book: Life with Schizophrenia chapter 1: University Days Lakehead to Songkhla

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Chapter 1

University Days Lakehead to Songkhla 1987-1991
spi in djb now
HAL IBM

Lakehead University sat next to a mountain next to a great lake and
the mountain looked like a giant sleeping. It was called the Sleeping
Giant. The body of water held the crying tree needles. Lake Superior
was a bowl of tears. Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario,
Canada is where I first started to show signs of schizophrenia in 1988

Fall of 1987

In my first year I had failed for not doing much. In my first year I
was in Geraldton House, a residence on the campus and the first thing
that comes to mind is that I ran the beer fridge for the entire
residence. That pretty much some up my experience in first year, the
beer fridge. My roommate and I made tons of money selling beer every
night and I also got free beer. I had made many friends that year and
was quite popular. The residence was next to 11 other residences all
full of funny, smart, people from all over Canada wanting a University
experience in the north of Ontario far from the dense cities of
central Canada.

My roommate was Dave Kissel. Dave was from Fonthill fffr near St.
Catherines and near the U.S. border. Dave was a large muscular guy
and was smart. Beer and woman, that is all Dave talked about. On the
first night, Dave had a woman in bed and was afraid of waking me up
having sex with her. Actually Dave was smarter than me but ran
sentences from a gas station stop. Meaning everything was in a story
with “just like a coon in heat” or “when the cows come home”. It was
very American and I heard all the stories from the border town. Many
of Dave’s high school friends went to colleges in the U.S. so I felt
like I was living with an American. Even friends that came up from
Fonthill would talk about U.S. colleges, U.S. football programs, and
the U.S. in general.

Sometimes Dave and I would rent a plane and fly all over Thunder Bay.
Dave was impressed I had my licence and loved flying. Thunder Bay was
actually one of the best places to fly. The mountains east of the
city were great to see from the air. Once we flew between the head
and shoulder of the sleeping giant and got a doctor’s view of the
mountain!

After I got sick in my third year Dave would say hi to me but we lost
touch and U have not heard of Dave since Lakehead. I think if I never
got sick we would send an email at Xmas to each other.

I had singed up to study Outdoor Recreation to become a guide for an
adventure canoe company in Canada. Little did I know guides were
hired from different backgrounds of work and experience. The program
was a let down and in my first year, and I never picked up a canoe
paddle or went on any canoe trip near Thunder Bay which had heaps of
lakes. I was bored and I should have gone into something else, like
Nursing or Engineering. So I failed but had a good time partying.

And the parties. Every Friday and Saturday in residence there was
something going on and beer flowed down the hallways like water. I if
I was not at residence there was always a bar in town with a giant
party. Beer, beer, and beer. My first year was really fun and I
showed no signs of schizophrenia. Little did I know two years I would
be in a psych ward on medicine with huge seizures, alone, with little
friends and no future. The future in my first year at Lakehead was
great. I knew I was not doing well but there was more I could do and
I had dreams of doing so many things.

Then there was a time in my first year my entire floor got together
and played a football game. I mean a real fierce game. We were
grouped in pairs, two men against two men. The object of the football
game was to bring the ball past the middle of hallway to the very end
of the hallway. It was that simple. But you could run over anyone in
the process. In my first run, I ran as fast as I could and my
roommate, on the other team, put his shoulder into my stomach and
knocked the wind out of me. I sat on the floor for the longest time
while others resituated me. We were so wild and did not care what
happened to out bodies. Muscles slapping against bone, heads hitting
walls, and ankles being torn. The next day we all limped to class and
it was the funniest thing to see.

There was this one fellow named Ed Hunt. And Ed was president of the
house’s council. Ed was a funny fellow. Once and awhile Ed would
shave his head completely over the Head of Residence’s backyard. A
drug addict punk. One day Ed gathered the entire house, 50 people,
for a meeting. At the meeting Ed screamed the word fuckoff 100 times
and told the house to go to hell, apparently over all the problems
there was, whatever there were. David Kissel and I could not stop
laughing. All the woman had this strange look on there face and Ed
pointed out Henry for being fag. Ed was doing so kind of drug or a
family member had just died. It was a weird meeting. At Xmas I
noticed Ed never went home to see family like the rest and stayed in
the residence spending Xmas alone.

One of the best nights at the house was with everyone going on a Xmas
sled. It was the Thunder Bay thing to do. I remember it was the one
time everyone got along and was patriot to one another. Ridding the
sleigh drinking wine, singing Xmas songs, falling off, falling back
on, was real fun.

Often you could hear the sounds of different music coming from each
room in the house. Sitting in the lounge there was a comfortable buzz
emanating from the entire house. Relaxing bawls mixed in with the
smell of a residence.

One day I was trying to write a letter and could not. I mean it
looked awful and had grammar mistakes throughout. I could not write
anything and I was in university. And I was High School dropout. I
asked a neighbor to look over my letter and she freaked out cursing at
me. I felt real stupid. One thing about schizophrenia, the day I got
it, I got write. The pressure of not being able to write at 21 years
of age was enormous. I was a time bomb waiting to blow up. Each day
not writing was a day of pressure building. Looking back, I think
when I complained to the Principal about the music teaching making
advances on me, lead to me dropping out of school and lead to me not
being able to write at 21. There are theories of where Schizophrenia
comes from and many state it is a genetic problem but I think it has
to do with nurture not nature and what you do in life. But that day
not being able to write a letter was the first day of schizophrenia
for me. Homeless people are not lazy and a menace. They are an
overflow of factory life and being on the supply and demand curve,
homeless people, whatever they do, whatever they want, will always be
that way. I was becoming homeless.

I loved walking from the residence to the school. In the fall the
grass was green and the trees were cold. In the winter the snow was
so deep but there was always a path through the destruction. The buzz
of the campus made you proud and for the first time, I felt like
something. Maybe it was the smell I don’t know, but Lakehead is where
I began my life. All experiences before were erased in time. I know
schizophrenia is not that bad. It gave me reason and emotion, it gave
me religion and food.

That summer I went tree planting in the back woods of British
Columbia. I knew then that I had failed my first year so the pressure
was building even out of school. One good thing about tree planting
is that you learned a good work ethic and had wanting to better in
life. But one bad thing about tree planting is the drugs. There were
so many of them. There wasn’t heroine or anything that bad but some
planters from montreal talked all night about heroine. It was the
beginning of a drug problem for me. And mix that with stress and you
got schizophrenia. One day the cook explained to me how to make hash
brownies which I would remember and take back with me to Lakehead.

