I don’t know what to call these episodes. To this day, I don’t know if they truly happened. But there is overwhelming evidence that they did.
What is insane? Was I? It feels that way.
Was it caused by lupus, or by losing a love that meant my entire world? Losing my children? Family was important to me because I always felt I grew up without one. I often thought I was adopted, and there is some evidence of that. For example, my mother didn’t know which hospital I was born in at Clarksdale, MS. Though I’ve since learned there was only one.
I have a memory of a woman falling down the steps and begging me to dial zero for an operator. I knew how, but I pretended I didn’t. I am guessing I was three. The therapist explored this memory with me, testing if I recalled it consistently and whether there were unrealistic details that might suggest a dream. The memory stayed consistent. The woman died, tripping on a toy I had left on the stairs. I remember the round table top the black phone was on.
I remember driving a tractor with Shane and Patricia (my wife and son) in the trailer behind me. I was so happy I nearly cried. I did cry, but I hid it. I had worked so much in college that I didn’t spend much time with them. Shane was in camouflage. Patricia, however, wanted to end the outing quickly, and we returned home. I think we had been trying to fly a kite. The details are vague, but I was still in college. Misty came a few years later. This small family gathering is a memory that meant a lot. I remember it more than 40 years later.
I share these because I want to show how deeply family mattered to me.
I consider this to be the worst thing I ever did. What makes it different is that I forgot I did it. My wife was angry with me, she told me I held a gun to my head. I looked at her like she was crazy and told her she was. Then she told me I was crazy. Then the memory returned. I did in fact do that. What made it horrible is my kids saw it. What I remember is either Shane or Misty or both moaning as she rushed them away into the back bedroom. I hear that sound now and I wish it would go away. Am I sorry, oh I wish so much I had not done that and harmed my children in this way.
Once I remembered it, I knew that I had forgot was significant. It was very hard for me to tell my doctor what I had done. He was concerned and called it a "psychotic behavior." I wished I had asked more about that. I'd like to know why he called it that. Getting it out of my mouth was one of the hardest things I had ever done. He also said something like "I'm afraid you are going to have a mental breakdown and that would be a shame with all the signals you're giving us." He was right, I did have that happen. That landed me in the hospital for about two weeks with the official diagnoses of "major depression." That is the only one I ever got.
There is another important issue here. Some of what happened has been blamed on medications. I don't believe that is accurate. I was not on any major medications at the time of the gun to my head.
I woke up one morning with both sides of my face paralyzed. I'm pretty sure it was a snowy Christmas day. Not something we got to see much of in Memphis. I went to the ER late that night. The ER doctor was very concerned and called a neurologist. I thought I was about to be admitted. She had used her pin to watch my eyes several times and said she saw something she did not like. She seemed shocked when she talked to the expert and then she sent me home.
I was not on significant medications up to this point. Within a few days, I was on 100 milligrams of Prednisone per day. That is a very high dose. I don't personally know anyone that has been on that high of a dose. It stayed that high for a couple of months. Yes, I had some anger issues while on it which is to be expected. But one I recall it was unacceptable and it got my attention and I did better after that. I could have hurt someone in that rage. I wasn't out of touch with what I was doing. I was fully aware. But after this, I was soon taking 4mg of Xanax per day to help with the stress of Prednisone. Now that is a significant dose of medication. I remember well, that I could not stop the obsession on a lab test ordered to rule out MS. Xanax helped with that, it made time go by faster as it eased my obsession on that.
This was also when Lupus was first being suspected but not yet confirmed. Most doctors that I was making things up. In fact, one looked at my face and said "Well, you can't fake that." It's very rare and only happens when there is a systemic issue going on in your body and that is usually an autoimmune disorder like lupus.
This too was before the bilateral bells and heavy medications. I know that because the Bell's palsy happened when we lived in apartments. This attic was in a home that we rented.
One day, I woke up with a dream that I had been in the attic with my gun, protecting the family from neighbors I thought were going to attack. I remembered my wife coming up to talk me down. I couldn’t understand why she thought I could stand down while facing an imminent threat.
This “dream” happened about 35 years ago. When Patricia returned to our bedroom, I told her about it because I wasn’t sure it was just a dream. She said nothing, just gave me a look. I decided it must have been a dream. But it never left me.
I often wondered if it had really happened. Therapists discussed it with me. One nearly had me accept it, but when I said in the next session, “There’s no way I did that,” I saw her disappointment. At that time, I clung to the idea that it wasn’t real.
