My Journey Into Darkness

The following is a true story. I have tried to tell it as factually as possible. Names have been changed to protect people’s privacy.

It all came crashing down on March 8, 2000. Though in retrospect I had started to fall weeks, maybe months beforehand, in the moment it seemed relatively sudden. I had been up late the night before trying to write a paper for my ecology class. I was getting fed up with it, and the sounds of people outside in the quads laughing and having fun made it even harder to work. I had the vague feeling that they were laughing at me, as I was sitting inside working while they had fun outside. I had written about a page but, feeling like I was being too negative in my stance towards the question and getting more tired by the minute, I deleted my work and went to bed, figuring I’d do it the next day or turn it in late.

It had been a stressful week. I had too much to do and not enough time to do it in. It was the week before finals, so I, like everyone else, was busying finishing coursework for the quarter. On top of my schoolwork, I had to write an essay for an application to be a volunteer on the freshman Wilderness Orientations, a job I was really looking forward to applying for.

I had been half-awake virtually the whole night before, so when I got out of bed that morning I was groggy and felt like had just got beaten up. I remembered lying in the dark and looking across the room towards my roommate’s bed, and thinking I saw a pair of eyes watching me from the shadowy corner of the room. I had tossed and turned all night, and didn’t know if I had slept at all. As I walked out the door of my dorm room to get hot water for a bowl of instant oatmeal, I saw a girl I knew (I’ll call her Sally) coming down the stairs. I smiled and said “Hi”, and she did likewise, but as we made eye contact I felt as if I knew her inner, masked emotions. Although from her outer appearance she seemed her normal, everyday self, I thought I caught in her eyes a twinge of sadness, as if something were troubling her. I continued down the hall towards the hot water spigot, but that image of Sally stuck in my head. I resolved to go talk to her later that day.

I returned to my room to eat breakfast. As I sat and ate I got the image in my head that I was like Jesus, eating a meager bowl of gruel. I had been thinking a lot recently about the role I wanted to play in the world—what I wanted to do with my life. About a year before my friend Lauren had introduced me to a book called “Personality Types”, which divides human personalities into nine types based on the Enneagram—a nine-pointed star. I had discovered from this book that I was a “Thinker” with an “Artist wing”, meaning that my dominant personality type was the Thinker, with a secondary type of Artist (the corresponding type for me on the Kersey-Welles test is the “Idealist”). This book gives various descriptions of how these different personality types regularly act and feel, and includes theories on childhood origins of the different types and methods of self-improvement by movement between the different points of the Enneagram. According to this book, one can either move forward along the Enneagram as self-improvement, or one can move backwards as regression. I learned that if I were to “improve and progress”, I would develop those aspects of personality corresponding to the “Leader” and “Reformer” types.

This book really struck me deeply when I first read it. It seemed to describe me so well: my outlook on life, my dominant feelings and emotions, how I relate to people, everything, even what I strove to be. I felt as if this book described a script for my life drama that I wanted to live out. By progressing from a Thinker and Artist to a Leader and Reformer I could achieve everything I ever wanted in my life. These ideas sat in the back of my mind, sometimes coming to the forefront when I thought about what personality types the persons I interacted with would correspond to, or when I thought about myself and which direction I was headed in my life.

At the moment though, I felt as if I was being severely tested. There was so much I strove for, so much I wanted to do, I felt like I could never get it all done. I was starting to feel desperate, like maybe it wasn’t possible, maybe I could never achieve my dreams.

When my roommate Alan woke up I told him that I wasn’t feeling very well and didn’t feel like going to class. He could see that I wasn’t doing so well, so he skipped class too and hung out with me for much of the day. We went to the dining hall with our friend Webster to get lunch. I was starting to feel pretty out of it, and was having some strange thoughts about the world around me. These thoughts increased throughout the day, gradually coming together as a new reality which I constructed for myself.

After eating we went to vote, as it was the day of the presidential primaries. As we walked into the voting place I had the notion that the voting officials were talking about me. I couldn’t help but be aware of their voices while I filled out my ballot. I thought they were making fun of me, as if they were in on some joke or plan that I was unaware of. I thought that everything they said was some sort of code, and that they were using it to talk about me. When I turned in my ballot they were laughing and joking, so in defense I gave them a kind of cold stare. As I walked out I thought I heard one of them say, “Oops, won’t use that one again”. I thought this meant that he realized I was on to them, that he saw that I knew they were talking about me. I was starting to get a little panicky. Throughout the course of the day I began to develop the idea that each person I encountered was an actor, somebody playing a role. They were trying to get everyone at Stevenson (my college) in their game, and I was the last one to figure it out. I felt as if I was beginning to realize something that I had never known before, as if a veil over my eyes was gradually being removed. I didn’t, however, say anything to my friends about this.

When we got back to our dorm my roommate and I sat down on a bench for a while. He asked me how I felt and if he could do anything for me. A girl walked across the quad and smiled at us, and again I got the feeling that others knew something that I didn’t, that there was some Master Plan of which I was only beginning to become aware.