The one good thing about tree planting is the camping side of it. I
love camping and for 2 months all you do is camp and work in the
outdoors. And it feels good you are giving back to the environment
too, that is, planting trees. I must have planted 20 000 trees.
Seeing the Rocky mountains for the first time was great. Looking at
them you see feel the snow on them and hear from a long distance the
wind going over them. On out days off we would go to a town called
Quinel fff and stay in a hotel, do your laundry, and drink beer to the
wee hours of the morning. That was fun always. Meeting propectors
too was interesting. Being in the Rockies gave me time to wind down
from stress but I was worried about what I was going to do in life.

Back home, that summer, my father was going to die in 3 years and was
very ill with a brain tumor. My father avoided the brain tumor by
convincing himself that he had parkinson’s disease. Everyone thought
he had Parkinson’s disease. And my father’s business was not doing
well too. It added to my stress. But in the Rockies there were no
phones, no faxes, nothing but dirt roads, snow, and coniferous trees.
So it gave me some time off but as soon as I got home I got back the
stress.

Back home in Toronto I went to cottage country to see old high school
friends. One good thing about Toronto is that it is near beautiful
lakes with orange rocky shore and endless woods called Muskoka. When
Toronto loses Muskoka, Toronto will lose everything. Kim Mitchell
heavy metal music, beer, and lake swims. After leaving Muskoka I
found out in Toronto my father’s business was going bankrupt so I
helped with things but it was not a way to live everyday trying to fix
things that were falling apart. It was not fun and I became
unsocialable. Drinking beer endless would make me laugh so I drank as
much as I could. If you worked in Toronto in the 80’s, Monday night
was spent at Morrisees bar, and every other night was spent somewhere
drinking. Toronto is good if you’re an alcoholic. For some reason if
you are an alcoholic, you got tons of money and always having fun.
But for me, it was not going to last. That September I would have my
first nervous breakdown and if I ever drank alcohol I would feel
strange and not be intoxicated and it would not be worth it drinking.
That summer would be my last summer of fun and laughter, it would be
my last summer of being young. I would soon lose everything.

That summer a friend of mine, Brent Hubbs, would get a brain tumor and
almost die. It was a frighting experience and I always told Brent
that I wish I had his condition instead of schizophrenia. I always
thought my times were worst than lieing on an operating table having a
piece of brain removed.

I decided if I went back to Lakehead to switch to the Arts and study
Geography. My loves of maps would get me to go back to Lakehead once
again.

Summer of 2001, Queen Street Mental Centre, Toronto, Ontario

“Type in I have control of compound 4.” said the android. The wall of
the psych ward opened up and I was able to see a large room with an
android.
“And your name is?” I said.
“David, pleased to met you.” said David.
“Is this a manufacturing centre?” I said.
David said “Yes.” The android stood next to the far wall and you
could see his brown body. The room was empty but gave you the
impression a ship was once built there. “Welcome to Compound 4.”

Fall of 1988

Thunder Bay was known always as a wheat terminal and was in the last
years of shipping wheat to Russia. In a few years the North American
Free Trade Agreement would move all the incoming wheat to the U.S. and
Thunder Bay would not be needed for anything. It was in the middle of
nowhere dying with cancer. The university was the only place that
gave back to the town. It was a town of drub addicts, lumber jacks,
and scholars.

The Russian ships picking up wheat in the harbor that Fall were also
dropping off hashish from the pot fields of Asia. Piles of hashish
wrapped in tinfoil drifted hand to hand in Thunder Bay.

At Lakehead I was in my second year and egger to better than I had the
year before.

That Fall I made a new friend, Steve Wroe. Steve was a hollow man.
Eyes of Satan with remorse of an alligator with heaven as a neighbor.
Hell ruled Steve’s soul and conscious. The only reason Steve had
friends was for prosperity. And at his house we, Steve, another
woman, and I cooked hashish with butter and put it into a cake. Not
knowing much about hashish we must have made it into a high grade
drug. Within hours of the sitting I fell to the floor with my spine
shaking. I tried getting up and to phone the hospital but was afraid
since we were using drugs we would get in trouble so I never phoned.
I got up again and tried throwing up in the bathroom and ended up on
the floor again. Steve was fine eating food but would not give food
to the others who were all on the floor shaking. All on the floor we
were having a drug overdose and every minute killed the body.

Sometimes the wall circled my head. The bathtub was a coffin.
Thunder Bay now had new names for roads since I was different, Scotch
and Whiskey. The faces on everyone would change too; I would know
what there were thinking. The overdose made my spin fill like liquid
squid. More giving to my nervous system by the overdose made me lie
in a fetal position. The walls moved about and like an elevator and
the bathroom was going up to the penthouse. Why penthouse, why did
men have five wives? I could not get up. My new friend in just one
night gave me schizophrenia. I was having my first nervous
breakdown. I was going from a good Canadian to a homeless person. I
knew I could prevent the breakdown but I did not know what to do. If
I had taken food during my overdoes I would have stopped it. On the
floor, I was in a car accident with everyone screaming to get out of
the burning car, responsible talk with a goodbye. I was gone. My
body went from flesh to ash in the air and the wind took me away.
“And my hands felt like two balloons” Pink Floyd once said.

For 2 days I sat on the floor of Steve’s apartment shaking. Half way
through the weekend Steve threw a party and other friends just stared
at me on the floor. The end of the weekend came and Steve must have
needed us to leave so he could get ready for school. Steve put me
into his car and drove me home. I went right away to McDonalds and
ate a Big Mac and suddenly felt %100. The overdose had gone away in
just one meal and my first nervous breakdown was over. I wished so
much many times I had something to eat the first night of the
overdose. The other woman would have schizophrenia too. I would
forget her name. Apparently she got so bad she thought she was a cat.

At school I did not realize it right away but my marks went up at
least %20. I was able to write better and clearer. And I also did
not realize if I sleep well and stayed away from stressful situations
I would not have a nervous breakdown. But if I did have stress, I
would break down and show all forms of schizophrenia. When I was well
between the breakdowns, you would not know I had schizophrenia. I
would be classified as High Functioning Schizophrenia.

