黃佳淳
Before I deleted my Instagram account during the second psychotic episode in 2022, my Instagram handle was @inconstantexile. In constant exile. Inconstant exile. The words change dramatically depending on where you put a space. It comes from a feeling that when I was in Chicago, I felt nostalgic for Taiwan. When I was in Taiwan, I felt nostalgic for Chicago. Nostalgia is always in afar. The continuous longing for the other place, no matter where I am. In the ER I told the psychiatrist that I wanted to go home. She asked where is home. I answered, there are many homes.
It felt like a hotline to the universe. The universe is trying to tell me something, in cipher, and my job is to assign meaning to decipher the message in the most mundane thing. It became a system of language, red means wrong, and blue means right. I keep assigning meaning to the environment that surrounds me. And they correspond with my thoughts. A conversation is possible in my mind and just a random car passing by.
I thought the world is going to end in 2027 in October 2020, the day before my 22nd birthday. I posted online to tell people not to worry and that we are all going to make art to save the world. I also posted 47 posts of the same photo starting the sentence with “Chia if I can get a hold of you…” My mom saw my posts and called. I told her I wanted to go home. A former teacher messaged asking if this was a new project or that I am feeling unwell. The next thing I knew an ambulance arrived and sent me to the hospital. I yelled at the ambulance because everything was spinning fast and I believed that it was all a large-scale improvisational performance. I was diagnosed with a psychotic disorder and prescribed risperidone when I was discharged.
It became a your reality versus my reality game. The pill helps stabilize your brain chemistry. The pill is just a prop. No one is following you, no one is talking about you. I was followed everywhere I went and everyone’s conversations were malicious comments about me. Imagine the constant fear. It took a while for the brain chemistry to balance and for the symptoms to subside.
(The paragraphs were written and rearranged randomly to mirror the chaos and confusion during psychotic episodes.)