MADCOW #52699

The night my 5 year old son died, is the day my nightmare began. Or got worse I suppose. Much worse. I woke up three months later to find myself with a name tag around my wrist and the number 52699 printed on it. I was in the state’s mental institution for the criminally insane.

I had heard of schizophrenia. I was a straight A college student only four classes away from achieving my Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. I was intending to minor in Psychology. I had taken several Psychology courses by then. But all I had learned was that with schizophrenia, you see things and “hear voices.”

What a waste of money that was… Apparently as I discovered through my own journey and battle with schizophrenia, “voices” do NOT have to be out-loud, as in when one turns the radio on, you “hear” the music. Truth is, voices can also be internal, like hearing a song in your head without the radio on.

And that is what my “voices” were: internal. The medically correct term for this is intrusive thoughts. And to most people in an active psychotic state, these thoughts are generally thought to stem from somewhere else other than the actual individual’s mind. In my case, I thought spirits were speaking to me; ultimately, I thought God Himself was commanding me.

Come to find out, that day I woke up in the institution, I realized that I wasn’t having some bad dream that I would simply wake up from and find myself comfortably sleeping in my old brass bed…

My nightmare was reality. I was being charged with second degree murder for the drowning of my five-year-old son in the bathtub…the year was 1998 and my life as Madcow #52699 began.

This blog is my story. I utilize this webpage as a primary coping mechanism in my path to recovery. There is no cure. There is no specific cause. It’s a matter of staying stable and sane using medications, therapy and coping skills.

My hope is that my son will not have died in vain. My hope is to reach out to others like myself so that this taboo topic can come into the light and more understanding can be achieved. My hope is that if anyone shares a similar story, you will know that you are not alone…

This website is dedicated to my son and all those that suffer from mental illness.