Perceived: Losing and Finding my Mind

EPISODE 1: PART 4

When I get ill, I become really self-absorbed, in a sense. I have grandiose ideas about myself, that I alone can save the world and that I am a very important person. This is really weird, because I like to think at baseline I am quite a humble person and am aware of my insignificance in the grand scheme of things. Through a mixture of watching television and listening to the radio, and decoding things from these, I began thinking that I was on a reality television show, and that everyone in Australia had signed a waiver not to look at me directly or let on that I was being watched, but that I was the butt of some very big joke. I thought this was the case because when I went out in public, I felt as though people were looking at me and talking about me. I thought that all of Australia was watching me at all times, and they were in on a big secret that I didn’t know about. I felt extremely violated because I actually believed this was happening, as illogical as it seems now. 

I remember thinking I could help people by telling them to keep their thoughts neutral, rather than getting too happy or too sad. I remember telling some aunties who had come over to visit, some friends who had visited and even a random cashier at a pharmacy, who had agreed with me. I thought everyone would be watching me through the reality show, and that they too would be able to follow this advice.

At this point, I had to defer my university studies. I went to my sister’s house so that she could help me because my brain was extremely tired, and I was having difficulty not trying to decode everything that was in front of me. After I completed all the online paperwork, a picture of the Brisbane River appeared with the Story Bridge. This was very similar to the view out of the window of a law firm office that I had been volunteering at. The firm was a Migration law firm run by a lovely lady named Fleur. I knew her through a family friend, as she had dated him, but they had broken up since. She was lovely and chilled out enough to continue being my friend and let me volunteer at her firm. I started thinking that maybe Fleur and Gita (the other lawyer who worked at the firm) could help me with all my legal needs throughout the battle I was going through. I remember threatening anyone that I felt suspicious of with the fact that I had two lawyer friends who were willing to help me out with anything I needed, and that they were like my sisters.

I contacted Fleur and she wrote back, saying that Gita had given birth to a cute child, but had made a typo and written a “cure” child. My brain decoded this to mean that the world had been saved by the birth of the cure child; the solution to all my problems. We decided to meet up, and we got lunch. Fleur had just gotten engaged and Gita had just had a baby, so I tried not to bring them down with all the negative things I had imagined were happening in my life, but decided to listen to their stories and be a good friend to them. I’m glad I had that much insight despite being so out of touch with reality at that stage.

Over the next few days, I started seeing dad clean up the shed and garage, throwing away carpet and other things. There had been a song playing on the radio that was about a changed man, and I thought it was about dad and me. I thought that he was throwing away all the things he was going to use to kill me or one of my other family members because I had “changed” him. One day, I walked into the garage, and saw a banner with my sister and brother in law’s face on it from their pre-wedding celebrations, and a blower was placed on top of it. I thought the blower was a chainsaw, as it was in a case, and that this was code for the fact that my sister and brother in law wanted to take all my parents’ money and make them homeless, and my dad had found this out and wanted to kill them. I got so scared and began to yell that I would call the police. Mum ran into the garage, and explained to me that it wasn’t a chainsaw, but a blower, and she became very teary. My sister came into the garage and I explained to her what I thought was happening and she got very emotional to see me so helpless. I left out the part where I thought she was trying to rob my parents of their money, because I thought I had to play my cards right and not let onto the fact that I knew what was going on. In reality, none of this was happening, of course, my sister loves my parents just as much as I do and would probably rather be homeless herself than see them homeless. But at the time, I get so worked up in my delusions that I am unable to have a solid grasp on reality and question even the people I am closest to and assign them roles that they aren’t even capable of doing.

I finally got into see my psychiatrist. She seemed genuinely nice, and I was relieved to have someone around that I felt I could trust and wasn’t scared of. Her name was Cara, and I started to see her as a mother figure, as she explained everything to me like a mother would, with patience and understanding into the fact that I didn’t know much about what was happening to me, but that I wasn’t at fault for it. I felt like she honestly believed me when I told her that I had never touched cigarettes or drugs in my life, and hardly ever drank alcohol. My sister had told me that psychotic episodes often happen due to substance use. My sister believed that I hadn’t taken any drugs, because it was just contrary to everything I stood for, and while I tried not to judge others for their life choices, I tried my absolute best to make the right ones. My dad, however, had tried to say that maybe I drank too much and this happened because of how much I drink. I didn’t think this was very fair, as I literally drink around one or two glasses of alcohol per month. But Cara seems to earnestly believe that I hadn’t used any substances, and I really appreciated that she did, despite not knowing me. She prescribed me with medications appropriate for a brief psychotic episode, and told me that I incidentally do have a vitamin D deficiency before sending me back home.

Things escalated, and I started to get ruder and ruder to my family and continue being suspicious of them. My aunt who is a GP came to visit one night and she was talking about my ‘pinkie’ finger, and I interpreted this to mean that that she was taunting me and threatening to cut off my pinkie finger for some reason, and I lashed out at everyone.

