In tonight's post, I want to try to finish what I've started. I want to summarise the situation I've been in for the last eleven years, pull together threads from various posts and express a little better the meaning behind my experiences. I hope that Jess reads this blog from time to time.
A couple of times in the blog I have said that when I first became psychotic, back in 2007, I decided that my father was gay. I have talked about this in the posts "My First Psychotic Episode" and "My First Psychotic Episode and bFM". I need to try to explain why I formed this delusion. At the Big House, in my madness, I had decided that the world was full of closet homosexuals. I thought of Lacan and his theory that the Name of the Father is the centre of the system – I decided that my father must be also gay. I went for a walk and decided that the reason that my father had divorced my mother when I was seven was because he didn't want me to be gay as well. In other words, I decided that my father had divorced my mother because he loved me and wanted to save me.
There were other things entering into for this delusion, some of which I can't talk about. I can say, however, that my mother's oldest brother, Tom, was probably gay, but that gay men and women of his generation didn't come out. He had died, of emphysema, when I was seventeen. In fact, to go back in time a little, after I had decided that Mikey and Jose were gay, I had asked my mother, for the first time, if Tom was gay, and she had confirmed it. It's always possible he wasn't.
I get so tired of using the word 'gay' all the time.
After I decided that my father was gay, I returned to the Big House and told them "My father's gay but I'm straight!" It was the first time I had used the words out loud when talking to anyone during the entire psychotic episode. And saying this cured the psychosis. I stopped believing there were listening devices in the flat and stopped dividing my flatmates into angels and demons. I told them that I either had schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder. My flatmates called my family to tell them they were concerned about me and the next evening my brother came and picked me up.
The next day I was taken into the Taylor centre. At my first contact with the staff there I asked them if we were under surveillance and decided that we weren't. I could use the words 'gay' or 'straight' if I wanted now – I was under the protective umbrella of caring, intelligent professionals after all. (How wrong I was.) I told them about my father and why I believed he had divorced my mother; I said that I wanted to "come out as straight" by which I meant that I was always straight and that I wanted people to know. I told them how I'd had some gay friends in high school. In the post "Cannabis and the Causes of Schizophrenia" I said that the only real crime I ever committed was that I wasn't homophobic enough; back then in March 2007, at some level, I knew this, that I'd fallen ill because I was less homophobic than other people; I thought that the explanation for my lack of homophobia was because my father was gay and I loved him. I know now that my lack of homophobia probably had more to do with my uncle and the fact that, despite appearances to the contrary, I was basically a good person.
Shortly afterwards I had my first appointment with Fernando. I immediately got a bad vibe off him. I discussed my symptoms, said that I thought the flat was under surveillance, that the horoscope seemed to be uncannily accurate, that the radio had been directing songs at me. I ran through a checklist of psychotic symptoms, all of which were true, but never used the words 'gay' or 'straight' at all. I didn't mention that I had formed the delusion that the world was ruled by a conspiracy of closet homosexuals. He asked me if I heard voices and looked surprised when I said "no". At the end of either the first or second appointment he told me to "Stop avoiding". I had intuited immediately that he was a closet homosexual. To be told by a closet homosexual to "Stop avoiding" only had one possible meaning. He had decided, out of the boundless compassion of his Philippino heart, to diagnose me as a latent or repressed or closet homosexual.
I was put on 2.5mgs of Rispiridone. After seeing Fernando, the delusion that I was under surveillance returned; I decided that there was a listening device in my glasses. The delusion that the world was ruled by a conspiracy of closet homosexuals also returned, stuck with me for the rest of the year, and returned intermittently in 2009.
I will return to my father briefly. I should say about my father that he and I, although sharing some traits such as a strong capacity for abstract reasoning, are very different. I support the Greens; he supports ACT. If I was American, I would be a Democrat and would have voted for Hilary; he would be a Republican and even today still supports Donald Trump. I believe in anthropogenic climate-change; he is a still a climate change denier. I like Noam Chomsky; he has an almost fanatical devotion to the novels and philosophy of Ayn Rand. For much of my life, I have found it challenging continuing to love and respect him when I disagree so entirely with his politics. Back in 2007, there were times, in fact, when I thought he was a double-agent – a heterosexual who had infiltrated the ruling homosexual elite by pretending to be a closet homosexual.
