an omnipotent being it would be impartial towards all life. Why would an all powerful being single out only one species as being so important that they get an afterlife?

Immediately after realizing this, I was now able to view suicide as an action no different than making a sandwich (verbatim). This horrified me. The only thing I had left stopping me from killing myself—fears about the afterlife—was gone now. I googled this state of mind I had reached and all the results produced a single word: nihilism. I remember searching to see if there was any way to reverse what I had just done, or if there was anything that could get me to leave this state of mind, and it became very clear to me that it’s not really possible. To this day, I haven’t had a philosophical thought since (although I am glad for that since it was a waste of time). I remember it being the first time I truly questioned if living a happy yet naive and ignorant life was far superior to a miserable yet enlightened one. If they get to die happy, who’s really the winner?

Reaching nihilism was single handedly the most radical shift I have ever experienced in my entire life, and on the list of things that have changed my life forever, it shares the top spot. It immediately led to something which I refer to as my “nihilist eclipse”. The whole thing was so intense for my brain to handle that everything leading up to it no longer mattered to me, because this new crisis my brain was going through deserved 100% of its attention. It was quite literally as if an eclipse had entered my mind, rendering anything behind it as nonexistent. Anything that was weighing on me mentally and emotionally completely vanished. This was so much so that I actually no longer had any feelings towards my ex. It wouldn’t be until checking her Spotify for reasons I don’t remember in December, and seeing that she still had feelings for me, that my feelings towards her came back. Prior to this however, the eclipse was the only thing powerful enough to get me to not only move on from her, but also feel indifferent towards her and our prior relationship.

This eclipse was also a physical feeling, an intense one that I can still remember, and for the next 10 months my brain would slowly dissipate this feeling. I’d say its intensity rivals that of the two weeks I spent trying to leave solitude. This eclipse was also one that changed the way I perceived my reality dramatically. The way I processed all three of these changes both individually and together was like an eclipse had entered my brain.

While this change brought about many effects, many of which are still felt today (including the realization & visualization I soon had that life is an amusement park I can’t return to once I leave, so I might as well make the most of it (verbatim)), the one worth mentioning is the amount of distress it put me in for a short while. For whatever reason, this was the one and only time my survival instinct has ever made itself known. I was so terrified to have no guardrails to stop me from killing myself that I was contemplating talking to my father as a last ditch effort to do something that could save me. I couldn’t think of anything else that could work. I ended up talking to him, and I don’t remember how much it helped, if at all. What I do remember is that I ended up having some other idea to save myself that I contemplated while laying in bed, and I heard a voice say “Do it”.

The voice had no gender, and I don’t mean that as in it sounded both male and female. I mean that it truly did not sound like either in any sense of the spectrum, however it did still sound human. It is impossible for me to technologically modify a voice that could give any idea as to what that means. All I know is that when I first heard it one of the immediate thoughts I had was “that voice had no gender” (verbatim). When it happened I was able to physically feel a specific cord in my brain that was more towards the middle/bottom right of it horizontally, and vertically went all the way up to the top. This cord was one I perceived to be as black. The voice was also not one I heard externally, but internally, which is kind of impossible to describe. It just felt like instead of the sound playing externally and entering my ear drums, it was like the sound played inside my head instead.

The voice didn’t scare me or freak me out, I actually thought it was cool at the time. I thought it was a sign that my brain finally cared for me—that it would never let me make a bad decision—and it felt cool to me that it would go that far to get me to do what would be considered “the right thing” in this context. It changed the way I viewed my relationship with my brain a bit, however it’s something I forgot about relatively quickly. This is the one and only time I have ever heard a voice. The only other auditory hallucination was around this time as well when I heard a finger snap go off at my request, which woke me up. This sound was also accompanied by a physical sensation as if the snap had happened next to my ear and was of a stronger vibration than any human is capable of.

Before I continue, I want to stress that it can’t be overstated just how severe the intensity of this nihilist eclipse was for me. Despite the fact I’m still here, I don’t consider myself as having been able to handle it. It took a vast amount of time for me to recover and regain any sense of normalcy in my life. I’m talking about a year. And even that word, recover, I had viewed myself for a very long time as being in recovery (verbatim) from that event. I didn’t know if I ever fully would. For years I also considered this event to be one of the most traumatic things I ever experienced.

