In late 1994 and early 1995 the world as I knew it came crashing down on top of me. I had a negative life threating event rip through my known universe. My reality was no more, my memories were lost and I constantly courted suicide I saw things that I had no understanding of and heard things that I couldn't grasp. My sleep was full of monsters that chased me and my wakening was full of things that threatened me. I couldn't tell the difference between reality and my hallucinations.

They counselled me and gave me drugs—so many drugs. I had a constant conversation with seven people screaming at me, telling me to do evil things, in my mind. My own self hid from the hate and evil. My mind was my enemy and all the life lessons that I had and all the beliefs I had vanished under the weight of the screams I heard, in my mind.

Eventually the drugs started working and the voices in my mind stopped screaming and no longer told me what to do. But for the next ten years it was like I had PTSD. I couldn't get over the experience. And I had lost the self who hid from the hate and evil.

I could find that self nowhere. It no longer existed. Instead, I found an older, wiser, stronger person. One who had gone through hell and had survived. That's me.