0:00

Trigger warning. This episode talks about hallucinations, being taken advantage of, and helplessness.

0:07

It also covers anxiety, depression, and paranoia. If you are feeling any of

0:12

these, please skip this episode. Please know there are resources available to help. Please call 988.

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Music.

0:38

All right, so I'm going to do the intro.

0:42

Yep. Okay, you ready? Go for it, man. Yep. Three, two, one.

0:48

Welcome back to another episode of Shit That Goes On In Our Heads.

0:51

I'm G-Rex with my partner in crime.

0:55

Dirty Skittles. And we have an amazing guest today. Her name's Ruth. Ruth. Ruth, welcome.

1:00

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being with us.

1:04

How was your day today, Ruth? Not bad. You know, not bad.

1:08

Okay. Living the dream, right? We like not bad.

1:12

Yep. So Ruth, why don't you tell our audience a little bit about yourself?

1:17

Hey, I'm an artist and author, and I began my career probably in about 1990 painting.

1:27

Before that, I was studying architecture and I graduated with a degree in architecture in 1981-82.

1:37

And for less than a decade, I worked in the construction field and the architecture field.

1:45

And that's my history. That's your history.

1:48

I know that you've had quite a mental health journey for quite a few years.

1:54

And that's, you know, where we wanted to kind of steer our conversation and

1:58

in hopes that, you know, your journey can really help somebody else out there.

2:03

Absolutely. Yeah. My journey, my mental health journey started in 1977, my fourth year there.

2:13

College taking an architecture program, which was a five-year program.

2:17

I had returned in the fall of 1977 and my boyfriend didn't return.

2:25

He went to another architecture program. He transferred.

2:30

So that left me in a state I was nearly devastated.

2:35

We were continents apart. He was in Europe and I was in upstate New York.

2:39

And I was very lonely and isolated and I had dropped the core design course,

2:47

which was the center of the architecture, my architecture class.

2:52

So I lost touch with my architecture group where I used to, you know,

2:57

share projects with and spend all nighters doing projects.

3:01

And it was like a core of us. But when I dropped the design course the year

3:06

before, I really lost my connection with my fellow architecture students.

3:12

Anyway, so bringing you up to 1977, when I returned and my boyfriend wasn't

3:19

there, I kind of befriended this other gentleman.

3:22

He was a postgraduate architecture student.

3:25

He was also aiding a teacher in a seminar.

3:28

And the seminar was given by a foreign professor.

3:33

And he talked about how socialism influenced architecture. texture.

3:37

Anyway, be it as it may, I went home for Thanksgiving and then I came back.

3:43

And this gentleman, we'll call him Dennis, he was giving a little bit of a college

3:49

party and his roommate Hans was a PhD physics student.

3:55

And at this party, there were about maybe eight PhD physics students,

4:00

a very small party in their quaint apartment.

4:03

And I was talking the whole time, hadn't eaten

4:07

anything even I'd hardly drank anything and

4:10

there was no drugs at the party no real alcohol

4:13

maybe a little wine and soda well at the end of the party I stayed everybody

4:18

left Hans and Dennis were there and Dennis offered me a brownie cake a very

4:27

moist delicious brownie cake which was laced with angel dust,

4:33

which is a PCP and it's worse than LSD.

4:38

I innocently ate the entire brownie because I hadn't eaten.

4:42

All of a sudden, I hallucinated. Everything caved in. My head was spinning.

4:49

I wanted to jump out the window. They kept me from jumping out the window.

4:52

I saw a bed of white candles surrounding me in a cavernous dark space and then

4:59

what I did was I sat down on the bed and I just laid down for about an hour just to chill out.

5:09

And after I chilled out, I got up,

5:13

And I left the apartment. I left Dennis and Han.

5:18

I just, I had to leave. I got in my car.

5:22

I drove aimlessly. And all of a sudden, another paranoia struck me.