In 2007, I believed that the world was ruled by a conspiracy of closet homosexuals and sometimes thought that there were more homosexuals in the world than heterosexuals. This was partly a result of having Fernando as a psychiatrist. I was almost well in 2008. In January 2009, after I'd been on 2.5mgs of Rispiridone for over a year and a half, that I first started hearing voices. The first voice I heard belonged to George W. Bush. I asked him the reason why he had invaded Iraq and was told some bullshit about the clash of civilisations. In 2009, my principle delusion was that I could communicate telepathically with other people. For instance, after Tony Veitch was subjected to intense public condemnation after allegations that he had physically abused his partner, I tried to project the thought "I love you" into his head. In 2007, I had believed that everything reported in the news was made up, but it was thought Veitch's case that I started believing some of the news was true. My psychosis that year often had an almost religious dimension; I sometimes thought I was being picked to save the world. I visited a nunnery with my mother and a friend of hers at one point, picked up a book by St Thomas Aquinas and decided that he was gay. I thought one of the male priests there had projected the thought into my head, "None of them?" During this year I thought I could psychically know who was gay or straight.
My psychosis in 2009 involved sexuality but not in an obvious way. I wasn't in the slightest sexually muddled. I sometimes thought, in fact, that I might be the straightest man in the world. In late 2009, I think after I was put on Olanzapine, I decided that the world might be ruled by a heterosexual elite and that the second tier down consisted of homosexuals, in the same way that Smithers is the personal assistant to Mr Burns.
I have said that if I had been treated better by the mental health service I would have got better in a year. The reason I was so sick was because I sensed that I had been diagnosed as a latent or closet homosexual at my first appointment; when someone senses that people around him think him a latent or closet homosexual, there is no way to tell them that they are wrong. This was the cause of my psychosis in both 2007 and 2009. I know I should adduce evidence, and there is some, but it is easier if you just trust me. I knew. The question is – why did they think me gay? I never used the words 'gay' or 'straight' with anyone in the Mental Health system until 2013, apart from a couple of times right at the very beginning. (For a description of the one time I used these words, see the post "An Anecdote; and A Description of a Condition".) I certainly have never said I was gay or even that I was sexually confused – because I wasn't. For much of 2007, I believed there was a listening device in my glasses and that if I used either word something terrible would happen to me. In 2008, this delusion receded; I thought that so long as I said nothing controversial no one would be listening. It came back in early 2009 and was succeeded by the delusion that everyone was telepathic. From early 2010 until 2013 I was totally well – but I had made a kind of bargain with the devil to simply allow people to think whatever they wanted of me. I was well but I was vomiting every day. In 2011, I made no secret with my Key Worker or with the other patients that I was pursuing the girl Jess – but I believe that my Key Worker thought of me as a gay man who didn't want to come out.
So why did they decide I was gay? In late 2008, I re-established a friendship with a man I'd known some years earlier, who had just recently returned from the Czech Republic. He wasn't even a particularly good friend. I would call him 'straight' but he was actually a little fuzzy around the edges, something I sensed that sometimes made me uncomfortable. He had been married to a woman I'd known in Dunedin. Sometimes I would go and hang out with him at Piha. I made the mistake of telling those treating me about this friendship – I believe that they decided it was a homosexual relationship. And this is why I went completely nuts for all of 2009.
The most generally accepted definition of homosexuality is that it is a sexual attraction towards members of the same sex. Heterosexuality is when a person is sexually attracted towards members of the opposite sex. The mistake I have made when talking to people in the Mental Health Service is that I sometimes talk about catching up with male friends. Sexuality has nothing to do with who a person likes and everything to do with who a person wants to fuck. In this blog I have found it difficult to talk about sex. But with both my longtime girlfriends I had sex with them a lot. It is a cause of deep despondency that I haven't had sex since 2011 (a one night stand in Wellington with a girl who was deeply enamoured of me). I am approaching middle age, am unemployed, and am officially diagnosed schizophrenic. So even if I meet girls, which is difficult, I am not a fetching prospect. Nevertheless, I have always been profoundly attracted to women – it is a basic aspect of who I am. From 2013 or 2014 until 2016, I thought I might be attracted to men as well, as I described in the post "Definitions of Sexuality Part 3", but fortunately this incredibly unpleasant psychotic symptom went away some years ago.
How can you can describe an aspect of consciousness, sexual attraction, to others, especially when the others are all sexually squeamish?
A mistake the arseholes who run the Mental Health System make is that they do not consider that mental illness has a cause – sometimes they will decide an experience is a delusion simply because they have decided that the patient is delusional. In 2013, I was called a fag in the New Zealand Herald. This sounds like a delusion but it actually happened, and I want to detail the circumstances around it.
