My Descent

Bones

When I was young I had an imaginary friend. He was a black and white skeleton with a matching hat. He talked to me. I talked to him. We went lots of places together. Mr. Bones was much more than imaginary. He was real. He was my friend. I think I was somewhere around five.

There was a time when I didn’t see him anymore. I don’t have a clue if he left on his own or if I made him go away. Mr. Bones was gone. Looking back, I have one of two truths to consider. The first is he was a spirit and he was going to be a companion through life. The second is Mr. Bones was a figment of my imagination. My alternate universe, so to speak. A visual and auditory hallucination that was very real to me. I believe today that he was a creation of my mind.

I don’t know much about schizophrenia. I still may not have it but all signs point to me being schizophrenic. What I have discovered is this is uncommon for my age. Most people with this disorder are diagnosed when young. With all of the chaos of my life I tend to think I have been schizophrenic since I was young. Nowhere near as pronounced as now but real none the less. My behavior over the course of my lifetime leads me to believe it was always there. I masked it well. People thought I was just the weird kid.

I believe in God. I also believe in spirits. I have been on a spiritual journey for about 10 years. I have grown to believe God is there, now more than ever. I also believe that Lucifer is very real. I started having dreams. They were vivid, real, and always had relevance to what I was experiencing at the time. In that empty space between being awake and asleep I saw images. Faces of people I didn’t know. Most of them smiling at me. I also saw demons. I saw a jack booted thug dressed in all black that was the keeper of the eternal office of darkness.

About seven or eight years ago a spirit began talking to me. His name was Patrick. He wasn’t my guardian angel. He was my guide through my new life. He talked to me a lot. I only saw him once. The first time he came, he showed himself to me. He was beautiful and had a smile like none I have ever seen. I tried to see him again. I looked for his face in the passersby I saw. I did see him once. It was during my early days in Alaska. Myself and a coworker were walking down a sidewalk going to a sporting good store. A bum asked me for a light. I said nothing and kept on walking. The person I was with gave him a ration of shit for bothering us. I didn’t feel right about it but bowed quickly to peer pressure. When we left the store and walked back the direction we had come, he was still there. He didn’t say a word as we walked by. He only smiled at me. It was Patrick’s smile. I have no doubt of that. I had failed a test.

Patrick eventually left. I never heard from him again. I kept calling for him in my mind. Somewhere along the way, a heard a different voice. It was a spirit trying to console me and nudge me to do the right thing. Eventually there was a second voice. This was the bad spirit. Yin and Yang if you will. One told me good things, the other bad.

I started believing I was like Job. I guess there was a challenge between God and Lucifer over this man. God said he could take it all away from him and Job would continue to be a Godly man. Lucifer said no way, he will curse you. Well, Job’s life began to spiral downward. Everything was going away. He still continued to worship God even after he hit bottom. God eventually restored him to his previous self and Lucifer lost.

When I first came to Alaska, I was the golden child. I had the Midas touch. Everything that I did was good. I found the perfect Alaskan log home. I found the girl that soon after became my wife. I worked hard and accumulated a lot of wealth. In actuality it was Kitty that accumulated everything for us. I didn’t see it that way and I didn’t appreciate it. I didn’t understand what true wealth was. After five years my job went away. I wasn’t right with God. I didn’t honor him and forgot about him. He took everything away. All of our stuff and our home.

This is where my downward spiral really began. As time progressed, I thought I was paralleling Job. I thought God and Lucifer were battling for me, having a tug of war. It was around this time I started hearing the spirits. Very soft at first and infrequent. I always thought something would give in the job market, that something had to break. It never did as far as full time work. My stress level went up. It actually went through the roof. I had meltdowns. The real me started to show its ugly head. The voices got more pronounced. The good spirit trying to get me to do good. The bad spirit trying to get me to do bad. I rarely heard them together until recently. I heard them all the time and responded in my mind. I never talked to them out loud. I did begin to talk to myself. More and more as time went on.

They got louder and started to show up together. The good spirit as always, tried to make me see good. The bad spirit always told me I should blow my head off. Fortunately, I never did.

In my mind I was worshiping God. Problem was, I still had both feet firmly planted in the material world. There was a serious conflict in my brain. Looking back now, I wasn’t speaking with spirits. My mind had created them. My alternate universe to make sense of my internal conflict. From what I understand now, schizophrenics have no clue that something is very wrong with them. What we experience is very real to us. Eventually I told Kitty about them. She took it all in but never said anything. She was afraid I would fly off the handle if I didn’t get the response I expected. She was right every time.

I walked in to the local clinic on Friday. I finally hit rock bottom after destroying not only my life, but hers as well. I dragged her down with me. She stayed when all others would have abandoned me long ago. I needed real help and hadn’t been getting it so far. I was put into the Medical Industrial Complex, moved along, and Medicaid made payments to everybody to shuffle me through. Everybody made money and I got no real help.

I stayed in this clinic for nearly three hours and spilled my guts. I told them I was most likely schizophrenic and these people listened. I let them know that I need the right kind of help. I believe they are going to find that help for me. I was very nearly committed to the hospital that day but not because they thought I was nuts. They were truly concerned about my safety and well being. I went home after the behavioral health lady and I made an extensive safety plan for me in case my auditory hallucinations came back.

Saturday morning they did come back. It was both voices, the good and bad. They had one thing to say to me. You did good. We’re done. I then felt them leave. Whether this was real or perceived, they have not come back since then. I have no idea whether this is temporary or permanent. I took my first Peristalsis that night. My brain seems to be starting to function again as I write.

Mr. Bones was very real to me. Nobody else ever heard him or saw him. He didn’t speak but he made an appearance a couple years back. I saw him briefly. The same black and white skeleton with his stylish hat. He was a cartoonish figure. I loved cartoons when I was young. He smiled at me.