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i have a story, i knew a man in palestine who told me the secret services were the kids, i used to share that view and still do. i ate into his house and was presented to his father and to his kids. |
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kind of easy to picture the rest |
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wow that makes for 3 generations at once |
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Poor lewis and poor you, you seem to have bad luck. Do you have any good luck stories? i was actually reflecting on this, on the train, on the way home. there's so much sad shit around me right now, and i thought something like, "maybe i was just hiding from all this back when i was a shut-in." having friends means you can rely on them when things go south, but it also means they rely on you when things go south. things are not good with lewis, right now. he escaped to california after fast-talking some guy he hadn't seen... since high school, i think? into letting him stay. i've never met him, i've only talked to him twice, but let me tell you, guy is an absolute saint. "he's wearing tin foil hats, and, like, fine, but just don't wear them out with me in public, because i don't want people to think i'm crazy too" and "he destroyed my $7000 tub, he peeled up the water sealing," guy says. "why?" i ask? "because he's crazy!" "no, no, i say.. like, i'm sure he had a reason. and i'm sure it will make me laugh when i he^H^H^H" didn't say that last part on the note of luck, though, lewis does have a knack for winning scratch tickets more than anyone i've ever known. |
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he also noticed that what clothes lewis wears tends to directly correspond with how lucid he his. he convinced him to change outfits, once, and he actually got better for a bit |
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i never really appreciate how deeply important it is to have |
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i have a story, i knew a man in palestine who told me the secret services were the kids |
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"he's wearing tin foil hats, and, like, fine, but just don't wear them out with me in public, because i don't want people to think i'm crazy too" it's funny, really. there was some quasi-serious thing some MIT students did for a laugh about and we'd actually had discussions about it before. had a laugh. when he snaps out of it -- and he always does -- he will admit how nuts it is. but, for now, it's actually a bit of a dark laugh, that we talked about this silliness and now he's seriously refusing to go without a tin-foil hat |
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i am exhausted. things happened rather fast. i get word that matt is going to be on a plane back, by himself. he calls me, his mom isn't answering (she probably did and told him to go to a hospital and he doesn't want to admit this) that he doesn't want to stay with his ex (he called her too and she said the same thing) and could he stay there? yes, ok. i took stock of the situation. i had work the next day, and now i can't go. this is awkward... meh... but, then, i think: you know what, i get to ditch work and hang out with my best friend all day. it will probably be rough, but . thankfully, he manages to make it through airports and plane seats and ubers and shows up at my door. he is rather manic. it is, actually, a lot like babysitting a small child, except he's an adult, with a phone and uber and credit cards, and, yeah. usually, he's a normal adult; pretty together. but about thrice a year, we get a few weeks like this. paranoid schizophrenia, well, you're paranoid. he'll constantly bolt. before he flew out to california, he would stay with me a bit, feel confined, bolt. stay with someone else a bit, feel confined, bolt. come back to me. rinse and repeat. he wasn't quite as bad at that point, but now he's legit nuts, and i am terrified of him escaping. like owning a cat that's determined to run out the door at the slightest hint of an opening; disappear into a snowstorm for two days, show back up later, looking haggard so, like six times, he's all "i have to get out of here, right now" and he's putting on his shoes and i have no idea what his plan is, if anything. so, i say, "jesus christ, you're right! we need to get the fuck out of here right now!" and i put on my shoes too and i go with him. |
