On Seizures

i. Foreword

Introduction

This is going to be a very long topic. It is going to be a very difficult topic. Not only for me to share. But likely for any of you to hear. Thus, I will steer into the subject with something of a foreword to ease the words to come.

In all the turmoil of the recent days, weeks and months, a lot of folks have shown more of their true colors. More of their true selves. What this means to me, is that I’ve been extricating a lot of people from my life. I wish to say this not as some attempt to censor those peoples, nor to strip them of dignity. Though I am willing to admit that my recent public activity has, in moments, been less than graceful.

I have been angry lately. I have been sad lately. I have been scared lately. There are times when I don’t allow myself the strength to handle those emotions with the most grace. I do not feel I owe it to anyone to find that strength in every moment either. Because it’s hard work to do so. It is hard work to try to accept hate and ignorance with dignity and compassion. I vow never to cross the line into cruelty though. For that will further no goal of mine. I furthermore will not tolerate cruelty I witness. Not even that which originates among any who call me friend, any who I name as friend, nor even shall I extend such complicity to anyone of my own blood. Though I hope truly it does not come to that.

If you are truly reading this and you’ve gotten this far.

Then thank you.

I am proud of you.

Thank you for being you, and thank you for having the strength to hear this. Because it’s about to get very difficult.

The Topic - A Primer on Seizures

You see, right at the top of all this, I told you of a topic. It’s the Title of this whole thing. The topic is Seizures. Seizures are amazing and fascinating things. Truly, they are. Seizures are also powerful and terrible things. Truly, they are.

What a Seizure is, is this: a misfiring of neurons in the brain. A helpful metaphor I have formulated, is akin to a miswired circuit. When you put a current through the circuit it creates a short. Shorts have consequences in the world of electrical engineering. They have much stranger consequences within the confines of the human brain.

Seizures come in many forms and flavors. I am very fortunate to be able to say that I do not suffer Grand Mal Seizures. A Grand Mal Seizure is what likely, statistically speaking, all of you are going to think of when I say Seizure. (Also called a “Tonic-Clonic” -- I hate that term by the way…. “The Stiff-Jerking” or “The Big Bad”....which do you prefer?)

Thing is: Grand Mal Seizures are the “big daddy-o” of the class.

A Grand Mal Seizure is defined by a storm of simultaneously misfiring neurons. In effect, this storm cascades at once across the entire brain. Effectively each neuron fires (though it is highly improbable that like literally all of them go; all the neurons in the brain is a number somewhere in the order of the 60’s of Billions). The results of this are fairly well documented. Epilepsy was old news by the year 460 BCE. The term Seizure itself has ties to the belief that an outside entity (a demon in many cultures) had entered the victim, and “seized control” of them.

The typical victim of a Grand Mal seizure will immediately enter a state of physical convulsion. They may collapse, it may be dramatic, it may be a bit more subtle….like someone almost dozing off. Extreme Grand Mal seizures can endanger the life of the individual in an immediate way. They can be placed at risk of harming themselves in a fall, or even biting their own tongues...without reserve.

I will spare you the details of how easy it really is, in a purely physical sense, for your teeth to cut through a tongue.

These are the most commonly documented, most commonly reported, most commonly addressed, and most commonly recognized symptoms of Epilepsy. That does not make them the most common to occur. Nor does it make them the best addressed. There is more that happens inside the brain at those moments.

To the individual, any and all individuals, who have suffered and/or do suffer Grand Mal Seizures….I cannot begin to speak for you on the breadth and depth of that topic. I therefore shall not.

Instead, I will try to create an analogue. I will try to create something from my own experience. I will describe what I know factually, and from personal experience about Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, the form I suffer.

And I hope that all who read this shall know truly just a few things going in: Temporal Lobe Epilepsy is less common than “Standard” Epilepsy. It is less intrusive than “Standard” Epilepsy. And it is less known than “Standard” Epilepsy.

I hope that by acknowledging the above, and that through my words, people might be able to catch the barest hint of how harrowing a Grand Mal Seizure must be. How it can run much deeper than just a momentary fall, and some uncontrollable twitching. And how the weight it imposes must be carried day and night, regardless of whether the Seizures come near or far in time from one another.

I ask a few things of my readers now: You have made it a long way into this thing at this point. I thank you again for taking the time. I understand this world’s pace. I know too that we are not people who are used to sharing such truths. We are not used to having such knowledge of the people in our lives.

Many of us want to know only the good and glowing things about life.

Many want to know only joy in all things, and feel butterflies kiss them every waking moment of their days. I do not speak against those people, I envy them.

Most people don’t want Facebook, YouTube, or social media in general, to be a place where they see and must bear other’s burdens. We each have our own battles, our own lives. Things that can keep us busy until the Earth spins off its orbital rails and drifts into cosmic nothingness.

I understand that. At least, I try to understand it in all ways possible to me. I strive to understand it a little better each day. If you’re still reading, truly, thank you for choosing to then.

Blessings to you.

I promise, I’m not trying to waste your time, or skip around the point. The issue here is this: I have held these words for far too long. I have held these words for years and years. When I have shared these words I have not necessarily done them their full justice.

I look at the world today, I look on where we are, where America is today. I see a place that needs more of this. I see a place that needs more people to be fully open about who they are. Where they come from. What drives them to do the things they do. I think that people need more of this not only from those in their life, those around them, those they think to call friends, but for something much more important.

I think we all need more normalcy around discussing our lives and our problems, for ourselves. Each and every one of us on this earth suffers.

It isn’t melodrama. It’s as true as the beauty of birds singing in the morning. There are events beyond our control that bring suffering to us, and there are events within our control that we enable to further suffering in ourselves. It need not define your life.

Your caliber of suffering may be terrible, it may be easy as a Pumpkin Pie. But each and all of us on this earth know other living breathing humans. We have seen other living breathing humans hurt in countless ways. We have each ourselves been hurt.

We ultimately see everyone in our lives succumb to the passage of time, and meet death. These are just some of the things that make us human. They happen.

It’s not all life offers of course. Life is capable of offering miracles, simple, mundane miracles. These little things, these little conveniences that lead to the beauty of a new friend. Little interactions that leave lasting memories that inspire us, those around us, and those we don’t even care to know exist.

Life is love, and Life is pain.

Life is a duality. One, that while not easy to, should be embraced.

It should be embraced wholly and without reservation.

What I ask my readers:

If you have really made it this far.

Is to remember something important about all these words. Each word I’m pouring out in here. It isn’t here to waste your time, and it isn’t here to make anything about me.

See, a writer must write what they know. I know suffering in a unique way. I know suffering as it has shaped me through Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. I share this all not to feed my ego. I share it because frankly I’ve learned recently not enough people know, and it makes a difference to know it.

I have leveraged pieces of what I’m about to share with you to help others, in the past, and more recently.

I have been able to use components of my truth to encourage people to keep living. I have spoken with people I hardly know, and with only a little bit of compassion, and some time, been able to allow them to choose life.

I think that if I share this story more fully, more openly, and more honestly it may help many more.

I think it has the power to help people I don’t even know exist.

I think it has the power to reach people, and empower them to face their own demons; whatever they might be. With just a bit more vigor and just a touch more love. So I ask you please, and for the third time, do not think I am trying to make this about me. Even though everything I am about to say is almost exclusively about my life.

I. The Beginning

Ii. - The First One

I didn’t know what was going on when I was 13. I mean like I didn’t know what was going on with myself, or with anything. I was an ignorant adolescent nerd, with all the same worries and troubles any young, ignorant nerd naturally faces. At least, I was until this all started.

We went on a school trip to the Beach, Wellington State Park. It’s in New Hampshire, on the shore of Newfound Lake, to my knowledge still the 3rd cleanest lake in the world, or some such claim to fame.

I knew Newfound Lake as “my lake.” Because I was an ignorant young turd, but also because I lived in Bristol, New Hampshire. One of the towns the Lake falls within. See Newfound Lake ties four small rural towns together with its expansive shores. The lake is deep. It’s where I learned to swim. So anyway, I’m on this school trip. Wellington Beach is the crem-da-la-crem of the shore space on the Lake.

Us kids were doing dumb kid stuff. We discussed PokeMon, and I went and found some time to sit. I found some time to sit alone, unsupervised and just daydream among the plants. I knew that area well.

I knew it from visits with family. Moreover, from regular visits and even light volunteer work there via the Boy Scouts, an organization I was a part of through Life Rank, so I will not easily forget its lessons.

That was where I experienced the first Seizure I have active memory of. I didn’t know what it was at the time. And I still don’t know now how much of it was the Seizure and how much was imagination. Because you see, I was still thinking about PokeMon. In fact, I had my eyes closed and I was conjuring up this vivid image of Ivysaur (Bulbosaur’s second form) in a place with big trees and large ferns. Why? Because I was a dumb kid = )

Also, because, I don’t know; that was the one I was crushing on that day. What happened though was the picture in my mind began to move and sway. It moved and swayed on its own accord. I thought it was magic.

