WOEBEGONE: An autobiography about the mystery of psychosis.

By Thomas Fay

This is an autobiographical story about a young man falling into psychosis and then walking out. His past mistakes brought him afflictive emotions and when combined with the stress of a new family and stressful job, schizophrenia took hold. This book takes us with him through the different stages of his journey, along with his commentary and philosophy on mental illness.

The story relates how suffering can have meaning and by giving it meaning we make it more palatable.

#wobegon #woebegone #wobegone

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350906127

Book preview

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WOEBEGONE

An autobiography about the mystery of psychosis.

Thomas Fay

ISBN (Print Edition): 979-8-35090-611-0

ISBN (eBook Edition): 979-8-35090-612-7

© 2023. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Elaine, Ann, Francis, Dan, Ellen, Tom, Russell, John, and many more.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

OUT of MIND

DETENTION

MOSAIC

INTO the MYSTIC

PURGATORIO

CANARIES

REDEMPTION

EPILOGUE

INSPIRATION

PROLOGUE

I was looking out my office window and noticed him. He was next to the highway, punching the air with anger and making short yells towards the heavens. He looked like he hadn’t bathed in weeks and his clothes had a dirty oiled sheen. He would occasionally cross the street to the gas station to rummage through the trash bins. The customers either ignored him completely as if they didn’t see him, or they were unnerved by him. I left my office and grabbed a few granola bars as an offering. I got within 10 feet, then he noticed me and stopped in his tracks. He wore a hooded sweatshirt so I couldn’t see his face. He was a big man and I was a little worried he would be angry or hostile. I got closer and saw his face clearly — there was still a soul behind his eyes, and he wasn’t angry, he was embarrassed.

Some salient facts: close to 1% of the population has schizophrenia (tens of millions of people globally), which is itself just a subset of serious mental illness; and in total, up to 4% of our population suffer from what is classified as life disrupting mental illness. It has a prevalence that easily exceeds a host of other more charitably funded and championed illnesses. Ninety percent of people who die by suicide have a mental illness, and in modern times suicides take more lives each year than all homicides and wars combined; one in five children will have a mental illness by age 18. Some estimates put the cost of mental illness above 4% of GDP (to put that in perspective, that is more than the entire annual defense budget of the United States). ¹

It is a global and daunting issue worth attention, and its increasing prevalence may be a warning that we are structuring our lives in ways incompatible with our design.

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1 https://www.economist.com/special-report/2015/07/11/the-age-of-unreason: GDP cost of 4% due to mental illness

OUT of MIND

Mental illness is part of the human condition - similar to love, sadness or physical illness. It isn’t to be eradicated but experienced, and from it we can learn. It should inform how we live and grow. Let’s not pretend that we all don’t have some form, as hubris itself certainly is one, and let’s not mute those from whom we could learn. Help heal those with a serious case, they aren’t lepers who pose a risk of infecting you; in fact, they may be an antidote.

It was May of 2011. Thomas had a psychotic break and experienced a taste of what could have been hell. Little did he know that this taste was just the beginning of the journey. It was still before he had spent the better part of three years in mental institutions, and before he substantively lost years of his life to a largely tortured alternate reality. It was before rounds of electroshock therapy; before the humiliation of orderlies pinning him to a bed to administer medication; before the hospital strip searches; and, before a new perspective on life.

Nonetheless, it was also before a tremendous amount of love, energy and grace was lavished on him. His family changed their lives to assist him and continued for years to search for a treatment that would work. He also had the chance to meet some wonderfully thoughtful and caring providers and teachers. While he couldn’t contemporaneously appreciate or properly receive those efforts, they were blessings. Thomas’s wife and mother bent their reality to accommodate him. His father and brother offered him respect when he rarely felt it elsewhere.

As for the aforementioned taste of hell, it is what psychiatrists almost unanimously diagnosed as the onset of schizophrenia. The mental coup largely took over Thomas’s psyche one evening after a few weeks of increasingly troubled thoughts and behavior — his hallucinations and delusions became front and center. While he had started to experience some paranoia and delusional thoughts months earlier, he had been able to continue to function. He maintained work and personal schedules well enough up until the last few days. That night was when the stress and mental dysfunction culminated and took root. He became increasingly untethered. He initiated some odd conversations about personal guilt concerning things he had done as a young man and about his perspective on life. There was a

Reviews for WOEBEGONE

[David Thomas · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Interesting first-hand experience of mental and spiritual suffering. Schizophrenia is a very interesting illness that seems to frighten people -- possibly there is more to it than delusions.