6. Slight Depression

9/19/2026

Lukas Allen

Maybe it’s just the weather. It’s cold, wet, and rainy. It’s perfectly gloomy outside, and inside it is just as dark. I’ve done the dishes, and have nowhere to go. I don’t particularly want to go anywhere, anyway. Slight depression.

I sometimes agonize about the past. What did I do that I shouldn’t have? How can I rectify my mistakes? It makes me very frustrated at times. It’s hard to let go, strangely of one’s own shortcomings. It sucks feeling that way.

I contemplated skipping today’s writing. I just don’t feel like I have it in me. I need to do this, though, and I know I’ll feel better once I do.

Drinking slightly, cranberry juice with whiskey. I haven’t been drinking very much at all lately, and sometimes I miss the getting drunk feeling. Nothing seems to matter then. At least all the things I agonize over don’t seem important. Gotta stay hydrated.

I haven’t used “mindfulness” techniques in a long time. In fact, like religion, I am skeptical of the whole thing as well. I sometimes hear people talk on and on about meditation, mindfulness, finding their “truth.” You don’t know how meaningless all that is until it is forcefully taken away from you. I used to believe wholeheartedly in that stuff, in meditation as well, but ever since I started hearing voices I found the practice to be impossible.

I believe in a body health, which can help the mind health. That is why I take medication, which changes body chemistry, for my mental health. It’s all body in the end. I’ll try to keep my body healthier than I have been. Sometimes I forego general maintenance… Not a very good habit. But I know I can get better.

I think how I failed other people, and how they failed me. It’s not really important, and I feel better saying that, as well as getting some writing done. I can’t burn out, I need to continue. I know it will help.

To date this, I will say my little orange cat is feeling slightly better. I know he won’t last forever, just having one of a cat’s short nine lives. He has lost his interest in killing mice. I suppose I should’ve adopted a more feral cat that would hunt. My mom had one of those, a cat who hunted vigilantly, Shadow. He used to decapitate the mice and also eat their guts. My cat has been dealing with fleas, but I think he’ll feel better with the flea collar, flea spray, and the colder weather.

5. Dreaming Alike Hallucinations

9/18/2026

Lukas Allen

I was feeling sick yesterday, and ended up throwing up my meds. Instead of taking them again I thought it would be prudent not to take double the dose.

A side effect of not taking my meds is very vivid, active dreaming. The first dream I had was the equivalent to the most amazing, awesome psychedelic experience. I visited dream locations of the past, I made peace with my problems. I woke up in amazement of the dream. Of course, then I heard a few voices make a few snide comments, and then fell back to sleep. Then I had more dreams, not necessarily pleasant, and very vivid. I woke up still feeling tired, getting no rest from the dreams.

In the first dream I made peace with myself, but also with my brother whom a rift had been growing between us. I only wish in real life I could bridge the gap as well. I’m gonna get him something nice and consumable for his birthday coming up. There’s a brewery around town that sells pretty good booze, growlers.

I’ll be sure to take my meds tonight, and not throw them up. Dreams can be very important in meaning, but in the end it’s just a brief pass between sessions of being awake. You can’t accomplish anything in dreams, just enjoy the ride, possibly, if you can. I know for every night without meds I have those super vivid dreams, and sometimes they can be absolutely horrifying, alike to “dreaming” awake while hearing voices. The voices also don’t exist in a tangible plane, but they can be just as disturbing as if they were. Hearing voices, or any sort of hallucination, is like a dream you cannot wake up from and cannot end. In this way they are unlike normal psychedelics, because psychedelics end at some point.

I wish I could add more scientific fact to these blog posts, but I suppose I am content with writing down my own experiences and how I deal with them. I am constantly trying to learn more about my illness, schizophrenia, how hallucinations work, what brings them about, and how best to deal with them. It’s difficult without there being more concrete research for schizophrenia. I’d say learning about hallucinations help, but I don’t think my hallucinations work the same way as hallucinogen hallucinations do. The evidence for that is that I don’t have the same “euphoria” and other side effects that hallucinogens give. When taking mushrooms I remember that everything was somehow so very calm and understandable, even though the colors of my surroundings were out of this world. My brain was somehow more relaxed on mushrooms than as when I’m hearing voices. The only time that ended on mushroom trips was when I smoked weed with the mushrooms, which for some reason is a very unstable and disturbing effect for me.