5:29

And I imagined that there was a revolution going on between the capitalists

5:33

and the socialists, which was influenced by that seminar course I told you about

5:37

with the professor teaching socialism. that kind of echoed in my irrational thinking.

5:43

And I drove and then I drove to the New York State Thruway. This is Northern New York.

5:49

I went on the Thruway. I drove on the Thruway thinking that I could reach my

5:55

boyfriend's brother who was going to school in Poughkeepsie.

6:00

Then I turned around and said, no, I can't do that. I've got to go back.

6:03

Then I turned around again and went down the highway.

6:07

I finally parked my car on the shoulder of the highway.

6:11

I got out of the car. I abandoned my car.

6:15

I abandoned my bag. I left it in there, and I started walking on the shoulder

6:19

of the highway for about 12 miles from midnight till dawn.

6:25

Then dawn came, the sun rose, and reality hit me for a very little while,

6:31

a short while, and I hitched a ride back to the college town where my apartment was located.

6:38

The ride, he let me off on the bridge to the town, which was like several blocks to my apartment.

6:45

I got out of his van, this driver who gave me the ride there.

6:51

And I proceeded to walk to my apartment. And when I got to my apartment,

6:55

my frazzled father was there.

6:59

Dennis, this scheming male friend was there. Hans, his roommate, was there.

7:05

My two roommates were there. I hardly acknowledged anyone. I was walking in my own bubble.

7:12

My father and I took my things. I packed my bag, and my father and I left the college town.

7:21

I had to abort my architecture studies.

7:24

Abort my friends, which were distant to me anyway, and we headed down to Long Island where we live.

7:33

He took me to a psychiatrist, and this was probably the hardest journey my father

7:40

ever took since he was a soldier in World War II.

7:43

Keeping me from jumping out of the car, trying to contact the psychiatrist along

7:49

the way, it was the hardest journey for my father.

7:53

We got to the psychiatrist which was

7:56

about he was about located about 20-25 minutes

7:59

from my home I had a session with him I did not say a word I did not trust him

8:05

it was very novel to me I never in my life saw a therapist or thought I had

8:11

to see a therapist he instructed my father that I had I experienced a nervous

8:16

breakdown and that I can heal at home.

8:20

Okay. No way. No way.

8:23

Yeah. So, you know, it's lucky I survived that, you know, walking down a highway.

8:29

Yeah, it's really, it was an incredible life-threatening event.

8:33

But anyway, so I'm home and my mother didn't give me a hug, but she, you know, welcomed me.

8:38

I think she was a little bit hard to accept this happening and very frightened.

8:43

And my father, you know, he was always there and a little bit more supportive than my mother.

8:49

However, the next three weeks I convalesced and my mother gave me,

8:55

she instilled a structure where we would work on art projects.

9:01

I would have three meals a day. It was a stress-free environment.

9:05

And eventually I got better. But this was the beginning.

9:12

Seven years, every six months to a year, I would break down.

9:18

Some breakdowns were very life-threatening and some were like less life-threatening.

9:27

But the psychiatrist that I had seen, I saw I was with him for seven years and

9:35

my breakdowns were getting worse. They weren't getting better.

9:39

And he really, he was a Freudian style therapist where he didn't say many words,

9:49

offer any common sense or offer any shared experiences.

9:53

And instead I would sit there and try to associate, free associate dreams or

9:59

things happening to me and trying to delve in the past. but that it wasn't really that effective.

10:05

He didn't offer any, any suggestion that I should limit my stimulus in life.

10:11

And, you know, I had many boyfriends and many friends. I didn't connect with

10:17

them because I led a double life. Nobody knew I was breaking down every six months to a year. So that was kind of isolating.

10:25

And he, and this psychiatrist also kind of made a space between me and my parents.

10:31

He wanted me to be more independent and less dependent on my parents and develop

10:35

a support system outside of my parents, which further isolated me because I

10:40

was ashamed of my breaking down.