Eventually, my family decided that I needed to go to hospital for review as my behaviour was getting stranger and stranger. We sat there for hours and hours and I was interviewed by various psychologists and psychiatrists, but I knew what to say to not get myself admitted, and they told my family I was too high-functioning to be admitted, so we went back home.

I thought I was being the worst friend and that all my friends would be judging me. I was unable to go to my friend Tara’s birthday picnic, and I decided to go visit her. My parents weren’t comfortable with me going out alone, so I went into Brisbane city with my mum. When I got to Tara’s apartment, she had an assortment of pastries and a little statue of Lord Ganesha out on her table. I thought maybe this was because I was, in fact, a reincarnate of the spiritual Guru I mentioned earlier and that she was offering me sweets.

My sister asked me if there was anything she could do to make me happy. I said not really, and she said, what if we bought you a puppy? I got so excited, I had wanted a puppy for years since our last dog, Satine, who I had adored so much, had passed away in high school. So off we went as a family to pick out a dog. When we got there, it was thunder-storming, and all the dogs were howling. I thought this was code for the fact that the end of the world was drawing closer. I walked towards the back of the pet store and saw a section with a litter of beautiful Cocker Spaniel/Labrador puppies. Nala caught my eye straight away, she was the smallest of the lot and looked absolutely adorable, running around. Even though my sister was paying for half the cost of Nala and my mum was paying for half the cost as a gift, I thought she was distracting me from the lady who was trying to tell me how to feed her and care for her. I thought she was doing this so that Nala would not survive in my care. So I ignored whatever it was she was saying and continued to get instructions off the lady. I wrote them down too, as I was aware that my memory hadn’t been too sharp lately.

One day a family friend who I also call aunty came to visit our place, and she is a strong devotee of the Spiritual Guru I have been mentioning. I thought that she might be onto the fact that I may be his reincarnate, especially when she gave me a packet of holy ash. She kept on talking about the place she was volunteering at which was at exit 45. Exit 45 was on the Gold Coast, and was the exit you needed to take to get to my sister’s place as well. I thought the place she volunteered at might be part of my mission, and I asked my mum if we could go there and volunteer too. She was nonchalant about it at first, but I kept on insisting, so we arranged for a day for me to go. The volunteering place was a special school, and I took Nala with me, and she was a big hit with the kids. When I got there, there was not much for me to do, but it played in to my illusions that I was saving the world bit by bit everywhere I went and everything I did.

My family then had a celebration prayer ceremony to go to for a baby’s first birthday, and I decided to go with them, as I thought it was a human sacrificial ceremony, and that I needed to go along to save the baby from being murdered. I was extremely scared of what would happen, but I believed that I had it in me to stop a public killing. When I got to the event, I sat down on a seat, and this aunty who was a family friend came up to me and she was wearing black. I thought that this represented that she was evil, and that I represented the good in the room. I thought that it was a battle between me and her towards the outcome for the baby. This aunty is so jovial and kind that on hindsight it is absolutely ridiculous to have thought these things about her, but I decoded messages based on what she was saying and wearing, and started thinking that she was something that she wasn’t. The room was long, and I was seated halfway along it, facing a vertical wall. Inside the wall was a crevice, and a little statue of Lord Krishna (Hindu God) was placed in the nook. I believed I had been placed there for a reason, and this was the statue I needed to pray to in order to save the baby. As I thought I might be a reincarnate of the Guru, I started chanting one of his teachings in my head. I did this the whole entire time, so afraid that at any moment, people would lose it and start attacking the baby. I was concentrating so hard on the statue and had tears in my eyes, I wanted this baby to survive.

The aunty in the black outfit kept showing me pictures of her dog and her and her husband, and I thought she was doing this to try to distract me from my chanting, and I am pretty sure I ignored some of the things she was saying to focus on the saving the baby, that’s how much I believed it was in danger and that I had the power to save it. My mum likes to sing, and her and my old singing teacher (I had learnt classical Indian singing from for a while) were there singing bhajans. My mum is a really good singer, but I felt as though my singing teacher was the best singer there and that her singing was helping me to save the baby. By the end of the ceremony, no one had harmed the baby and I was extremely relieved. I thought that maybe everything was over, that I had saved the world with the help of my singing teacher, and that I would no longer be scared and that the world would go back to normal. I asked her to sing this bhajan she had taught me when I learnt how to sing, which is also known to be Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite bhajan, and stands for peace. She really didn’t want to, but I thought this final gesture would end all of the suffering once and for all. I practically begged her to sing it, so she did, and then I touched her feet (a cultural sign of respect). Everyone was alarmed because I am not particularly religious or traditional. However, I was extremely relieved that at least everything was over.

By this time I was exhausted…my mind was tired. I received an email from my university that I had received an award for being the top achiever in one of my business subjects, and I felt like I really wanted to go to celebrate something positive that had happened. I received the award, and then at the drinks and canapés afterwards, the view from the building showed a Suncorp building (with a sun logo). This began playing into the vitamin D deficiency Cara had said I have and I thought that it was code for the fact that everything would be okay.