06-13-03 - 12:11 a.m.
Tim is a 21 year old pot-smoking schizophrenic. We met him because his Dad wants us to check on him while he's out of town. At first, when he was straight and sober, a lot of the things he said made lots of sense. "I see how men are treating women, and it's so unjust . I realize there's a difference in the way I treat them, and I think the women's movement is too...hodgepode, no that's not the word. It's disjointed. What we really need is circles of men talking about feminism, a forum for male discussion." Of course, that type of thing won himpoints right away. He seems fairly socially conscious and believes that the world is illusionary -- probably because of his association with Buddhism. "I used to deal drugs, but I had to have a lot of ego and a lot of false pretenses to do that. It wasn't really me, and it was self-damaging." He's also a writer. Since he doesn't sleep, he can write for days straight and has a book of poetry called "Juniper."
Then you hit the topic of religion and spirituality, or he brings it up, and you realize he lives in a world most of us can only imagine. "After meditating on the Earth Goddess for several years, I went to a field and she came to me and told me I was the new prophet, the new Buddha. I entirely blew her off -- I thought there could be no way. Then she knocked me to my feet and I spit out a cricket, but still I didn't believe her until I went home and looked into the mirror. Before my very eyes, I grew breasts and my eyes turned Asian. I turned into her, and then I knew." He sees shrines everywhere he goes, has seen ghosts and fairies and gods and goddesses. He describes the Triton as "giant, green, almost Statue of Libertyesque, surrounded by a massive dome of birds." He sees dreams as an alternate plane of existence, where an incest related dream he had is equal to "psychic seduction" or "psychic rape". It's almost fascinating, and you really don't know what to say to that.
The sad part is how attached he is to his visions. He says he is now seeking an omen, a sign, a new oracle. I tried to tell him that he could seek inner peace instead and listen to himself: that not all of us have oracles or visible signs and we get along. However, he sees his delusions as psychic phenomena. When talking to him, one almost begins to doubt their own reality for a second: what if these things really DO exist on another plane, and only he is conscious. It's only after talking to him a long period of time that you discover he believes in EVERYTHING: he has been visited by a virtual pantheon of mythical creatures and deities from many cultures.
I suppose the best thing Dicey and I can do, being his new friends, is to try to encourage his sobriety. He seeks out drugs for no reason other then they enhance his ability to "communicate with the supernatural". He is much more coherent, and his speech shifts a lot less and is much more interesting when straight and clean. I'm trying to come up with things to say. You can't convince him that these things are untrue very easily, so the only thing I can think of is to try to suggest that maybe they are not essential to his being or his experience. That maybe the ways in which he seeks them could have negative consequences. Furthermore, he can be a good writer and a good person without them, and find meaning.
My sister Dicey likes him entirely too much. She's only talked to him a few times, and has already developed an intense and obsessive crush. I admit he's interesting and intelligent, but after all, he's delusional and a drug addict. She has even mentioned having sex with him (thank God he believes he should be celibate.) I think, on the other hand, that she treats him as a sideshow freak. I told her to tell him she preferred him straight and clean, and she refused to do so. She says she likes him equally both ways, because she finds him fun and interesting while high. I understand the natural curiosity, but I think doing anything other than encouraging sobriety in such a case is damaging. I clearly told him that when he sees us this Saturday he should be clean and sober because I would enjoy talking to him better that way.
I'm fascinated, but on the other hand, it gives me a headache.