Even now, I don’t remember doing it. But I’ve accepted that it happened. The memory doesn’t have dreamlike qualities. My dreams usually involve impossible things like outer space and superhuman feats. This had none of that. Instead, it had a wife trying to talk me down. That’s something that could happen.
Try to grasp what that realization means: that I stepped outside of myself and became someone else. Doctors call this a dissociative episode. I don’t recall the act itself — only the lingering “dream” that wouldn’t leave me.
Some episodes felt like possession. I don’t believe I was possessed by demons. If anything, I was possessed by Jesus Christ. Otherwise, I might have questioned it. I once saw a demonic face that I made toward a woman, and it terrified me. But I understand now: these weren’t demons. It was another version of myself. Someone I don’t fully know. When this was over, she was visibly shaken, so I know something happened. Until I accepted that the attic dream was not a dream, I didn’t think anything else had happened. Facing that as real made me realize this also did.
Patricia and I divorced. She remarried to someone I knew casually at work. Her attorney sent me a letter to inform me. It hurt, but by then I had let go. They are still together. I wish them nothing but an abundance of faith, hope, and love. I do not hate Patricia. I was angry for a while, but I’ve moved past it. I feel only non-romantic love for her now.
The stress of losing her was immense, worsened by lupus. I was in pain and often wanted to escape myself. Looking back, I see that I was controlling and probably verbally abusive. I never harmed her physically, nor would I. But I was hard to live with. I don’t blame her for leaving. In some ways, it was best for her.
From that time, I learned one truth I carry with me: If someone loves you, they need your time. I was profoundly lonely in my marriage. Patricia did not need my time.
At one point, I found a recording of myself talking on the phone. The voice was flat, monotone, and unrecognizable to me. I listened and asked, “Who is that?” But it was me. There was no one else it could be. I erased it eventually. I couldn’t bear it and didn’t want anyone else to hear. That recording felt like proof I had become someone else — though I did not realize it until I was forced to accept the attic was no dream and it did happen.
This is what dissociation is: stepping into another self. Not full multiple personalities, but fragments of me that surfaced and left gaps.
This was brief. I was at church, watching the worship band. I saw a demon’s face on a woman singing. She looked shaken, too. I don’t know what truly happened, but the image seared into me.
Other times, there were gaps. Once, I was in a preacher’s office. I suddenly “came back” with no memory of what had just happened. Another time, in a Walmart parking lot, my mother asked if I was okay. I had zoned out. I blamed it on the sun, but it was more.
During heavy medication for lupus — 100 mg of prednisone a day and 4 mg of Xanax — I shouldn’t have been driving. I could not drive at night at all. On one ride home from a lupus meeting, I told a woman giving me a lift, “I know you are afraid of me.” After that, she never gave me another ride. To this day, I don’t know why I said it.
During our separation, I asked Patricia out. We went to Houston’s Restaurant. I experienced another gap. I “came back” and realized I must have been talking for a long time. Afterward, Patricia told me she would never be with me again. And she wasn’t.
At the time, I buried it. Later, when I understood the attic episode wasn’t a dream, these other gaps returned to me as part of a pattern. These were dissociative episodes.
At first, I wanted to believe it was lupus. Maybe it was. My labs were inconsistent, but experts diagnosed me with an autoimmune illness. The strongest evidence is that once lupus went into remission, the episodes stopped. But sometimes, under stress — like today, the sensations return.
I once feared I had done something terrible. My mother told me that I held a gun to Shane’s head. I became afraid today that I might have done that during a dissociative episode. But it didn’t happen. There would have been police records; I wouldn’t have been allowed to see my children. My mother may have been told something or confused a detail. I don’t know. When I thought it might be true, I wished I had never been born.
This is what I live with: doubt. What did I do when I wasn’t myself? What don’t I remember?
But I know who I am at my core. I would never harm anyone. Yet I still ask: are there others inside me, and if so, who are they?
I am unaware of anything like this happening since the autoimmune disease went into remission. It has been more than thirty years since anything like this occurred. But facing the possibility that I was insane, even briefly, scares me. If it happened once, it could happen again. The last time was the lady in the band at church.
I’ve been with Jessie, in person, for eighteen years, and she has never seen anything from me that scares her. I did get angry enough with her once that I wanted to hit her, but of course, there is no way I would. She does not fear me, and there are only two people I will tell that this document is on my website: my daughter and Jessie.