Thirteen
years ago, at the age of twenty-two, I began believing I had a rat in my brain,
and that I had been the first man in history to knock out a yoko zuna. Today, I am at a place where I’m lucid, very
independent, socially active, and connected to reality. But I wonder where this thought of my being a
great warrior who had knocked out a yoko zuna came from? I can trace fragments of this bloated
perception of my true reality, back, past the age of twenty-two. Memories stick
out about my belief that I could fight really well. But I don’t trust many of them. Outside of wrestling in Jr. High I have no
verifiable memories of any hand to hand combat which occurred before my break.
One memory
of being able to fight is of a time when I was taking a martial arts class and
the instructor challenged me to fight him.
I did, and won. However, I am
sure this never happened. Still, another
memory of being out on the streets of Los Angeles late at night causes me to
believe that maybe in my early adulthood—and even childhood into adolescence—I
had had some success in fighting. Often
there is a kernel of truth to schizophrenic delusions; often truth is hidden
just beneath the surface of fallacy.
That night
in Los Angeles went like this: I arrived
in the city on a bus and had two large bags with me. After bringing them over to a pay phone, I
made a call. When I got off the phone an
African American man approached me; he asked me where I was going, and if I
needed any help. I needed to find a
hotel, and the man helped me with that, and he helped carry my large bags. This man, generously, only asked for a little
money in exchange—I gave him ten dollars.
Apparently,
the neighborhood the bus had dropped me off in was not safe. I realized this when I was at the hotel and
told the management that I would go to an ATM to get money to pay for a
room. Upon hearing this, they exclaimed,
“you’re going back out there?” and I responded that I was. They were quite alarmed at the thought that I
would go back into the streets of this neighborhood late at night.
The walk
back to the bus station is where I see that back before I was twenty-two—before
I had been psychotic—I believed I could fight.
I’ll admit, however, that I was also naïve. But, regardless, on the walk back to the bus
station, I walked right through a group of guys attempting to bait a
fight. Today, I would never do such a
thing, because it’s disrespectful, but also because I’m terribly frightened of
groups of guys hanging out, late at night, in rough neighborhoods of urban
areas.
Back then,
for some reason, I thought I was either invincible (but many youths do) or I
thought myself to be able to handle myself against groups of guys. What could have incited the insanity which
led me to act against my own safety? But
more importantly, before the real break from reality which I experienced at
twenty-two—how far had I already ventured into a distorted perception of
myself?
This look
back to the past isn’t so much to try to salvage dignity from a disordered life—I
already harbor a great deal of mad pride.
Looking back is a part of the search for truth which lies behind the
mask of alienation which had been thrust upon me by my own desertion of sanity. I believe the best way to conquering demons
is to approach them as if they are soft, gentle, kittens. Cradling the source of my madness, I have
come to a place of deeper understanding of myself; I have opened the door to
the real world and stepped forward into it.
Each step forward, into reality, seems to unearth deeper, more insightful,
understanding of the windy path I’ve followed.
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