See you've got to understand. Even the least imaginative mind can dream up something, and move that something around in some extra space that exists only in the mind.

Those objects conjured by thought, only move at the brain’s direction though. In this moment, I could -feel- and I could -tell-, in no uncertain terms, that Ivysaur had moved himself.

I put a static image of him there, but he and the trees moved with no wind I could dream up. Trust me, my mind was not, and is not so agile as to be able to calculate and extrapolate an accurate physical model of the subtle movements caused by the wind and swaying gait of any PokeMon, let alone Ivysaur.

It was not magic. It was a Seizure. It is the first experience I can call on, to begin describing the road I ended up on.

It may be hard to see, as you are - among the audience - right here and now, at this point, in what must look like utter rambling; how a day-dream of Ivysaur on the beach would lead to a path of such darkness and trauma. However, I assure you, at no fault of good-ol’ Ivy’s, that is exactly the path I was led to.

I don’t want the story to be as confusing, jumbled and frightening for you, as it was for me living it. So let’s take a moment. At the time, I had no idea what was happening. Like I knew clearly what was -transpiring- but I did not understand the significance, or the implications.

I didn’t have any resources to call on. So there are a few things about Temporal Lobe Epilepsy I am going to let you in on. Things that I wish I could go tell my 13 year old self right now.

But I can’t, because he was 13, and I am now 28 nearing my 29th complete orbit around our wonderful sun. It has not been easy getting here. And I think that if you are still reading, then I need to thank you again. Because we are about to discuss some very difficult things.

Iii -Brief Discussion on Types of Seizures

So Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (which from here on I may or may not abbreviate as TLE), is a hell of a thing. What hell of a thing is it, you ask?

Well, we’ve discussed Grand Mal Seizures. They occur across the entire brain at once, at least for the purposes of our discussion here.

In a Temporal Lobe Epileptic’s brain the misfiring neurons exclusively begin their “shorts” in the neural network from the Temporal Lobe. Ok sure, easy to say, but a little bit of a circular definition, I admit.

The Temporal Lobe plays a role in judgment. It plays a role in forming emotional responses. It plays a role in the brain’s awareness of place and time. Finalization of visual input. Many things.

Seizures within the Temporal Lobe naturally disrupt these processes. Sometimes in big dramatic ways, but not often, not in my case. Often, those seizures are subtle, quiet and sinister. It is what we will refer to here as a “Partial Seizure.”

Iii.a -Defining a “Partial Seizure”

A Partial Seizure is any Seizure where the misfiring of neurons is localized to one definable region of the brain. Depending on an individual’s epilepsy these “points of failure,” these clusters of neurons that have the ability to trigger a misfire may well be mobile.

A Partial Seizure is not required to occur in the Temporal Lobe. Having all your seizures, Partial or Otherwise begin in the Temporal Lobe defines Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

There is another class of Seizure between Partial and Grand Mal.

I will state clearly here:

I am not a doctor, nor am I a neurologist. I do not claim to know the whole truth of science and medicine behind these topics. From what little I do know, the term “Partial Seizure” and the term I am about to use a lot, have fallen out of favor.

Apparently there is some newer way they have found to classify and discuss this stuff. (Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m just layman...but I have looked into this new terminology from the International League Against Epilepsy [ILAE] ------ it’s not that it doesn’t make sense...it’s just ---- I don’t like the new way of thinking too much -- myself, personally.)

For my purposes, this original model is still effective. I have experienced it in my life: Nearly every day.

I hope by using the terminology I’m using, I do not lead anyone to misinformation.

I hope that everything I say before and after this point are true, and are accurate statements.

I hope as well that it shows on any statement I am not confident in.

I hope lastly that none of my mistakes, with the data, or my way of writing, end up steering you away.

Iii.b - Defining a “Partial Complex Seizure”

So Partial Seizures, localized, happen in one lobe of the brain. Good review, what’s it building to?

In Temporal Lobe Epilepsy all Seizures start as a Partial Seizure in the Temporal Lobe. Cool, got that base covered. Now, there is a whole class beyond that, and for my purposes we will name this category as Partial Complex Seizures.

Partial Complex Seizure is a kind of a silly name. It may be its oxymoronic nature that inspired the terminology to be reviewed, and new terminology to be embraced. I am not a scientist, nor a licensed medical professional of any kind. So I am not sure, but I will define it as I know it.

Partial Complex Seizures are when a Partial Seizure (one that occurs in one lobe of the brain) leaves its isolation. What occurs, is the storm in the misfiring brain cells, carries outward. The storm subsides in the Temporal Lobe, for example, but only because it is shifting into another Lobe.

These are the true burdens of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

For you see, as it plays out, the Seizure remains localized. What I mean is, I have the time to experience each facet of the seizure, I fully experience each lobe firing up.

Each affected lobe fires independently, mostly as the Seizure ends in another lobe, but there can be and are times of significant overlap. I will get into specifics, please bare with me as I lay out the abstract concepts.

One of the important, and often overlooked consequences of this is that Partial Complex Seizures can last a much longer duration than an individual Seizure of another variety.

Ok so we’ve had a long intermission from the tale.

I have filled your eyes and thoughts with some strange words, and some odd, nebulous ideas.

I promise it’s important though. Indeed, I promise furthermore -- that if I could --- I would impart every word of this to my younger self.

Since I cannot:

Since I cannot go back, ease and comfort that young me who was so lost in this. Then I hope simply that by the end of all these words I can bring some kind of ease, and comfort to you, or someone close to you.

Iiii - My Early Experiences with These Seizures

Alright, instead of diving into the specifics and boring humdrum of my teen years, and High School experience. Let’s explore what manifested in my mind while I was going through those years. Ever since that day on the beach: When the innocuous, yet sinister, daydream of Ivysaur became fully animated, apparently of his own volition;

I was marked.

Perhaps not in a way my peers could see, but in a way I felt at my core then and to this very moment. From that point on more Seizures came. They were vivid, and they were powerful. They were relentless and they were terrible.

Iiii.a -Symptoms in the Motor Strip

Some Partial Complex Seizures (which I may, from here on in refer to as “a PCS event” for brevity) would spread from the Temporal Lobe into my Motor Strip.

That is a portion of the brain which controls your kinetic, physical movement. The results:

My hands would twitch.

I would have an uncontrollable shiver run down my spine.

These were quite rare, especially in my teens. They are quite rare even now. They are also typically very short in duration. They are above all else, the least impactful to my life and wellbeing.

Sometimes there would be physical sensations. Like someone was touching me. One that stands out is that eerie feeling you imagine would be felt if someone cracked a cold egg over your head and let the yolk drip down your neck, shoulders and spine. These too are rare, fleeting, and minimal.

Some PCS Events would extend to much more impactful lobes of my brain. The Auditory and Visual Lobes being two I deal with often, and two that can have a very high impact on my quality of life.

Iiii.b - Brief Tangent on Irrational Processes

Before I explain the associated symptoms of those Lobes going into Seizure, let me explain something I have heard from a psychiatrist speaking openly on these matters. He was speaking about patients with Epilepsy, but also many Psychological and Neurological Conditions beyond that. It rang true though.

I cannot remember his exact words. Right now I cannot even remember his name. (I think it might have been Oliver Sacks ------ it was not a TED Talk. I have not been able to find it again. It came up from a series of auto-play suggestions in YouTube’s Algorithm...perhaps similar to the way you found me.)

What I can say though is this:

He was an old man. He had been in the medical industry for decades. What he described was a most fascinating phenomenon. Information received in the brain is accepted as valid and true. In fact, information received in the brain must be accepted as valid and true input.

One thing that his long work in the field had revealed to him was this: there is, factually, and in a documentable way, a piece of the brain that works against me. It's not even a piece of my brain affected directly by my seizures. It's a collection of regions in the brain, that process all input and information.

This portion of the brain will stand up and act out when there is reason for concern. Though it does so in a way it views --- from an evolutionary perspective --- to be best for your survival. Forgive me for ascribing personification to this phenomenon. I have lived with it.

It shaped my formative years in a powerful way though I was hardly aware. I assure you that I am not trying to describe another personality, or some perceived outside entity. We’ll get to those stories in due time. What I am trying to describe is a subconscious process which occurs in all our minds. Just in my case, it had reason to act in bad faith.

Iiii.c - Explaining the Effects of these Processes

See this process in the brain I’ve been rattling on about, its job is to make information true. It sees some neurons fire. Were those neurons in the auditory lobe? Then you best believe that the ears just heard something and the brain needs a response.