10:43

I was ashamed of my nervous breakdown. I thought I would never be accepted at that time.

10:49

And back in the 1970s and 80s, therapy wasn't really that common like today it it is.

10:57

And it wasn't, and mental illness was kind of shunned in the back closet.

11:01

It wasn't really out in the open where people will talk about it and,

11:06

you know, and more people, you know, today it's more open.

11:10

It should be even more open. We have a lot to go, but back then it wasn't open and the medications back then

11:17

were not as plentiful as today.

11:20

I mean, you have a lot of medications for bipolar and schizophrenia and depression and anxiety.

11:28

Back then you had two, you had Haldol and Thorazine. That's about the two medications

11:32

that were back then. So I had that going on.

11:36

And yeah, so this psychiatrist, as my nervous breakdown down continued over those seven years,

11:46

he neglected the signs and symptoms and pattern that I developed for each child.

11:55

Going down the path of a nervous breakdown. And those symptoms were severe insomnia,

12:02

which developed more and more, anxiety, depression, paranoia, anxiety.

12:09

Low self-esteem, and my mind was racing.

12:13

I couldn't control my racing thoughts.

12:16

And what stimulated these breakdowns was my social relationships at work,

12:23

in school, something would tip

12:26

me off I would get too personal with

12:28

people at work especially too personal

12:32

and being too personal I thought that they could see through me and see that

12:37

I had these breakdowns and see that I was just not I was not I was a pariah

12:43

I was not accepted in society because of my shunned nervous breakdowns and mental situation.

12:52

And so, you know, those were the, those were seven years.

12:56

And it, and by the way, also, I want to preface this.

13:01

Before that, I, before I had that brownie with angel dust, PCP,

13:06

two years before that, I had smoked marijuana a lot at architecture student parties.

13:13

We had parties, and we would have feasts of food, and we would smoke marijuana.

13:20

That was a period of six months in my sophomore year, which left me and lingered

13:27

depression, anxiety, goalless, low self-esteem, and that compounded my study.

13:35

My studies did not, I did not do well in my studies. That was lingering.

13:41

And after the six months of that, I decided I better not do this. It's not good for me.

13:46

But those effects of smoking marijuana lingered with me.

13:51

And the combination of that lingering frustration, depression,

13:56

and I couldn't do my work, coupled with the PCP, also just triggered this ongoing

14:05

event of nervous breakdowns.

14:09

So I have a question. So before your nervous breakdown, right,

14:13

and the PCP, were you really an extrovert?

14:17

Were you an outgoing person and had good social interactions or were you more of an introvert?

14:24

No, I was an extrovert. You know, in my freshman year,

14:29

we put on a skit in the architecture school and I was the key actor and I did

14:35

very well and everybody was excited about me and I had a lot of friends.

14:41

But the downfall was after I smoked the marijuana, I became more introverted.

14:47

Up until that point, I wasn't.

14:50

But that marijuana, you know, I really smoked it a lot.

14:53

One evening, I smoked it and I blacked out. I had four hours of dark sleep, no dreams.

14:59

And then I woke up and I said, from that moment on, I said, I can't do this.

15:04

But it left me very quiet and introverted and low self-esteem.

15:09

The low self-esteem really compounded over time.

15:13

Yeah, and I was distant from my architecture friends.

15:16

And as I said, my boyfriend didn't return. So that really, that really tipped

15:21

everything. I have a million questions.

15:26

Okay. I've been writing them down as you were speaking. But before I start asking,

15:30

this is my first time hearing your story.

15:33

So if I ask you something that's triggering or you don't want to talk about

15:35

it, please stop me. I don't want you to have to work through that.

15:39

Well, my first question, how old were you when you had that brownie?

15:44

I think it was 1971, 21 years old. And did Dennis know that it was laced?

15:52

Oh, yeah. He's the one who, he's a scheming guy. He wanted more.

15:55

It's almost like the modern Me Too movement. He wanted more of a relationship.