Eventually my roommate left to go to class or see his girlfriend or something, and I was left alone in our room. I sat down at the computer and tried to do my ecology paper and work on my job application, but I just couldn’t do it. I began to think about who I was, what I was becoming. I questioned whether all this inner striving to be a Leader and a Reformer was worth it. Then, angry at myself for trying to be something that possibly wasn’t a part of my true self, I erased everything on my computer that I thought was negatively influencing me, that society told me was “bad”. The articles on the WTO protests in Seattle, pirated computer software, the copy of Fight Club, porn, graffiti pictures, everything. I didn’t want to accept those things as being part of who I was, and in physically cleansing myself of all these things that I identified with that society at large frowned upon, I felt that I could rid myself of those negative feelings that I felt. I thought that these physical things were the sources of my depression, when in reality it was all up in my head.

Later that afternoon I went up to Sally’s room to talk to her. I asked her if she was feeling all right because when I saw her earlier that day I felt like she wasn’t doing that well. I could see that she thought it was cute that I thought I could feel her emotions. She invited me in to talk. We talked for a while, and it seemed as if she was being really flirtatious. She would glance at me and smile, and once when a guy called she was kind of rude and told him she was busy. She said she had to go to work, but that we should hang out later.

Around dinner time I went and knocked on my friend Albert’s door to see if he wanted to get dinner. He wasn’t there, but his roommate Vladimir was. Vlad was just getting ready to go so we went to the dining hall together. By this time I was getting pretty whacked out. I thought that the whole of Stevenson college knew something that I didn’t, and I was the last one to know. As I sat in the dining hall I had the distinct feeling that everyone was watching me. The laughter that I heard I thought was directed towards me, and I thought that people were making fun of the food I was eating. I caught words and phrases that seemed to jump out of the murmur of the crowd. Each I took as being a comment about me. I even thought that they were laughing at the fact that I was eating alone with Vlad, as if we were a couple. I thought I heard someone say “Aw, how cute”, and of course I thought they were referring to us.

After dinner we walked back to Vlad’s room. He asked if I wanted to play a computer game, and I agreed. In this game when your player dies you are able to float around throughout the gamefield, as if you were a ghost. As I thought that Vlad was in on the master joke being enacted at Stevenson, I asked him “How does it all work?”, that is, what do I need to do to be in on it? He thought I was referring to the game, so he started to describe the game. I saw his description symbolically, as if his explanation was really referring to the “game” being enacted at Stevenson. In my head I compared those who “knew” (everyone else at Stevenson but me) to the dead players in the computer game, able to float around anywhere at will, not playing on either side but existing in between. I thought that everyone else had gone through some type of conversion, and they were after me. They got Sally and Vlad and all my friends, and I was next.

Vlad said he was going for a run, and asked if I wanted to go with him. I agreed, and we set out for the East Field. Once we got to the track I really started to lose it. The field was wet and muddy, as it had been raining earlier that day, and as we set out along the track I suddenly veered off on a tangent and ran out into the middle of the field. I felt as if the mud and muck was trying to suck me down, so I ran harder and faster. I closed my eyes, head bent down, arms back, and ran into the darkness. For a moment I felt as if I had touched true darkness, as if I had blacked out for a couple seconds as I ran along. When I stopped and looked up I realized I was all alone. I thought that I was helping Vlad to carry out his last wish before he died, that his spirit wanted to go for a run with me before he departed out over the night blackness of the Pacific Ocean. I desperately looked around for Vlad, and saw him still running around the track. I ran over to him and asked him how to get back, and he pointed the way back to our dorm. As I ran back to my room I found that I was hobbling, and when I looked down I saw that I had lost my right shoe. I felt as if I was being broken down and torn apart, as if I was being put through a test. Half-running, half-hobbling through the quad, I saw a shadowy figure standing under a streetlight. I imagined him as a guardian watching me, keeping tabs on me. I ran past him and finally made it to my room, gasping for breath. I laid down on my bed and pulled off my muddy clothes. I was breathing pretty heavily, but I couldn’t get myself to calm down. Finally I decided that I should go talk to Sally, that if I could be with her everything would be alright.

During the previous months I had started to feel increasingly lonely. It seemed like everyone around me was in a relationship and that I was the only one all alone. I was getting desperate. I felt like I needed a connection with someone, that I needed some love to fill the void I felt inside. It was probably for this reason that I went upstairs looking for Sally, as she was the only one who had given me some love recently. I knocked on her door, but no one answered. I couldn’t figure out why this was so, because she told me she would be there and that she wanted to hang out with me. Again I felt as if I were being tested, as if there was something I needed to do but I didn’t know what it was. I yelled her name, but I was only answered with silence. In desperation I pulled off my boxers and shirt, and stood in the hallway naked, thinking “there, is that what you wanted? Here I am, accept me if you want.” When nothing happened and no one answered I felt rejected, as if I didn’t pass the test. I got dressed and went back downstairs, feeling confused and hurt, thinking “what’s wrong with me?” It was there that I ran into my friend Albert, whom I had been looking for earlier.