What was the source of this sound? Unknown….ok.

What does the pattern in the auditory lobe look like it would sound like? Uhh, maybe some Jazz.

Ok! Jazz it is. Now, listen up everyone. Jazz music is playing.

DO NOT ASK WHY. It just is, obviously, you can see right here.

In fact, do not let any of my conscious awareness ask why. Don’t allow any checks or balances on this input. You just have to trust me, I’m doing my job to defend the Brain as a unit.

In fact, propaganda lobe (not a real thing by those terms, but a similar and real process akin to what I am herein describing. Somewhat referenced for a touch of humor) why don’t you pump out some narrative on this Jazz?

Anytime the conscious brain questions the Jazz, I want you to make up a story. If the conscious me argues with those stories, or begins to analyze it, I want you to redirect it. Feed it an answer, any answer that will buy more time.

All of the above may seem like utter madness:

In a lot of ways it really, truly is. In other ways though, it’s an aspect of Stream of Consciousness. It’s an aspect of how all our brains get through their daily tasks. Each “department” has roles, and sometimes compartmentalizing those roles is viewed as key to survival.

The old man neurologist-- I will endeavor to rediscover. I will try to relearn his name and find the speeches he gave, they are on the YouTubes and elsewhere. He worded it all very professionally, and very eloquently.

Now I digress though.

Iiv - Symptoms in the Auditory Lobe

During my teen years, and to this day, I have Partial Complex Seizures. During those events, it is very common for the misfiring of neurons to spread from my Temporal Lobe to my Auditory and Visual Lobes.

The Auditory Lobe is by far the most commonly hit in my case. It's also by far the one I notice most keenly. I may hear voices, I may hear music, I may hear just sounds. I assure you, if they are voices they are not what you think when you consider, statistically speaking, Auditory Hallucination.

Iiv.a - Clarifying and Contextualizing - Auditory Hallucinations

People think they know well the implications of such Hallucinations: From what they have heard of Psychological Hallucinations. A lot of people think that all Auditory Hallucinations consist of the voice of an entity. They believe that this entity talks directly to the individual, and it interacts with the individual and it suggests courses of action.

From the horror stories people hear of Schizophrenia they believe that means that these voices are inherently evil and they lead the victims to do inherently evil things, and thus whoever hears voices,

Regardless of their spirit, are…

In fact,

Inherently evil.

That is simply not true.

In fact, it is an argument based so deeply in fear and ignorance that I cannot abide by it.

Auditory Hallucinations come in all forms. Even those with Schizophrenia will not all hear the same voice calling. They will not hear their voices the same way even as others with their same condition.

You may not see how I, the allegedly epileptic YouTuber of this channel, can speak with such certainty on Schizophrenia. Again, I am no doctor, I am no medical professional, I am not a licensed therapist. I understand that.

I again promise that I am in no way trying to spread misinformation of any kind. Psychological Disorders, especially in the “Schizoid-Bipolar” Family, are generally regarded by the medical community to be an imbalance in the chemical carriers of the brain.

My condition, that I am speaking to, is Epilepsy. It is Neurological, and thus rooted in the physical hardware of the brain. So what the hell do I know about Psychological Disorders? Reader --- stranger out there staring into the glowing screen of monitor wondering just who this lunatic author is --- I will ask more of you now.

I will ask you to trust me. I will tell you, that at this point you have read long and hard into this tale. I promise I am taking you through a journey and to a destination. I promise that to the very best of my ability I am speaking what I know.

I promise you, that if you make it all the way through this, you will understand why I feel comfortable weighing in on some aspects of Psychological Auditory Hallucinations, and how I can speak with such certainty about the distinctions in the Neurological Auditory Hallucinations I experience regularly.

Iiv.b - Actual Effects of Auditory Hallucinations

So: I hear voices.

Sometimes, it will just be like a roll call.

Like all the voices of all the people I have ever known or heard waiting in a line and speaking to me one at a time. Not like conversing with me, but speaking at me. Almost always it is simply “Hi” “Hello” “Hi James!” “Hello James!” coming through in an orderly fashion of teeming voices I may or may not recognize, I may or may not have heard in years.

Sometimes it will be a voice narrating something. It might in very rare circumstances happen to narrate something about me, or what I’m actively doing. But usually, it’s like I’m a fly on the wall, and I’m overhearing some other conversation happening somewhere.

Usually it’s kind of nonsense, or comes through in that fever-pitched quasi-dream-state where you hear everything said, but the details blur away as soon as it's over.

The Partial Complex Seizures which hit my Auditory Lobe more often than not though, are not limited to voices. In fact, the single most common symptom I am aware of and deal with across -all- of my condition is that of hearing music.

Sometimes a massive orchestral piece, ohhhh scores of music.

I wish I could write and compose it for you. Sometimes it’s operatic, but usually it’s just some lovely ensemble of horns and strings, creeping from inaudible soft lows, to boisterous strong crescendos of expression.

More even than those though, are the Jazz pieces. Oh Jazz, I love you.

I hear sometimes Big Band. Pieces of Big Band Jazz I wish someone could make real, so that you all could hear it as I do. Oh the way the horns swing and sing, oh how that deep hand-plucked upright bass can just thrum in the chest.

But that’s the thing: it doesn’t thrum in my chest. Only in my mind. Perfectly. Clearly. In some ways more pure than music ever can be….but it’s only in my mind. It isn’t real.

The trios and quintets are beautiful. Mostly strings, always horns. Oh they can be bluesy-then funky, then snappy, then calm. Sometimes full of sorrow for the loss of never being heard; though almost always ends in the kind of joy only music can express.

But it isn’t real.

It’s just some passing fancy I hear in the night (or whatever time I am struck by such an ordeal).

Iv - Where is this all going?

See with all the doom and gloom I’m preaching, so far:

A lot of my hallucinations, and a lot of my experiences, may not sound so heavy. They may not sound so bad. Who doesn’t like Ivysaur? Who wouldn’t love to rock out to their own tune without headphones?

Trust me every curse has its blessings. We are just now beginning to get to a point, where I can explain how this all goes so terribly wrong. But I haven’t told you of those times yet.

Iv.a - Symptoms in the Visual Cortex

The times when the storm in my mind carries from my Temporal Lobe in the lower front of my Brain, to my Occipital Lobe in the rear of Brain. That is a piece of the brain within the Visual Cortex.

A whole cluster of hyper specialized networks that coordinate the raw sensory data from your eyes into patterns, and eventually full images with depth and color and all those things.

Iv.b - Contextualizing and Clarifying Visual Hallucinations

So what’s the deal with those? Well, when a Seizure reaches that far back into the mind it becomes very alarming. Firstly, that means the misfires travelled, in a systemic and systematic fashion through a long and winding pathway in my mind, and came to rest over sections of my visual cortex.

If I am having a visual hallucination there is a very likely cause: I just suffered a series of lesser seizures. Each such smaller seizure was brief, maybe not even noticed, mayhaps noticed far too keenly.

Then perhaps minutes, perhaps hours later one of these events happen. The world stops. For a signal to reach all the way into my visual cortex I have likely not only suffered several recent Seizures, but I have probably been in this seizure for upwards of 2 minutes.

That may not sound like a long time, however, try not breathing for 2 minutes. I am not saying I am not able to breathe in these moments. Just trying to express a context in which you might understand how 2 minutes could be perceived as a long time.

Iv.c - Brief Tangent on the Effects of Seizures on Awareness

In fact, good time for another piece of tangentially related knowledge in these matters. All what I have been describing is true for me. Though it's not necessarily the rules every Epileptic plays by. Some may have it far easier than others.

I know some have it unimaginably worse.

There is another difference of category and class, a distinction made, within the medical community that I have come to know of. There is another way to divide Seizures into groups. One such methodology looks at Seizures which impede awareness versus those which do not.

What that means is that for some Epileptics, their seizures remove them from consciousness. They effectively black out. Unaware of the full extent of what just transpired. The brain effectively having a light switch flipped off as part of the response to the neurons affected.

Those are fortunately, and unfortunately, not my burden.

I have Seizures which have never once impeded my awareness. What that means, is that throughout a Seizure, I can continue to focus. I can continue to carry on with mundane tasks. I can continue to hold a conversation with you. You may not ever know I have ever experienced any of this.

You may have been a friend of mine in my school days, (when I was 16-19 this was completely unmanaged). You may have been standing by my side day in and day out, playing video games with me at my house and yours, and not had the foggiest idea what was transpiring behind my eyes.

That is not a unique experience to Epilepsy. It's a common thing with Depression. It's a common way for all people to handle all their problems. It is a philosophy I encourage us, one and all to end.

I practiced long and hard to not reveal my true and inner struggles to people around me. I hid it from my parents. I hid it from my teachers. I hid it from my friends. I even managed to hide it from myself.