16:00

And I didn't want, I was platonic relationship.

16:03

I didn't want any more. And he tried to coerce me into being intimate.

16:09

And that didn't happen. And what he didn't plan on this happening,

16:14

I he was surprised that I reacted this way, especially when he saw me the following

16:20

day after I made my trek down the New York State Thruway.

16:24

Way okay so I immediately

16:28

hate Dennis yes but I have

16:30

to ask more so what a scumbag

16:33

so he let you eat the whole thing or did he like not that it matters honestly

16:38

it doesn't even matter at this point yeah but I'm just curious how much of a

16:42

scumbag he is did he let you ingest the entire brownie yes he walked me into

16:46

the entire piece of shit I'm so fucking pissed right now yeah okay.

16:52

Wow. I have to go to the next, my next question. Cause I was like,

16:56

did he not get in trouble? Did Dennis not?

16:59

No, I didn't put two and two together until, you know, and it was hard to prove

17:05

because he said to me, he whispered to me, Oh, he said the professor and his

17:09

wife bake these brownie. That's what he said. He didn't take responsibility for baking that brownie.

17:16

And I couldn't really prove anything two or three years down the road.

17:19

I mean, it took me a while have to figure it out put two and two together

17:22

because I had such a low self-esteem yeah

17:26

wow wow yeah what a

17:29

piece of shit right I'm sorry sorry sorry Ruth oh yeah okay so so all right

17:36

so you've ingested the brownie you have a reaction to it you take off and now

17:43

you're on this freeway and you're walking on the shoulder of it on the shoulder

17:47

on the shoulder of it in that moment moment,

17:49

are you aware of what you're doing or how dangerous it is? I thought I was escaping.

17:56

I thought spaceships were going to be coming for my people, abandoning me to an apocalyptic world.

18:03

This is what's going on in my head. I felt like I was going to be abandoned,

18:07

which is the worst feeling. And I was looking for the spaceships going down the shoulder.

18:12

I was looking for the launch pads in my head wow wow

18:17

what PCP can do to you that is I'm just trying to like you know put myself in

18:24

that position I can't even imagine what that must have felt like okay so you

18:29

get back you find your way back and your father is there yeah also scumbag Dennis

18:34

piece of shit guy is there as as well. When you get home or get back to that place, I'm imagining nobody knew what was going on, right?

18:45

Because I'm guessing Dennis didn't cop up to it, right? Wow.

18:51

Yeah. So when did you share at all that you had a brownie that was laced?

18:55

Because I think you said Dennis told you that they baked them,

18:58

but he probably didn't tell you it was laced with anything. Yeah, no, No, I didn't tell anybody because I didn't realize what he did,

19:05

the remedy of the scheming that he did.

19:08

I didn't realize it at that point. It took me a while to figure it out because

19:13

don't forget, I had a paranoid mind. I was so paranoid from the PCP that I just didn't reason and say,

19:20

you know, how could you do that in front of everybody? I should have said, how could you give me that money? I didn't do that.

19:27

Yeah, and my questions weren't for just, not that I, just to set it clear,

19:33

it's not for that. I'm trying to imagine that. What everyone else had to figure out, right?

19:41

I mean, if like I wouldn't know and you don't know, it's damn,

19:44

like you're really starting with nothing there, right?

19:47

It's like everybody's just assessing whatever's presented in front of them and

19:50

not knowing something happens to cause it. They just thought I went through a breakdown, but not the PCP cause.

19:56

Right. You know, because it actually was like 24 hours I was missing. I was missing a person.

20:01

And the irony is the police, the

20:04

state police found my car on the shoulder of the highway and

20:07

the car was registered to my father's business so

20:11

they called my mom and state police called my father

20:14

and told them we found this car does it belong to you and then my father after

20:22

after that my father traveled all the way up north you know to my apartment

20:27

that's what i was gonna ask i'm like how did your dad know did dennis cop up

20:30

to okay Okay, so that makes sense. Not only that, but the irony is they found papers in the back of my car,

20:35

like, talking about socialism and architecture and really, and they thought

20:42

I was like some sort of dissident with this writing about socialism.