I really looked up to Albert. I felt that we were similar in so many ways. We were both introverts, interested in spirituality, and into hip hop and jazz. He always seemed so content, I wanted to be like him. So when I ran into Albert in the hallway, I thought that he could help me understand what was going on, that he could stop it. “Stop fucking with me! Stop fucking with me!” I yelled. Albert, in his surprise at my erratic behavior, was grinning and asked me what was wrong. I told him I didn’t know. He asked me if I had done any drugs, so I told I had smoked some pot a couple nights ago. Albert told me to go sit down in my room and came back with a large mug of water, which he had me drink.

The next thing I knew, the preceptors and the proctor were in my room, asking me what had happened, and had I done any drugs. I told them yes, a couple nights before. They asked who I got it from. I was reluctant, but finally told them. My RAs came down as well. I was feeling pretty bad, so I called my parents in Berkeley and asked them if they could come and pick me up. They said they would be there as soon as possible. The proctor and the preceptors left after a while, and my roommate came back and was hanging out with me. I told him how I had lost my shoe, and asked him if he could help me find it. We went out in the rain and walked down to the field, but had no luck finding it. My roommate was reluctant to keep searching as he could see that I was acting strange.

Back at the dorm I tried to explain to him what was going on. He didn’t understand any of my attempts to explain what was going on, so finally I said “you know, like with the numbers.” I had made up this theory in my head that all the numbers at Stevenson were symbolic. My mailbox number was #11, and at the beginning of the year our room number was #111. Later that year we switched into a bigger room down the hall, number 121. I thought that these numbers signaled that I was going to be “number 1”, some kind of Leader Reformer, like the book said. My room was diagonally opposite that of Sally’s, and I thought that everyone was trying to set us up together. I thought that very shortly, as soon as the Winter quarter ended, I would have all my dreams and aspirations come true, that the Spring would be a time of celebration and new growth. I didn’t get this far in my explanation to my roommate. As soon as I started talking about numbers with symbolic meanings he said “no Sean, no.” He could see that I was losing it. Some of my friends living in my building came by and sat in the hallway with me. They asked me questions, but I wasn’t feeling very well at all, so I just kept responding “I don’t know. I don’t know.” One of my friends fixed me some soup. It was raining outside, so I was really worried about my parents driving down on the freeway. I thought for sure they were going to crash, I had such a dark vision of the world. I called them on their cell phone three or four times, checking in and seeing how they were doing.  One time I called and asked my mom if she could help me find a girlfriend. I thought having a girl would solve all my problems.

My parents finally arrived after what seemed like ages. They helped me get all my stuff together to go home. I went to the bathroom to get my toiletries, where I encountered Alex. Alex was an interesting guy. He was a Senior theater major who was roommates with my friend Joseph. He dressed in dark clothes all the time and had nothing on his walls but a sign that said “negate yourself”. I think I was kind of scared of him because I couldn’t figure him out. So when I saw him that night in the bathroom, I thought I knew what was going on. Everyone else at Stevenson was an actor in some sense, but Alex was a master actor. He wasn’t a jock or a stoner or an artist or a nerd. He was nothing. In a sense I admired him, as he couldn’t be fit into any stereotypes but that of an actor, and you wouldn’t even know that unless you knew something about him. As I was leaving the bathroom, I told him, “don’t worry, I’ll be back.” That was the last time I ever saw him.

Back at my room the proctor had stopped by and was talking to my parents. The proctor was a black guy named George. As I saw myself at this point as a Leader and a Reformer, fighting for all the good things in this world, I patted George on the back and said, “you’re going to be all right”, as in “don’t worry, you and all the other minorities will be alright, you’ll win the fight eventually.” My parents ushered me towards the door.

Out in the car I closed my eyes and bowed my head. I tried to sleep but couldn’t, so instead I tried to bend my glasses with my mind like the kid in The Matrix bent a spoon. Outside it was dark and raining. Once my mom turned around to ask me something. I thought she said “Albert is my lifeblood”, that she was trying to say something that I would relate to. We continued North through the dark and pouring rain. As we passed the warehouses and buildings by the freeway in Oakland, I thought about how beautiful they looked lit up at night, and wished I had my camera with me. When we got home my mom came down with me to my room and sat with me as I tried to sleep. The lights were turned down low, and I pictured my room as a sort of devil’s chamber. I didn’t get much sleep that night, as I fell asleep around two and woke up around six or seven.

