The Plan
On January 14th, 2024, I had an extended, hours-long meeting with two TV producers, during which meeting we agreed (among many other ideas) to a particularly complex scheme for an investigation of the mental health system, studying, among other things: (a) the reliability, credibility, and consequences of diagnoses of delusionality, (b) the short-term experience of being in-patient at a psych ward, and (c) the long-term emotional and psychological effects of being persistently disbelieved by everyone in your life, with a special focus on the destabilization of memory that such an experience would inevitably provoke. The core, driving question that we sought to examine was: what would happen to someone like me, if they walked into a hospital and told the doctors a crazy-sounding, but true, story? (Such as the one I am currently describing.)
Related questions included: Would anyone ever check this person's story? What diagnoses would be suggested, and based on what evidence? How might such a person's idiosyncracies and social-communicative differences be interpreted, alongside the suspicion of delusionality? What treatments or medications would be prescribed? Would the person be Sectioned and locked up, and if so, for how long? Then, over the long term, what would the collective disbelief of others do this person's ability to accurately remember what had happened to them? How would doctors interpret the person's initial memories and document their story over time? How susceptible are human memories to the doubts and reframings of others--particularly medical providers? What does coordinated gaslighting feel like?
So...to investigate all of that, these two producers and I came up with a story that would fit perfectly into preconceived notions of delusionality. I was the lead architect of this whole scheme, and I was its most ardent supporter. The core parameters of the test we designed were as follows:
I would walk into a hospital and tell the doctors, essentially: "The people in the TV are sending me secret, coded messages, and they are implementing all my great ideas into their shows, specifically in order to conduct a test of the mental health system by having me walk in here and tell you this story."
To ensure that we were protected from suit by the hospitals and insurers, we arranged that we would be neither lying nor faking crazy: the producers would see to it that, during the weeks following our extended meeting, the specific shows we'd chosen really would be implementing my great ideas (from that producer-meeting), and they really would be sending me secret, coded messages, embedded into their broadcasts and online videos. (The catalogue of videos was extensive.)
To ensure that it was a legitimate test of the system and diagnostic protocols, and of the practice (or not) of fact-checking: the producers would arrange it so that, if any mental health professional ever tried to check the story, the shows would confirm it unambiguously. (I believe, though I am less certain, that we also said that journalists or professional academic researchers would also qualify for confirmation.)
To ensure that it was a legitimate exploration and case-study on the long-term psychological effects of being doubted, disbelieved, and treated as crazy (in the quite-likely event that I was labeled delusional): I would be given no direct evidence of my claims and memories, and no one from the shows would respond to me directly on the subject, if I sought to communicate with them myself. They would only respond to mental health providers (or, again, I think, to journalists and professional researchers, to whom I am also now turning).
To protect those involved, I preemptively (understanding myself to be on mic), waived any financial claims against the shows, networks, affiliates, etc., for any damage or harm that might eventually come to me as a result of this scheme. (And I am not seeking to sue any of the hospitals or providers, either.)
I would attempt to write a book conveying the whole experience, in the hopes that the public could one day better understand what it's like to be a person who feels they're wrongly disbelieved and misdiagnosed (as so many do feel, even if they happen to be wrong). (I have so far completed a paperback edition of a 650-page memoir, though I am about to start major revisions, in light of recent developments, particularly some critical NYPD bodycam footage that allows me to better reconstruct the exact order of events.)
So...a month after we formulated this plot, during which time the producers really did ensure that the shows were operating as planned, so that the crazy-sounding story would be true...I walked into one of the best hospitals in Boston (Mass General), and I told the doctors that the people in the TV were sending me secret messages. I told them, in complete honesty, that I was working with The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight to conduct an elaborate test of the mental health system. I told them confidently that if anyone called or emailed either show to check my story, the shows would confirm it in full.
Predictably, nobody checked.
I was labeled delusional, Sectioned, and locked up for a bit.
I'm still living with the consequences of this whole thing, and trying to find a way out of it, since I still can't get anyone to check for me.
Even as I write this email on my living-room couch, I still can't find my way home.