I suppose smoking weed could’ve exacerbated schizophrenia, or the other drugs which could’ve unleashed schizophrenia upon me. I did have a very painful, traumatic bad trip which started a drug induced psychosis in the past. Could it all have been from one tipping point? I believe everything possible led up to me having schizophrenia, it was the sum of all the possibilities becoming possible. Genetics, drug use, trauma, all that.

Here’s to all your greatest dreams becoming possible, and the nightmares to fade away in the light of dawn and with some fresh coffee.

4. Losing my Insanity

9/17/2026

Lukas Allen

It’s technically the next day, so I’m gonna write my blog post. Gonna be playing the WoW Forever Beta. Can I say that in a book/blog post? I don’t know. I’m playing a new video game, and don’t endorse anything. Absolutely nothing. I endorse nothing.

Not that nothing is bad. Sometimes it’s good, just having a blank space and letting it be. Like boredom. It’s a secret blessing to be bored. When I heard voices all day and all the time, I was never bored. Being bored means I can just breathe for a second. You don’t know how worse you had it when you are glad to be bored.

I’ve drank a couple cups of whiskey, cut with apple juice. I usually prefer cutting it with orange juice. Makes it feel healthy in some way. Same with bloody marys, just mix that vodka with V8 and feel healthy. Everyone should drink more V8s. I do not endorse V8s. I do endorse bloody marys. Is it marys or maries? It’s marys.

I love that I can just sit and have some fun like this. I forgot how writing doesn’t always have to be a grand battle for my soul and sanity; it can just be fun from time to time. Remember the battles on the way, but don’t become obsessed with them.

Usually when things are good it means that things will be bad. Soon. I will state a few things that could be better with my life, so I know that everything is not perfect and doesn’t have to be ruined. It’s ruined already.

I could have some sort of romantic relationship, any romantic relationship. It’s been a long time without love. I forget about it sometimes when I’m stuck in a hellish inferno of voices, but I do like that kind of stuff. I could be more successful with my writing, but I don’t worry about that too often. The most important thing is the work itself, and not the reception. As long as I keep on hammering away, eventually I’ll make a masterpiece. Whether this masterpiece is loved or hated by others is up to time. I could be healthier. I take (at least?) five medications regularly, and I need to exercise more often. The pills and injection are working, though, and I feel less tired, less fat, less depressed, less anxious, and hear less voices. I can just be happy with sanity for now, and I can recognize that what I have is sanity. I’ll probably never be the same, and will always have a chance to relapse, but I will enjoy my relative sanity while I can.

I sometimes worry that the spark for writing was in that insanity. It certainly motivated me to write, to protect myself and find meaning. It was just dangerous for me, the insanity. It isn’t a safe thing to play around with. Some people only write when inebriated, some only write when they feel “slightly” insane. Being insane sucks! Nothing makes sense, and you don’t know how to survive but try desperately to do so. It’s horrible. Those who have truly been insane, and seen the light of the other side, never want to go back to it.

So I drink, and am glad with my slight sanity. Let my craziness be.

Help! I’m losing my insanity.

That’s also a good song by Dio.

To date this I will say that I had BLTs with my dad. They were damn good, and homemade.

Metal Music

9/16/2026

Lukas Allen

I like heavy metal. Metal music is empowering, in some way. It’s a shout at the void, a declaration of humanity against the silence.

I used to really be into Black Sabbath, Ozzy, and Dio back in the day, but I tend to like all sorts of music, except country and a lot of pop.

When I used to exercise constantly I listened to rap music a lot, with some heavy metal. The music urged me on, to run, to lift, to fight for myself.

I’m not really sure how I got my metal music taste, no one in my family listens to it. I suppose it was when I was a teen, trying to find brand new music, and I stumbled upon Veteran of the Psychic Wars by Blue Öyster Cult. Now, Blue Öyster Cult is hardly the heaviest sort of metal, but it was sort of America’s answer to Black Sabbath. I can only wonder at how absolutely awesome it would’ve been to listen to them in concert together, like the Black and Blue Concert at Nassau.

Sometimes I listen to thrash metal, like Slayer, Megadeth, and Metallica. I think the heaviest metal I’ve ever listened to would have to be Slayer. Straight up Devil music, but stronger than Satan. I wonder how the Devil got associated with rock and roll. I think the association would have to have started with blues music long ago.