The fall term got worse. My father became quit ill and I returned to
Toronto to be at his side. My father was dying of a brain tumor. I
ended up outside of a hotel room locked out trying to get in think my
father had committed suicide. As it turned out my father had left the
hotel but gave me an impression that he was suicidal in the hotel
room. All of the events that Fall would set me up for a breakdown. I
don’t blame my father but he did not help my situation and I was not
helping his. So I headed back to Lakehead and got back to school
life.

The term went well for me. My marks went up and I did well. At Xmas
I headed home and stayed at my mother’s house. Not knowing it at the
time I had to stop excessive drinking. I was paving a street to
breakdown with the overdose I had, my father getting ill, and
excessive drinking. On the edge as you could say. In 2007 as I look
back I drink very little, stay away from stress and take great
medicine. I don’t have a path for illness but looking back all I did
was get ill.

During the Xmas break every night with friends I would drink
endlessly. And work part time in the morning to make money to buy
beer. It was an exhausting time but I never got ill that Xmas,
luckily.

In January I headed back to Lakehead and switched rooms with a
friend. Instead of living on the outskirts of Thunder Bay I was
closer to the university. My new house had friends from tree planting
from the summer before. Actually what I was doing was moving into a
drug den. What I should have done was move in with a family or
somewhere where they were no parties. I had three roommates. One was
Ernest McCrank. I emailed Ernie when I was writing this book and
asked Ernie why we still kept in touch and why was he the only one
that I did keep in touch with. Ernie’s reply, everyone is insane. At
Lakehead Ernie was popular with everyone. My other roommates Jim
Henrick and Gerry Rooke I have not kept in touch until facebook came
out and got an email.

Since I did know my marks had gone up at least %20 since I had not
received my final marks, I still had old habits from before the
overdose. Little studying and low attendance in class. I did notice
my letter writing was much better and I understood everything sadi in
class. Back at the house I was able to get to school in a 10 minute
walk but I was doing drugs. Drugs and schizophrenia don’t mix. If
half of schizophrenia came from the overdose the other half came from
the drugs I did in the years after.

Although I became a drug addict and wasted more of life I still have
good memories from this time. I had not yet had a serious nervous
breakdown putting me in the hospital which meant I was not persecuted
for being crazy. Ernie, Gerry and Jim and I would get together every
weekend and have the best of fun. And the parties were great long
before exams. It was why I went to Thunder Bay, outdoors and northern
night life. Thunder Bay had great night life and was near some of the
most beautiful areas in the world. Black lakes with little cottages
and green fish. One of the best things my roommates and I did was
rock climb at Pass Lake near the Sleeping Giant. During Indian times
deer and other rooming animals would “pass” by the sleeping giant by
way of Pass Lake so the hunting was better. The rock was great to
climb on, thick course granite, near the best of anywhere in North
America. We would camp in Ernie’s VW camper and drink beer all
night.

Once by Pass Lake out from the sky a giant fire ball came crashing
down from the sky. Apparently the Russians had a satellite that
crashed into Lake Superior. Stoned and looking up I’ll never forget
the sky falling. There was nothing like going camping and rock
climbing in Thunder Bay. Nothing came close. Clean air and granite
hills. One thing that was, looking back, different than now, is in
the time not having nervous breakdowns. At the time, no one knew I
had schizophrenia and I was invited everywhere and enjoyed the lake
next to rock. But after a breakdown and everyone knowing I was in a
psych ward, you would never again enjoy the lake next to the rock.

I did notice around this time if I did drugs as stupid as they are
doing that I got really paranoid or if I drank much I would also get
paranoid and was worried I might not be able to indulge anymore.

One thing I did like about living with Gerry Rooke was that Gerry was
a bible thumper and one night Gerry got me to read about helicopters
in the bible and I felt a huge rush of being high from Christianity.
Later that night I asked God for forgiveness from God and felt a huge
rush again.

In the Spring of that year during exams I had a small nervous
breakdown but not knowing it, recovered at home in Toronto, sleeping
and eating well. In the summer of that year I worked as a maintenance
man at a condo in downtown Toronto. And I like to say, not yet gone
insane. I received my marks from Lakehead that summer and realized my
marks had gone up. My goal that summer was to make enough money to do
a float licence for flying and a trip to England. The summer nights
were spent drinking at bars in Toronto with friends from high school.
My body just barely took in the excessive drinking that summer.

At the end of the summer I went to England but was really depressed.
The night before my flight to England my friends told me I thought to
much. I knew something was on but I did not know what it was. In
England I sat on a cliff overlooking the Irish Sea in Land’s End. I
thought then of having schizophrenia maybe, my father, and what I was
going to do.

Summer of 2001, Queen Street Mental Health Centre, Toronto, Ontario

“Mars Compound, are you on Mars?” I said.
“No I am not. Many places are named after Mars, God of War.” Said
Mars Compound.
“What is older, David or you?” I said.
“David by far” said Mars Compound.
“Why don’t you talk to me when I am not having a nervous breakdown?” I
said.
“You may have heart attack. When you breakdown nothing comes as a
shock. ” said Mars Compound.
“What about Azimovfff? Is this where he gets all his stuff?” I said.
”Not sure on that one.” said Mars Compound.
“David are you listening?” I said.
“YES! What now?” I said.
“Have I lived near compound 4?” I said.
“Talk to Compound 4.” said David.
“Compound 4 when was I last there?” I said.
“No record of you being here but records are erased after one trillion
years.” said Compound 4.
“Why would you have earth years there?” I said.
“Alright, 4 quasos years.” said Compound 4.
“What about technology. Can you give me something not here, so I can
get rich?” I said.
“We can give you a few things but not technology. Many forms of
religion, would you like a religion?’ said Compound 4.
“No.” I said. “David, where are you in the universe, how far?” I
said.
“Look at the tree outside, if a tree is a Gabon, we are in the
centre.” said David. The tree went fuzzy than a rectangular cube
could be seen in the middle of the tree.
“Wow that is neat. What about Gabon, there is a country here called
Gabon. Are you chatting with Africa too?” I said
“Not sure on that. Maybe another Mars Compound, there are many Mars
Compounds.” said compound 4
“I can’t believe this”.

