Of Intrusive Thoughts and John Green

I guarantee that your family member's suicide was caused by either a panic attack or an intrusive thoughts. What are intrusive thoughts? Unwanted thoughts that can enter our minds at any time and without warning. When I first read John Green's Turtles All The Way Down, it meant little to me. I gave the book to a friend because I didn't have space for a book I wasn't going to read again. In 2019, I roasted my parents in a stand up comedy routine outside my house. The police carted me off to the mental hospital. I discovered a large print of Turtles on my first day at Waukesha Memorial Mental Hospital. I tried to read it, but I’m not much of a visual learner (despite my visual art gifts). The next year, I returned to this hospital, and got a little further. It was like an old friend waiting for me. I understood the power of the book this time. This was because as my schizoaffective disorder progressed, so did the intrusive thoughts. I always tell the voices that this is the mind they’ve left me with. When I was a kid, I had OCD symptoms, but nothing like what I’m now experiencing. I’d say what kind of intrusive thoughts I have, but I don’t want them to become your intrusive thoughts. Also, you might hate me. I’ve come to call them untrue-sive thoughts. The reason I know they’d become your intrusive thoughts, is because of the brave Maria Bramford. She is one of my favorite comedians. She was interviewed on Netflix’s The Mind Unleashed. 1) When she had scissors, she thought she was going to kill her parents.Number 2) She said, "Normal people say ‘that’s a sexy dog’ and move on. Initially, this made me feel better about my brain. The only thing is the next time they gave me scissors at Trempleau Mental Hospital, I was paranoid about it. There were also a lot of dogs on campus- the staff’s. I began to wonder why these supposed people thought the dog was sexy. I hated myself. I kept trying to explain it. Is that "sexy" because they stretch like somebody doing yoga? But hold on, is it really sexy to do yoga? As John Green says in his book, the spiral tightened. My  theory is that some people are simpler than others. We were watching Talk TV in the small lounge at Trempealeau. I’m not sure the show. The hosts had a picture of a dog in a woman’s slinky dress. One of the hosts said, "That’s a sexy dog." Or something along the lines. And they laughed. Before meeting my treatment therapist, I would be suicidal over saying something like this in my head. Daisy, a character created by John Green, exemplifies the whole simple-minded thing. She’s a teenage girl, who like all teenage girls, is on Tumblr writing fan fiction. Unlike most teenage girls, it’s about Star Wars. I just never got into Star Wars. What makes Daisy so simple? She’s writing about a relationship between Chewbaca and Ray. Ray is a woman. A human woman. People accuse her of writing about something gross between animals and humans. Beastiality. Even Aza, the main character, agrees that it’s kind of weird. Daisy, on the other hand, sticks by her work. Aza also says Daisy’s future boyfriend looks like a giant baby. For an intrusive thinker, this would ruin the relationship. They’d get in their heads about it. Daisy did not.  One day at Trempealeau, we were watching Shameless. We were always watching Shameless. I did not like this. There is so much sex, and half of the people on Trempealeau's Excel unit were elderly and suffering from Alzheimer's. We were watching the first season, and a nurse walked by and said, "You heard it here first: Lip is the hottest!" Yes, I know he’s older and playing younger, but he was playing a high schooler.. I called a very important person to me and told her. She said it’s normal to say a teenager is hot. I told my therapist, and she agreed. I thought it was weird to even say  handsome about teenage boys. I still remain determined never to call a teenager hot. And so this is much of what I work on in therapy. I think too much still, but people listen. We need more therapists, so don’t be afraid to open up. I went ten months without a therapist this year. Don’t waste their time. Get the darkest shit out first. Life will get better. And if you catch yourself thinking something bad, just say the word, "Stop." And move, move, move right along.