Viking metal is also really cool. There are a lot of random ones that I like, but the best has to be Amon Amarth. Nothing cooler than Vikings, right?

A subgenre of metal is women singer metal. A couple examples I like are Arch Enemy and Lacuna Coil. Woman metal singers sometimes offer a contrast to the ferocity of metal music, or show that they are just as metal and fierce as any man. It depends on the band.

Metal music is cool. It helps give me courage in a way. Metal can direct my energy against the voices, a clashing sound against the sound of hate.

There are so many metal bands I like, and I can’t remember all of them. Let me list a few, in no particular order.

METAL

Type O Negative

Metallica

Megadeth

Black Sabbath

Blue Öyster Cult

Lacuna Coil

Slayer

Dethklok

Arch Enemy

Dio

Ozzy Osbourne

Iron Maiden

Amon Amarth

Wind Rose

Warming Up

Lukas Allen

9/15/2026

It’s always helpful to warm up before any exercise, including writing. Sometimes it’s not easy to get the machine that is your brain to start working.

I feel like I look younger than I am, even though currently I have a huge, fluffy beard I have been cultivating for at least a year. Maybe it’s just my perception. I don’t feel like I’m old. I feel younger than my parents when they first had me, but I am older than them then now.

Maybe it’s the decade of onset schizophrenia that screwed up my perception. It feels like my twenties were sucked up in an instant. I can hardly remember them, it feels like I giant, active blur with me just trying to survive.

Little pieces stick out here and there. Like when the Lich and the Devil offered to make me a god, and I declined. Or when I fought Jesus in a fistfight and he showed mercy on me, protecting me from the demons and catching my fall. Or when I got in a fight with my brother. Or getting so drunk all the time to feel numb against the voices. Watching Bob Ross paint something on tv at my grandma’s house, because it felt so calming over the intrusive, hateful, malevolent voices. Being accused of lewdness in my first schizophrenia psychosis, having so much paranoia for my writing, eventually finding that writing is my saving grace.

And then there was my late teens, becoming a man at 18. I got through jail for six months, which some prisoners said it was a man’s turning point. I went through college for two and a half years, and dropped out without a degree. I had nearly killed myself, starting my whole mental illness misadventure. Yes, that was the turning point, the Eagle on the Cliff. After that near suicide, my world crumbled and rotted, and led to all other mental illness. I even exacerbated my decline with drugs, getting scars on my knuckle to remember it forever, like the cuts on my wrist to remember how the voices made me feel trapped and scared.

I did have safe spots throughout, eyes in the storms, but they never lasted too long. I actually felt the safest exactly before I started hearing voices and schizophrenia developed.

It’s hard to go back and read my own autobiography. I tend to write about the unpleasant times, which I believe is helpful for myself as well as others. It has to be said. If I let these memories go into the void without any recollection it would be an extravagant waste. I don’t have the luxury to forget, I need to remember, and have to remember, it being trauma and stuck with me forever even after I process it.

Trauma never goes away. It just gets easier to talk about.

To date this, I will say I am working on a travel story, but I have a few other stories on the backburner as well, like my vampire story and my darkness story.

The Next Part

9/14/2026

Lukas Allen

I see some people are hopeless, desperate, lonely, and sad. Some are unemployed, some are in disadvantageous living situations. Some just had enough of everything and wish it would end.

I’ve been in those situations before, many times, so many times that I can only be rising. I’m on an eternal upwards swing. The difficult part now is not to relapse or sabotage myself in an unhealthy way. Sometimes I just want to drink until I’m happy. Or, since alcohol never brings true happiness, drink until I’m numb. I wish marijuana had the same effect it used to have. Now when I smoke it it’s a fifty/fifty chance that it will be unpleasant, but I always seem to want to play the odds.

Sometimes I hear voices, in the absolute worst times. They kick me when I’m down and piss me off. I just get so angry at them, and then also at myself. I end up kicking myself even without them.

Still, I know it could be worse. I could’ve actually had been locked away in a mental hospital. This is not a conjectural statement, I’ve had that possibility open up and threaten to be my reality. I could’ve been dead, without even appreciating the life I have, and not knowing completely how absolute and unchangeable my death would be. I didn’t care about anything back then, and I thought nobody cared about me.

