Steve's Story
My first symptoms started in 1974 when I was 17 years old and a senior in highschool. The initial symptoms were delusional thinking, psychosis and paranoia. The delusional thinking took the form of thinking that there were extra-terrestrials and they were in a conspiracy with our government where they would do experimentation with human subjects with the approval and knowledge and consent of our government. The psychosis took the form of the aliens appearing every night while I slept and use me as a subject of their experiments which were done without the benefit of anaesthesia and were quite painful. I was also under some kind of paralysis as I wasn't able to move when these things were happening to me. I was told by government officials that I couldn't say anything to anybody or there would be consequences but not telling me what the consequences would be. The paranoia came into effect every night when I went to sleep waiting for the aliens to come and begin their experiments. As I was scared what the undisclosed consequences would be I couldn't tell anyone. My first nervous breakdown occurred about a month and a half later and I was hospitalized for 3 months during which time I was tranquilized so I would sleep. During this time horrible things happened to me from the aliens. Some how I made it through that time and recovered without ever revealing what was really happening to me.
After recovering from my first nervous breakdown I started to abuse amphetamines which I was able to secure through my family physician. I told the physician that I wanted to lose weight as I was 90 lbs overweight. They had the desired effect and I was able to stay awake most nights.
My grandmother in Germany called me shortly after I came home from the hospital with my first nervous breakdown saying that my parents were worried about me. She further explained that my doctor had talked to my parents and told them that he hadn't been able to come to an understanding as to why I had the breakdown in the first place and that there was something I wasn't revealing to him. After some insistent prodding on her part, I told her the entire story. She was shocked and asked me if I had told my mother and father. I told her I couldn't because of the threat of there being some undisclosed consequences. She told me to just calm down that she was going to book a flight from Bremen, Germany to New York City and would be with me ASAP. Three days later my parents got a telephone call from my grandmother's next door neighbor saying she had died within hours of her telephone call to me. This just reenforced the reality of the threat from the government to me regarding consequences of me telling anyone. I then promptly had my second nervous breakdown. I was hospitalized again under the same doctor's care as the first time. He was asking me to just trust him and tell me what was going on. I just couldn't put him under the risk that my grandmother had just paid the ultimate price.
I again recovered without giving away my secret. My drug use escalated and there were weeks during which I didn't sleep at all. This was actually a relief to me because as long as I didn't sleep I wasn't going to be the subject of alien experimentation. The down side being that my delusional thinking took off to new heights, thus increasing my paranoia and psychosis in turn. And so the symptoms just escalated proportionate to my drug use. I wasn't able to convince my doctor to keep prescribing amphetamines so I found connections on the streets and secured them in that fashion. My parents were beginning to suspect drug use and confronted me. This was before the advent of home drug testing kits. They made an appointment for me to see a doctor which was a week away. So I was forced to stop taking the amphetamines during that time for fear of being found out. So when the appointment finally came I tested clean. During my interview with the doctor I was able to convince him that I just wasn't able to sleep. He assumed I had Manic-Depression, now called Bi-Polar Disorder, and scheduled an appointment for me to see a local psychiatrist.
During the time that appointment was set-up for me and the actual appointment I got my story together as to what to say to him fearing he would somehow find out what was actually going on with me and that he would be the next person to die because of me. I considered it my cross to bear given to me by God Himself. The appointment came and went without incident other than the fact that he too knew there was something I wasn't revealing to him. During our goodbyes he actually said to me, "When you are ready and willing to talk I will always be ready to listen."
I somehow got through my undergraduate and graduate degrees without much incident. I was hospitalized from time to time for exhaustion but nothing more severe than that. I got both my undergraduate and graduate degrees in Mathematics, from the University of Virginia. During my stay there my drug use continued to escalate to the point I couldn't afford it without sacrificing necessities. At that point I was introduced to methamphetamines by a girlfriend. My drug abuse then graduated to intravenous use and I spiraled downward at a rapid pace.
After my first graduate degree I moved to San Francisco and was living by myself and going to school for my second masters degree and was, to the best of my ability at the time, content with my life. I eventually graduated and got a job as a case analyst for the Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Trustee for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division and then later as an assistant to a high level, and very well regarded bankruptcy attorney. Again my life was contented but still plagued with my drug abuse, delusional thinking, hallucinations and paranoia.
