Witness to withness

Not Afraid to Fight

I awoke with a start last night. It was not once but three times that I felt like I was under attack. After one dream I screamed myself awake. I am deciding that I do not want to be under attack any longer. I want to fight back.

There are a lot of beginnings and endings in the adventure that we call life. I am writing with a much clearer focus. I am writing a legacy piece called: "Witness to Withness", because I am tired of people and people like me being called crazy and therefore not worth the time and effort to hear what they have to say. I was put in a state hospital and it had nothing at all to do with my choice. I had been working all summer at college under the auspices that if I was able to do that I would be ready to go back to college. I worked hard doing anything and everything that was asked of me. I painted, scraped off a large building, did maintenance work and when I had free time took piano lessons. I was doing well with only a few weeks left before college was to begin. It was at that point I began to become anxious. I had no one to talk with about an anxiety that kept getting worse. I had regrets about how a woman at college got roped into my mental illness saga. I had nothing but sympathy and shame about how I let myself take my eyes off of the best that God wanted for me. I knew that I could have chosen differently (I thought I could). It was too late and I let resent and regrets eat me alive. I was looking for peace of mind and bicycled all the way towards where she lived. I never got there. Thank God. And when I tried to see her at church, as my anxiety skyrocketed, I was no closer to getting peace of mind. I just wanted to know I was going to be okay. Unfortunately my efforts to want to feel okay put me in the unenviable position of being placed in a state institution, a kind of prison that held the crazies. I was in effect labeled by the intake people as having affective schizophrenia. I can recall the admission interview. One of the first questions asked of me was if I had ever heard voices. It felt like a crazy question for a man who was just wanting peace of mind. I told the good doctor that I was looking forward to going to college after having worked hard during the summer. He made it clear by his diagnosis what he thought of that.

My initial day on the ward was a shock that smacked me in the face. There was a woman stark naked walking around as I was shown my new place of residence. I was introduced to staff and was quite quickly aware that now I was in the land of the crazies and there was no easy way to get out. At first I walked the halls with a bandana around my head. I had a headache that was not going to go away. I wanted to call mom and dad and my requests were denied. I wanted to call friends at college and again my requests were denied. I wanted to talk with the doctor who said I would get back to college after working in the summer and again I was denied. I was alone and quickly assumed the label of resident crazy person. By the time I finally got the courage to call after a time of not being able to call I was being dismissed as someone who was crazy. Mom told me that Dr. Fleming was no longer my doctor, because I was in a hospital under the care of another doctor. People from college would not even take my calls and Mom and Dad seemed to be at a distance, not wanting to get too close to someone who had gone off the deep end. After all maybe he was mad and who wanted or needed that. (stark raving mad)

I was exposed and it was not too long before the crazy in me came out. I talked about being a witness from bible times.and wanted to talk to the pope or some religious authority. I felt awful. I walked around with more bandanas. My heart and head ached. Where was God? The best I knew to do was imagine that God had in some way touched my life so that I was special. I changed clothes two or three times a day. I was the resident crazy person and the eyes of some staff there was no one crazier than me. I became friends with a young man by the name of Jerry Proffit. We talked about religion. After all wasn't I studying to be a minister before all this chaos and confusion let loose. He talked of his Jehovah Witness belief. That kind of fit into my witness delusion. Eventually we would part ways and I looked forward to getting together again. It never happened in any conventional way. Instead there was this power struggle. I thought I was a witness of God and he was the Jehovah witness. Side were drawn up and various residents seemed to take sides. Before it was all over I seemed to come out the winner. At least I thought I was. One day when I lay on the floor Jerry kicked me in the head with his boots, enough so that I could feel it. At least that was what I felt at the time. There would come a time when he was put on another ward and jumped off the top of the state hospital roof. I felt terrible. Parts of me was glad and I was glad he could not hurt me again, and another part of me was horrified. I could not stop someone I thought of as a friend from jumping off a roof and could not help thinking that I was somehow to blame.

My desire to be a witness did not dissipate. I looked for letters from the churches as it was talked about in Revelation. I longed to get outside. I had been on the ward too long. People did not trust me. I tried to send stuff to Sue, who was the other part of my delusion in days of old. I was again looking for peace of mind. This was the same woman I was trying to see or at least talk to and know that I was okay. I hoped that she was not holding my craziness against me, so I let go of various things in hopes that I might in some way be redeemed.

When I was finally let out on the hospital grounds I found out my brother Kurt was in the same place. I would later find out that mom did not know how to deal with him either. He had been diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia about seven years earlier. I could only wonder at what brought him to the state hospital campus. We talked very little and it seemed hospital policy kept us apart rather than together. Then all at once something really strange happened. One of the residents on the ward thought he was Jesus Christ. That was just what I needed or maybe did not need at all to happen. Various staff asked residents what they thought. As I look back I think it was entertaining for staff or maybe that is just my impression. Eventually I found myself drawn to the man who was known as Bill Barrett. I would learn later that he had been divorced and had a lot of trouble with incontinence. Nevertheless he was what I needed at the time. I was studying to be a minister, was clearly labeled as being crazy and felt more and more distant with God. I did what came naturally and all the other delusional thinking was put on the back burner. This guy with the beard and an uppity kind of walk became my Jesus. He said over and over again to not hit your fellow man or curse him. He had rosary beads and showed me what the various beads meant. He let me know that we were on trial and the world was out to get us. I had similar feelings swimming around in me. He liked to smoke and so I took up smoking for the first time in my life. He liked coffee, I did not. That would never change. I was with him as much as I could be. I kind of believed and did not believe at the same time, because what would Jesus be doing in a place like this? Over time I have wondered if that is not the question. People think they know Jesus and yet in Jesus time he was thought of as crazy.