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everyone had just been bothering lewis to go to the hospital. just, how he was, though, i knew there would be no convincing him of anything until he was down from defcon 1. he needed to feel a bit more ok, have a good night's sleep, yes, then another day of that, then perhaps this weekend suggesting the hospital might be possible. so, i thought: i just want to give him a good day. indulge him in whatever he wants, as long as it's not, like, ill-advised, dangerous, etc. it works in the sense that i keep him from escaping, from getting into trouble, that i get to hang out with my best buddy all day -- though he's not all there, he's still him, somewhat. but he's not coming down. he's spiking. he's doing weird tense yoga repetitive stuff, and i'm trying to suss it. the he more or less explains it: he yells "get out of my head" and pounds his head with both hands. oh, the voices. they won't shut the fuck up. he's going nuts because they won't shut the fuck up most people probably would have flipped out, at least a little: he's yelling and hitting his head. but, instead, i thought: i've been here. four straight weeks of soul-crushing depression back in 2014 or so, and i had a moment where i was literally punching myself in the head, saying "work, dammit, work, you stupid piece of shit brain" so i told him: i've been there. i know exactly how you feel. you condition is totally different from mine, but, still, i know how you feel an hour or two later, he began adamantly demanding to go to a hospital. i had no argument with this, given that i'd simply been waiting until he felt better before bringing the subject up. but, really, i kind of feel like i did the right thing for reasons i only understand in retrospect: his condition has a lot to do with control, and the lack of anyone/anything to rebel against oddly might have pushed him to rebel against himself. or something i'm very tired |
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on one of the three or four walks he required, to, just, get out of there, he was full of tense energy and punching at the air. he kept wandering over the curb, into the street. i'd say "hey, whoa, come back onto the sidewalk!" and he promptly would. then he would wander again. this situation repeated itself easily north of a dozen times. so, like, the walk totally helped him burn off some nervous energy; it was a terrible idea... but, really, he can't manage it by himself like he is. he'd be doing air kung fu in the street and a car would beep at him and he'd either ignore them or yell and then the police aren't very far away he also required multiple long baths, and a shower. it gave me a chance to text concerned friends and family. i was scared to take out my phone and text in his presence because he might think i'm doing some nutty conspiratorial thing. the few times i do text in front of him, i make a point of narrating aloud what i am doing i feel relieved he's in the hospital, horrible as that is. the usual pattern is he'll be there for a week or three, they'll stabilize him, and he'll be an effectively normal person for three to six months. it's actually, again, reminiscent of my moody episodes... not in cause, just patterns, results. the timing is similar. winter is rough for us both. i feel like he needs to develop his own set of strategies to avoid that deep pit. weasels, u noe |
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*it _wasn't_ a terrible idea |
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sounds rough but you're a good friend for keeping an eye out for him. i'm no fan of big pharma but i was fuckin loopy without meds and i know exactly how distressing voices in yr head that Won't. Shut. Up can be. does he still dispute his diagnosis? it took me a good long while to accept mine |
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the diagnosis, yes. he's accepted it for years. the consequences, less so. doing things like being "i have to go to california now" as if he won't have the problems he's having over there... then, yes, it's promptly worse, he comes back worse. he already wants to fly off somewhere random once the psych ward lets him go, and that could be as early as middle of this week. i can't take much time at work. every time i've left him alone to go in to work, he's promptly bolted, ran off somewhere else. this is mostly when he's symptomatic. there's always a little of this to his personality -- he'll say things like, "i need to move to british columbia by 2020!" and you just think... lol, no, you're not doing that. he'll talk about it for a few weeks and then he's going back to school instead, or whatever. but even if his planning is crap, his actions are fine, the voices are either gone or a background hum that he can ignore so, mostly, i'm praying he's significantly more stable by the time they discharge him, because otherwise he'll likely escape; possibly get himself into trouble. he's also been through a lot with this over the last few weeks, and i do worry about him hurting himself sometimes. saying things like, "i'm diseased, i need to go, thank you for all your help, i don't want to infect you" and then telling everyone else that, too, and i'm scared that one of these times he runs out the door, he may never come back |