“Jon, a nurse said you she is confinced you are talking to someone”.
Said Ken. Ken Harrison was a psych doctor at Queen Street trying to
get me on the right meds. Ken was also in the band Wild
Strawberries. His band had a few top ten hits in Canada. Ken looked
like a Microsoft employee. Nerdy and smart. He knew a little bit
about everything and always bragged about his schooling as he should
have.
“No, not talking to anyone” I said but I was. The hospital was right
near downtown Toronto and surrounded by an old wall from the days when
no one ever left a psych hospital. Not sure why I went back to Queen
Street. Being ill I wondered from Etobicoke to the building and
checked myself in. I could have gone to a regular hospital, like
Etobicoke General and it would have been a les-serious place to stay.
Etobicoke General had no front door with a lock and if you wanted to
go for a walk outside at Etobicoke General you could quite easily and
was for less severe cases of mental illness. Queen Street on the
other hand was for more serious cases. One building at the centre was
full of old age with serious mental illness and another for serious
mental illness criminals waiting for trial. The centre had a swimming
pool and a basketball gym which was OK but in general it was not a
good place to be and the stigma of being in Toronto most famous pych
hospital was not good. I wish I had gone to Etobicoke General.

And too I was once in Queen Street in 1994 for stealing a plane. If
you break the law in Toronto and have a mental illness you are sent to
Queen Street. And your life is ruined too. Even I you stay in Queen
Street for one day, when you come home, not many talk to you. It is
really famous for crazy people in Toronto.

Back in the hospital Ken was happy the meds he was giving me were
working and we became friends. Ken even suggested I was a different
case, since I came out of a nervous breakdown so well and when well,
showed no signs of schizophrenia.

“Jon, I think you may be schizoid effective.” Said Ken. I noticed if
you were so so ill, you were Manic Depressive and if you were really
ill, you had schizophrenia and if you heard voices, schizoid
effective. Not sure if that was what was taught at med school but
that is how I saw things. If the doctor hated your guts, you were
paranoid schizophrenic. Ken would soon hate my guts. In the 90’s
when I had my first breakdown and was hospitalized because I would not
come down just resting at home, I had to be put on medicine and had
enornmous seizures from the meds. These seizures were called side-
effects but the same meds could bring down a horse shaking on the
ground. The first hour is bearable but after a few days on the meds
for a nervous breakdown, I could not take being on them. The meds
allowed you to recover and get better from a nervous breakdown but it
was so awful being on them. Hylodol, Stalazine, there were all the
same. In 1997 some new meds hit the market that were advertised as
having no side effects but after taking them it was the same old
story. An eptilictic has a seizure and everyone panics. A
schizophrenic has a seizures all day from medicine and no one does
anything.

So I decided in 1990 to go on the medicine when I was ill with a
nervous breakdown but as soon as the nervous breakdown was over I
would go off the medicine and wait for my next breakdown. I was
really worried all the time about having my next breakdown. The meds
were meant to be taken everyday, all the time, to prevent nervous
breakdowns. After 1990 if I stayed on the meds, I would have been
fine not having anymore nervous breakdowns. But I could not take it
being on the meds. Truth be told, no many would take the meds if
diagnosed with schizophrenia because of the seizures. It was hell.

Then in 2000 a new med was released called Zyprexia. It was called
the Zyprexia Revolution. Someone somewhere figured out no one was
taking mental health medicine and developed Zyprexia. And it costs
millions to invent. But in 2001 I did not believe that a new med had
no side effects since meds earlier said the same thing and had side-
effects. I thought the stress of being in a psych ward was a side
effect being on Zyprexia so when I got home a month later from Queen
Street in 2001, I went off the meds again and waited for my next
breakdown. In 2007, when I had enough and decided to instead have
seizures and take the meds I noticed after a few days I did get
seizures. The meds made me tired but that was fine with me. I fI had
taken the meds in 2001, I would have been healthy through until 2007.
All that time wasted.

Fall of 1989

I was worn out, depressed, and on the edge. As if I was running from
a lion non stop 24 hours a day. In other words, burnt out. Steve
Wroe and I were still friends and got an apartment together. Everyday
the territorial landlord would walk through our apartment to get to
his, which he could have done walking to the side of the house, so I
left. Could not stand some one walking through the house like a
subway. I ended up living with a fourth year Outdoor Recreation
student with 5 other students. Life was better there. I did notice
at this time how hard it is to survive and all the people around oyu
not making you life easy unlike residence. Getting an apartment in a
high rise apartment with couches, a stereo, and clean kitchen, was not
in my price range so I had to live with the poor in Thunder Bay.
Living in the Port Arthur side of Thunder Bay with the six students
would be where I would have my first nervous breakdown in the winter
of 1990. All things would lead to a complete breakdown, all things
mattered.

The school year started off quite well. I understood anything said in
class and starting reading on my spare time, Periodicals. In my first
drunk year at Lakehead I never spent any spare time on anything but
beer. I spent all my time in the library and it was a great library
full of everything. It was probably the best library in Northern
Ontario. And Journals! There were Journals from all over the world.
Life became interesting. I even found the papers written by my
professors. Quoting a line from paper written by your teacher was a
great thing to do. I started to do well at Lakehead. I wanted to get
a degree more than anything. I had no formal education in anything
and needed a fresh start. The world was again was my oyster.

That year I decided to stop talking and socializing with Steve Wroe.
In his apartment, two got schizophrenia and two would never be the
same. I was really angry Steve let us sit on his floor during an
overdose. To this day I feel bad for the other woman who lost
everthing. Not sure what she is doing today. I wish it never
happened.

During the year, before my first severe nervous breakdown, I never
hulucinated or heard any strange voices. I was fine but winter came
and like winter in the north of Canada, everyone goes kind of funny.
Lack of vitamin K as most say. I call it cabin fever. No one ever
goes outside and everyone sits at a desk reading. The place goes
nuts. Mix that in with the stress of doing well and there you go, I
had a complete nervous breakdown. Maybe from alcohol and drug
withdrawal too. And then I did something even worse, I rented a
plane.