From mid 2010 until 2013 I was well. In January 2012, I was discharged from the service; for the whole of that year I was on 5mgs of Olanzapine. That year I completed an MA in Creative Writing through AUT. In early 2013, I became 'ill' again – I thought that people in the Media knew something about the film I'd written in 2012 and also thought that a rumour that I was gay had got into the media. I have talked about this in the posts "What Happened in 2013" and "Screenplays and Their Reception". My psychosis in 2013 totally revolved around Jess ˀ– I was scared she might turn into a lesbians. Aside from the fact that Jess was intelligent and pretty and cool, she was also the proof that I was straight. By the middle of the year, my psychosis had pretty much abated. In September 2013, I went to the Wanganui Literary Festival – the speakers included Witi Ihimaera, Grant Smithies, and Joe Bennett. One evening, patrons had the opportunity to have dinner with the guests. I was sitting near Smithies. He seemed uncomfortable around me. I went outside for a cigarette and Joe Bennett came out to have one as well. He said, "I have a small erection! Of course, there's no such thing as a small erection." Now, this is an deeply fucked up way to start a conversation. I decided that he must be gay. He asked me which authors I liked and I mentioned The Catcher in the Rye which I had recently read for the first time. He disparaged Salinger, saying that Salinger was a fraud for thinking he could understand, as an adult, what it is like to be teenager. He suggested that if I wrote any fiction, I send it to him for advice and criticism.
Shortly after the Festival, Smithies wrote a column in the Herald about it. In the column, he mention that the first time he'd slept with a woman occurred in Wanganui. 2013 was the year gay marriage was legalised in New Zealand, and I think, after his experience in Wanganui, Smithies wanted it on the public record that he was straight. In the column, he talked about the dinner. And about Joe Bennett "going outside for a fag."
Shortly after this I saw my psychiatrist Jen Murphy. I told her that Joe Bennett had made a pass at me and described him as "openly gay". I didn't mention that Grant Smithies had called me a fag in his column.
In the post, "Cannabis and The Causes of Schizophrenia", I said that I didn't know if the reason people thought me gay was the result of a rumour or me giving off some kind of gay vibe. After Smithies's column, and after Fernando had been interviewed in the Herald saying "There are signs you learn to look for", I decided that Fernando had spread a rumour about me. Perhaps Fernando spread it deliberately because he'd heard about my film and realised that it could be damaging to the psychiatric profession. He was then a darling of the media. This is why I sent Steve Braunias a kind of letter, a letter in the style of his "Secret Diary" column, strongly suggesting Fernando was a homosexual sociopath who serially misdiagnoses patients and falsifies patient records.
In early 2014, of course, I was put under the Mental Health Act, and have been receiving Compulsory Treatment ever since.
In the years since I have struggled with the problem of gay-vibe vs. rumour. You must remember that in 2012, I didn't think I was famous, so to be subject to media attention was incredibly distressing. I now think it was a rumour. There were two possible sources for this rumour, Tony Fernando. Or Jose Barbosa. But it is almost impossible for me to confirm that this rumour existed. Earlier this year, I wrote to Duncan Greive, who runs the internet news site The Spinoff, to ask him if he knew of any gossip about me. I had gone to school with Duncan and knew him as a man who had always understood that the way to get ahead in life is to play the game and suck up to the teachers. He said, "I can honestly say I have not heard any false rumours about you." I believe, now, that he was being disingenuous. What I didn't know when I wrote to Duncan is that Jose works for The Spinoff. So Duncan almost certainly had heard something about me, and it was probably false.
Incidentally, in the posts "My First Psychotic Episode" and "My First Psychotic Episode and bFM", I said that Jose was either uncertain of my sexual orientation or thought I was gay. Jose is a fuckwit. He should have known that I was straight. A couple of years before I went to work at bFM, I bumped into him at a party. I suggested he meet my girlfriend – I brought up the fact that I had a girlfriend because I was unsure of his sexual orientation and I wanted him to know that I was heterosexual. The world is full of stupid cunts, I think.
I'll finish this post by making an observation about the Mental Health System. It is all founded on lies. The good people get out; the rest know that to keep their jobs they must stick to the party line. This means that if a person is, for instance, diagnosed schizophrenic, no one is willing to say that the psychiatrists made a mistake. And they look for evidence to justify the diagnosis. I think New Zealand would be a healthier and happier place if we just got rid of the psychiatric profession entirely.
I know by the way that this post is not brilliantly written. But I hope it conveys something of my life.
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