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i can only imagine how worrying that is. i was staying with my mum and stepdad back in 2011 and left in the middle of the night with no explanation. it was due to a psychotic *snap* where everything was suddenly upside down and scary, but i had the presence of mind to get in touch with some old friends (a lot harder than it sounds, i'd dismantled my phone and flushed it down the toilet so i couldn't be tracked). stayed with them for a couple of weeks then spent a couple of nights sleeping rough before i got into shelters, still very paranoid... i only went to hospital after a free solicitor said pretty much "lol no you can't sue the security services for harassment, go2doktor" my point is (i'm trying to not make this post all about me) he may accept his diagnosis but still be at the mercy of the voices, and be, like, trying to put on a brave face for different people. has he explained the "architecture" of his theories about the voice hearing? cos all you can do is listen and not judge, i found it incredibly important after being in hospital for a couple of months to speak to a community psychiatric nurse who wouldn't just give the smile-and-nod treatmen i'm hoping for the best for you both anyway |
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yes, you've nailed it all. but, really, i'd expect you would. in california, he smashed a brand-new phone. then he wrapped his old phone in tin foil; buried it in the backyard. we have had hundreds of hours of conversations about his condition, the voices... in fact, remember when i was a bit nuts, i dunno, page three this thread and on for a few months? and i'm writing all this shit about self-programming using voice commands, how when i hear a voice speaking from the back of my brain -- not my inner monologue, but the sort of stabbing interruption from beyond you get sometimes... like, your inner monologue has been going in a circle, you're annoyed, and walking the loop starts to energize the surrounding brain zones and eventually something lights up with a path out of the loop. i'll stop; i could go on this all day my point is, yes, i have a bit of an idea. i've done loads of acid; i found that fascinating. definitely one of those people who did it not to party, but to tinker with my brain, to understand what's going on in there. i remember, once, we were playing chess, and he said, "i can't believe we're just having a casual conversation about this; i've never even been able to explain it to anyone before" and it'd been some weird psychedelic brainfart i'd had while tripping. he started trying to fumble and articulate it, and i was all "oh, yeah, that thing, i know this" i've also been awake on adderall for three days and began legitimately hearing voices myself -- but they went away after i sensibly put myself to bed. before that, though, i was wandering around a parking lot, because i just needed to be away from people, and looking behind shipping containers and checking parked cars because i thought someone was mocking me what i need to speak with him more about now is which voices is he hearing, there seem to be a few distinct entities at times |
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my metaphor is that consciousness is not a yes/no thing; it's more like the warp integrity field in start trek. "captain, warp integrity is down to 90%!" then it'll be 80%, then dire warnings from the engineer, and if it's not the enterprise, the ship might actually blow at that point if you're awake for a long time, you start to get weird. hallucinate. warp integrity is down to 90%. somehow, lewis gets there much more quickly that others, particularly when he's stressed. then, obviously, once he's impacted, his actions wind up causing him more stress, and eventually he's down to 50% and that's when i worry he'll do something stupid. that's really a job for the hospital at that point -- guards, nurses, and people carefully monitoring him with the right medications. sleep, though, definitely helps him. he's typically best in the mornings, worst in the evenings. he came here right from the airport, at it was 10am. he'd come from california, a flight, time difference... i have no idea if he'd slept on the flight, but that's not good sleep anyways. i kept trying to tell him to take a nap, but he wasn't wound. he's feeling pent-up and has to bolt, so i suggest we go for a drive. he agrees. it's raining gently, and i'm playing boards of canada. i notice he's starting to nod off. i drive very carefully, quietly, and he falls asleep for a bit. the range of emotions i was feeling right then is probably pretty close to what a parent feels driving a newborn around to get them to sleep just now, he called me and told me he was taking a nap. |
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yeah that all sounds pretty familiar, i've done a lot of acid and various speedy chemicals over the years too, for both fun and self-exploration, and while i don't regret it in terms of making me a more thoughtful person, it can certainly lead to, let's say, less than "traditionally logical" thought processes. i became obsessed with hats, with different hats for different circumstances.... not tinfoil-lined but i have considered it, mostly let down by lack of a sewing kit. are there any voices he likes, or at least gets along with? if he's talking back to them, internally or not, he can maybe try focusing on these as a bulwark against voices that are frightening or angry. i still hear from voices now once in awhile but we get along fine, i've come to like em and they're helpful, not intrusive |