I don't remember the events surrounding my first suicide attempt. What I do remember is waking up in the hospital and being angry that I wasn't dead. The nurses told me that I was brought in by ambulance after I jumped off the San Francisco Bay Bridge. The police told me that a toll collector noticed me walking onto the bridge. He in turn notified the police as there was no foot traffic allowed on the bridge. The police in turn notified the Coast Guard Station on Yerba Buena Island that there might be a suicide attempt on the bridge. They were under the bridge when I hit the water. They retrieved me and transported me to San Francisco General Hospital by ambulance. I didn't tell anyone there about my nightly visits by aliens in fear that they would become the next victims of a terrible fate. My secret was still safe after all these years. In addition, I was shocked that I wasn't drug tested and that secret too was still safe.
My second suicide attempt was exactly 4 months later to the day. Again, I don't remember the actual event but only what was told to me by the police. I climbed over the security fence of an overpass and jumped into on-coming traffic. The cars were able to swerve around me and miss hitting me. I did however break my leg and hip. I was incensed at myself , that a person who has two master degrees couldn't successfully kill himself. I was hospitalized again and again released when it was deemed I was no longer a threat to myself or others. They, John George Psychiatric Hospital, again didn't drug test me. I also didn't reveal my secret so that those who knew me wouldn't perish. I was doubly pleased!
A few short months later my best friend in college, a fraternity brother at the University of Virginia called me and said he didn't like living in Minneapolis any longer and wanted to move to California. He asked if it were possible to live with me until such time as he could get his own place, or if it worked out to maybe stay with me. At the time I only had a one bedroom apartment, so I told him I would secure a two bedroom apartment and would call him back when things were ready. I found a place and called him to come to California. When he arrived I noticed that he had changed drastically. He no longer was the animated person I knew from our fraternity. He was very introverted and wouldn't come out of his room for days at a time. One day when I returned home from work, I was laying in my bedroom when he called to me from the livingroom. I went into the livingroom just as he jumped off the library table behind the sofa and hanged himself. I immediately tried to support his weight and hold him up but he would just relax his legs countering every one of my efforts. Eventually I gave up and called the police to report his suicide.
After his suicide I became totally despondent and psychotic and wasn't based in reality at all. I do remember my last suicide attempt in vivid detail. After two botched suicide attempts I wasn't going to take chances and leave things to fate as I did on my two prior attempts. I tried to get the police to kill me by going into the San Francisco Main Library with an empty gun and threatening a librarian there in hopes the police would take me out. I was talked out of the attempt by a police negotiator and brought to a psychiatric facility for a very long 7 months. At first I just wanted to earth to swallow me up but it never did happen. I was so angry at everyone and everything. Slowly with time my anger became more focused on Michael, my friend who committed suicide right in front of me and why he picked me to witness his suicide. Then confusion, total confusion, only to be followed by a most profound understanding that Michael just wanted someone, anyone to see how much emotional pain he was in and how resolute he was to end his life. His suicide actually helped me to see that what I was doing to my loved ones in relation to my suicides effecting them, was exactly what Michael had done to me.
Two things happened subsequently very close together to each other. First my priest came to me and said there was something I wasn't telling the police or him. He was very astute in human interaction and I trusted him. I told him that I couldn't tell him in fear that he would die and be taken away from me and I couldn't let that happen as he was very integral to my life. He explained to me that he wasn't afraid to die, that he was ready and I should just trust him and tell him what I hadn't told anyone else. After a lot of intense pressuring and self thought, I relented and told him everything, even the part where I told my grandmother and she died because of her knowledge. He then suggested I speak with a Jesuit priest friend of his that was a psychiatrist. I readily agreed as I trusted him completely. I spoke with the Jesuit priest and he prescribed medications, anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. Almost immediately my symptoms, which I was suffering for 24 years, lessened to a point where I actually started to relax for the first time since my symptoms started. The second thing was my boss threatened me with contacting the state bar regarding my drug use. He asked that I turn myself into a rehab program. I explained I didn't have the money or insurance for it. He paid for the program himself.
So, my psychosis, 24 years long through numerous episodes, was finally diagnosed and treated, my symptoms lessening everyday. And my drug abuse was finally being treated in a aggressive manner.
Things I am thankful for are advances in mental health issues, particularly in detection of symptoms and the same can be said of substance abuse detection. These two areas could have recognized something was wrong and to be taken a closer look at. My biggest regret was that I did very well covering up my symptoms and detection of my substance abuse.
