I am keeping this entry as part of an ongoing record: lived experience, spiritual inquiry, and the patient work of finding language for what moves between the visible and the unseen.
I am currently working on a novel called the untitled storybrook project. The following is an excerpt from such a project.
This excerpt explores an alternative view of mental illness, framed by a character known as “The Kid,” who insists on a “both/and world” perspective rather than the conventional either/or medical model. The central conflict lies between the doctors, who focus on the physical brain and reductionist explanations, and The Kid, who experiences symptoms like voices and dissociation as “physical echoes of metaphysical activity.” According to The Kid’s perspective, his experience is not solely pathology but rather “data” from a hidden system, allowing him to act as a “diagnostic medium” who can trace ailments back to their spiritual or metaphysical source. The Narrative commentary emphasizes the mythic scope of this situation, highlighting that while the doctor sees a patient, The Kid sees a deeper conflict or “war,” suggesting that both parties are telling a limited version of the truth.
The Kid isn’t denying the biological reality of schizophrenia or depression—he’s seeing a both/and world instead of an either/or one. In his perception, the physical brain and the metaphysical current are like two rivers colliding: symptoms show up in the body and mind, but their patterns, timing, and intensities also reflect hidden interactions with the unseen. This is exactly what makes him look “delusional” to the doctors. They’re trained to map one river but not the other.
The simulation framework already accommodates this idea:
The Kid’s imagination acts as a decoding device for spiritual influence (he sees what others call hallucinations as symbolic transmissions).
Telepathic voices and channeling aren’t involuntary intrusions—they’re the metaphysical currents surfacing in his neurology.
The Narrator’s commentary contrasts the doctors’ reductionist explanations with the mythic scope of what’s actually happening.
Symptoms like dissociation, voices, or sensory distortions become the physical echoes of metaphysical activity—sometimes destructive, sometimes healing, sometimes just strange.
If we fold this into the story, The Kid becomes a kind of “diagnostic medium”—he can trace an ailment’s emergence back to its spiritual resonance, which no one else can see. This makes his experience a radical inversion of the medical model: what they label “pathology,” he experiences as “data” from a hidden system.
Perspective:
The Kid (inner monologue and spoken words)
The Narrator (mythic commentary)
Example Segment: |
The examination room was plain. White walls, metal chair, fluorescent lights. Nothing strange about it. Except The Kid could feel the other layer humming under the paint — a layer no one here would talk about.
The doctor asked the usual questions. “Do you hear voices? Do you think people are controlling you?”
The Kid rubbed his palms together, slow. “Yes,” he said. “But not the way you think.”
He looked the doctor in the eyes. “Schizophrenia isn’t just in the brain. None of these things are only physical. There’s spiritual and metaphysical manipulation involved. That’s why the symptoms look like they do. You’re seeing the physical side of something much bigger.”
The doctor’s pen paused. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not denying the physical exists,” The Kid said. “I’m saying the physical is part of something else. The spiritual can worsen it, or help heal it. Ailments don’t come from nothing. Everything about life on this planet — maybe other planets too — shows spiritual involvement. That’s why I’m sick. That’s why so many are. You treat symptoms; I’m trying to find the source.”
Narrator:
“Most folks think a sickness starts in the blood. Kid knew better. He saw the fingerprints on the wound.”
The doctor wrote faster. “These are delusions,” he said softly.
The Kid shook his head. “It’s not a delusion. It’s a truth you don’t measure yet. You think I’m crazy because I speak to them, but I’m not just talking to myself. I’m speaking to something real. You call it schizophrenia; I call it interaction.”
Narrator:
“Doc saw a patient. Kid saw a war. Both were telling the truth—but only one knew it.”
The Kid exhaled. “This doesn’t mean medicine is useless. It means there’s more. You don’t have to believe me, but it’s happening whether you do or not.”
The doctor stared at him for a moment, then went back to writing. The Kid leaned back on the paper-covered bed. Inside, he thought: They’re only looking at half the picture.