Don’t call shame on any one of them. If you count yourself in the named categories, don’t call shame on yourself. There are many hard lessons to learn in life.

II. The Middle

IIi - What we’re Really Talking About Here

One of the most important lessons is that you cannot help someone who does not wish to be helped. We each and all have free will. We each and all deserve that free will. We each and all have a right to make choices about how to handle every aspect of every day of our lives.

And I will say this in no uncertain terms: We each of us hold free will and a personal choice over whether or not we keep living.

This is really important to understand.

I don’t say it to encourage or condone anyone taking their life. In fact, now at this point my audience -- I claim and argue that you must read on.

You have made it this far. You have heard some strange things. I’m even about to tell you of the nature of my visual hallucinations when they come. They are unlike any psychotropic drug you can find. They are unlike any psychological condition you have studied. They are my nightmares. Even if when I get to describing them in full they don’t sound like the bogeymen I claim them to be.

But that is not why I say you have a responsibility to hear me to my last word at this point. Why I say that is because I have just told you that you have a choice to end your life.

I have told you that if you wish it, you can take your life.

I have told you that there is truly nothing anyone in the world can do to take that choice from you. I hope truly, and sincerely that you, my readers, are not facing such a choice choice.

I wish that as you hear me explain this you scoff at the utter absurdity of such a proposition. That you feel a need to turn away now just because I have had the gall to mention something so ghastly.

But I charge you not to. I charge you wherever you are, whatever you are doing, and whatever you are or are not going through to just hear me out. Because what I said is true and it must be accepted.

But it is also not the whole story, if you are considering taking your own life, if you know someone who you are worried might be, then you owe it to yourself to be educated on the kinds of things that can lead to the precipice of death.

You owe it to yourself moreover and more deeply, to understand the choices that are actually before you in such a time. Because I have brought it up I will address it in part here and now: though we are only just beginning our discussion on this.

So again, and for the sixth time (pretty sure it’s the sixth time anyway) I will say it. You really must read on.

Thank you. I am proud of you for making this far. But things are going to be a little hard to hear.

IIii - Topic Primer - Understanding the Road to Suicide

If you are or ever have considered taking your own life I will say this. It can seem like the only choice. It can seem like a righteous choice. Like a choice that will ease your suffering and remove you as a source of pain from other lives. Lives you feel you harm.

Let me be clear: that is not the choice before you. You have a very different choice before you; if ever you stand on that dark precipice. That cliff into the nihilistic void left at the end of a long, painful and difficult road.

You have a choice to leave this world, but never freely. See, I know. I once walked those dark roads. I got to a point between where we are in my story now, and where I live today as I speak this, where I thought death was the righteous and proper choice.

I thought that I should remove myself as a burden from society. I spent my days contemplating fully and completely how best I could kill myself without making a burden of it on the world.

I discovered I was in error.

I discovered there is absolutely no way, not one single method by which you can choose to end your life and not have it be a burden. I considered mixing chemicals in an enclosed space; the fumes would suffocate me.

I could be found conveniently, and I could be displayed in an open casket. Nice gesture right? Thinking of those I would have left behind wasn’t I? I thought of throwing myself from buildings; too loud, too messy.

If there were witnesses I would scar them, possibly for life. Possibly even lead them to my same road. I thought of the bridge; it was high enough. On days the river, rocky and frothing below ran low enough that I could certainly be rid of myself with just a short fall.

But then see the waves might carry my corpse away. And if I was never found dead, it could lead my family down a wild goose chase. It could leave them trying to answer an ineffable, unknowable truth, to a story they didn’t even know.

That simply wouldn’t do either. I’m ashamed to say, I wasn’t able to just cleverly think my way out of the void. I couldn’t outsmart myself. I was going to find a way to do it. And I was going to ensure; with 100%, scientific, verifiable certainty that there would be no “attempt” about it. I would be dead and it would be over.

IIii.a - The Seeds of a Most Harrowing Tale

The only thing that stopped me, was that someone I viewed as a mentor and a hero, did it first. I promise we will get to his story. What little of it I know. See, he probably didn’t even count me as a friend. He probably didn’t even know I was out there. Even though he taught me personally how to play saxophone.

Even though he had bought me lunch on a field trip to the college for a Jazz Lesson from our teacher’s personal mentor. See it wasn’t that I was hungry that day, it was that he heard I couldn’t arrange a ride. He heard I was broke. He got me in his car, drove me to the whole affair. And he bought me lunch at Subway and shared the meal with me.

To him that may have just been another day being. To me, it was a very special gesture that came at a time when I really needed a very simple, very mundane miracle. I promise we will discuss what happened. I promise I will discuss the full weight of the fallout.

I will discuss how I learned I could not take my own life from the same man who taught me how to play saxophone.

The instrument I most favored from my auditory hallucinations. One that I have never, and likely will never be able to play to the level my boiling neurons can. My friend Jake though, he sure could man.

From memory and from heart he could play almost any tune, even if he had only heard it once. I watched and listened to him as he would take in some tiddly-bit of information, or hear a quietly muttered request; and he’d work it out in real-time.

He’d re-scale it to a set of notes he preferred to use, then he’d make his Sax ring and hum with the vibrant tones he felt and lived by. At this point you may be wondering. What kind of a loser am I? And what could possibly mess my friend up so bad he’d end his life faster than mine?

I have really in the last few minutes only begun to scratch the surface. In truth all the pages in the world could be filled to the brim with ink and I could still fail to impress upon you the dire weight of all that’s happened.

It’s part of why I have sat on these words for so long. It’s why I am writing what I am in the way that I’m writing it. It’s why I’ve asked you to read, thanked you for reading, and then compelled you to read on.

I may fail to explain to you the decisions that lead to the precipice. I may fail to impress on you the ferocity I sought my end by. You might get the impression that I’m weak. That I succumb to sweet jazz and cool daydreams and think life is not worth living.

I hope you don’t get that as your message from all this, but I must admit it is a possibility. I’ll be honest though. If that is how you feel, keep watching anyway, but I’m not really talking to you, not necessarily anyway.

People who have stood at the precipice of this choice, as Hamlet put it “To Be or Not To Be, that is the question.” If you have been able to contemplate that phrase fully and truly; then you don’t need me to adequately explain the road that leads you there.

You need me to explain the choice you face, and the path I found off that road. If you have stood on the precipice of suicide; or if you stand there now; you must know how on earth this all played out.

You must know what I learned from Jake’s Wake. What I learned at the Ceremony us pathetic mortals participated in to honor his life. And you must learn, above all else, the cost of the choice he made.

How his making it; showing me the true cost of taking his life; led me to understand that I can never, and will never, make that same call.

IIiii - Returning to Me

I promise I intend to do all that justice. As much as I can. But we are not yet there. For now, I need to stick with me. Because right now, I am about to explain the nature of my visual hallucinations. The ones I experience which arise out of my Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

From there I will explain a bit more how this condition led me so far off track. And from there?

I will bring you back from the edge. I will bring you to my decision to live. I will bring you to the days after I made that choice. I share this not for myself. Not to make me feel better about having made it here.

I share this for any and all who view it and understand what I’m saying. I share this for the outcast, the broken, the downtrodden, the suffering and the lonely, one and all who think that their life ain’t worth living.

Any and all who have the gall to make such a decision without knowing the truth of it. I have said above and will reiterate here: I could break myself four times, and not change one of your minds.

I know that.

I could, in a literal way, call on the power of the cosmos itself, and still not save you. God himself, of any form or flavor of you wish could descend to the mortal plane just to speak with you. And still you would be left with a choice. One that only you can make.

I urge you. Strongly. Consider my experience, and make a better choice. Make a harder choice. Make the choice to just keep breathing. I know I can’t choose the outcome of this matter for anyone on this earth except myself.

I am sorry for that. I wish I had better news. I wish I could tell you that if you sleep better, eat healthier, and dance that --- magically --- life will be sunshine and rainbows. I can’t tell you that though, because it isn’t true.

What I can promise is that once you back away from the precipice of death, opportunities open to you. Countless opportunities big and small. While the days themselves may not necessarily get easier…. they can get brighter if you give them an honest chance.

I know, because I stood at the edge of death, that these are just words, and may not strike true chords with you. I know my experience is somewhat strange, somewhat removed from many others, it may seem unrelatable. But I want you to know this:

I live each day broken.

I live each day wholly.

Both are true.

Another duality of life I pray for you to embrace, even though I know too that it is a difficult one to accept.

IIiii.b - Seriously Though - Thanks for Reading

If you’re still reading this then hang on! I want to pin a gold star on your shirt! I wanna give you a hug! I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart in a way that is more sincere than anything I have been thankful for.