I’m in a melancholy mood, but I know it’ll pass. Into each life some rain must fall, right?

I am challenging myself to continue. My autobiography needs a proper end, and I challenge myself here, right now, to write every single day for this blog and my book. As long as I get at least a page down, then I am arising to the challenge.

I thank my schizophrenic mentor for this challenge. I want to be just like her regarding the illness of schizophrenia. I want to beat this illness. I know I can. I just have to do it.

What have I got to say today? I’ll say that this is not the end, and if it is truly rock bottom, you can only ascend from here.

I’m looking forward to playing the new World of Warcraft Forever Beta with my friends. I say this because I am looking to date this work, to show where I was and where I will be. It is midnight, a new Monday starting off the week, right now.

To the voices I say, “You will not crush me.”

I challenge them as well. I will not let this ethereal, psychotic mess of hallucinations to alter my upwards path.

Just a short page this time. I will continue more tomorrow.

Helping Someone with Psychosis

Lukas Allen

Psychosis is a horrible, awful thing. It’s a trap for your brain, like quicksand, and the more you squirm the more you sink. In psychosis, you can’t trust your surroundings, you can’t trust other people, and you can’t trust yourself. Little fears are blown out of proportion, while paranoia spurs you on to try to protect yourself in any means necessary.

Psychosis is one of those words that a lot of people don’t really understand. A common insult is to call someone “psychotic” while the real meaning of psychotic means suffering from psychosis. Now, it’d be impossible to use that term in any meaningful way, but psychosis is a very real thing that can be brought about from drugs or mental illness.

You can tell someone is suffering from psychosis when they deviate drastically from their normal routine, often doing something that doesn’t follow reality, at least in reality’s most immediate degree. Think talking to someone who’s not there, or believing heavily in certain religious influences. Not every religious person has psychosis, but a person with psychosis is likely to be religious, sometimes believing the Devil is out to get them, or that they’re Jesus reincarnated, or that it’s the end of the world.

As someone who’s suffered through psychosis on multiple occasions, I have had my share of religious delusions. In effect this caused me to be less religious as a whole, or perhaps if not less religious, more skeptical of religion. Some people wish for God to speak to them, to give them a sign, to tell them what to do. I have heard voices that have no purpose being in any religion. The best God is a quiet God, and whatever the afterlife has in store for me I will not worry about on Earth.

Sometimes psychosis is coupled with hallucinations, which are stimuli that also don’t follow reality and can often keep one in a state of psychosis. Hallucinations are very real to an experiencer, but don’t originate in reality. The hallucination of someone speaking can be heard, but it does not come from anywhere outside the person’s own head. Hallucinations are very real feeling, and not imagined or made up in some way.

In psychosis, the deviation from reality is perpetuated by a person’s own twisted reasoning. One doesn’t wake up in the morning and be psychotic because they just are. Hallucinations, wariness of danger, and other reasonings cause one to believe in psychosis delusions. There is a meaning to everything a person with psychosis does, even if that meaning isn’t quite understandable to others on the surface.

The sad truth is that psychosis is probably an imbalance of brain chemistry that can happen genetically or from taking certain drugs. Medication is a lifesaver for someone in psychosis, as medication can fix that chemistry imbalance by removing symptoms of hallucinations, depression or anxiety symptoms, and other illness symptoms. Therapy won’t specifically cure one of psychosis, but talking to someone, like a therapist, can allow one to sort out delusions and reality again. Sometimes talking to someone trusted can let one reorganize their own thoughts and self reflect on them.

There is hope for people in psychosis. If you suspect someone is going through psychosis in some way, try to talk to them calmly and gently. Try to pinpoint where the delusions are coming from, and show them that it is safe and the delusions are false. Helping someone in psychosis isn’t a one and done thing, it can take a lot of effort for everyone involved, especially for the person’s loved ones.

A person dealing with psychosis is usually against getting any help, perhaps from fear of institutionalization or imprisonment, so be understanding when suggesting they get help. There are other ways to get treatment besides institutionalization, but stay clear of imprisonment. Someone is less likely to get help in a jail cell. Just remember there are trained professionals that can help someone suffering from psychosis, and that they can be utilized to help someone in psychosis.

A person suffering from psychosis needs all the help and care that they can get, and it is possible to help someone going through psychosis.