The next morning my parents took me to the doctor's office. I saw my pediatrician Dr. Oken, who had been my doctor since I was born. He did a check up on me and recommended a psychologist for my parents to take me to. After going to the doctors we went to get some lunch at a burger joint. On our way there I saw a homeless guy walking along the street holding a sign. As we drove by I thought he said something to me. Though I couldn’t hear him I thought he was saying something about the Masons controlling everything. When we got to the burger joint I was a little scared. I had tagged on the wall of the place years ago, and I thought my parents were taking me there to show me that they knew. Once inside we sat down and ordered food. We started talking about snowboarding, and to my surprise other people around us started to talk about skiing and the snow as well. Though in reality someone probably heard us talking and just wanted to have a conversation with their friend about the snow, I thought they were doing it on purpose, that everybody around us was purposely responding to my speech.

When we got home I wanted to watch Star Wars, so I put it on. My little brother got home from school and sat down to watch with me. I started to tell him how we were like characters in the movie, fighting against the Dark Side. Just then my mom came down and asked if I wanted to go for a ride to pick up my sister from the optometrist. I said sure and grabbed my backpack, thinking they could take me back down to Santa Cruz afterwards. My mom told me I wasn’t going back just yet.

We drove over to the optometrist in two cars. When we got there I asked when I could go back to Santa Cruz, but just then a bolt of lightening flashed across the sky directly in front of us. I saw it as a sign, telling me to shut up and just let things happen. I started wondering how in the hell “they” were able to control the weather. On the way back home we switched cars, and I rode with my dad and my little sister. My dad told me they got me new snowboard bindings, which I had been looking forward to. When we got home they took out the bindings and I opened them. One of my mom’s friends from work had given her a bunch of photography books to give to me, so they brought those out as well. I felt like everything was falling into place, that I was getting things that I always wanted.

I was sitting in my room looking through the photography books when my dad came in. He started telling me about an Ansel Adams picture on the cover of one of the books. It was a picture of a church at the end of a dirt road, the white steeple piercing the dark sky above. He told me how he always wanted to marry my mom at that church, how it was an inspiring picture to him. I thought he was dying, so I started to tell him all my dreams, all the things I wanted to do, but before I could say them aloud I burst into tears. He held me in his arms, and all of a sudden I felt all tingly and warm, as if there were some sort of extra-sensory connection between us. I blacked out for a second, and when I opened my eyes I was laying on my bed. I thought that I had somehow in that connection transferred all my hopes and dreams to him, that he now knew everything I ever wanted to be and do. My mom came in and they told me to just lie down and try to relax. I tried to just let go and fall asleep, but the next thing I knew I had urinated all over myself.

That evening my parents took me to see the psychologist. I remember driving there and thinking how beautiful the setting sun looked, even as it meant the coming of darkness. When we walked into the psychologist’s office I was feeling quite defiant. I saw him as an enemy, someone who was trying to mess with my mind. He introduced himself as Dr. Neril, which to my ears sounded very much like Dr. Evil. He tried to ask me questions about how I was doing, but I wouldn’t give him anything. I gave him answers like “well on the one hand I don’t feel that great, but on the other I’m doing pretty well.” I thought he was trying to persuade me to “come over to his side”, the side of everyday people who just conformed to the norm. I saw him and all other psychologists as the controllers of the majority. He was one of the elite who determined what people thought. As he couldn’t get anything out of me, we left with another appointment scheduled for a later time.

Back at home my dad had fixed a nice meal of steaks and mashed potatoes, foods that I always liked. By then I was really scared and paranoid. I thought there was something in the food that they were trying to get me to eat, some kind of drug or something. I only ate a little bit. My dog was running around all excited, but I was scared of him. I thought he was some kind of demon dog, so I hit him trying to get him away from me. That made my parents angry. After that I picked up a steak knife and threatened to stab myself. It wasn’t that I wanted to commit suicide, I just wanted to scare my parents. I knew that I meant a lot to them, so I thought by threatening myself I could scare them and make them back off some. I was laughing, as I saw I had a degree of power over them.

After that I remember watching TV when my mom came in. She told me a story about a seed in the forest that was growing underneath a big tree. The seed eventually grew up into a tree, but it was always protected by the big tree above it. She was trying to tell me that I would always be her little tree, that she would always be there to protect me. That night I tried to read a book before going to bed. The book was “Things Fall Apart” by Achebe, a book we were supposed to read for my Stevenson Core class. I only got as far as the first page. I thought the whole story was symbolic. On the first page it talks about a great warrior who wrestles with another warrior called the Cat and eventually wins. Somehow I interpreted the story as being full of innuendo, that the book was really talking about sex. Somehow I came to the conclusion that the point of the book was that, if you wanted to make the world as we know it end, the way to do this was to fuck your mother. I don’t know how I got this idea in my head, but that’s what happened. The back of the book said “Two Million Sold”. I figured that this meant that 2 million people had already done it. I was really scared, but at the same time I felt a vague sense of relief. I had such a negative attitude towards the direction the world as a whole was heading, but here was a solution. If I wanted to end the world as I knew it, all I had to do was fuck my mom. I thought that that was why they gave us this book at Stevenson, where the Core course is titled “Self and Society”, that the underlying motive was to get us to change the world. I thought that everyone else at Stevenson had already done it, that they were just waiting for me. I thought that since I was the last I was someone special, that I had such a sense of wanting to protect my mom and all she represented (Mother Earth), that I would be seen as some sort of Hero, a Reformer Leader. My reward would be to have everything I dreamed of come true. This idea was pretty naive looking back on it, but it was the only hope I had left.