I headed the plane towards Island Royal in Lake Superior on the U.S.
side of the border. I was 20 pounds underweight and hallucinating
about everything. The sky was a tropical way to see Thunder Bay. The
heat in the plane made me warm. While flying over Island Royal with
nothing but icy water between me and the shoreline of Lake Superior, I
heard voices from one of my professors telling me to crash the plane
in the bush, on the island. Acting out on the voices I started to
turn the plane and looked for a place to land on the island. In the
trees or on the frozen shoreline? I flew low and found a frozen area
next to a shoreline. I thought at the time there was 5 feet of snow
on the frozen area and was scared to land. I flew back high and
turned around for the landing. I threw anything in the plane that
might hit me in the head out h e window, like the fire extinguisher.
Out it fell. The approach to the landing took forever, as if time
stopped. I was going to crash a good plane into a 5 foot snowbank.
Just 50 feet over the surface, time stopped, time totally stopped, I
could see the propeller moving and it moved with the pistons of the
engine. I could see the propeller moving all the way down, down, down
the snow. The plane landed and stopped perfectly in 7 feet. I had
landed on 1 inch of snow on a frozen lake I the middle of no where.
The plane was fine and the propeller still moved at a faster rate,
time moved again. I turned off the engine and was freaked out. I
walked about on the lake for a short time and was severely ill. I
radioed for help and waited in the back of the plane. Hours later in
the dark I set up a pile of wood to start a fire to be seen when
someone was near me in the sky. I talked to someone again on the
radio and told them just to get someone from the Thunder Bay Flying
Club to come on out with plane skis and I was alright. But they
insisted the Coast Guard from the U.S. was coming soon and it was to
late to call off the rescue. Rescue? I did not need to be rescued. I
was 100 miles from Thunder Bay. I was screwed. Flying a plane into
the snow being picked up by the Coast Guard? An hour later on the
horizon in the night, I saw light of an enormous helicopter. It was
shinning light in all directions. I got on the radio and told the
Coast Guard who I was and that I could see them. They could not see
me so I lit the wood and started a fire. With the fire blazing, the
helicopter turned towards me from so far away. I was fucked! The
Chinook Helicopter landed next to the plane and snow blew everywhere.
Two men in orange suits jumped out and looked at my hands. They were
told that there were two in the plane so they looked for other people
around the plane. I was fucked! The helicopter circled Thunder Bay
for the longest time. The door of the helicopter was open so I spent
the entire time looking across Thunder Bay. And then we finally
landed not straight down but like a plane on the runway. Moments of a
drug addict.

When I got out there were all these officals from Canadian government
agencies asking me everything from why I was out there to if I was
delivering drugs to the U.S. In a calm way I answered everything.
But since I was having a nervous breakdown I must have had this look
of solitude in my eyes and the look of not doing anything wrong. If I
told the officials hat I was actually thinking, I would have been
taken right away to a psych ward. But I never said how I was or why I
landed the plane in Lake Superior in the middle of winter. I was
stiff and cool. Nothing happened. One thing I do remember is that
half of the officials were bright yellow, I mean light was coming off
there faces like a bare bulb in the ceiling. And when I was released
I had to go home with the Provincial Police. One of them was
pulsating in yellow light too. What was happening to me. In the
police car on the way home, one of the officers was bad and one was
good, good cop bad cop. The good cop had light on his face. The bad
cop had steel eyes almost demon like. The bad cop told me the second
plane was found and it had drugs in it. Lieing to get I lie I
thought. I said nothing and told the officer I wanted to be driven
home. For some reason the police wanted to know where the other
passenger was, since I wrote down at the flying club that I had a
passenger. I wrote down two, one for me and one for God. So we
headed to a friends house to make sure my friend was not left on
Island Royal. At the house old Jim Hendry was stoned on drugs and was
real angry for almost getting got with drugs by the police. That was
the last time I talked to Jim Hendry, my second year roommate. The
Police found nothing else and drove me home.

At home the phone rang and it was a newspaper reporter. Fuck! One
day I was studying merrily in the library and the next day I in room
with a reporter on the phone. I did say much and said goodbye. The
next day it was in the newspaper.

Sitting in the house my condition got worse and I started to say
weirds things finally. I went from hallucinating to red-faced-satanic
preaching. My roommates gathered around me and told me I had to leave
the house. That moment, that night, it was -40 celicius and I had no
where to go. So I left and off I went into the night. The life of a
drug addict. I wondered up to Steve’s apartment and sat of his couch
thinking I was in Japan. After a few days Steve asked me to leave
too. I headed to school and everyone knew I was having a nervous
breakdown. Wondering the halls with a basketball in my knapsack, old
friends and students would come up to me ant tell me Tuesday was
Sunday and Church was on in the bar, and other things like the school
paper was meeting every hour to get a deadline. The students were is
a strange way telling me strange things to see if I was crazy and
laughing. I was loosing everything so quickly. That is what I hated
the most, people saying weirds things to you and laughing, instead of
getting me to a hospital. If someone was having a heart attack,
everyone would scream and an ambulance would arrive right away. With
mental illness in Canada you end up homeless wondering looking for
food.

Credit Valley Hospital Psychiatric Ward, Mississauga, Ontario

But luckily I had allot of money and somehow headed home to Toronto.
I missed all my final exams going home though. When I got to Toronto,
my mother freaked when she saw me. I was underweight, skinny as
anything, in a full nervous breakdown. At home there was no food and
I could not rest properly. After a few days of not eating my mother
took me to a psych doctor and there I was in his office. Right away
the doctor took me to his psych ward and there for the first time, I
sat in a chair. After a few hours the medicine kicked in at I went
into a seizure. “What is wrong, Jonathan.” said the doctor. “You
will be fine just fine.” said the doctor in a child-like way. I hated
the way all the nurses and doctors talked to you. That was the firs
thing I noticed, the child talking. “Why I am shaking?” I said.
“Maybe that is your illness.” said the doctor. “ I was not shaking
when I got here!” I said. The doctor told me that my seizure was part
of my illness. Why he said that I will never understand. When I
would get home a month later, I would go off the medicine and my
shaking and seizures stopped. Psych wards are the strangest place on
earth.

One the second day I refused talking the medicine and ran as fast as I
could to the exit door which was not locked and bolted across the
hospital. I wanted to leave so badly. It was a horrible way to bring
me down. The security got up with me and brought me back to the
ward. And I went back on the meds. Looking back, it would have been
better if there was more space in the ward to walk around and better
if they would talk to you not like a child. Instead the rooms were
small and there was no where to walk around. Just 20 years before
this time, one way mirrors were used to watch patients and all
patients were talked to like story telling.