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i'm chatting with myself all day. that's actually key in my trouble falling asleep -- i'll just chatter with myself for two hours. note i'm doing it, shut myself up. a minute later i'm off into it again if i slip into a pit of depression, well, all the chatter is absolutely dire. just marinating me in the horrible things at some point, deep in this thread, i realized, when my brain yells something from the back -- external to chattering with myself -- that, if i asked myself, i could often hear an author. "that's my mom's voice," or "that's something my dad would say, how he would have said it" or "that's neal stephenson's writing" but sometimes also "that's something i wrote on xltronic" or "that's an archer joke" and gradually we jump the gap into me chattering with myself. like i've always said, we're just ground up pieces of lots of other people. so i feel like a schizophrenic-class voice could be traced back to a single person, in some cases, like a parent, that's very deep in there. it could also be a collage, three people you know who are all similar. just different people all coloring it. then, i suppose, it could be self-generated, chattering with yourself in a state, losing track of it and forgetting, but it lives yeah. this part is very much what i'm trying to understand right now |
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this is freaking crazy. all nuts it's like some strange, multi-dimensional chess game involving my best friend, family dynamics there was a bit of a scare because lewis's wallet was MIA, and, well, it sucks to lose your wallet. his mom tracked the wallet to the ER where we'd dropped him off; it hadn't mate it with in the transfer to the psych ward. i wash some of his clothes, pack them up in bags with a jigsaw puzzle of that van gogh painting of a cafe, and the book "the origin of conscious in the breakdown of the bicameral mind" by julian jaynes. initially, i was going to give him one of my favorite comp sci textbooks, but on the phone, he requested he wanted to get away from technology. the book i selected is all about hearing voices, some weird psychological theory. this book has been name dropped in westword and neal stephenson novels and more. recommended. and it had nothing to do with technology. i told him a bit and he said it was perfect we get there, and he's pretty sedated. security c0d3z require that he can't hang on to the wallet. i can, or i can give it to the psych ward to stow with his phone and keys and all that. he starts talking about his domain name registration, he needs to do that. i say, "can i just do it for you?" he says "ok" and then we chat for a while before being kicked out due to end of visiting hours. then his sister and i were chatting, and she says, "let's find a bar" and this is my language. she's stressing because it's saturday night and it's all busy. i point to a hotel across the street and say "that'll have a bar" and this is a pro tip. hotel bars are a bit pricey, but always deserted. i'd chatted with her a bit, as she'd often been the one to help lewis pack up when we'd been roommates and the situation had collapsed... but, this was properly hanging out for a bit, having a few beers. it's nice this situation is at least making everyone some new friends |
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but, the chess game. lewis is being incredibly shady and manipulative right now. he wants his credit card number, hassling me over the phone all today. trying anything to get me to give it to him. i'm more or less scared he's going to buy a plane ticket once he gets his moneys in order and i won't ever see him again, because he's still pretty out of it. he's saying he wants the card to register a domain name, which he does need, but i worry this is a smokescreen for a plan to get a plane ticket. i more or less confronted him about it; tired of playing games. i worried that bringing it up might make it more likely; sort of a bit of brinksmanship involved there. weirdly, he essentially said, "by saying that, you've made it more likely" it's starting to feel like an oppossitional-defiant hall of mirrors in here, and i'm upset. i hung up on him. i need to chill out and think of something else for a bit |
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it can feel pretty oppressive in places like that, i'm wary of saying too much without knowing him or his current state but it sounds like he's trying to reassert some control in a situation where he's had it taken away. i wouldn't take it personally man, paranoid schizophrenia has a tendency to make you pretty squirrelly and defensive |
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that's it, i'm torn between giving him what he wants and giving him a chance to get into trouble, and as such, i am forced to be controlling, and with this condition, it is intolerable. it's almost intolerable for me, too. i shut my phone off. strategically, everyone needs to feel my absence for a good chunk of today as i sort out the mess |