This all leads us to the current day, where even though my psychosis is the least intense it’s been since ‘21, it’s still an issue. It is truly not possible to articulate my disconnect from reality, although a few months ago I did try my best. I wrote:

“Imagine you’re floating around aimlessly by the floor but you’re not actually capable of touching it. No matter how hard you try reaching out with your hands you just can’t touch the ground because you will always be at least a few inches away. And you are constantly floating upwards, meaning that unless you make an effort to be as close to the ground as possible, you will continue to slowly float up and up until eventually you forget there’s even a ground to touch anymore. And then even when you are granted the ability to touch the ground, it’s still not entirely so. One arm is able to touch it while the rest of your body is still floating upwards. Of course, since you’re still able to touch the floor in some capacity, that means it’s not possible to float any further upward if you keep that palm planted. But it’s still only one arm. And only that arm can experience the feeling of gravity as it remains planted. The rest of your body is still floating around, unable to ever touch the floor. (It’s a silly visual by this point but it’s accurate.) Finally, you occasionally remember what life was like when you could touch the floor. When your entire body felt gravity. And for whatever reason, even though you know those memories are real, it’s been so fucking long that you don’t really know for sure.”

The inability to fully articulate to any of you how fucked up my mind has become makes me feel powerless against myself and it was enough to make me want to cry a few months back. The only reason why I have any acceptance towards reality is because I’ve not only gotten so used to it but my time is occupied with too much shit to really process anything going on. My career occupies my near full attention. There’s no time or desire for anything else. My brain also only allots me enough mental capacity to focus on one thing in my life at a time.

I’m so disconnected from reality that for essentially the entire year I’ve forgotten I even have a name, although that might be due to the lack of a social life. Whenever I’m referred to by it I’m thrown off. I don’t perceive myself as having one. My mind is only ever 50% here at best, while the other 50 just wanders elsewhere in the cosmos. The emphasis my brain puts on my feelings of disconnect is one where I’m the one too detached to interact with reality, rather than reality itself being fake. However I still have my doubts about reality.

The more alone I feel the stronger psychosis gets. The more people I have in my life that I’m emotionally connected to and feel secure with, the more of a human being I feel. The less people, the less human. Now that I have no one since February of this year, this effect is the worst it’s ever been. It’s not necessarily that I need other people to validate my existence, it’s more like, if no one I feel secure in is perceiving me—because there is no one I feel secure in—then it doesn’t matter what I am, who I am, or if my existence takes any one particular form. Without those connections I might as well not exist. But to have people, enough people, that I’m able to share a piece of my heart with, that means there are several souls on this earth perceiving me at any given moment. And since they’re real to me, and I’m real to them, I am therefore, real. Or maybe the simpler reality is having people I trust that are able to speak to my heart allows it to exist freely, rather than being something so unengaged with that I myself don’t even perceive it anymore. Combine that with the fact that who I really am as a person is buried within it, it makes quite a bit of sense for this effect to take place.

The memories I have of my past life are movie scenes to me. It is so hard, basically impossible, for my mind to truly believe that they were real, that they happened to me, and that that was the kid I used to be. It’s so hard to believe that so many years ago I actually used to feel like I was apart of the earth. A time when I never had any detachment or disconnect from life. It doesn’t help that nothing from my past life matters anymore. At all. All of this is made worse by the fact that I basically just blinked one day and my past life was not only gone but I was suddenly also embarking on something I never expected. The only reason I can still verbally acknowledge those memories are mine is because logically speaking, who else’s would they be? And I had to turn into what I am now somehow.

I’m worried that my mind is so delusional that absolutely nothing about my reality is real, and that in the real world I’m actually rotting in some crack den babbling about “potential”. That at some point between March and June I somehow devolved into a full blown addiction and simply blocked it out my memory.

My greatest concern of all is that my life will become as good as it could get and yet it still won’t be enough to keep my mind grounded. Since a child I’ve always figured that if I could just remove the bullshit from my life and build the one I’ve always wanted, then all of my issues would disappear. Throughout everything I have ever endured, with exception to June, this idea has never once changed. I also have more than enough evidence to suggest I’m right. But my mind is still not what it used to be, and ever since my psychotic event I don’t know the full scope of what my mind is capable of. I also don’t know the full extent of the irreversible damage my life has caused. I’m worried that no matter how successful I am it will never be enough to fix what was done to me. I’m worried that I will experience the kind of day I have spent my entire life fantasizing of, just to realize that I’m not actually present. I’m worried that I will experience countless days over and over and over that I have spent my entire life fantasizing of just to realize that nothing will ever make me as present as I wish to be. I’m worried that I won’t even be able to look at the people I’ll come to love and feel like any of them are real.

I’m terrified I’ll be stuck this way forever.

The next chapter:

The Myth of the Mental Health System

w r I t t e N b Y b L e S s I n g S s t r A N d e d

My Experience With The System