Therapy and the Fly

I wish I could thank my old therapist. I was 18 and just out of jail, forced to go to court mandated therapy. I went to therapy for substance abuse and mental illness, as ordered. My lawyer thought it would be a good time to post bail for me, so that I can exhibit rehabilitation in society, and my parents agreed, posting bail, which after my first bail jumping was a rather large amount. I wanted nothing more than to show myself better and get it over with. I’m very thankful my parents took another chance on me and posted bail. If I had went with the district attorney, and not the lawyer, I’d be in a mental hospital for the criminally insane for seven years or more. My lawyer eventually convinced them of my innocence, of a drug induced psychosis, and not guilty as a dangerous, crazy person.

This therapist just let me talk about random stuff, and we whiled away the hour. He sought to bring about the mundane in life again, and to show that mundanity isn’t a bad thing. I was so caught up with delusions, strange, unearthly delusions, and coming back to earth was good for me. I believe he went on to be more of a military therapist, as he used to be in service to the military.

A lot of my predicament rested on the cops not understanding how to approach mental illness, or they just had it out for me, I don’t know. I can still remember that cop’s smirk as he drove me back to jail. He played horrible country music on the whole ride there.

I go back and forth between my stories, retelling some parts occasionally. It’s what I have to do with a new therapist, psychiatrist, or other health official. Always, I have to retell and retell and retell… Sometimes it helps, other times I feel like I’m slogging in mud I can’t get out of. I’ve went through so many therapists I’ve lost count, but it does help talking to them when I’m anxious, or just need to vent about something. The last therapist I had was a really good one. Gave me all this info and was very comfortable to talk to. She left to get her master’s.

I do wonder at the actual possibility of therapy helping. I hear hallucinated voices, that are mean and basically pure evil, with constant intrusion into my life. It’ not like I can talk the voices away, and believe me, I’ve tried. Apparently, it’s got something to do with dopamine in my body, but I don’t know why or how.

I think I might be sensitive to dopamine. I have to learn how the drugs get rid of dopamine, and how they exactly work. Schizophrenia and psychosis not only affect how one interprets reality; it also affects how reality is perceived. The hallucinations are real in that sense, and not only a delusion or delusional thinking. Even like anxiety, you don’t only feel the effects of anxiety in just your mind, but throughout the body. A lot of people who don’t understand mental illness believe that it is only a mistake in thinking, but it is real sensory disturbances.

My writing has been fractured lately, and I write short bits about a lot of random stuff. Here’s a last bit, which doesn’t fit into any part of this little post.

Flies are jerks. They take pleasure in pissing off us giant creatures, and we do get pissed off at them. In my seclusion, a couple of flies have got in the room. I got one of the flies out, but trapped the other one in by closing the window. The fly takes pleasure in flying at me and then away again, resisting my every action to smash it. Eventually I gave up. I let it sit in the sun through my window, and we were at peace. How glorious it was to not even harm a fly! We were sharing a moment of life, life with all other beings, at peace, finally. It then flew at me and then away again.

Drugs in the Title

Lukas Allen

I recognize that even though the title of this blog is drugsjailandschizophrenia, I haven’t actually written about many drugs. Mostly the only drugs I take are my medications to keep me sane, but I do drink occasionally, smoke tobacco, and have recently tried legal marijuana.

I used to be such a stoner kid. Somehow, usually when I am guarded, I have an expression that people used to say looked like I was stoned. I haven’t gotten told that since high school, so maybe it was a temporary thing while growing up. Because of being told this I tried smoking weed. The first time I smoked it, on a middle school to high school summer, I did not feel any effect and it probably wasn’t even weed. They do say that marijuana doesn’t affect you on the first hit.

The worst thing about smoking weed for me was the paranoia regarding it being illegal. I had to hide smoking weed from my family, strangers, and especially police officers. I stored the weed in my shoe when driving just in case if I get arrested or searched for something. I hated all of this, and since weed can cause paranoia, the paranoia was enflamed and out of control.

Paranoia goes deeper than “are they outside the house.” They could be, but worrying over it will not help. You could check outside every few minutes, just to be sure no one’s there, but you’d probably get even worse paranoia from that. Paranoia is like unraveling a thread that continues to unravel more and faster, it is like picking on an unknowable variable until the unknown variable is the only variable.