I went upstairs and told my parents that I finished the book. They told me I shouldn’t be reading, that I should go to sleep. I told them that I couldn’t sleep downstairs, so they had me sleep in the den upstairs. I couldn’t sleep there either. I went back to their room to ask if I could sleep with them. My dad was a little hesitant, but my mom agreed. I crawled in next to her. My mom was in the middle, with my dad and myself on either side. I saw this symbolically as well, with my mom representing all things feminine. My dad was on one side representing males who want to dominate and control women. Myself on the other side represented those who wished to coexist with women as equals, and protect them from males like my dad. I really didn’t know what to do. I started to question myself: did I really want it all to end? I sure wanted things how they were to end. I felt like shit, it was rainy and dark, and the world seemed to me to be heading in the same direction. C’mon, one side of me whispered. Just get it over with. It’ll be quick. All problems will be solved, yours and the worlds. The other side of me was shouting: but that’s my mom! Won’t I be doing the same thing that all those dominant males want? I lay there for hours, tossing and turning. I couldn’t sleep, my mind was racing. I kept telling my parents that I couldn’t sleep. My dad told me damnit, just go to sleep! Finally I got up to get a drink of water. When I returned I saw a cop car through the window, lights shining through the pouring rain, cruising slowly by. They’re watching me!, I thought. What do they want me to do? I started to question whether it was all a trick, whether the psychologist and the cops and all the other controllers were trying to trick me into fucking my mom, that I was a threat to them and their power over the people. Somehow I finally got to sleep, but only for a couple of hours.

The next morning I was dead tired, and I had hardly eaten in a couple days. I still thought my dad was dying, so when he came in the room I asked him if I had told him my “W.O. dream”. I still thought that I needed to tell him all my dreams before he died, and I hadn’t told him the W.O. dream yet. W.O. was the Wilderness Orientation program I went on as an incoming freshman. One night during the course of our trip the leaders had each person write down a dream of theirs, and everyone tried to guess whose dream was whose. My W.O. dream was to hold hands with everyone on earth in a giant circle encircling the globe. I told my dad this, then grabbed my mom and dad’s hands, closed my eyes, and pretended it was really happening, that my dream was coming true. Needless to say, it didn’t work. After that I bundled up in blankets and went downstairs for some breakfast. My parents fixed me my favorite breakfast foods, Cocoa Krispies and chocolate milk. Once again, I thought this was done for symbolic reasons. I had always liked “black” things: chocolate; “black” music like hip hop, jazz, funk, and soul; and black and white photography. I thought my parents were trying to show me this for some reason. I ate some, but then my parents tried to give me some pills. This really scared me. I didn’t know that the psychiatrist had prescribed these pills to help me calm down (he thought that I was just really worked up and that these pills, called Ativan, would do the trick), and when they told me this, I didn’t want to take pills from “Dr. Evil” anyway. My dad had to almost force me to take the pills, and it wasn’t clear to them whether they had gone down or not. I didn’t know it then, but my parents had called the Mental Health Crisis Team that morning to have them come out and evaluate me. They called two or three times, but never got through to them. After I took the pills I didn’t feel so good, and told my parents this. I lay down on the couch in the living room, and proceeded to throw up. The last real meal I had ate was mostly carrots and orange juice in the dining hall two nights before, so as I threw up I heard my mom say “it’s the orange juice.” By now I had developed the idea that the people at Stevenson had secretly been feeding us drugs that altered our personalities, and I thought that since I threw up orange juice that was where the drug was. I thought that now my parents knew about the special juice. As this was happening I felt as if I was like Neo, just waking up from the grasp of the Matrix (as in the movie The Matrix). I guess you could say the pills didn’t go down very well. My parents tried to get me to take more, but I made a sudden dash for the front door. My dad tried to grab me, but I squirmed loose and got out the door. As he grabbed for me I knocked him into some framed pictures of the family that were mounted by the door, smashing them to pieces. I ran out the door and into the street, still in my boxers and bundled in blankets. I stopped in front of the house. My dad came out the door after me, and the dog ran out as well. He thought we were playing a game. I almost ran off down the street, but decided to liberate my dog before I went. I pulled his collar off and threw it on the ground. My dad grabbed him before he could get away. He pleaded with me to just come inside. I laughed and started to run in a figure eight in the middle of the street (the sign for infinity). I ran and ran, bare feet hitting the pavement and wet leaves. I wanted somebody to be there, to make my dad feel humiliated and embarrassed as his son ran around in the street in his boxers, but there was no one in sight. Finally my dad got me to come inside. As the Crisis Team never arrived, my parents got me dressed and put me in the car to go to the hospital.

