
Accidentally Eccentric
‘It’s finally happened, I’m suffering a schizophrenic episode.'
It was the only coherent thought that managed to broach the haze as I struggled to understand the dramatic shift in consciousness & the metaphysical. There was nothing that anyone could have done to prevent it- one minute I’m walking with a group of friends at a festival & then suddenly an adrenaline surge sends my consciousness into the void.
I am pure awareness.
Adrift from all that is tangible & intelligible, I felt as if the collective consciousness of humanity were clawing at every nerve & neuron in my being while a tugging sensation seemed to threaten my life; was I dying or dreaming? My body provided zero cues & my reasoning skills were shot, my short-circuiting mind entirely unhelpful.
Though perception was abstract & turbulent, I knew I could only be seeing the world without the filter of rational that accompanies waking consciousness; the world felt too malleable & fragile while the sensation that flooded my body was a mysterious, oppressive density I couldn’t escape - I was drowning in the weight of a reality I could no longer interact with while being slapped in the face by a dimension I was afraid to embrace. The craziest part is that it felt like I should be able to let go of it all at any moment, snap my fingers & make it go away; doesn’t it always feel that way though when you lose it? Like you’re making it up. If you have a panic disorder, I know you know what I mean. I didn’t know who I was, but all I could think about was how preposterous the episode seemed.
Absurd or not, I’d truly never been more confused or terrified in my life. I was convinced death was imminent, though I had no idea who the "I" that sentence referred to was. Hell is a blank room in which you lose your sense of self- everything ceases to lose meaning when the very meaning of life escapes you. Vague recognition of the people surrounding me became my only saving grace, I allowed my friends to envelope me in their care, hoping in vain for an end to what I hoped was a momentary stupor. For the briefest instance, & without the clarity of real words, some part of me knew that this was a moment that would change my life forever.
I tried to ignore the reality that rippled confusingly all around me, knowing that my attempts to ground myself were only causing distress, but a phrase escaped from the void & parted my lips, 'Ego Death.' The fading, accessible part of my mind felt certain & I shouted it repeatedly with barely a thought. I had to bring understanding to those that were caring for me. I was suddenly being sat down, settled somewhere to presumably be reoriented, but I felt the void lull the edges of my existence & feared the worst. With one last fight to maintain sanity, what was left of me summoned the name of my significant other Matt, hoping I could make him appear by sheer force of will. Of course, he wasn’t there... He was at home, separated from me by a six hour drive… but without the boundaries of physics in my repertoire of knowledge, I was incapable of grasping that fact. I yelled his name multiple times before I felt the fight in me die; only a fragment of myself remained alongside the encroaching panic.
With that fragment of awareness, I spoke my name to my friends around me, but I had little understanding of what it truly meant- the world around me swirled feeling vague & confounding. Consumed by the feeling of free-fall, I was plummeting in a space beyond my comprehension, a sensation trumped only by the intolerable impression that book pages were lapping at my skin & suffocating me in a claustrophobic embrace. My vision was a kaleidoscope of faces, colors, & shapes, all disorienting & unfocused. For a period of time all I saw was the world surrounded by books as I fell through an infinite night.
'I’ve finally broken.' It seemed the only meaningful thoughts capable of piercing the delirium were determined to be threatening; my darkest, lifelong fear was an awareness that sanity was precarious & a privilege I may someday lose- it was the only fact to remain present while I struggled against the deluge of hysteria.
A voice broke through eventually, I recognized it coming from one of my closest friends, Mike. The voice told me to relax & let go, that I should give in to the current. Unable to perform the task without a physical gesture, I immediately slumped into him, I can’t imagine how ridiculous it must have seemed. He carried me to safety through a vast crowd of festival goer’s while two close friends validated the lunacy that no doubt escaped from me. Lucidity did not find me until I was sitting in the dirt being monitored by my friends (shout-outs to Bon & Lish).
It’s funny, I should have known right then & there that dark forces were conspiring inside of me, but I wouldn’t realize that episode had been caused by C-PTSD until years later. It seems so obvious now, I think I went through every mental illness in the book until a particularly notible panic attack took hold of me when I was 27, nearly 5 years later. It was painfully obvious then... it’s weird how long it takes you to truly accept abuse. Society can say what it likes about Psychedelics & various substances, but many of them saved my life. It may have taken years after my first Ego Death to discover the true cause of my anxieties, but that moment put a full stop on every terrible decision I was about to make at that point. I wouldn’t be alive today without this experience, it helped ebb my fears of the void that is insanity.
Stock photos provided by www.pexels.com; for more from the artist I used in this post, search for @rahulp9800 on their site. ✌🏻
