The Glass Doors
FOREWORD
In 2003, I was diagnosed with “acute schizophrenia”, and for several years afterward I committed to the conscious development of a fantasy reality that ultimately resulted in pushing away all my family and friends. My cognitive dissociate condition put me at odds with the status quo, and eventually, there was absolutely nothing normal about my life.
I would spend all day talking to the television set, I was convinced that the entire human race was telepathic, and I believed in a cosmic reality which included many high-profile celebrities as members of a forum of deities and demons.
During the summer of 2005, I spent seven weeks on my own in Algonquin Provincial Park, where I attempted suicide through poisoning, and then, starvation.
The following year, I was put on a heavy dosage of antipsychotic medication and remained treated for nine months. After this term I quit the medication ‘cold turkey’ and I have not been medicated since.
I rebuilt my life (details to follow).
In 2021, I interviewed with leading psychiatrists at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, including a prestigious doctor, Dr. Cliff Posel, who also teaches at the University of Toronto. I quote from the Zoom-based follow-up meeting to that interview:
I don’t think that what you are experiencing would meet criteria for some kind
of mental health disorder. And I know that there is the history there that you
were diagnosed with schizophrenia in the past. We definitely don’t see any
element of psychosis currently. And I mean the fact that you’ve been off an
anti-psychotic since 2007essentially and haven’t had any further kind of
psychotic episode…we question that diagnosis… that diagnosis is probably
not useful to you currently.
As mentioned, I rebuilt my life, starting in 2007, and it has been a tough challenge given how alien my state of mind had become once I had hit rock bottom. In 2011, I re-enrolled at the University of Toronto and finished my undergraduate degree in Criminology. I remained enrolled, and I completed a second undergraduate degree in Cinema at UofT. Then, I received a full scholarship to undertake a master’s degree in Cinema at UofT, which I completed and then went on to work on my doctorate in semiotics at Concordia University in Montreal (currently ABD).
Since starting down the road to recovery, I have had several long-term romantic relationships, I have made new lasting friendships as well as rekindling some old ones. I have the support of my family, and I am the proud owner of a healthy and happy fourteen-year-old Finnish Lapphund dog, named “Bear”.
Over the years, I have been the manager of retail stores, and I published my own video game to the mobile platform through the Googleplay app. I have received some recognition in international screenwriting contests, and I am currently enrolled at UCLA in a screenwriting program. I was offered admission to the only graduate screenwriting program at Canadian universities, and I have published academic work in leading scholarly publications.
In 2015, I began a fitness program that was stymied by the pandemic, but in 2023, I made fitness and diet a priority once more and proceeded to lost 40 lbs of ‘bad’ weight in just twenty weeks following a program I devised for myself.
Today, my goal is to persuade you that my manuscript, “The Glass Doors”, is a valuable text for society. This book is a far cry from a ‘self-help’ autobiography on the subject of mental illness. Instead, The Glass Doors is fictional autobiography with critical elements of memoir and reflections. The story has flourishes of philosophy, and it traverses the genres of fantasy and science fiction. I believe that this ‘mélange’ is an apt poetic device for translating the experience of being dissociative for those who cannot relate personally, but who may find the insights valuable as it relates to others in their lives who might be suffering from different forms of psychosis.
My story elucidates on the process of meaning-production for disordered thinkers, especially with respect to illuminating the issues of paranoia and conspiratorial thought. The story provides an existential journey through conjured worlds that related to my own fantasy reality when I was suffering greatly.
The Glass Doors is entertaining and educational – most of all, it is provocative like nothing you have ever read. I would like to suggest that this book would become a very important resource for certain communities in psychology and philosophy. Additionally, if my book was available as a resource to people going through what I went through, then they might discover methods via my ideas and knowledge that would help them curtail their own path of self-destruction.
This is a book that must be published.
The Glass Doors has many inspirations including, Timothy Findlay, Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Franz Kafka. Some early proofreaders from my personal life have made flattering comparisons to James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, Philip K. Dick, and Douglas Adams – either for style, theme, or content.