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part of it feels like patching up family things like a modular synth, actually using my family's modules. so complex and personal. i give up writing it |
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in the end i decided it was best to follow through on what i'd said. i brought him his wallet, thinking, "it is in manos, the hands of fate." i'll tell him i brought it, turn it over to security, and let them handle it how they may. it is, after all, their ship... and it is, after all, his wallet. he will get out of the psych ward on wednesday, or thursday. i've already spoke with work about a potential absence, which i said i would like to avoid -- and i'm not kidding. it would still be nice if he saw it fit to stay to the weekend... not, like, just for mental health, but actually because then i don't have to take time off work. it's also possible someone else can take thursday and/or friday for me... but, yeah, that leads into the only fucking plan i've been able to come up with: the people helping him out band together to create a pool of places he can stay. whenever he's freaking out; feels the need to run, he can just go any one of three or four places, and still be somewhere safe. it could work. it may be enough support to keep him from buying a plane ticket back to california... but, it's totally temporary. everyone involved has their own life concerns, and this is sort of a hack patch to buy us time to find him a proper apartment or whatever. the psych ward is way too warm and i began to feel nauseous after a while from it! suspect they do that to make everyone snoozy |
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also thanks very much to belb for replying to all this. any advice you have is welcome. i don't want to lose my best friend. |
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sounds like a decent plan, and i think you've done the right thing with the wallet. the last thing you need is for him to lump you in with a big-T Them (whoever is the focus of his paranoia) when you're just trying to look out for him. the hospital will likely be in control of his money while he's in there and i can see that being less than acceptable to him, but hopefully he'll have this temporary network of safe places when he gets out so he won't need to buy a plane ticket. all i can say is try not to infantilize him cos it'll only set you up as opposition (or big-I Infiltated if my delusions are anything to go by). ultimately though, even if he does a bunk you want him to feel like there's someone in his corner, even if you can't physically keep him safe 100% of the time |
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yeah, that's what i thought. i repeatedly have to back myself down from doing that sort of thing. like, today. he says "i'll be out at like 11am tomorrow" and i've arranged for thurs/fri off work, but, tomorrow, well, he's going to be on his own for a few hours. it makes me rather nervous, but, yeah, if i got on him about staying another day he'd just put me on his list of unsavory types. or not, but i still don't think he can be talked into even waiting until i get out of work. it's lucky, really, but the hospital is a fifteen-minute walk to work and so i've just been walking over to see him after work. if he waited, he could just take the train home with me after, but, no he wants out, and i do not blame him in the slightest. the psych ward is way too warm, it seems incredibly tedious, and they control all aspects of your life. i'm not schizophrenic, and i would be clamoring to get out of there after a few days myself but, really, i get the sense he'll be OK. he's been better each day i've seen him, and today there was no sort of coy game-playing. like, he was talking about going back to cali yesterday, and i just sort of sighed and said... "ugh... please don't." he replied, "don't you know i'll just do the opposite of whatever you tell me?" with a sort of coy, trolly smile. "uhhhh. go to california?" i say. "oh, that's a great idea," he replies. today, there was not any of that. instead, when i got there, he's on the phone with his bank, trying to mop up some of the mess he made when he was total fruit loops. he has a list of errands he wants to run while i'm at work, including going to the bank to continue sorting things out. i worry that one of his stops will be the weed dispensary (if he goes nuts on weed again he'll be much harder to handle) but i am not hugely concerned he will simply abscond. so, yes, best to just bite my lip and let him. it will probably feel nice to be totally on his own for a bit after the ward |
