How I longed for escape. Death, I remember, was always an inconsequential thing — if that was the only way to get out, that I was going to take it. When I first became mad, and thought the visions I was seeing were another plane of existence, I longed to swim out of this o too solid flesh and into that spirit world. I believed that once I was there, I would have powers that the mightiest angels would envy, even, perhaps, becoming like a god. (The real world around me I had no interest in, and I wanted nothing to do with the mundane things of mere survival. If my parents had not been around to take care of me, I would have surely landed out on the street.) Once, to try and pass into that other world, I took two handfuls of aspirin — but all that did was make me vomit the following morning. Earlier than that, my parents had tomato plants growing in the back yard, so I ate some of their leaves — which I had heard were poisonous — but nothing happened.
In all, I think I tried six or seven times to end it all. This was how badly I wanted out. Plus, there were my walks I sometimes went on, in which I had fantasies that I would just keep on walking, away, away, never turn back. Live on the street in the company of the angels in my head. Good thing those fantasies never worked out.... But you know, even though it was perhaps intensified by the madness, that longing to escape is not unheard of to many people, I think. Many of us have some part of our lives that we long to escape from, or even the whole thing of existence itself. I find it encouraging to my view of humanity that most of us keep pressing on, through the hard times, the hard lives. I have had the pleasure of many experiences since I recovered from my madness, glad to have kept my family and friends. I am glad I didn't escape like I wanted to. I shudder to think what would have happened if I had.