Thank you for your consideration and I hope you enjoy reading the book.
I would spend all day talking to the television set, I was convinced that the entire human race was telepathic, and I believed in a cosmic reality which included many high-profile celebrities as members of a forum of deities and demons.
During the summer of 2005, I spent seven weeks on my own in Algonquin Provincial Park, where I attempted suicide through poisoning, and then, starvation.
The following year, I was put on a heavy dosage of antipsychotic medication and remained treated for nine months. After this term I quit the medication ‘cold turkey’ and I have not been medicated since.
I rebuilt my life (details to follow).
In 2021, I interviewed with leading psychiatrists at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, including a prestigious doctor, Dr. Cliff Posel, who also teaches at the University of Toronto. I quote from the Zoom-based follow-up meeting to that interview:
I don’t think that what you are experiencing would meet criteria for some kind
of mental health disorder. And I know that there is the history there that you
were diagnosed with schizophrenia in the past. We definitely don’t see any
element of psychosis currently. And I mean the fact that you’ve been off an
anti-psychotic since 2007essentially and haven’t had any further kind of
psychotic episode…we question that diagnosis… that diagnosis is probably
not useful to you currently.
As mentioned, I rebuilt my life, starting in 2007, and it has been a tough challenge given how alien my state of mind had become once I had hit rock bottom. In 2011, I re-enrolled at the University of Toronto and finished my undergraduate degree in Criminology. I remained enrolled, and I completed a second undergraduate degree in Cinema at UofT. Then, I received a full scholarship to undertake a master’s degree in Cinema at UofT, which I completed and then went on to work on my doctorate in semiotics at Concordia University in Montreal (currently ABD).
Since starting down the road to recovery, I have had several long-term romantic relationships, I have made new lasting friendships as well as rekindling some old ones. I have the support of my family, and I am the proud owner of a healthy and happy fourteen-year-old Finnish Lapphund dog, named “Bear”.
Over the years, I have been the manager of retail stores, and I published my own video game to the mobile platform through the Googleplay app. I have received some recognition in international screenwriting contests, and I am currently enrolled at UCLA in a screenwriting program. I was offered admission to the only graduate screenwriting program at Canadian universities, and I have published academic work in leading scholarly publications.
In 2015, I began a fitness program that was stymied by the pandemic, but in 2023, I made fitness and diet a priority once more and proceeded to lost 40 lbs of ‘bad’ weight in just twenty weeks following a program I devised for myself.
Today, my goal is to persuade you that my manuscript, “The Glass Doors”, is a valuable text for society. This book is a far cry from a ‘self-help’ autobiography on the subject of mental illness. Instead, The Glass Doors is fictional autobiography with critical elements of memoir and reflections. The story has flourishes of philosophy, and it traverses the genres of fantasy and science fiction. I believe that this ‘mélange’ is an apt poetic device for translating the experience of being dissociative for those who cannot relate personally, but who may find the insights valuable as it relates to others in their lives who might be suffering from different forms of psychosis.
My story elucidates on the process of meaning-production for disordered thinkers, especially with respect to illuminating the issues of paranoia and conspiratorial thought. The story provides an existential journey through conjured worlds that related to my own fantasy reality when I was suffering greatly.
The Glass Doors is entertaining and educational – most of all, it is provocative like nothing you have ever read. I would like to suggest that this book would become a very important resource for certain communities in psychology and philosophy. Additionally, if my book was available as a resource to people going through what I went through, then they might discover methods via my ideas and knowledge that would help them curtail their own path of self-destruction.
This is a book that must be published.
The Glass Doors has many inspirations including, Timothy Findlay, Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Franz Kafka. Some early proofreaders from my personal life have made flattering comparisons to James Joyce, Jonathan Swift, Philip K. Dick, and Douglas Adams – either for style, theme, or content.
Thank you for your consideration and I hope you enjoy reading the book.