On the way to the hospital I looked out the window and imagined that all the graffiti I saw along the way was telling me not to go. I felt like I was giving in, that I should have just ran off down the street. My parents took me to Herrick Hospital in Berkeley. The Mental Health unit is on the top floor, divided into two wings. I remember standing at the entrance, where there is a window with double doors on either side leading to each of the wings. Each door said awol risk with a picture of a person running next to it. We had to get buzzed through by a lady at the front window. My mom told them my name, and the lady said, “Oh yes, Sean, we’ve been waiting for you.” That scared me. They knew I was coming. Once inside the doors locked behind us. A man came out of a door with some papers in his hand that he wanted me to sign (you have to either sign yourself into the hospital or be taken there by court order. My mom told me later that she was scared that if she couldn’t get me into Herrick, that she would have to call the police and have them take me to the County Unit, which doesn’t have a very good reputation). He give me some orange juice(!) and tried to coax me into signing them. Since at this point I thought that my dad was evil and my mom was good, I kept asking them if they wanted me to sign. Since they both said yes I was really confused. I thought my dad was tricking my mom, or was controlling her somehow. I thought that “they” (the controllers) had infiltrated hospitals too, and that this man—a doctor—had been converted to “their” side. At one point my dad walked over to the window and, looking out, said “Berkeley High”. I didn’t know then that he was referring to the High School visible out the window. I thought he was recalling a time when he had been here in a similar situation, when he had been on a “Berkeley high”, some sort of high from drugs he took while he was living in Berkeley in the late sixties and had to go to the hospital. I thought that somehow this had been passed on to me genetically, and had been triggered by some drugs that I took. Eventually they got me to sign all three papers they needed. I lay down on the bed and they told me to get some sleep. My parents left, and I eventually dosed off.

I woke up periodically, each time the sun at a different place on the horizon. When I eventually got up and walked out the door to my room, I thought I had slept for days. I walked slowly around the ward, looking at the signs on the walls and observing the other people that were there. A couple of people asked me my name, so I told them. Here’s how I assessed the situation after wandering around a bit: I thought that my parents had put me in here for good. I thought that my dad was some sort of incarnation of the Devil. By getting me to sign my name three times to papers I didn’t read, he had persuaded me to sign a contract agreeing to take on this role, which he had played for much of his life. The only way that I could be free and pass on the curse to someone else was if I could get them to sign their name three times to a contract in which they agreed to take on this curse. This was the ultimate test. I had to start with nothing, somehow make it out of the hospital, and get someone to agree to take on my curse. I thought that everyone in the ward was playing a role, trying to figure out other’s names in the hopes that they could pass on their curse. Some people had somehow acquired doctors uniforms and clipboards and were asking people things. Others just walked around looking defeated; they had come to the conclusion that they would never be free from their curse. I figured the best thing to do would be to somehow acquire a doctor’s uniform so I could trick them into letting me out of the ward. I would figure out what to do from there.

Soon it was dinner time. Everybody went into one room to eat. It looked as though some people had picked exactly what they wanted to eat, but I got some weird meat with dark boiled greens. A younger guy who looked kind of like my dad tried to get me to eat, but I didn’t want to eat with everybody else so I went out into the central room to eat by myself. The guy scared me anyway, as he reminded me too much of my dad. I took one bite of the food, which was gross, and started to cry. The next thing I knew my parents came in to visit me.

By then I was getting pretty hysteric. I still had the notion in my head that this was all part of something greater. I figured this was just a part of the “game” that was being played out at Stevenson College, that this was just some part of an “initiation process”, that eventually I would be taken back to school and everything would be okay. As I checked out the unit earlier I had seen that they had video cameras mounted on the ceilings to monitor the patients. I figured that I had just about had enough of the hospital, that “they” had scared me enough and that I was ready to go back. I wanted to show everyone that I saw through the little trick that was being played on me, that I realized that everyone was “just acting”. I stood up in front of the camera and shouted “we’re all actors, I get it!” I started laughing. “OK, OK, thank you, thank you.” I bowed and said “I’d like to thank the Academy…” I thought how funny it would all be when they took me back to Stevenson and we all watched the video that they were making and we could all laugh about how funny it all was, that I figured everything out. Then I saw that everyone, all the doctors and patients and my parents, were standing there watching me. My mom tried to talk to me, saying “Sean, there’s nobody watching. There’s nobody there. Those cameras are just to monitor the patients.” I sat down, confused. A doctor handed me a notebook and told me I could try writing things down in it, that it might be easier to say things that way. I took the notebook and started scrawling large swirly doodles across its pages, saying “I’ve always liked notebooks.” I have always had a number of sketchbooks and notebooks to draw and write in, expressing myself, and you could tell by my current expressions on the page that something was really wrong. My pen circled across the pages as my mind raced in circles. I was talking aloud really fast, babbling (I don’t even remember what I was saying), and I was trying to form a coherent idea. I looked up at the clock on the wall and to my surprise I couldn’t see any hands. It was as if time didn’t exist any more. I looked at one of the doctors and realized that I wasn’t making any sense. I remember concluding my rant, which went on for a couple minutes, by saying “…and I just keep trying to tie it all together and…I…can’t.” I slowed down, and the doctor and my parents took that opportunity to get me out of the big main room, where everyone in the unit was standing around watching me go off, and into a smaller meeting room. They lay me down with my head on my mom’s lap, and the doctor was able to get me to take a pill, which I later found out was called Whisperal. It made it hard for me to talk, and my tongue got all swollen the next day because of it.