20:46

Wow. And they said that to my father. That's messed up.

20:50

That's fucking wild. And the therapist that you were seeing,

20:54

you really felt like he wasn't really seeing what the true issue was, right?

21:01

No, he wasn't effective. You know, I kept getting worse, not better.

21:06

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of when you were talking about his,

21:09

like the Freudian therapy style.

21:11

And I'm like, if you're, if you don't understand what's happening there,

21:15

then yeah, I feel like that would be almost more negative than positive.

21:18

It was, it was. He didn't really catch on.

21:22

And he, and I developed these pattern, a pattern over time.

21:25

We're all creatures of pattern and habit. And my brain had this web of connections

21:32

that I would have symptoms like every six months to a year.

21:38

And they became obvious. And he never asked me, are you sleeping? Are you eating?

21:44

You know, during those times of duress. And it would just compound itself. Yeah.

21:50

And so this is only the tip of the iceberg. I should tell you more about other breakdowns.

21:55

So I before we jump into there, I'm curious at what point or how long after

22:02

were you able to put two and two together?

22:05

Oh, it took at least maybe two or three years, you know, and I never went back

22:12

to that college and I never went back to see Dennis or anybody else.

22:18

I never I just it was a complete schism what

22:22

a piece of shit I fucking hope he is somewhere right now just what a horrible

22:28

person yeah yep my word okay so for two or three years you're having breakdowns

22:35

you have these patterns you have a psychologist who's not helpful,

22:40

no and you know what and also I had too much stimulus in my life I would do

22:45

too many things And I went beyond my limitations.

22:49

I didn't understand my limitations. We all have limitations.

22:52

You know, and then the stimulus would get me, you know, into a dither of compounded anxiety and paranoia.

23:02

And I would think that people could see through me. And I became disengaged.

23:07

You know, it's hard to explain, but that's what would happen.

23:11

Yeah. Imagine that was hard with your professional life too, right? Right.

23:15

Because you couldn't make those connections that in your mind you thought you could do it.

23:21

But the more you thought about it, you just couldn't do it because you thought

23:24

for sure they could see through you. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, and, you know, and also I'll give you another example.

23:31

My breakdown in 1983 occurring around Christmas time, I'd been working at a

23:40

firm, an architectural firm. firm. And I really didn't do well at my work.

23:45

I, you know, I wasn't, I was very creative and a very good designer,

23:49

but drafting was not my, drafting at that moment, at that time was not my thing.

23:56

I couldn't really draft that well, but you had to start somewhere in working

24:01

in a corporate structure and the architecture would be drafting.

24:05

I never really got past that drafting of rudimentary tasks.

24:11

So I was kind of like dwindling in the architecture field.

24:15

Anyway, the firm had a Christmas party and it was a Christmas time and the weather

24:21

was freezing and I started to. I started, symptoms started coming to me again. And I thought that I was a pariah

24:31

and I thought that I didn't do well at the firm and that they didn't respect

24:36

me because I wasn't doing very well. It was also male dominated at that time. And since it was male dominated,

24:43

you really had to be, prove yourself as a woman.

24:46

I mean, you had to be 100% better. And I wasn't, and I didn't realize that.

24:51

And I didn't have a mentor to say to me, Ruth.

24:55

You've got to beat them. You've got to do really well. You've got to perfect your.

25:01

Working habits. And then I also would talk a lot.

25:05

I would get personal and talk a lot to co-workers, which was not good either.

25:10

So that kind of led me down a path where I believed that they could see through

25:13

me and see that I'm breaking down or I break down and I was ashamed.

25:18

So that compounded my low self-esteem. It compounded my work abilities.

25:23

It compounded my relationships.