So there I was finally in a psych ward ready to take on the world. L.
Ron Hubbard once said “psychiatric illness in the final destruction of
the soul.” He may be right but that is no reason to leave me out for
the dead. But I am not dead yet, Mighty Python said. The new world
changed. Everything was different and I alive to tell about it. I
look at it as a awakening experience. So much emotion is poured into
somehow. All of your nerves have more stimulation. It is like Math,
and I understand it all.

Once in awhile a friend would come in for a visit and it was so
embarrassing the first time you are in a ward. I think it because
most are saying goodbye to you so it is sad and is a bad way to say
goodbye. The only true hellos I got were from my sisters and parents.

The first experience in a ward is a terrible one. I was in for big
changes but I was loosing everything quickly. The sun came into my
room and it felt like the wooden seats in a Church. I always just
lied down on my bed not knowing what to do and there was never
anything to do. And lying down helped me combat the medicine which
gave me bad seizures. The other patients walking by my room became
characters in my hallucination just like at the end of the book
Catcher and the Rye. The doctors would not let me leave the ward so
they became friends of the evil characters I had. The food tasted
like apple peels and eating chocolate jellow , the spoon would sit in
my hand for an hour. My brain felt like orange jellow and my feet, I
could not feel my feet. A friend’s mother dropped off a sony walkman,
crying, and I listened to Bob Dylan thinking the music was not music
but a wall. The chatting in my mind felt like a tape recorder was in
my head broadcasting. Right at that moment listening to Bob Dylan,
peaking in my nervous breakdown, I could have written the greatest
song, heard the greatest notes, heard the voices of everyone in
Canada. A natural drug, not the medicine, was in me and would not
leave. The new natural drug circled my head like a demon keeping me
still in time, all free, in misery. It was a like watching the fff
concert for 100 years over and over.

The medicine finally started to kick in after one week of absolute
tribulation. All because of an overdose.

After about 2 weeks I came around and noticed sincere and not
sincere. Some patients would pretend to be mature since they knew
that was the way to act, and were not mature and some patients were
mature and I enjoyed talking to them. To me if you just talk you are
mature and if you pretend to be someone else, you are not mature. And
the nurses were patients pretending to be nurses. I hated talking to
the nurses. One day some student nurses came in and did an experiment
on me seeing if I could match 100 colours. I missed about 4 colors
out of 100, giving me 96%. I got some of the light blues mixed up
that were really close in color. One of the nurses asked me what I
was going to do I in life since I got the light blues mixed up. I
told her I was going to get a job in something and be successful.
“Why” she said. “And your arm is weak, how are you going to lift
things” she also said. The nurse was trying to tell me I was a right
off and needed to be in some kind of old age home or something. It
was really annoying. I was not going to let someone get me down. I
was going to go on and do great things and be someone. God, I hated
that.

When I was over the nervous breakdown the doctor finally came to see
me and knew right away I was better, seeing so many patients go in and
out of insanity I guess. “You have Schizophrenia.” he said. I could
not believe it. I denied it right away and thought I must have
something else. 24 years old and you have schizophrenia. It was no
way to start a new life in Toronto. I thought I had some kind of drug
related thing and was malnurested. Later I would be diagnosed as
Manic Depressive and that is what the doctor should have said to me.
It would not have destroyed my pride so much.
“It is because you built a guillotine with the bed I am diagnosing you
with schizophrenia.”
“Oh that, I can explain that.” The doctor did not want to listen to my
strange story. I will say it again. If you have mild mental illness
you are diagnosed as Manic Depressive, if you have severe mental
illness you are diagnosed with schizophrenia and if the doctor hates
your guts, you are diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Years later
I would have another nervous breakdown but the conditions would be
less. I would not be malnurested like this time not eating for a
month and not be in a stressful time like final exams. My next
breakdown would be mild and I would not build a guillotine and would
come around faster.

The worse thing in the ward was waiting to leave. I was finally
better, the nurses were really happy I was better and talking to me
better than before, but I could not go home. The doctor told me I
would have to stay in the ward for 8 more weeks. The was the worse
thing waiting. Later in 2001 times would change and just after 2
weeks you could go home. The reason you had to stay 6 weeks was
because they thought at the time rushing back home would damaging to
the nervous system and cause another nervous breakdown. But from what
I could remember, no one ever had a nervous breakdown rushing home
right after getting better from getting better. It was theory from
the 1950’s when patients first started going home from psych
hospitals. Before 1950, no one left a psych hospital. Once you were
in you were in for good. And you could really feel that “being in
forever” when you first go into one. It is a haunting thought, being
in a ward forever, walking the halls and smiling. And in the 1950’s
medicine was developed that brought down patients from insanity, so
patient got to leave. I was born in the right decade but walked into
the wrong party.

Sitting, sitting sitting, that is all I did waiting to go home. If I
had any illness it was from waiting in psych wards. The psychological
impact of experiencing the wait made me lose some of my personality.
Each time I was in I lost more and more of my being. I should have
gotten a psychiatrist to talk about the shock of being in a ward.

And then after 8 weeks I was allowed to go home. It felt so good
stepping out of the ward into a waiting car. All that was missing was
smell of fresh flowers. I was so happy leaving that first time at
Credit Valley hospital. It felt like leaving Church after a good mass
totally new and free from satanic verses.

And then everyone hates your guts. 8 weeks added onto the 2 weeks
being sick adds up to a long time. When I got home that summer was
half way over and I missed many things that went on that summer.
Since many saw me when I first came home malnourished skinny as
anything all my friends thought I ate rice for 6 months and because of
diet that is why I got sick. They did not see it as a nervous
breakdown and accepted me back into the group. I had not lost my
friends yet. They was some truth to my friends thinking I was almost
dead and not insane. I was back in full conversation and did not show
any forms of schizophrenia. My friends parents thought I was crazy
and were different but my friends treated me well. Looking back I
think in 100 years I will diagnosed as a drug-overdose-syndrom. As
each year went on and I had more breakdowns more and more of my
friends started treating me like the their old parents. And the old
parent were from the 1950’s a time no one talked to anyone that had a
nervous breakdown. Somehow, somewhere a crazy psychopath running
around killing anyone anywhere was associated with anyone that had a
nervous breakdown. %99.9 of people that have nervous breakdowns don’t
participate in criminal behaviour. Not everyone is a Paul Bernardo.
So, on one hand you have a few that eat heads and on the other you
have most breakdowns as simple breakdown and most, especially those
raised before 1960, put them all together. What was happening with my
friends is that I was slowly be treated like a complete crazy lunatic
and each day I was I got more and more sad and had to leave my
friends. If I stayed with my friends after 2000, when I left them, I
would have ended up acting like some kind of anti-social person
sitting in the back of a party or something. This first thing I
noticed when I got home is that if I made a joke, everyone would not
laugh, and I would be asked not to say what I just said. After
getting home I made other new friends and made jokes all the time and
everyone laughed. Talk about weird. Not being able to make a joke.
Come on.