Later that evening, after my parents left, we had a group meeting of all the patients in the unit, along with the doctors. We had these meetings at least once a day. Everybody introduced themselves, and we talked about what we were thinking about and any problems that we had. One of the doctors asked me if I had anything to say, so I said “I’m scared of my dad…” One lady said, “yeah, I think most of us feel like that.” That made me feel a little bit better.

That night it was hard to sleep. Each person in the unit shared a room with another patient. My roommate was an old man who I think was named Bob. He had had operations on his throat (I think it was from smoking), so he had to press on his voice box in order to talk. I thought that I had to do the same when I spoke to him. Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the night just in time to see Bob’s shadow flicker across the wall. Again, I was frightened by the slightest symbolic action. I had come to the conclusion that Bob’s shadow meant I “needed to get all the white stuff out of me” (as I would later tell my parents), so I tried to spit all the saliva out of my mouth. I thought that the orange juice they gave us at Stevenson stored up all our “white stuff” in our bodies. I thought that this “test” of Stevenson’s would transform me into some Reformer Leader with a “black soul”. In order to complete this conversion I had to get out all my white stuff, flush my body of spit and ejaculate. Earlier in the day, after I had woke up and checked out the place, I took a shower and masturbated, trying to get rid of my “white stuff”, but with no “resolution” to my problem. Bob was only getting up to go to the bathroom, but he still scared me enough that I couldn’t go back to sleep. I went out into the main room, where I saw the night nurse. She asked me what was wrong, so I told her I was afraid and I couldn’t sleep. She asked what I was afraid of, so I tried to tell her as many of the recent fears I had had as I could remember—Masons, people controlling me, and all the rest. She asked if I had done any drugs, so I told her yes, I had smoked some tobacco mixed with marijuana three or four nights before. Earlier that day when I was served dinner, I saw a code written on my order sheet that was circled, and said something like AV/HD (I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was basically a code for which meal I had). I thought that this code was the chemical compound that made up LSD, so I told the nurse that I thought there was LSD mixed into the tobacco, and that I had ingested LSD. I had decided that my fellow housemate Danny had originally had some of this LSD, which he used to put a kind of “spell” over others. The only way they could escape it was by passing the spell or curse onto someone else. I thought that my friend Joseph had received the curse from Danny, and that Danny had passed it on to me when he lent me some of his tobacco, which was from Turkey. The nurse told me that it might help if I drank some water, so I did. I then proceed to tell her about the “Personality Types” book, and how I wanted to be a Reformer Leader. Finally she was able to get me to go back to bed.

The next morning I woke up just in time for breakfast. I came out to eat, and had a meal of scrambled eggs. I still didn’t eat much. It was there that I realized my apparent similarity to Lucy. Lucy was a guy who walked around with his blanket all the time, reminding me of Linus from the Peanuts. I remembered that I was wearing my Solitude shirt from the ski resort of the same name in Colorado. I thought my white Solitude shirt and Lucy’s white blanket made us similar types of people. We were both like Jesus, wrapped in his white robes, in total Solitude as he existed apart from other humans. I didn’t like this thought. I went back in my room moaning and lay down on my bed, where I proceeded to shit my pants. A doctor came in and told me to pull myself together, and helped me change the bed and get a pair of hospital pants. Somehow my shirt got wrapped up in the bundle of clothes and blankets and sent to the hospital laundry. I haven’t seen my Solitude shirt since.

That day they moved me into a room by myself. Outside my window there was a billboard visible on top of the next building over. On the back of it a graffiti artist had done a mural. I thought that it was done for me, to show me that the things I believed in were still present, and that there were people out there who believed in me and my ideals and wanted me to get better. The resistance to the “controllers” was still alive. Over the next couple of days I started to get adjusted to life in the hospital. My medication changed daily, even from morning to night. I took numerous combinations of little white pills, green round pills, larger white oval pills, and oval pink pills. I later found out that the green pills were Haldol, the little white one’s Ativan, the larger white ones Resperidal, and the pink ones were Paxil. I thought that all of the names of the pills were symbolic: Adavan sounded like “Add-a-man”, as in add a man to “their” side; Whisperal was exactly how it sounded, but was symbolic in meaning; and Resperidal sounded like “we’re-Spirit-all”, and was meant to get one back in shape spiritually. Paxil would give me peace. I was eventually able to pick out exactly what I wanted to eat for each meal from the cafeteria menu. I really liked picking out foods that I liked, like Mac and Cheese and blueberry muffins for breakfast. The orange juice was called “Thirster”, another symbolic name. One made up a menu for a day, and received those meals the following day. Each day had regularly scheduled activities, which were written up on a white board each day by one of the doctors.