Because this has been hard to write, and for some of you -- harder still to read. But this is just the beginning; as promised I will pick up where I left off. I will now go in depth about the fascinating (and for me terrifying) nature of Visual Hallucinations induced by Epileptic Seizure of the Brain.

Then we’ll get really wild and I’ll be able to finally explain how it is I know Schizophrenia as well, and how it is I can compare and contrast different types of hallucinations.

I only hope the rest of my tale is enough to help lift whatever burden you carry in this life. Even if the relief you get from my words is minimal. Even if the relief you get from my words isn’t enough. I hope that it helps you none-the-less.

IIiv - Actual Effects of Visual Hallucinations

So I’ve taken some time to talk of other things. Not on Seizures at all. I have taken pains to explain what my visual hallucinations are not. Now, with the context, we can begin to discuss what I do see when my neurons misfire in the visual cortex. It may not be as spectacular as my hesitation to discuss it has built it up to be.

When I experience visual hallucinations, most of them are simple. Dots. Colored dots. They move and swirl like tracers in the vision. However, they are more. If the Seizure is strong enough I will see many dots, of many colors. They will shift and form animated geometric patterns.

Simple ones. Not the kind of visual art that psychotropic drugs induce. There is rarely any depth to these fractals. They are not complete, they do not convincingly override reality like AR Goggles. Those are the mild ones though.

The full-blown Visual Hallucinations induced by such Seizures take on more sinister natures. I see silhouettes move; I see shapes lunge at me. That part of my brain -- the one I referred to far earlier as the “Propaganda Lobe.”

It takes over at this point. Seeing something, someone, move that is not there is in a league all its own. If you ever have had the misfortune of being plagued by this you don’t need me to say any more. I will though.

Keep saying more.

IIv -The Weight of These Matters

See, the brain knows something is wrong when it can’t trust the senses it relies on most. For 99% (not a fact-checked number) our eyes are that sense. When you experience a visual hallucination a whole chunk of your brain kicks into overdrive.

It works to supply a convincing, and acceptable narrative to “logically” explain the incident. The brain works to make any explanation it can come up with an acceptable narrative even if it isn’t.

IIv.a - The Road to True Madness

Even educated, and aware of the situation there is little a trained mind can do to combat this process, and mitigate this response. In my teens I did not have a trained mind. I did not have a mind educated on these matters. In fact, I had no awareness of the situation I was in. My mind controlled me from then on.

From there on I was in fully un-managed Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Partial Complex Seizures were not daily. They were effectively infinite. In fact; I came to live for the Seizures. Though, I knew not what I was doing.

See, my mind took over. It dictated the significance of these events, and it spun very convincing narratives about it all. Everything tied back to Ivysaur’s swaying gait. It was magic.

My mind worked overtime, it would engage with me constantly. It took the voice of the lady I heard speaking in a dream once and used it. It would use her voice to fill my idle time.

These were not hallucinations… these were more like having split personalities...but not from a chemical imbalance, Rather as a simple survival mechanism. My brain would keep me entertained, and complacent.

It would spin stories of the higher purpose in all this madness. It would keep me going until the next Seizure came. As my defenses against them fell away the Seizures became more real than life.

Those moments. Those incidents in my life. They would last 1-5 minutes. And they were life. They gave me a true understanding, and appreciation for a wonderful quote of Edgar Alan Poe, edgelord supreme before that was cool.

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”

Do not misread. It’s not Epilepsy that defined me as insane. It’s what I allowed Epilepsy to become in my life. It became my defining quality.

My Seizures, the music, the voices, they grew in strength and power. With that “Propaganda Lobe” working over time, it was easier to process the miswired storm of electrical energy in my brain.

It was a very involving and participatory game. I’d keep toddling along, and I’d get another few “true moments” with which to actively interpret the strange happenings and powerful hallucinations. I ascribed them meaning beyond their worth.

I worshipped my insanity. I worshipped my personal narrative. I thoroughly worshipped the suffering as true living. Now maybe you can begin to understand how this goes so terribly wrong. How this all leads to a young man, out of high school, with few friends to call on.

Do not misread me.

ESPECIALLY

If you were one of those few friends who stuck by my side. Those few friends. Those people who were there in my life for those dark years, I owe you a debt I can never repay.

I burdened you. I tried to wrap you into my insanity at times. I tried to sell you on a dream fabricated from the wishful musings of my subconscious. I tried to encourage you to live my lie and support it. If you failed or faltered in my view, I was not necessarily kind to you over the matter.

Eventually I led my friends, some few true, good people, into a terrible position. I led them into a position where they had more of an understanding of my suffering than I did. They couldn’t name it, because why should they have been able to? But they could see it plain as day.

My actions eventually led them to such concern that the truest friends I shall ever know were duty-bound to act against me. At least….they were duty-bound to act in ways which I viewed as against my interests.

IIvi - Delusional States of Mind

By that time I was sick and poisoned. I was broken in a way most people never recover from. I allowed my mind to rule me, instead of endeavoring to rule my mind.

In the wake of its shadow I crawled and clambered through my days. It guided my hands. It guided my feet. It guided my heart. There were no checks and balances. My mind had become a place of tyranny.

That which spilled over into the lives of those close to me, I am truly sorry for in a way no words can ever express. The truest and best among you stood by me anyway. You listened.

You even would engage with my psychotic delusion in an attempt to steer me closer to home. You shared words of wisdom with me. You urged me to get help.

Some of you I turned on. I have forgiven myself for that, it was not easy, it took years. I know some of you out there will never forgive me though, and I accept that in stride. It does not diminish any of the actions taken, and it does not stain my view of you.

Any of you who were truly there.

I brought you to Hell with me.

IIvi.a - The Path to the Precipice

Understandably, only the smallest handful tolerated it. There truly was only one who never faltered. One who stood resolute and fought my demons when I had not the strength to do so on my own. And for you all I am so sorry that at that time, it was not enough.

You all fought such a good fight, and I was still going to throw myself off a bridge into the Pemigewasset River some cold night when no one was watching. If you can’t forgive me for that, I understand.

I would go back and kill the me of that time just to spare you all...if I could, and if that itself was not the entire problem you all faced with me.

I can tell you one and all though something true, something that I hope you truly never forget.

IT MATTERED!

Everything you said, and everything each of you did.

It mattered.

Some of you I was incapable of hearing when you gave me words I truly needed. I didn’t hear your words until years after they were spoken to me. But eventually, when I had made some of the hard choices, and I was ready, your words did break through.

I heard them all, and felt such the fool for ever having stood on the edge of that precipice. Your words did help me. Some of you lonnnng after you pulled away and went on to fight your own fights.

I thank you each now, again, and forevermore. Each of you contributed to me being alive today.

I am ashamed to say that the best friends in the world that anyone could ask for was not enough though. It could not tip the scales. It could not turn my mind right again. I plowed onward towards death with abandon.

I had the plan. I had it planned in about 6 different ways even. Each detailed, meticulous and constructed with the attention to detail only I seem to be able to muster.

Mark my words. I would have done it. I would have done it despite friends, despite family. I would have done it for me and for me alone.

IIvii - The Full Truth I hold of a Most Tragic Tale

I only hesitated when Jake Messersmith took his first. I am sorry if naming him fully brings any trouble, brings any pain, brings any sorrow to any of you.

I do not name him lightly. I remind you again, he may not even have counted me among his friends….ever.

IIvii.a - The Setup and Context

I was a kid who paid him to teach me saxophone over the summer leading into my Sophomore year. I did that because he offered to teach. I reached out to him because you ain’t ever met a truer master of the instrument.

And I had the goal for two reasons:

First was simply to get into the Jazz Band. I was never a very good musician myself. I was kinda good at reading the sheet music. I could play notes. I lacked rhythm though. I also lacked the discipline to truly practice.

Anyway, the second reason you may be able to guess by now. I hear Jazz often. It is the most common symptom of my Epilepsy that I have awareness of. I’m still blessed to hear those Jazz Ensembles at times, playing on in my head as neurons fry from the shorts.

At the time I had him teach me, I was already living for the Seizures. I felt maybe, I could get closer to them in my mundane life by having a saxophone and calling that music out. Maybe that was a noble goal.

Perhaps it was even an achievable goal. Maybe sometime I will pick up the Sax again and give it another go. But I was just a dumb kid, ignorant, undisciplined and vain. I sucked at Saxophone. Didn’t stop me from trying, didn’t stop me from having fun.

It did not however bring me closer to the mystical world my mind had been so busy creating though. So why was Jake my mentor? Why my hero? Why my idol?

Well I can tell you first and foremost. He could play jazz the way my mind heard it. That was huge. Additionally he was involved in Drama. He ended up going to college for Drama.

Seeing his work in the plays over the years. Seeing his flawless role in his senior play. It all inspired me. It gave me something to strive for in the world. Something in life that just might keep me going.