What was worse if I made a new friend I was afraid of the new friend
finding out about my breakdowns. If they did the relationship would
be over. And worse that was trying to met girlfriends. No one
introduced me anymore to woman they knew, which is how you met most
woman these days, and old woman friends that knew me would never be
seen getting together with “Jon the crazy guy”.

That summer was horrible. I think I got shell shock, culture shock
mixed in with losing everything. I was not hallucinating anymore and
thinking anything strange. I was not having a nervous breakdown
anymore but my friends treated me different. I wanted new friends to
laugh again. The first thing you se with friends is that everyone
wants to see you when you get out of the ward but soon the phone stops
ringing and you wonder why your friends were so eager to see you when
you got out of the ward. Was it interest? Did you friends wonder
what it was like to see someone form a ward? It is really strange.
The worse friend was my best friend, Chris Chorney. We knew one other
since grade school. We did everything together. But Chris wanted to
be surrounded by race horses and never phoned me ever again. After a
few years of not hearing from him I sent back in the mail I letter he
had written to me asking me to be his best man. I lost my best
friend.

Fall of 1990

I went back to Lakehead that fall but was in for serious changes. It
would be a long time before I would get ill again. So I stopped all
alcohol, all drugs, and stayed away from stress as much as I could.
My friends, and I had so many from my first year, would not talk to
me. They must have all heard I was in a psych ward and it was to
strange for them all to grasp. And too I was pretty burnt out the
last time I was there in the winter. I thought later that I would do
the same if I was in their shoes but they would do the same thing as I
did, be angry. My university experience would be cut in half with not
keeping in touch with comrades later in life. Today I have never
talked to anyone but one person from this time, Ernest McCrank. He is
only person I email and say hi. The other problem I had returning to
the might Lakehead was credits. I missed my finals the year before
and failed be time in my first year. I had a total of 6 credits. One
year of schooling. I needed 15 credits to graduate. That year I had
to get 9 credits. 5 credit is a full time year so 9 was pushing it.
But I did not want to come back another year to finish school. I
decided to get 9 credits that year, and I did. For a few of the
credits I could just write the final exams of the credits I took the
year before (the year before I missed the finals). So it was not as
bad as it seemed. Right away I went around to my professors and asked
them if I could write the final exams of the previous year. Most were
cooperative and told me to write them in the Spring of that year. But
one teacher would not talk to me, the Anthropology teacher. I had
taken Cultural Anthropology with her. It was really strange walking
into her office and she would not even look at me and talk to me.
Wooo. Fucking idiot. A feminist being racist, figure that. I went
to administration to complain but had no luck trying to talk to
someone. If you miss your final exams don’t try going to
administration, it is all written in stone and can not be changed. I
was worried about the stress of writing 9 exams that spring. As it
turned out since I moved in with an old lady, had no social life, I
had enormous time to work on 9 credits. I wanted to get a B.A. in
four years not five and have a life.

They year went well. I studied like mad and even took a fourth year
course in my third year program. Looking back if you don’t do much at
work or in school, that is the stress, and if you work hard there is
no stress. I never during the year had any symptoms of schizophrenia,
did not take medicine, and of course, did not breakdown.

In the summer of 1991 I graduated with flying colours and got accepted
to teach English at a College in Songkhla, Thailand. I tree planted
that summer and used the money to get to Thailand and on the way had a
girlfriend in Australia. In just one year at being on the bottom I
was back. During this incrediable time I wondered about other
patients I was with at Credit Valley and if they were like me. Most
in the ward were not well even when they left the ward, just full of
doped up medicine, ready to die. And I thought I was better than a
crazy schizophrenic. I was not going to let my time in a ward bring
me down. And a year in Thailand would be the best year of my life.

Songkhla, Thailand, October, 1991

On my way to Thailand I saw the strangest writings. I was in
Australia and at immigration I had to sign of form asking if I had any
mental illness. And if I did I would have had to leave. It was the
strangest thing I had seen to date. What is the world coming to?
Cuba? It was communist in my opinion. So many great people must have
seen this to traveling to Australia. We would not have high level
Math if it were not for persons with issues, eccentrics. In Thailand
I arrived in purple shorts with luggage and felt uncomfortable in the
lobby of the College. Thailand was really strict about dress code and
the sort. I made a made first impression. Anyways, if anyone ever
tells you have schizophrenia and you go down, go to Thailand!
Thailand is so peaceful and far from the West. The entire Far East
was colonized by the Freemasons of France, Holland, and Britian but
not Thailand. The last country to have what it once was. I think the
colonies of Far East made everyone crazy and wars have destroyed
everything in the Far East. There has hardly been any wars in
Thailand, and it is so advanced being untouched. Even the Viet Nam
and Cambodian conflicts did not spill over the borders of Thailand.
With that said, the country is so beautiful. Tropics, coconut treess,
and beautiful beaches. I was in so much peace. Thailand was an Eden.

And the food! Rice and dishes that made your stomach curl. Eating
fast food can be the worse thing for a body that can not take stress.
I was in Southern Thailand and there were no McDonalds. I saw one in
Bangkok but none in the south. And I sleep so well in Thailand. Good
sleeping gives you no stress. No T.V. and no phones. If you had to
get in touch with someone you would just drop by the house for a visit
or worry about is next time you bumped into one another. Not having a
phone was real good. If you were not phoning you had to make all
plans in advance, a week before. It was real nice knowing your week
plans and you had so much to look forward to. Today, with the
cellphone, you get a call when your friend I nearby, on your street,
and at the door. None of that then.