Even without smoking weed, hearing voices caused me to be even more paranoid than if I had ever smoked weed. Most people would call that a trait of a “paranoid schizophrenic” even though that wording isn’t used anymore. There were five types of different schizophrenias, (paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated, and residual) but the wording wasn’t always correct for every case, so was scrapped and instead doctors focus on the symptoms rather than the categories. I myself was diagnosed with undifferentiated schizophrenia at one point.

But marijuana wasn’t always the best thing for me. I remember becoming mute at gatherings, because I was so anxious of myself I couldn’t act. Weed wasn’t even that good of a drug to me, unless I was alone, or happy, or feeling comfortable. Weed amplifies experiences rather than make new ones. Sad will be super sad, happiness super happy, anxious super anxious, but strangely eliminating anger. If you have an anger problem, I suggest legal weed.

The problem I had was with myself, and later problems with my mental health. If I mixed marijuana with a psychedelic, mushrooms, I eventually had a bad trip, even if the mushrooms alone made me have a good trip. I’m not sure why mixing weed and mushrooms made everything so hellish. I had looping, racing thoughts and horrible, graphic trails (the perceived patterns that can come about from psychedelics.) Nowadays I would never take a psychedelic, like LSD or mushrooms. I hallucinate commonly. The last thing I want is even more hallucinations.

Now, with the symptoms of schizophrenia, I try weed again. The last time I did was legally in Holland with my brother. I even took some of their legal “mushrooms” which are called truffles. I don’t know the whole chemical and legal loophole for truffles, but they are advertised as being like mushrooms. I was disappointed in them when I did take them. They just made my focus shake for a few seconds.

But anyway, I haven’t done as much drugs as some other people I know. For me, legal marijuana causes music to be awesome and writing to be really fun, even if scattered and disorganized. The first few times I smoked weed with schizophrenia, I had auditory hallucinations, and I hated it, as I hate the voices. So sometimes weed doesn’t work for me. If anything, I have to smoke weed very sparingly, if at all.

I’ve now written thoroughly about a few drugs. Let’s see if I have any more. I’ve smoked weed, took Adderall or its equivalent from friends, abused anxiety meds, I snorted speed, took mushrooms and LSA, took truffles, and that’s actually about all of it. I take medication drugs more than I ever took all of those. Perhaps next time we’ll get into the whole drug side of medication and mental illness.

I believe a sober life can be a worthwhile life, besides the medication. I currently cannot function without my meds. Still, I believe I don’t need marijuana or booze, and can live without using them. I think the hardest drug to quit for me would be tobacco.

VtMB and Disco Elysium

Lukas Allen

I’ve been feeling kind of stuck again. I played a bit of Disco Elysium today. It’s an RP game where you step into the shoes of an alcoholic, addict, mentally unstable cop, Harry, who lost his memory because he “partied” too hard the night before. Amnesia is a common trope for video games, letting the player start at the same time the character is. I’ll write a bit about the game without revealing too many spoilers.

The game works sort of like a choose your own adventure story where you point and click on items and where to go. It’s no linear path shooter or survival creation game. In a game market that is glutted with those types of games, it’s satisfying playing something a bit different, taking inspiration from older point and click choose your own adventure games. You solve problems, collect items, and try to (or not to) regain your memories.

The voice acting is absolutely amazing. Each character has their own voice, and I’ve only been able to pin a few characters who probably have the same voice actor. The absolutely best voice is Lenval Brown, who steals the show with his performance of this amnesiac cop’s inner monologue, which has 24 distinct “voices” tied to the 24 skills, and is the main narrator for the story. He’s cool, smooth, and melodic, adding little twists to his dialogue for each skill’s voice, like the “drama” voice calling Harry, or the player, sire or my liege, or the “electrochemistry” voice sounding so tempting to get the character to do some drugs.

The skill voices each give suggestions or not depending on a roll of the dice, success rolls often giving useful information while failure rolls being where Harry doesn’t have enough points in a specific skill. These voices sometimes even talk to each other and create little conversations in Harry’s head. They, the voices, can all be explained in different little ways, like perhaps it is only Harry’s “imagination.” For me, it drew me in because it reminded me a lot of my own schizophrenic voices. Now, I know a lot of people don’t want to actually play as a schizophrenic, but that is how Harry’s situation seems to me. He even hallucinates voices in the wind or hears the voice of a particular garish necktie around his neck! I find it similar to my own situation.