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oh, yes, this: all the pens in the psych ward are bendy. as i signed the logbook, i told the nurse, "i know why they do this, but, jeez, writing with this is tough." "i know," she replies, "it's like writing with a wet noodle." i didn't tell her that i really, really knew why the pens were bendy. i mentioned the pens to lewis, and he promptly pulled out his modified pen. he'd snapped the end off of a crayola marker and shoved the limp pen into the plastic shell to make a proper pen. "it's the only way you can write with it!" he says. he wasn't wrong. "yeah," i say, "but i also get it. when i'm faced with something like that, i have the urge to find away around... hack the system..." he feels the same way. it wasn't just that he wanted the pen, it was an act of defiance against the restrictions of the system he's in, and i have that same streak to my personality. then i told him your pen story. "oh, that doesn't work," he says. thank god it doesn't. how're you doing off the end of that, by the way? motor control better? |
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thx again belb. i feel like i was more or less on the mark, but it made me feel much better hearing the same thing from someone else on the inside. that i'm worried about the guy's life; makes it question how objective my answers are. i may be a hardcore engineer of a nerd, but i am still human |
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i do stress how much to play the game when he's symptomatic. playing chess, he was no slouch, even when he was symptomatic. in fact, i feel like i should run out and buy one before he gets here.... i could beat him 3/4 of the time, but i do feel like avoiding games entirely out of fear of the remaining 1/4. |
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no worries! i'm glad to talk it through with you man, if some good can come from my being in here all the better. and i'm doing much better personally, my own pen experience seems a long time ago now. actually posting at xlt has sharpened up my fine motor skills more than any therapy could. re: the heat, i'm sure they do keep it turned up intentionally... it's like that scene in the wire season 4 where the teacher admits to doing that ťhat to make the kids in her class drowsy re; weed, oddly enouvh i had my first small spliff in 2 years last night and i forgot how much i liked it. made listening to run the jewels' last album pretty amazing, i "got" a lot more of the lyrics and ended up discussing them with my internal voices. i'm sure the reason so many schizophrenics smoke weed is it makes the tenor of their voice hearing much nicer, something to engage with not blot out hoping for the best for you both today |
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i am rather worried about lewis. he got -- as his mom put it -- "a small job" at a deli. he has not been speaking to me, but his mom, his ex-girlfriend, and his sister all text me, reliably, when they are freaking out. his sister is currently on vacation in norway, though, and she was his current most solid link to the rest of humanity. she tried to reschedule it; coulnd't. decided to just go. i approved 112%. but now lewis is missing again. apparently, he was asked to leave work early for the day -- aka probably fired -- and if he wasn't fired for being symptomatic, being fired probably shoved him over into symptomatic. no one has been able to get in touch with him for a few days, now. his phone is.... off? broken? unpaid? no one knows. one of my cow orkers is a born again christian. he said he was praying for lewis, a day or three after i told him some of this. i'm not a christian, but, i pray he is still alive. |
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no, it was "a little job." lewis has always loved the word little. the littlest ____ was a very common turn of phrase out of him. i do need to clarify that it was not small, it was little |
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at a guess (and it is only a guess, i'm going off my symptoms really) he is without phone, or keeping it batteryless so he can't be tracked by Them, whoever They are. it's worrying as fuck for his loved ones but my thinking is that he'll resurface in time. unless he's gone fully out into the wilderness he's still going to be around people. i mean even if he's living rough and believing wacky shit he'll need to eat and sleep somewhere, and if he's not on the street it could be in a homeless shelter, that's where i ended up. have you considered filing a missing persons report? the police can't give details of his whereabouts if he's determined to get away from his family and yrself but they can let you know he's safe (i think he has to give consent for this too but the police will pressure him to) |