I was a dumb kid. I didn’t know those were all someone else’s dreams. Those were all Jake’s dreams. I wasn’t trying to take them from Jake. Not once, not ever. However, seeking them for myself did not bring me magical closure.

It didn’t bring me closer to life.

It taught me some incredibly valuable skills, both music and drama. Skills which extended far beyond their place and stay with me, even guide me today. But skill and talent, earned or perceived does not bring one closer to life.

IIvii.b - The Roads of Suffering Shared

So what happened? How did my idol fall?

In some ways he never did. He became something more I think even than he could have dreamed.

I just wish he hadn’t.

I just wish he hadn’t needed to. I just wish he knew the cost of the terrible choice he made.

See, Jake was diagnosed in his early college years. He was diagnosed with Schizophrenia, not a friendly cousin of it, the full-unbridled deal. I have spoken somewhat on the nature of chemical imbalances. I have made some effort to clarify that they are different from neurological imbalances.

I promise we are about to talk about it in a way I know. In a way that is dark, terrifying, and gripping. It's in the way that I experienced it, after I chose to keep living.

I know that may sound far fetched. But I promise, I’m getting there. I know little of the specifics of what Jake went through. To any and all of you who read this and know Schizophrenia, know Bipolar, know any umbrella term under the Schizoid-Bipolar family...

...Know that I am truly sorry for your suffering. Know I can’t speak truly to it on the level it deserves. Know that I can’t shape my words to tell your story, and your pain.

Though I wish for you in that camp that I could. Because I have tasted your realm and it was so much harder than mine. Jake could not find solace. He was unprepared for the burden.

It came fast. It took him hard. He went from a talented, handsome, lovable god among insects, to a lost and broken soul. It happened to him almost overnight.

He didn’t have the luxury of his entire formative years training him for the shock. He didn’t have the support within himself to lean on, and breathe with it. The support groups weren’t enough for him. The meds were not enough for him.

I am sorry to say all this so plainly, and so frankly. It’s just what I know to be true of his tale. And I feel it is my duty to share it.

Because one fateful day came and went.

I will spare myself the knowing of the exact date right now. It’s still traumatic, and it’s still deeply painful to me.

IIvii.c - The Fateful Day

The day came though.

Jake Messersmith hiked to the top of Mount Monadnock.

A beautiful mountain. A beautiful hike. It’s a place I have had on my list of hiking destinations since the start of my Boy Scout days. I've never hiked Monadnock, because I have not yet had the strength to do so.

Because this one fateful day came before I made the time to take that journey. Jake Messersmith hiked this mountain. He texted his family, in particular his younger sister, goodbye.

I wish it on no one.

I wish it on absolutely no one.

I am pained to my core for ever considering it. I can’t even imagine the damage of one simple text and what he left them holding. Because after that text, it stopped.

It all stopped for Jake.

He took a gun to his head, and he shot himself dead.

It broke me. It shattered me.

III - The End

IIIi - The Aftermath

He wouldn’t even have called me in his top 50 friends I bet. And yet here I was absolutely and completely, and indescribably broken. I had to go to the service. I had to reach out.

I HAD TO.

And I did.

IIIi.a - Jake’s Wake

The Wake was held right down the street from my house. Cars lined the road for miles. The funeral home could not contain us. We spilled out onto the porch, we spilled out into the driveway, we spilled onto the sidewalk, we shut down the road.

Not to make people stop and know Jake. Because there were just too damn many who had. Too many of us to pack in by his side.

The casket was closed.

I cried uncontrollably the whole time.

His family saw. They saw me cry. They didn’t even know me, we had never met. But they saw the hurt I held. They offered me their home. Me and so many others.

We were swept up and brought out to their home after the wake. We ate. We drank. Everyone found some way, some power I could never know, to just be merry. They spoke of their cherished times with him.

The jokes, the laughs, the loves shared, big and small. They all put on such a good show. They all truly saw me. They all saw me, broken and unable to take it.

I couldn’t do it. I wanted to be happy that he had lived too, but I was so sad. I was so deeply sad because he was the one who had to make a sacrifice so that I might live.

So that I might stop.

Breathe.

Just take a moment to consider the implications.

Believe me, I would have traded-places. I would have gladly let Jake be the one to tell you of how some kid he barely paid attention to took his life, and it hurt him, because he learned later he had some power over that kid and may have been able to positively influence that lost boy.

But that is not the story we get to tell.

He gets to tell no more.

His family, direct, and extended, saw me. They may not have known the fullness of my grief. I cannot claim to begin to understand a hint of theirs. But we saw each other, we saw that each other had grief.

His family hugged me. They embraced me. They let me and so many sleep under their roof that night. That’s not the end though. And we don’t get a fun tangent this time.

IIIi.b - The Ceremony of a Life Honored

We went to the School Auditorium. You've got to understand, my school was not much. But we had one of the best auditoriums in the state as far as high-schools go. Nice dark red carpets, these weird new-agey architectural elements. Strange triangular angled protrusions that help shape and resonate the acoustics of the stage.

I may be employing hyperbole here when I say the seats were full. Every chair filled. But know that I speak without exaggeration when I say that: essentially his entire class from high school had an early reunion.

I can say that years of students below and above him turned up. I can say friends came from much further away. I can say his family united from all over. I can say his entire drama team from College rolled in on a bus and that likely counted among their numbers many who were not in the dramatic arts.

I can say we were all there not to mourn the loss of his life. Not to dwell on how many days were left in our lives without him.

We couldn’t do him like that.

We all knew, regardless of how well we knew him, that he would want us to party on. He would want us to remember him at the golden height of his glory and to keep and cherish that time forever.

I can say truly we did.

I can say truly I still do. But that still wasn’t enough. The funeral was not itself what sparked in me an epiphany about life.

I saw that day, the invisible ties that hold us each to this earth. I saw that day the ripples and tsunamis that roll out from such a terrible choice. I can say, with no uncertainty, with no doubt , with a perspective only the slightest few have ever been cursed to have:

That it isn’t worth the cost.

Jake sought to end his suffering. What he accomplished was to pass off his pain with interest to each and every one of us who had ever known him. All of us gathered there in the auditorium that day took a piece of his burden. We each got different shares, different flavors and different sentences with it.

To his family, you all inspire me. I cannot even begin to comprehend the levels of pain you had to shoulder. I can only say the grace you showed us all in those critical moments was truly awe-inspiring.

It was the closest thing to divinity I’ve ever witnessed.

For despite whatever grief I am sure they were contending with. They did not show it to us. They showed us only their smiles and their love for his memory. They showed us only what they could use of his memory to make each day without him more bearable.

IIIii - What I Saw Truly That Day

I was far weaker. People tried to comfort me and I thank them. They slapped hands on my back and they stood and observed with me as I was consumed by grief. I’m sorry to say not all of it was over the loss of his life.

No small part of it was over the folly I had participated in. I saw that day, what must have been easily over a 100 people walk away. I saw between us all the burden Jake carried life, tallied countless times over. Each of us were left in our secret places to contend with it in some way big or small.

We all already had our own battles, our own struggles, and now the world had one less light shining in it. One less beacon to help us ease our fights. I do not blame Jake.

Never, ever, question my devotion to his memory. I know many of you would call what he did weak.

Selfish.

But if you have the luxury to think that then I’m sorry to say you haven’t suffered enough, and I’m true when I say I hope you never do.

The choice was his. If we could all go back in time --- the entire globe could encircle him --- reassure him, and reach out to him. Encourage him to try one more day. To give it all one more chance. And he would still have been left to make his choice. He would have still had to contend not with any of us, but with only himself about whether or not it was the right choice.

IIIiii - The Heart of This Tale

We all have that Free Will in us. We all have the choice to just stop going. I urge you: never do it. Never give in. If you must: let your suffering rule you. Let the cosmos beat you down.

But let nature take its course with you. We’re all going to that destination sooner or later. Believe me, it’s better if you let fate, the cosmos, the universe, God (if you believe in one, I don’t) do the scheduling.

It gives you time to experience life. It gives you time to make more friends. It gives you time for your days to grow brighter. It gives you the opportunity to share your pain with someone else. And just maybe it gives you the power to save a life.

If you walk over that precipice however, you don’t get a reset button. The damage is done.

The damage is done, and it will reach far beyond your circles. You may be in such a dark, howling, lonely void, that you think you’re isolated. You think you’re “truly alone” -- that not a soul will peep or whimper at your passing.

I stand here today to remind you that is not true. None of us are alone. We all share this globe. You have circles, within circles, within circles, and you know of so few of them.

In each one are people near and far who care. They love, and they watch. They may not know how to help. They may not be able to help. They may have already given up helping. But they would feel your passing.

