The first part detailing my decent into madness..
Lewis Ashton Nunn 12/02/1989
Riding Shotgun
The onset of schizophrenia, the pre-curser to a roller coaster ride, one that you have no safety harness, no safety brief, a dream one minute and nightmare the next. You either hold on to whatever thin branch holds you to reality or jump into the madness that beckons you to let go and ride the wave.. the wave that no-ones surfing.
A Little on myself
I was 25, living with my girlfriend, we lived in a house that was very well positioned inside a scaffolding yard, train tracks 10 foot away, windows blacked out, lorry’s, trains, the ringing of scaffolding tubes and the deafening sound of them being thrown onto the back of the lorry’s. “Shut the fuck up” I’d scream from the window – “Fuck off” would come the reply. Ahh well, I’d smoke a spliff and listen to classic FM..
I was a very angry man, the world owed me a living, nothing could change me, I was on a course set for nothing and was taking my girlfriend as prisoner.
Then it hit me, a thought. Now I don’t get this often, I think therefore I am. I suppose I wasn’t and never was until this thought came. They’re watching me, they’ve implanted a device and are listening to my thoughts. Who? MI6 of course, a brilliant mind like mine, of course they’d try and intercept my thoughts, every thought I have is world changing.
My girlfriend wasn’t who she said she was, They’re poisoning my water, I was in La La Land and the music never stopped. Then a voice in my head, my thoughts became other peoples, more to the point they became people, old friends, imagined friends, people off the TV, on the radio, they were talking directly to me.
I’m going to skip through the next 3 year, to my eventual sectioning. I cannot convey to you, the reader, how I felt, how I feel about my time spent with this disease. My life was on the line, time was ticking and the longer I spent giving these delusions breathing room, the more I fed the nonsense, the more of myself I would lose. But, it felt as though I was special, being taken notice of, it was all about me.
Being schizophrenic, being psychotic, I felt alive.
The Living Dead.
I am the Living dead,
Riding shotgun with a nuclear head,
I’m fighting ghosts,
The devils here,
And I’m playing host.
When the movie ends, when the credits roll, you walk out of the cinema and carry on with your day.
When lightning strikes, it’s best to remove your tin foil hat.
Split minds often give rise to a distorted view of the world, quite rightly. When part of you decides that the air you breathe is poisonous and the other half is quite keen for another gulp an internal battle ensues.
“We will move forward at our own pace!” states the young man – Referring to himself as ‘we’ was probably cause for concern, but this is East-Anglia, where cows out number people and within the town’s only the drunks know how to have a good time.
“As long as you’re moving forward in the right direction” replies the old man – The old man a spitting image of the young man, a bit fatter, greyer and would often be mistaken for the young man’s father. In-fact he was his father.
The young man, named Lewis Nunn, although he was quite fond of his middle name, Ashton, bordered by long black hair, he was particularly skinny and his blue eyes would often be swamped within red pupils. Aged 25, but if you were to ask him, he’d look to the floor and try to remember how many candles where on his last birthday cake.
“It doesn’t matter, I’m doomed for failure. If you’re not winning, you’re losing” Lewis moves his hand to his forehead and gathers his thoughts. He found talking to anyone quite a struggle, if he were to look at someone he’d see almost the person he was expecting to see but it looked more like a painting or CGI, He’d hear the person he was expecting to see in his head, Lewis knew he was living in a strange virtual world, the voice of his dad would be telling him so in his head, but he could do nothing but interact with these CGI visions as if he were really there and try to keep the voice he’d hear in his head assured he would kill himself and be back in reality someday, but at this point he couldn’t quite make such a drastic decision.