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yes, that has been a reliable pattern. if you recall, earlier in this thread, i described him smashing up a brand-new cellphone because of spyware; burying his old cellphone in tinfoil in the garden the difference this time is his dwindling options. he was due to show up at a motel after being likely fired, and did not show. i really have no idea what the configuration was, but somehow, the motel essentially told his mom he didn't show up, and his mom texted me, asking if i had a clue -- and, no, the last i spoke with him was for about thirty seconds when he answered the phone without realizing who was calling. i was like... we need to talk, sometime soon. "i don't know maaaayybbee he says; then initiates the social function call; i have to go; bye. he's said things, though. he told his mom he wanted to be euthanized. he sent most everyone involved -- though not me, actually -- text messages that were interpreted as worryingly close to suicidal: i'm diseased, stay away from me, i don't want to hurt you anymore so, yeah. his phone is off, he didn't show up where he was supposed to sleep, he got fired, he's out of his head, and yeah. |
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one of my cow orkers is a born again christian. he's a very nice guy. solidly does his job. listens to classical music. over lunch, here and there, i told him about lewis. a week or three later, he came by, kind of seeming awkward, and said: i don't want to make you feel weird or anything, but i'm praying for lewis. i thought it was very sweet, really, and i told him i deeply appreciated it. just now, i slacked him asking him to pray for lewis. |
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i just chatted to one of the most clued-up nurses here about yr situation (no names used etc) and he thinks the same as me, you should report him missing. if he's a danger to himself, and it sounds like he maybe is, you don't need to wait 24 hours like on tv. at least the police can put some feelers out, they do this quite a lot. i would guess that you don't want to alienate him by getting in touch with the cops, and when they came looking for me after i did a bunk in the night i politely told them to buzz off, but they have the manpower and experience of finding people. you'll have done something proactive and once he's back on medication for lomg enough he will understand, as squirrelly as he is now |
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how does yr insurance / medical system deal with cases like this, btw? i feel like our national health service has saved my life quite literally, us brits are absurdly privileged to have it. will be thinking of you two |
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i just texted his mom and he had actually called her two days ago; i feel relieved. it was the thing with his phone being off the hook and not showing up where he was supposed to sleep, then days of silence. combined with the comments, i worried getting canned from his deli job would send him off down a dark road. but his mom said he was at some campfire and seemed incoherent, but happy. i have a decent level of faith in his ability to survive; i was just worried he didn't want to any more. now it seems like he does still want to survive, and as such, i won't be troubling the police. |
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how does yr insurance / medical system deal with cases like this, btw? i feel like our national health service has saved my life quite literally, us brits are absurdly privileged to have it. will be thinking of you two not very well. the past few times, he's checked himself in voluntarily ("something's eating my brain and i need an MRI right. fucking. now") and in this case they can only retain him for 72 hours, except, a weekend or holiday resets the counter. he's managed to land it so he's been stuck there for about five days, due to that contingency. generally, he is stir-crazy and wanting to escape after about 36 hours. deeply resents being imprisoned. they're not giving him the MRI to scan for things eating his brain. this is bullshit so he's out of there as soon as they let him, and then it's on to a poorly-thot plan of abstract dfjglkdfg. if he's there voluntarily -- e.g. picked up for being weird, as opposed to setting things on fire or something -- there's that mechanical timeline. for him to be there longer, courts have to be involved. the courts work in the resolution of weeks: if a court says you need to stay, it'll be two weeks, three weeks. they will actually try to leverage that, sometimes: if you don't voluntarily stay for another three days, we will get a court order, and hold you here for three weeks. but after a few rounds repeat patients, like lewis, tend to get wise to this, and tell them to fuck the fuck off. a part of me respects this; i'd do the same thing if someone tried to sell me like that meanwhile, thanks to the state, he has health insurance. if he didn't, i have no idea what the fuck would happen. there is one thing i should add -- every time i've visited him in the hospital, well, it's weird, but at least the basic facilities always seem fine, decent, etc. |
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you know him better than i do dude, if incoherent but happy is the best yr gonna get then i'm glad he's happy at least. i've had some very positive voice hearing experiences in the past - outweighed by the negative admittedly but my point is at least his are playing ball. he'll gonna be unpredictable, yeah but as lonhg as you get him to check in and he's not a danger to anyone there's, like you say, not much you can do. maybe he does just want someone to blow off steam to |