And they would be the ones stuck with your burdens and your baggage if you choose to embrace nothing. It cannot be avoided. It cannot be undone.

For many it cannot be forgiven, or even understood.

--Sure--

One in a million chance you inspire someone - As I have been inspired. Someone else ends up standing up and living fuller in your honor.

But that is not the honest truth of the cost. The cost of taking your own life is beyond measure. It’s beyond tally, it’s beyond description, word, or expression.

It is real, and it will hurt people you didn’t even know walked this earth.

Frankly, shortly, briefly:

The cost is just too damn high!

You have all done beyond well. You have made it here. I originally wrote this in the midst of a dark and stormy night (no joke, not writing for dramatic effect). The wind howled with unending fury, just as the demons were released from the shadowy corners of memory. Windows were rattled by the ferocity, as fingers trembled with faltering power.

The rain lashed, and whipped across the roof in waves, just in rhythm with the tears that streamed down my cheeks. Know it true: As I drew to a close this long and dreadful chapter of my tale it literally became dawn.

The gray light of morning rushed in, to chase away all of that suffering.

IV - The Days After

But you see. That’s not the end. It never was. That’s the end of Jake’s tale.

Mine kept going.

I mentioned burdens. I sought help. I was shattered, but I knew I couldn’t follow in Jake’s shadow on this one. There is a whole journey beyond deciding to stay for the next day.

IVi - Standard Intake Procedure

Did you know the mental health system checks for epilepsy with only one MRI? I repeat. When a young adult shows up reporting a mental breakdown. They will take time to delay your admittance into the psych-ward by “ruling out neurological causes.”

They do that with one MRI. One time; one snapshot of the brain. And they make a judgment call. Does this person have a neurological disorder?

They chose no for me. When I was being admitted I didn’t actively have a seizure. MRIs will not detect Seizures (could find lesions or physical damage that may cause Seizures though ---- mine of course revealed nothing).

When I was put in the MRI I was not actively experiencing a seizure anyway. They saw no major physical damage, and “caught no unusual activity.” So they packaged me up and shipped me out as “Psychological Disorder, Chemical Imbalance, Schizoid-Bipolar, Delusional. Medicate”

I was clearly manic, afterall. How were they to know it could just be from grief and great burden? I was certainly full of lies even when I finally found the strength to pour upon them the truths of my delusions.

IVii - Contextualizing and Clarifying Delusional States of Mind

When the mind succumbs to these whipped up irrational tales - tyranny and poison envelope reality, as stated above - the delusions are a form of evolutionary defense: to allow the mind freedom from the pain.

Truly, I had been deep in my delusions, deeply in love with the voice of a woman from a dream. Though medical professionals often steer conversations away from them [delusions].

I think what they do not fully understand is the result of such efforts. I believe they want you to stop engaging in the delusion. What they may not realize is that forcing someone out of their delusions does not stop the twists in reality.

What happens is: the delusional patient starts lying, and telling their listeners what they think they want to hear. Trust is lost between the patient and the doctor, because the counselor or whoever - is suddenly viewed as an enemy to that which has taken deep root in the mind.

I would not encourage anyone to put their minds, souls and bodies into a delusion. I simply suggest that much more truth, and much more understanding, can be gained simply with some delicate interactions.

IViii - The Value of These Topics

Delusions are not entirely uncommon: learning the nature - core - and inception of someone’s twists and ruptures in reality can reveal much. There may be patterns. The delusions may ebb and flow.

The delusions may defend themselves, some can be revealed and simply cast out - with enough effort. I believe medical professionals have a lot to learn from their patients, and would benefit with slightly less structured, less “by-the-book” sessions.

Because -- see -- they did not account for where or when my delusions came from when I showed up. They sought instead to treat me as I was - a 20 year-old manic delusional patient, contending with grief. They treated me like that --- instead of a soul which had been broken since at least age 13, but had only just found the power to seek aid.

There were...consequences, dire consequences from the decisions they were obliged to make from there forward.

IViv- Consequences of Our System’s Structure

I would argue that by a need for swift action, and lack of reserve with pharmaceutical solutions they were instead led to break a serious oath. I would say that despite their heart, and their care, and their desires to lend aid, they failed their most important oath:

“Do No Harm.”

See, I was medicated. Heavily. As a result of the institutional procedures. And now we get to a whole new part of the tale. One I promised nearly at the beginning of this whole thing.

IVv - The Knowledge I Never Wanted

I came to understand Schizophrenia over the next few years. I came to know Schizophrenia, not as well as, but in tandem with Epilepsy. My primary symptoms were untreated and continued to be unmanaged. That colors my perspective. It fills me with bias I can’t remove, avoid or ignore.

I was dosed at one point over double the recommended prescription for extreme cases. I was put on so much pharmaceutical medication that I had to be prescribed two or three other meds to manage the side-effects of the first.

Each month I would see an actual Psychiatrist for 30 minutes. Every week I would see a counselor for about 40minutes. The counselor changed every few weeks. So my story and rapport with them began anew every few weeks.

My psychiatrist hardly ever looked up from his clipboard. He asked me, in a thick German accent some very general survey questions. His favorites were “do you feel the meds are helping?”

My answer was always “I’m sorry no. The symptoms have not subsided. In fact, any shred of joy they once gave me is gone, and now the voices and shapes come in new forms”

His response: “I zee. Zhen ve vill use more meds”

And he did. And he did. And he did. And he did.

I will take some time now to explain the repercussions of that. A system so “finely tuned” to provide “mental health care” that its own experts cannot stop and ask themselves any of the following:

“is what I’m doing right? Am I making a difference? Is it the right difference?”

The repercussions are simple actually. Even us non-doctors, non-professionals can see it. If someone’s brain is not chemically imbalanced, and you feed them these chemicals, there is but one outcome.

The chemical imbalance is created.

IVvi - The Weight of These Burdens

And that is how I lost years. In fact my memory is damaged, from being a husk of a human, and also just from the trauma I refuse to revisit. I cannot accurately tell you many years that went on for. I cannot accurately describe the timeline, and the activities which occurred.

I can say I was still passing classes in college. I was even still studying Martial Arts and passing the philosophies to children. I can even tell you that I was in the psych-ward three times. Hospitalized, and institutionalized.

Each of those three admissions were voluntary on my part.

IVvii - The Psych Ward Cycle

The system is so bad at scrutinizing its patients that they didn’t know when I needed surveillance. I had to know it, for myself. The system is so lopsided, so underfunded, and so philosophically baffling; that their motto is to get you out of the hospital as quickly as possible.

Not as quickly as is healthy. Not as quickly as is right.

Rather, as quickly as they can stop having to manage you. While, of course, not making you too much a risk to/burden on society.

I do not say this to dissuade people from seeking help. As I said my perspective on this matter is skewed. I was traumatized.

I was traumatized by the negligent misuse of a powerful tool. And for years I had to live with bipolar-schizoid chemical elements; along with my still unmanaged, unmitigated, unidentified Epilepsy.

I don’t say this to slander or defame the men and women who work that industry. I don’t think the situation is their fault at all. In fact, I thank them for putting themselves as roadblocks for us lost souls to have to navigate around.

They legitimately make it harder to end your life. They are trying to help. They do have love and passion for their work. Most just:

A) Don’t have any idea what they’re messing with. It’s the human brain, no one knows what they’re messing with.

and

B) Don’t have the resources. The societal or cultural support, or an accepted philosophy on the right way to do this whole thing. I’m not sure you can just write a guidebook on those things.

Believe me when I say none of them tried to hurt me. They only tried to care.

IVviii - Contextualizing the Patient-Doctor Relationship as a Patient

Though I will say, it was a little dehumanizing to be chided for reading Harry Potter. "Clearly, that's risky business. You're delusional, right, kid?"

Oh, am I? Funny thing that --- You only know because I told you. Not to be petty, but like I said, they had no idea what or who they were messing with. They were just trying to help.

(In that case, trying to help me as well as others. Can't have me going psychotic and getting violent. After all I was a high ranking, trained, years-in-the-making fighting machine. They had to consider certain risks and duties when they learned I was a martial artist. None of them were [martial artists - that is], so they didn't know how strongly the disciplines and philosophies held me together.

Wanna talk Self-Defense?

And how could they know Harry Potter just reminded me I, like many humans, could still read? After all they only knew I had delusions because I showed up manic and asked for help.)

But one fateful day. I got a new counselor. She was a legend at the sport. Not a psychiatrist. No authority over my meds. But she had been listening to stories and working in this industry for -years-.

IVix - The True Counsel

It took her 15 minutes. “I’m sorry did you say this started when you were 13?”

“Yes. I did,” I answered

“Do you know how unusual that is?” She asked .