I drifted away from my feelings of Bill Barrett being Jesus as I got involved in wanting to get out of Taunton, no matter what it took. It was anything but home. I was in groups about this time and felt somewhat connected to people who I had labeled as crazy. I got to know peoples names and what they were like in relationships. The girl who I saw as naked I found out was walking around a camp without any clothes on. She was developmentally disabled to the extent she could not assert her self. Her name was Christine and she would be the first person I saw get loose. There was talk of us going to a half way house. I had been there for a couple months when this banter started. They just could not get all the details ironed out. So in effect we were all prisoners until they got their act together.

I found out that mom had a little girl named Melisa Faith at the end of August. Mom was in her forties and it was considered a rather high risk pregnancy. The delivery had not been easy and mom and Melisa fought for her life. It seemed that things were never easy for my baby sister Missie, even from the start. It was not the end of October and we had parties. Christmas and Thanksgiving were spent in the hospital. It was a very lonely time. People were seeing more sanity than insanity and I was taken on day trips by staff. One of the trips involved seeing Christmas lights. Staff did the best they could to buoy our spirits. It was hard to be happy when all seemed so disconnected.
The first two of three months of the year I fought for my sanity. I was in a kind of limbo. Once in a while I would hang out with Jesus, hoping that maybe God did love me after all. I spent some time doing real strange things, like thinking I was like God and could create just like God in an Adam and Eve setting. I got more grandiose than that at times drawing planets and pondering what life in this new world would be like with me at the helm. I guess it kept me out of trouble, even if it was no comfort. I determined to fight. One of the crazier things I did was flood the floors by living out a fantasy of being like Jonah awash of having anything to say to a godless world. At that point the staff let me clean up after hearing what I said and that was probably one of the best things that happened to me. One of the more exciting things that happened at the beginning of the year was that Dad came to see me. I enjoyed his offering of a hamburger and pop. He was a caring presence. It was the first time a family member saw me and it meant a lot. Mom was scared of hospitals and Dad let me know she was having a rough time of it. He saw me regularly. He did not seemed overly bothered by my strangeness of the strangeness of those around me. There was a small man named Patrick who would glide along and say "oh my mommy, batman superman" over and over again. I exhibited my own strangeness in saying I was like the apostle Peter. My last name was Peterson, so maybe I was not at my worst. Dad came back about every couple weeks and I love him for it. He saw a person in me that I was having trouble wanting to love or know.

I look back at this part of my journey and think back on my very painful divorce. The whole issue of whether I was really with it seemed to be forever at issue. I believe in the end it was used against me. I had been doing recovery work on my obsession with pornography. I was starting to get to the point that I could manage with the help of friends. I had a men's group, therapist and pastoral mentor to be accountable to. I was beginning to feel good about myself. There was this person that called herself my wife that haunted and bludgeoned me. I had been working hard to be a pastor. I was near burnt out. The church had sent me out to find new members and I was getting nowhere. My wife was working to keep her organization alive, even as the church struggled. She found a business colleague to keep her dream alive of providing community services to people in the neighborhood under the auspices of being housed in the church.

People thought she was having an affair with the person she worked with and limits were being set and she and her coworker decide that they would do what they wanted. They were all crazy and maybe I was the real reason that they felt the way they did.
Eventually I would be cast aside as a problem, while she and her coworker tried to redeem something out of the mess. I was on the outside looking in whether it was meant to be that way or not. Eventually I would be hospitalized for the first time since I had been in Taunton in the 70's. Over an over I was told how unusual this was. One the way to hospital I wept because I felt like I made a mess of my life. All she could say was that now I knew how she felt! I felt punched in the stomach. She left with her coworker to take in a conference in Colorado. I was left to fend for myself. The message was clearly that: "You got yourself into the mess. Now let's see how you get out." I called people and they came out to see me. I talked to nurses and other staff and they told me what I needed to do to get out. In a little more than ten days I was out of the nightmare. The doctor said that one of the drugs I was taking for ADD had activated traumatic memories and now that I had done rehab said I was free to go.
My wife was still on her trip with her coworker and my kids who had been picked up on the way. My only contact that I had with her from my hospitalization was that she was seriously thinking about divorce. It was not what I needed to hear. The hospital only knew to prepare me for the worst. On their way back from Colorado the coworker had found out that a friend had committed suicide. He was a mess and my wife offered to drive him home. There is an irony that is unmistakable. I was hospitalized for having suicidal thoughts and she was going out of her way to help her coworker. We have moved on and yet the wound still festers. I did get myself out of the hospital with help from friends. A few weeks later she called the police on me because she was of the opinion that I was suicidal. I begged to differ and was told by the police to go on my way since I said I was ok. I talked to my therapist and that was good enough evidence for them that I was good to go.

I have known that the right thing for me to do is fight and fight with all my might. I have worked ever since I got out of the hospital at the beginning of 2000. There have only been three or four months off for unemployment. I have remarried and keep in touch with my three kids at best I can. Life has not been easy and yet I continue to fight to give and receive God's best. To God be the glory!!!