There was also so much to do. Study Buddhism, learn Thai, read a good
book, or see a friend. To be honest I did not like Buddhism, it was
the state religion but it was to secretive. You could spend years
trying to seek Enlightenment but there were no books on how to seek
Enlightenment. The were other religions I was more into. I did not
like how there was no demons in Buddhism and once at a port nearby the
fisherman lit firecrackers to get rid of demonic ghosts and I wondered
how Buddhists did such a thing. Also, back home I hated Freemasonry
and all the Freemasons I knew were into Buddhism. The two were very
similar. I guess I knew to much about Buddism. Learning Thai was
easy. I lived in Thailand when I was 2 and must have had some Thai
still in me. And books, did I ever read many books. The English
department had a great stack of books from all the famous writers.

In the school I taught three courses each three times, so I had nine
classes. Not much work and had plently of time preparing for class.
My first day teaching I did not know what to do. I had no teaching
experience so I just winged it and talked to the other teachers of
what to do. Learned pretty fast what do to. One of the teachers was
from Vancouver and taught in Japan for a year. Mike Green knew what
to do. I felt real stupid that I did not know what to do. So Mike
gave me pointers and it worked well. There was an American there too
who was sent on a 3 week course before the term but wouldn’t help me
with anything. I felt like I was back in High School with the
American.

All of the teachers made about $1000/month but in Thailand that was a
lot of money. I could buy lunch for just 20 cents and over the course
of the term just spent a total of $400 on the cost of living. I had
an apartment for free too. If I wanted to I could teach English on
the side and make quite a bit of money but never did. The whole town
was eager to speak English, the international language as they called
it.

And the structures of the buildings made sense too. Since it was
really hot, I mean hot, all of the buildings were made of cool
concrete with no walls. Trees sat next to the open walls and cooled
the rooms. Sitting in a class in the middle of heat wave, one never
got sweaty. It was kind of neat to see. The homes of the teachers
were very simple too. Just a area to park your car and a staircase
leading up to a second floor made of hard wood. A house I could
build. Everything was simple and worked well. Nothing was fancy.

Another thing I noticed right away was materialism. No one wore
lavish cloths or drove expensive cars or were concerned with objects.
It was a giant Catholic compound at peace.

There was also many Canadians in town which was great. Songkhla was
an oil town and many of the oil worker were from Alberta, Canada.
Some Americans too, but mainly Canadians. I got invited to drop by
the helicopter station and read Canadian newspapers. That was nice to
do to keep in touch with home. Thailand was very different than the
West, the most anywhere, and hanging around Canadian things was a good
thing. And all the Canadian were so happy too working in Songkhla.

Nearby I would rock climb at Krabie. I never knew of the climbing in
Thailand so I brought my gear just in case. And was one of the first
to climb in Krabie. There was only one bolted route there in 1991,
today there are thousands. And the rock was beautiful. White
volcanic limestone rising out of the ocean. Never seen anything like
it. If I was not climbing at Krabie I was enjoying the beaches and
there were so many tourist there from all over the world. It was a
fine place for a weekend. But if I left Songkhla on the weekends I
would miss the Hash House Harriers run on Saturdays and the volleyball
game between the Americans and Canadians on Sundays. There was so
much going on. But I did not like the Hash House Harriers to much
because technically it is a Freemason jogging club. In Korea I spent
many times with the Hash and everyone was either in the Mason Rotarian
Club or some kind of Masonic club always secretively going on about
Masonry. Many in the Hash did not know it was Masonic, and that
really bugged me. And if you did go in the Hash you had a name like
Cuntface or Spermcum and I was always uncomfortable with those names
and the hookers tooo, to many of them in the Hash. One day everyone
is going to find out about the Masons and Hell will freeze over. Far
from home I wanted nothing to do with Masonry.

I got really into teaching and after 2 weeks the students seem to be
happy. I wanted to teach conversational English and that in my
opinion made you learn English but I was not allowed to teach
conversations. If someone lectures it is good for the one giving the
lecture but the class does not learn that much. If someone plays the
piano for you, you will never learn. You have to play the piano to
learn how to play. I did have one class and taught letter writing. I
would ask the class to write about, for example, a cover letter and
mark the letter. After s few months of this many in the class really
learned to well to write good letters. At the end of the course on
the last day, many cried and said goodbye. Another class I had the
students name me Mountain Man in Thai. Some of the students asked me
out on a date but I wanted to be professional and refused to have any
personal contact with the students. I often thought of Bob Judge, my
grade 10 music teacher coming onto to me, on his bed, with me drunk,
and never wanted to be like that.

One teacher friend sexually came onto me and that was a problem. The
whole is sex graved. We went to a hotel for lunch and she wanted to
get a room. Boy did I feel stupid. I did not know what to do.
Later, she would be really angry at me. It set a bad tone for me
around the workplace but like anywhere there were bad tones
everywhere. One fellow teacher I hit it off with was the head of
English department, Patrawandee (no lat names in Thailand) . I would
drop by her house all the time at talk forever. In the teacher’s room
we always joked around and talked about everything. Patrawandee even
heard about the book Margret Trudeau wrote about Pierre Trudeau the
Prime Minister of Canada. It was called Beyond Reason and was very
[popular in Canada in the 80’s. And too, when I left and gave her my
address in Toronto she cried. Thailand was so far away and no one
ever came back to visit. So Patrwandee would never see me again.

Regarding my mental illness or whatever I have, I was so heathly in
Thailand. I don’t know if it was the food or place. But when I came
home I was so mentally fit and physically fit. So much so I always
wanted to go back and get my job back. But I now take medicine and
don’t know how I could get medicine in Thailand, and it is really
expensive. I have to be on the Canadian government medicine program
to afford it. And you can’t be on the program in Thailand. Even
sending medicine across or out of Canada by mail is illegal. I never
knew that until my mother tired sending me my medicine from Toronto to
Vancouver and the post office complained.

I think sometime in our past we made Canada, the U.S. and Europe
stressful and not a very nice place to live. Sometime ago maybe when
we all lived on farms life was good and there was no stress
whatsoever. Even walking through a forest can be a stress release and
there are no forest trails in Europe and the ones in Canada are
disappearing fast. Sometimes I wish I could go with friends on a
sailboat to the oceans near Thailand where no one lives, like
Micronesia and live off the land and sea. It would be so peaceful and
I would not need any medicine in such a place. Canada is a crazy
place.