There's always a bit of light that hops into my eyes when I have the chance to show off something of what I know. “Actually, yes I do. I’m no doctor, but I have taken classes on the subject. I feel I fit the bill for schizophrenia. But I would belong in a textbook as a case-study if it really started at 13. It tends to start in the mid-to-late 20s right?”

“Yes, it does. Drugs and other stressful and traumatic experiences can catalyze it. It is also possible for it not to manifest until the mid-thirties. Not unusual to see it crop up in a patient’s 40s. But 13? And mostly dots and patterns for visual hallucinations?”

“Yes, and yes. I mean for months now I have had worse. I have witnessed the shadows witness me. They look at me now. They talk -to- me now. They tell me how much I suck. They tell me I’m a failure. They tell me it would be cooler if I took lives And it’d better if I took my own.”

(All true, all true. The imbalance caused by the pharmaceuticals gave me a new class of hallucination to contend with. It still gives me shivers even just thinking of those dark demons staring into my heart. Sometimes even for hours on end. Felt like hours anyway, had a pretty shaky grasp on the concept of Time.)

“Ok, alright? And before. Like when you first came…….these voices didn’t talk to you?”

“Sometimes I guess. But not like they do now. Everything that I looked forward to in it has evaporated. I don’t think these meds work.”

“I am not sure they are working for you, either. Did you say the most common symptom for you, was music?”

“Yes, yes I did.”

“I am not sure. I can’t make this diagnosis alone. But everything we have discussed sounds like Epilepsy. Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Famous author Dostoyevsky, he was Russian, he is a famous case study.”

“Wow! Really?!”

IVx - What It Meant to Me

That was it. I didn’t need any of those systems anymore. Truly I didn’t. I extricated myself. I never went back to that behavioral health facility. I spent my entire next summer weaning myself off the drugs. But, the damage was done.

Those occasional silhouettes became constant shadows. They grew large clawed black hands of darkness and they stalked me. They watched me. They hunted me. They hunted me to claim me. But they hunted me for a much darker and more insidious reason. Those shadows in my mind sought to make me embrace a dark reflection of myself.

To all of you out there who truly suffer Psychological Conditions, not engineered by misdiagnosis, not engineered in any temporary way. There’s almost nothing I can offer as condolences. Except to promise that I see you each as living breathing humans. And to show these people here what very little I can of those experiences.

I promise also, that this is not an accurate representation of all people with psychotic disorders. It’s one broken, shattered, misdiagnosed man’s biased perspective on the matter based on the experiences he was subjected to in a time of great suffering.

I implore all who have made here to not carry this portion of the tale in the wrong way. I’m not saying don’t seek help from the Mental Health Professionals.

There are so many ways by which they can and do truly help. For any of you with Psychotic Disorders, Psychological Conditions, any form of chemical imbalance, induced or genetic, they may hold the key to your survival.

I just wish that no one else has to live that part of my story.

It was infinitely harder to deal with what I had, as it was left unmanaged and unknown, while I simultaneously had another condition induced in me; eventually I had my rights revoked.

IVxi - Rights Revoked

One holiday season it was just too hard. I checked myself in for the third time. They had no beds in the hospital. They had no beds in the state. Too many crazies around the Holidays. They put me in a suicide watch room;

They gave me the ability to watch junk tv and hear the top 40 pop radio songs. Then, after several days, they had a police officer come in and hand-cuffed me. He put in the back of a cruiser and he drove me, cuffed the whole way, to the State Hospital. (His taste in Katy Perry’s music was not particularly fitting the mood. Let me tell you)

IVxi a -Voluntarily Involuntary

See you are never admitted to the State Hospital Voluntarily. Even if you volunteer it’s involuntary. You are only supposed to end up in those wards when you have made yourself a danger, a real danger to others. Or when the system at a voluntary ward literally cannot contain you.

If you think you know Hell, and you haven’t been in an involuntary ward for the criminally insane.

You know nothing.

I could not leave.

IVxi b - Representation for Mental Health Patients

I could not leave for Christmas. I was brought before a judge. Let me rephrase: I was put in a glass room with a telephone and phoned into a courtroom to represent myself.

Except I didn’t get to represent myself. Not only because I was on more than half-again the recommended dosage of antipsychotics (at the time), but because my counselor at the time advocated for me.

When I say he advocated for me I mean he insisted, without having seen or talked to me in weeks, that I needed to stay in the hospital for a much longer duration. I was kept until after the New Year. I spent December 21st 2012, the day the world was supposed to end (dumb conspiracy totally unfounded), in an involuntary psych ward.

The things I witnessed in there I can never unsee. And I will share none of them with you here and now. It does not further my story and I’ll not take the dignity nor anonymity those people have from them.

V - The Real Ending

So that’s it. I rebelled in the end. I still have no official diagnosis (working on that). However, once I weaned myself off the drugs I found all the proof I ever needed. The shadows returned to silhouettes, the voices stopped harassing me.

Vi - Advocacy for the end of Marijuana’s Prohibition

And then I found weed, marijuana, THC. I am a strong advocate. There is a lot of work already done and continuing to be done around Epilepsy and THC. It may not even be the THC, it could be isolated non-psychotropic CBDs. There isn’t enough data yet to be certain I don’t think.

I don’t follow it as closely as I should.

Weed helps though. It eases the burden. It affords my mind a chance to travel new neural paths. These paths get to avoid the metaphorical potholes in my brain; the clusters in my brain that incur feedback and eventually trigger a Seizure in my Temporal Lobe.

Vii - What I have Come to Know

I’ve been able to learn much of my condition and how it affects me. I’ve come to realize that many more times than I tend to notice I have Simple Partial Seizures. That is to say, Seizures which are isolated to the Temporal Lobe.

These are subtle, subtle even to me who thinks to know of these matters. They affect my mood. And at their most extreme, when the Temporal Lobe is hit again and again it can lead to the strangest things. Deja Vu is when something seems familiar. An event that feels like it already happened, you might even feel certain that something has been repeated. Meeting a person that feels familiar. Many things.

Jaime Vu is the opposite. It is when nothing is familiar. The places you are in feel unusual, foreign. If you are supposed to know the place it suddenly feels like a cheaply built façade, an illusion covering a prison.

If you are around people at one of these unfortunate times; they’ll seem like strangers. Even while a large part of your awareness screams that you know the person, that they are familiar - even that you love them.

They will feel like they are wearing that person’s face, or on a less dramatic level like they’ve been hiding their true nature from you the entire time. These are not the paranoid delusions of psychosis. Believe me, when I was on the meds I lived those.

Those are fiercer, more aggressive and more identifiable. This whole Jaime Vu thing is unnerving, unsettling and short-lived. Even though it may only last minutes the weight of the sensation remains with me for hours, days, even weeks after the inciting Seizure has ended.

Viii - Returning Full Circle

I am broken.

I live every day broken

I live every day wholly

I will live each day given to me.

We have come full circle now. I can release you from your charge I can release you to the world. If you have walked the dark road then I hope I have made an impact on you for the better.

If you are blessed to have never heard of anything like this ever before then I hope now you may know me better, and I hope you carry some pieces of this knowledge with you.

There are people I can’t reach directly who need to hear this.

VI - The Epilogue

My Pledges to the World

Now it is time for me to make a pledge to you:

First, I wish to reaffirm that everything I have shared is factually accurate to the best of my ability. There may be some gaps, some unintentional misrepresentations. I have tried to address my biases openly, and inform you of them.

Second, I wish to affirm that I will not retract my statement. Each of us make the choice to live, and nothing any one of us does can take that choice away for another. Unless you are so broken, lost, and hopeless that you would take another’s life yourself. If so, I don’t think I can help you and I’m sorry.

Last, and this is the important one:

I vow that my door and my heart are open. If you have managed to make it to the end of this you deserve another friend, because god damn. If you are suffering, in any way, big or small, please, think of me.

I will make myself a resource. I will fight your demons. I will stand by you until you give up on me in no uncertain terms, in a manner I will recognize. I will not call the cops, an ambulance, or anyone in your life that would restrict your freedom.

Not without discussing it with you and getting enough of some form of consent that I feel comfortable acting. This is not just some act to garner affection from the masses. This is an invitation to you: the broken souls of this earth to know another.

To look upon me and know that there is another way. It can be done.

You can live.

You deserve to live

And you should. If not for yourself then for all those you would hurt so much. To spare that which they would carry for years.

Do it for those that you would leave at the Wake, those who would be so hurt, so broken and so inspired that they would speak for endless minutes, even uncountable hours. That they would write page after page, full of worry, truth, love and hope

Just to reach a stranger they don’t even know . To try to help in honor of the ghosts that walk in their mind , such that, no one else ever even feels a wish to become such a haunting phantom within any other human on this earth.

I love you.

You deserve to love you too.