Here’s what a typical day was like: We were awakened about eight o’clock for breakfast. Before eating a doctor would take our blood pressure. After each meal we took our medication, which was handed out by one doctor from a little booth they had off the main room. The booth had a machine that dispensed all the medicines, and the doctor gave each of us our medicine when we arrived. My meds gave me severe dry-mouth, so I was constantly drinking water to wet my mouth. We usually had a short break until our first activity. We did a number of things for activities. Some days we did yoga, some days we did dance therapy, other days we played games or did art projects. All the instructors were really nice, and I started having some fun. After our activity we had usually had a group meeting of all the patients in the unit, where problems could be discussed and issues worked out. After the meeting we had another break, where patients with “privileges” could go on an attended walk to the coffee shop on the corner up the street and smoke cigarettes. After break we had lunch, followed by another activity or meeting. Sometimes we had workshops on the medications we were taking, other times people met individually or in small groups with counselors. Next came dinner, after which we had one more meeting then were free for the rest of the evening until bedtime. The evening was when visitor hours were. There were magazines to read, puzzles to solve, and a T.V. with cable and a VCR. After a couple days my condition started to improve. Friends came to visit me and called on the phone. My friend Kevin brought me hip hop magazines, a boombox, and a bag of tapes to listen to. My parents came everyday to visiting hours. After about a week I was doing much better. I got “privileges”, and was able to go on the daily walks to the coffee shop.

After the first week all my friends were on Spring Break, and were able to come visit me in the hospital. My friend Amy came to visit me everyday, and brought me food like pizza and burritos. She really helped me get back on my feet, and showed me that I had friends who cared for me. I fell for her immediately. A girl actually liked me!

I left the hospital two weeks after I was admitted. The last couple days I was there I was put on an antidepressant called Paxil, along with the Resperidal I was taking, which was an anti-psychotic. I stayed at home for Spring Quarter, reading, writing poetry, and taking my dog on long walks. Amy left for Spring Quarter to live in France, but she wrote me letters and sent me poems. I loved being able to share myself with her, in the form of poetry. She shared her personal poems with me, and I shared mine with her. I wasn’t sure how she would take some of the things I wrote to her. Some of my poems were about girls. They weren’t written about her, but I thought she she might take them the wrong way. It all worked out in the end, though. I’m just grateful that I had a friend like Amy to help me get through hard times, and I’ll always feel indebted to her.

I see this experience as my “journey into darkness”. In Jungian terms, I was on the vertical plane. I was close to self-individuation, but got lost in the darkness of my shadow. Most of the paranoid delusions that I had were manifestations of my fears, as well as my dreams. Many of my thoughts were insightful in retrospect. We really are “controlled” to some extent, but not by a group of people directing our lives in a certain direction, but by the dominant conception of reality imposed upon us. This conception cannot control the future towards a finite end, but is rather the sum of all the ideas we have been exposed to. Such an ideology becomes dangerous when one believes that there is only one “right” way to do things, that history is headed towards a specific outcome. We can shape reality, but it is constantly changing, never establishing a specific form for long. Reality is infinite, with no specific end or beginning.

People really can be divided up into different personality types for the purpose of classification and learning, but there are not only nine or four types of people. That is merely a filter applied to one’s conception of reality. People determine the personality types, personality types don’t determine people. When one applies one specific filter to reality, some things are blocked out, as they don’t fit through the filter.

People really are “actors” in the sense that they knowingly play different “roles”—that of mother, student, doctor, anything that one does. We all wear our “costumes”, our uniforms and styles of dress, and we put on different “masks” for different “audiences”. We are all “on stage” in the sense that our actions are constantly being observed by others, the audience. We are also all playwrights and storytellers, telling the drama of our own lives. The problem that I had was that I thought I knew “the script”, that I knew the outcome of this story. We are all storytellers telling the stories of our lives, but we cannot know the outcome of our stories. Stories allow us to share our experiences of reality collectively. They are told solely for the purpose of telling. I was the only person in the audience for the drama that I watched unfold around me; no one else could share my vision as I experienced it. I can only tell the story of what I experienced. Each new experience I had during this altered state of consciousness only confirmed the premises of my story, and instead of my life and my experiences determining my story—my explanation of the experience of my life—my story determined how I interpreted the events of my life. Stories are fine, but when they become ideologies—manifestos of the one way that things must happen—they become finite in scope, with a definite beginning and end. We are all telling the story of our lives, but we can never know the outcome. Even our entire lifetime is just an “aside” in a minor scene in the great drama of the universe, the one story that is infinite in scope.