Welcome to another edition of the Saturday Guest Daily Disturbance spot!!! This week's guest writer hails from the second windiest city in the world, Chicago and loves South Park. He's giving us the opportunity to "peek" inside his world to see what it's like.

Let's give it up for DuplexEmotions!!!

Rob

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The following was written a week ago, when I was in Missouri visiting
with an uncle of mine who is undergoing treatment for lung cancer:

Well, here goes nothing.

I am right now sitting in a rather well appointed trailer that serves
as a guest house for my uncle, who I am visiting. Across from the bed
are a couple tasteful prints of deer, and sitting on the shelf next to me
is a rather evil looking sculpture of a pig that has been bothering me
with occasional bursts of demonic laughter, and behind me, veiled by
the curtains, a rather gaunt and pale man looks into the window, watching
me and waiting for something.

As I munch on Chex Mix (Bold Party Mix) I reflect on some of the other
things I have seen today. The pale man, slender in his grey suit, dull
eyes reflecting no light, has been following me since nightfall. I have
never seen him walk, but he keeps pace with me, always standing with
the same sardonic grin, slightly hidden in the shadows. I walked to the
trailer in the dark, not far but hounded by shapeless demons. It was
difficult to not break into a run. But that's what they want, really. They
want to see me afraid.

The beast at the front window glared at me as I walked in, past the
ashen child who I knew was dead. The thing at the window was slight, his
skin a hollow red as blood dripped freely from his eyes. Knowing it will
help, I make my way around the trailer, turning on the lights.

As I got to the door of the room my parents are staying in, I could
clearly see the deer head mounted on the wall screaming rage, droplets of
blood dancing out of his mouth in a froth. I saw this, but it was on
the other side of the door and not within my field of vision. Trying to
ignore it, I closed the door.

I did my best to remain occupied as I waited for my parents to make
their way to the trailer, making green tea and ignoring the formless
apparitions at the front windows. They were laughing at me as I tried to
ignore them, but the light kept them out until my family arrived. Knowing
that I am being tormented this night, they help by leaving the lights
on.

Thus has been my night so far. I am telling you this because, well, not
very many people have experienced this sort of thing before and I think
learning about it will help others form an understanding of certain
mental illness. For some of us, things like this are day to day
occurrences. We all figure out how to deal with it, or go mad trying.

Jump to the present.

Living with mental illness has been, well, for lack of a better word,
interesting. I have the support of friends and family, but knowing that
you can no longer put faith in what you see and hear is a bit of a blow
to your system. I'm on Zyprexa at the moment, which helps as long as
I'm not in any situations that make me stressed or uncomfortable. I've
learned to keep myself busy, starting an exercise routine, working on my
computer, spending as little time alone as I can. I'm learning to deal
with a life of uncertainty.

I'll be more than willing to answer any questions you have as to
hallucinations, living with mental illness, and the like, just bear in mind
that what is true for me might not be true for others.

like I said, feel free to ask any questions and I will attempt to answer them in a timely fashion.

Dude! Awsome Write!

Quote: the pale man, slender in his grey suit, dull eyes reflecting no light, has been following me since nightfall. I have never seen him walk, but he keeps pace with me, always standing with the same sardonic grin, slightly hidden in the shadows. I walked to the trailer in the dark, not far but hounded by shapeless demons. It was difficult to not break into a run.

In my opinion, I think this is your minds representation of death, caused by your worry of your uncle.

Hope your uncle gets better!

No offense...but have you ever thought of writing a book about what you see? I seriously would read it! Bling going your way!

I've considered fleshing some of what I see into short stories, as to the man I saw he is one of my 'recurring' visions, I've seen him before on several occasions.

Edit: Oh, and Rob, I'm not much of a south park fan, it's just that the avatar looks an incredibly large amount like me.

That was an interesting read, Duplex. I don't have much of a comment, but I hope your uncle gets better.

he's on radiation therapy right now, but outlook seems good that he'll recover. I'm glad I got to go visit him, we went fishing. Since he's so weak from the radiation, all he does usually is sit on his porch, so we did good by giving him some variety.

Definately interesting. Bum deal about the visions and all, hope your uncle feels better soon along with yourself.

Prayers go out to your uncle, and you DE. Make sure he stays out of the sun. Radiation treatments can cause burns as it is, but during treatments patients are more suseptible to sun burn.

Thanks for the heads up, Foe. His deck has a roof, plus ceiling fans. It's a REALLY nice deck.

And thanks to everyone else for the thoughts and prayers. My new meds seem to be working well, it's only in situations where I'm away from home or really stressed that I begin to have problems.

I just want to share some of my feelings regarding DE. IÂ’ve been contemplating for some time how best to present this, but I havenÂ’t really been able to put my thoughts on paper (forum) to express my opinion in a way IÂ’d like. With that said, IÂ’m gonna take a shot at it and just know that this is meant to be positive.

When DE first joined PR, he seemed very witty. His cutting edge one-liners were drenched with sarcastic humor. It was funny for a while, but over time his posts turned into what I perceived as a quest for pity. DE and I butted heads for a bit, but back in May he started a post that really hit me. For the first time I was disturbed by the tone and I got a bit worried.

I PM’ed him and asked him to call me if he wanted to on my dime if he ever felt like talking. A day later he called me and we spoke for about an hour. By the end of our conversation, I realized that that my pinions of him had been wrong. DE was not the “pity me” person I thought he was, but a young man, incredibly intelligent, and well versed in the spoken word of English. I found him to be someone who can see an obstacle and face it, deal with it, and work to overcome it. He has an inner strength that many of us have never needed to tap into or might not even understand. He’s a person who looks at all the options, weighs them, and moves forward.

For that DE, you have my utmost respect.

Steve (EM)

Well, E-Man...I have a lot of respect for you and after that post I will reconsider how I approach DE in the future.

Regardless of personal feelings though, that piece was very well written. I'd like to see some writing on other subjects.

EstwingMan, words cannot express how happy it makes me to hear you say that. Really, it means a lot to me.

BA, I have some short stories and a screenplay on the backburner, I'll probably be posting a couple of them once I have it all fleshed out. Thanks for the compliment on my style.