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oh, well, it's like... i was worried he was dead or something, given the patterns. i actually sent him a text telling him to his mom was worried and send a text because she might file a police report and i know you do not want to deal with that shit again. who knows if it was me, but the timeline about fits that he called his mom a bit after that and now it's been two more days of incommunicado. but that overall arc does make me feel a bit relieved, yes it's funny. when i sent that text, i did not expect i'd be wound up enough about it later to be weighing suggesting his mom actually file a report. there is a strange sort of music to the terrible anxiety of this all |
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i have another epicmegatrax writes more bullshit song theme this is more laidback gangter type of thing the lyrics i think should be "whenyoufeellikemore-bull-shit-ba-byyyy epicmegatraxwillsortyouout-ba-byyyy" |
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so i rambled into the idea of somewhere, buried in this thread, and i had one just now. i've been working at home today, and, half past five, i decide i want to call it a day and walk to the bar around the corner; have a zig on the way. i get outside, and i'm walking by my car.... "drive." the back of my brain says. i full-stop and ponder this. why should i drive? it makes no sense... there are any number of good reasons to walk: it's less than a five minute walk. it's not even enough time to smoke a zig, if i drive. i'm going to be drinking beer. if i don't drive, i can have more beer. if i'm going to have beer and a zig, i may as well at least work ten minutes of walking into the equation then i look up at the sky. clouds. "oh, yeah, i guess it could rain," i think. there's something else nagging, but this is good enough for me. still standing in the spot i halted -- next to the car door -- i unlock the car and go. as i'm backing out of the driveway, one of the other tenants is fussing around with something in front of her door. if i'd kept walking, i might have had to stand there and talk a bit. this is fine, really, but i'd been pushing to finish some work and i was really jonesing for a zig. "good thing i didn't walk," i think. i arrive at the bar. i smoke a zig in the parking lot. i go up to the bar's airlock and peer inside: it is packed. never mind sitting at the bar; there are already people standing i think: "yeah, that's actually why i was screaming at myself not to walk." i know this place, they know me, and i've been there enough that i should have realized it could be packed next time, all that will be a bit more conscious. should you get a notion, and find it to be correct, i recommend trying to suss out where it came from. try to set up a feedback loop between notions and logic |
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grocery lists ~ if i have lots of things to get, i will go ahead and write up a grocery list. if it's just one or two things, well, i'll just remember them. if it's somewhere in between, there is another option: visualization. i will go through everything i want to get, visualize where it is in the store, visualize myself picking it up. then, when i get to the store, i can be zoning out, thinking about notions and weasels, and my body will just sort of grab all the things. without the visualization, i will miss things -- even if i'm actually paying attention, which i am often not. metaprogramming iz fun |
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you should probably publish this thread as a book |
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i did the visualization thing just now, and i missed one. i went back to try and understand why, and it was obvious: i just visualized putting it into the basket; i didn't visualize where it was. then i realized i didn't know precisely where it was. this is not insurmountable; i just have to visualize myself finding it before putting it into the basket. unless you are very pedantic and do everything thoroughly, it doesn't work. takes a certain level of discipline. a good memory helps -- like, i just sort of soak up where everything is very quickly -- but it only helps because just visualizing where it is, is slightly quicker, more sticky, than visualizing finding it. |
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also somewhere, buried in this thread, i realized it's impossible to do this all up in a linearly -- because, yes, i did think about a book. i realized it's best presented as hyperlinks: instead of stopping to explain notions, i can just link the explanation in the middle of sentence without disrupting the thought. like i did above. so, yes, is me extracting some of the better bits from this thread, cleaning them up, and beginning to stitch them together into a tapestry of linked articles. work keeps me busy, though, and i just sort of pick at it here and there |
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