The game encourages you to be weird and wacky, allowing you to make your own personality for Harry with many different dialogue options. He’s a cop in a fictional post revolutionary metropolis, but it’s largely up to you how dedicated he is to his cop lifestyle. Throughout the game you learn more about Harry and where you can take him throughout the story.

Harry’s life revolves around drugs and alcohol, and there’s even a few quests to smoke that cigarette, or drink that beer, or snort that speed. You are the addict, and it is your choice whether you want to continue as one. There is no great drug or addiction penalty, like a relapse meter or some other system, and in fact you’ll probably pass more skill checks if you do take drugs. But that’s the beauty of it. You don’t take drugs for the penalties; you take drugs for the rewards. In the game, smoking a cigarette every time you want to get an intelligence boost, or drinking to numb the pain, is the addiction. You continue using the drug simply because you want the bonuses, a lot like in real life, thus enabling the addiction.

Disco Elysium is a no holds barred game, addressing darker subjects like murder and addiction to its darkest depravities. It reminds me a lot of my own struggles, either with addiction or hearing voices in a schizophrenic’s world, a schizophrenic’s outlook of life, and just how bleak it can be.

Next, since I just feel like writing to pass the time, I’ll talk about another crazy character I can empathize with, an insane vampire from the clan Malkavian, in the game Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

It’s been a while since I’ve played Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, but it left a lasting impression on me ever since I played it the first time as a young teen. At first I played as a Brujah, an anarchist sort of vampire, but later on, after schizophrenia manifested, I began to identify with the “insane” type of vampire, the Malkavian. In the game the Malkavian’s dialogue is unique in being the only type of dialogue that speaks, well, crazy. Their dialogue is linked to a preternatural perception of the world, often describing hints for the story to come or what has already come, as well as being hard to follow to other characters.

What illness does the Malkavian vampire have? Pretty much all of them. Once you are embraced, or turned into a vampire, by the clan Malkavian you’re never the same. In the story it either enflames existing mental illness or creates new ones for a person. If playing as a Malkavian vampire, voices can be heard around corners, unsettling ones that speak cryptically.

“The Father dances in the dark…”

And so forth.

Vampire the Masquerade is a game I loved because of its dark and gritty world. It is an eternal night for the player, and you must survive its darkness using whatever power is at your disposal, which can be smooth talking dialogue, guns and knives, or mystical vampire powers. But you might be asking, can’t I go wild as a big bad vampire and kill everybody? You could, but there is a penalty system in place if you “break the masquerade,” the masquerade being vampire law to not let normal humans learn of the existence of vampires. For each penalty you have a higher chance of being hunted by vampire hunters, and for the fifth penalty you are executed and the game is done.

It’s tempting to use all the vampire powers or go on a killing spree in the game, but the Masquerade keeps you from doing it in normal places like just down the road of a hospital or some other public place. Cops will even show up and shoot you down, if you do something criminal. I remember I used to abuse that, and killed the cops, picked up their guns, and sold the guns to a pawn shop. My humanity was terrible for that.

There is a moral system in the game, which is a vampire’s humanity. When one is amongst the ranks of the damned one must cling to all the humanity they have left, lest they want the beast inside to break free. There is up to ten humanity one an accrue, the lower the number the more likely your character goes insane and attacks everything, being controlled by the computer. When going wild you have a higher chance of breaking the masquerade.

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines first came out in 1991, so it’s really neat how it’s sort of a time capsule for that era of the 90s. There are these big computers that I recognize from my childhood, and phones with cameras were just phones with cameras, and not the little computer they are today. My favorite voice actor from the game is John DiMaggio, who voiced the vampire, Jack, who helps out in the tutorial of the game.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to play the pen and paper Vampire the Masquerade game. It’ll take some studying and effort to put a group together and create a story, but I think it’ll be worth it. The pen and paper Vampire the Masquerade game is like Dungeons and Dragons, just with vampires and a greater stress on approaching dark subjects. My current story I have so far for the game is that I, as the Storyteller, like the Dungeon Master in Dungeons and Dragons, am a Malkavian inviting the players into this World of Darkness, my greatest goal to have all suffer as I have, and find their own redemption as well.

Well. That’s all I’ve got right now. Thanks for reading.