The Journey Now Begins

In September 1974, my sleep left me and I started to become delusional, saying all sorts of things that didn't make any sense, things that were very scary and off the wall. I couldn't rest, my internal clock was shattered, I couldn't sleep anymore, and everyone knew I had lost it except me. I thought I was fine and that everyone was against me. The drugs I had started taking when I was thirteen had finally done their damage now that I was nineteen. I never knew what was happening to me during all those years. I thought I was only getting high, but that was only a piece of it. There was so much more I never knew until many years later, when I learned the truth about what had really happened to me.

For years my life wasn't my own. There was another force that had taken control of me, yet I didn't know it nor could I have even believed it to be possible. I started out smoking marijuana and popping pills (uppers and downers); then I went on to do acid and LSD-25, then "orange sunshine", which is also acid that makes you hallucinate.

I always hung out with my best friend, Jimmy. We went everywhere together, got high together, and even dated two girls who were best friends, Wendy and Dawn. We also ran away with our friend Frankie and made it all the way to Jacksonville, Florida, from Smithtown, Long Island. We went to my aunt's house and took showers because we were so dirty from the four-day trip. The shower felt so good. We were then taken to the airport and put on a plane back to New York, where my dad and Jimmy's dad came to get us at the airport. Boy, were they mad at us.

I ran away because I was so sick and tired of being beat up all the time, and now I was going to get it again. I soon lost a close friend; a guy shot him up with a "hot shot," an injection of pure heroin. My friend hemorrhaged from his eyes, ears, and mouth. There was blood everywhere in his bed. He died in his sleep. His mother found him this way when she went to wake him for school. My friend was supposed to give this mean guy money to buy drugs, but then he changed his mind, so the guy killed him. Later this guy was sent to Attica State Prison for killing a girl named Christine in the woods at Miller Pond in Smithtown, Long Island. He was never charged with my friend's death. As far as I know, he is still behind bars and has never been paroled.

Following the death of my close friend, I lost my first girlfriend, Linda, who was killed in a house fire with her dad and older sister. I will never forget the church funeral with three closed caskets rolling out the church doors. This was a very sad day for many in Smithtown. Linda was such a beautiful girl and so young to die a terrible, painful death. My friend Dave and a guy from Sweden were coming home from a bar and saw the fire. They tried to get in the house, but the flames were too fierce for them. I will always miss her and her family.

We were just young teenagers caught up in the drug world. I thought it was cool, but I didn't know it would take hold of my life. This was only the beginning of many years of drug abuse. After the acid came mescaline and selling pot in high school. Then came cocaine and THC, which is actually horse tranquilizer. It was a white powder that I snorted up my nose, but it was too much for me; it was so strong. I'd had enough. I finally broke away after six years of drug addiction and abuse. My life crashed. I cracked up and lost it. My life was turned upside down and I had to be hospitalized.

I lost all my so-called friends because of my breakdown. When you have a mental breakdown, nobody wants to be your friend. They all think you're crazy and don't want to be around you. Your life falls apart, and the shame and guilt of having a mental breakdown puts you in isolation. You don't want to be around people, because you're ashamed of yourself. There may be some of you who are reading this book who have experienced this life for themselves and know what I'm saying.

I was greatly ashamed and decided that I didn't want to see my family or any of my so-called friends.

I was nineteen years old when my life fell apart. My mom and dad had just committed me to a mental hospital in Long Island, New York, where I grew up as a boy. The name of this hospital, that I would be in and out of for many years, is Kings Park State Psychiatric Center. At this time I was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was put on strong medicine to help bring me down from a manic high that had lasted for weeks. During this time I couldn't sleep and had become very delusional and extremely angry at everybody, especially my parents.

This change would begin a whole new world for me. I would become a guinea pig for the psychiatrists and psychologists in this hospital. As I sat in front of the psychiatrist, I couldn't believe that a woman from India, who could hardly speak English, knew what was wrong with me. I said to myself, Am I now going to look to these doctors for the answers to my problems?

The doctor put me on Thorazine, which was a very powerful drug in its day. They gave it to me by inter-muscular injections, which really hurt. I soon had trouble with my thinking. My thoughts seemed to become cloudy like I was in a dream. My words were hard to speak. I felt like I was losing touch with myself. I went to sleep for hours and woke up to this world inside the walls of a state mental hospital. I could see a dayroom where the furniture was so ugly and plain. The covering on the couches was a pale green hard plastic. People lay all over these couches most of the time. As I looked around, I noticed that the windows had big mesh screens over them so you couldn't clearly see outside. When I tried to look outside, I saw through thousands of little holes. This seemed very strange to me, but there were many other strange things I would experience.

We were fed three meals a day in a dining hall, which was a far walk from the day-room. Everything was locked up in this place. Long hallways had big metal doors that were locked so you couldn't escape. Dinner was at five o'clock. The food was tasteless. Then at eight o'clock we were served a snack, which everybody pigged out on, especially a young man named Louie who was committed to this place for flipping out on drugs. Louie always rubbed his stomach in circles as he laughed in a weird way. He had only a few teeth. He too was in and out of that place for many years. Sadly, Louie eventually...