25:26

I couldn't really connect with anybody, even though I had a lot of people in

25:30

my life. It was a jungle, but I couldn't connect.

25:33

I didn't emotionally or intellectually connect with anybody on some level,

25:39

even though I had a lot of people around me.

25:42

Anyway, I was living with my boyfriend, another boyfriend that I met in the

25:48

garage of the apartment building that I was at.

25:51

He had been living with me at least around, he'd been living with me for a couple of months already.

25:56

And he wasn't, he lived, now he lived through this with me and he thought I

26:03

was a second class citizen because I was going through this.

26:06

He couldn't really accept it. But anyway, um.

26:09

The Christmas party came. I couldn't go to the Christmas party of the firm.

26:14

I felt, I just felt like a pariah.

26:17

I'm in my apartment. I'm pacing back and forth. I had to run. I had to get out.

26:22

And we'll call this boyfriend, Morty. He called my father.

26:27

And Morty was going down to Florida to visit his parents and leaving me.

26:32

He had made a plane fare down. He didn't care.

26:36

My father came to the apartment. He said to Morty, you can leave.

26:40

You can go to Florida. Go. So my father was with me, and he tried to keep me from going out of the apartment.

26:46

I was pacing back and forth in a dither.

26:49

I had hardly any sleep, hardly eating anything.

26:54

I didn't eat anything. I was just walking back and forth.

26:58

I had to escape. I had to go to the airport. airport, I'm dreaming that we're

27:03

going to have another revolution and I was going to be abandoned.

27:09

And I couldn't even connect with my father when he was there to save me.

27:13

I couldn't connect with that. I made my way out of the apartment. I got in my car in the garage.

27:18

I drove to Kennedy Airport thinking that I can take a plane to Israel.

27:24

I wanted to take a plane to Israel. Very unrealistic. I didn't know where the plane was. I didn't have my passport or anything.

27:30

I went in and out of the airport thinking that I've got to find the airplane.

27:34

In and out of the airport. Finally, I went out of the airport. I drove to Jamaica, Queens Bay,

27:41

which was near the airport. This was the coldest winter, the coldest Christmas night, Christmas Eve recorded.

27:50

It was like 16 degrees with a wind chill factor of zero. Again,

27:55

I parked my car by the shoulder of the little highway road. I got out of the car.

28:01

I walked to the water, Jamaica Bay.

28:06

I went in the water and my quilted coat felt like steel, iron, weighing me down.

28:13

I walked out of the water and I stood there in the mound of snow for about seven hours.

28:22

I just stood there, like just stood there.

28:27

And my father called the missing persons and the police found my car.

28:32

It was a rented, a rental car. They found my car. And then I, this was in the morning and I walked towards

28:38

them and they saw me and they took me to Jamaica hospital.

28:42

And again, I was still paranoid. I was laying in a stretcher. My father came. name.

28:49

He hired an ambulance to take me to this hospital, a private hospital near our

28:56

home, about 25 minutes from our home.

28:59

And I was in the psych ward for three weeks.

29:02

I was in a wheelchair because my feet were frostbite.

29:07

They were like near, parts of it were black and my feet had to,

29:12

you know, get better and improve.

29:16

And I was in the wheelchair for a total of six weeks.

29:19

And I had to, you know, take bandages off and put topical ointment on not to

29:25

have an infection and a whole process of taking care of my blackened feet.

29:29

So that was an example. No sleep. the psychiatrist didn't even do anything same

29:37

one that that was in 1983 i think it was a 19 yeah 1983 of course i had breakdowns

29:45

before then but that was like another major league breakdown,

29:49

was it the same psychiatrist same psychiatrist hi all thank you so much for

29:54

listening to this episode i'm g-rex and i'm dirty skittles don't forget to subscribe

30:00

rate and review this podcast We'd love to listen to your feedback.

30:05

We can't do this without you guys. It's okay to be not okay.

30:11

Music.