That Time I Autographed a Bible

And other thoughts on psychiatric hospitalization

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This post is part of my “The Third Coming of Christ” series. Please see the introduction for context and follow for more stories about my mental health journey.

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Johnny was a “special” man as some might say, clearly with some deficiencies in his intellect. I’m not qualified to diagnose him with anything in particular but between his overtly basic vocabulary and his inability to maintain a complex conversation it was obvious something wasn’t right. What he lacked in mental faculties he made up for in size and boisterous personality. Topping ~6’4” and weighing no less than 350 lbs he certainly stood out among the other patients in the hospital where I was staying.

Every morning, as the patients would pour out into the common room to work on puzzles-missing-pieces or read books-missing-pages, Johnny would enter with an energy unparalleled and a simple purpose: share the word of god. He never went anywhere in the hospital without his bible and spared no one from his preaching. As someone who was at that time absolutely certain he was the return of Christ, I was elated to have such a devoted follower to talk to.

Johnny is to this day the only person on earth that ever believed my claim to Christhood and boy did he. After only a short time talking with him that morning, as he showed me the countless verses he had marked in the worn pages of his bible while I explained to him how god had chosen me to be his new messenger on earth, Johnny proceeded to run around the room shouting and proclaiming my divinity. 

“Christ has returned!”

“This guy is Jesus!”

This was just more fuel to the fire going on in my head at the time.

Unfortunately for Johnny, and as is quite common in these situations, shortly after his outburst began two large male nurses entered into the room, grabbed him, and injected him with what I assume was some tranquilizer. He spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon sitting on the couch, drooling and staring at the daytime TV programming. It really hurt me to see him treated this way, he was in no way violent or a danger to anyone, just an annoyance, an exaggeration of human behavior as so many of us there were.

Most of my time during my three day stay in this hospital was spent fantasizing about my imminent rescue and the subsequent end-of-the-world which was surely soon to follow. I was so certain that at any moment the people who would become my closest followers, my “disciples” if you will, were going to arrive and take me away. So much so that my first night there, after they sent us to our rooms and turned off the lights, I got up out of bed about every 30 minutes and tested the door at the end of the hall to see if it was open yet and the escape plan was on.

I laid in bed wide awake talking to the voice in my head, the voice that I assumed was some spiritual agent of god guiding me on my journey, asking it over-and-over if it was time yet. Now it wasn’t a “voice” in the typical sense as you might imagine but a seemingly involuntary clicking of my teeth that would happen in response to my thoughts and the happenings around me. The clicking started several weeks earlier as I sat in my home one night and that very first time it happened it was (and still is) one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had in my life.

I can’t tell you what triggered it the first time, though I am certain it must have been some perceived profundity of thought, but out of nowhere my jaw started moving “on its own”. It wasn’t too different from the chattering you experience on a particularly cold night, except with more force and a larger opening. The clicking experience evolved slowly over the following weeks, starting first as an occasional light chatter and progressing into a full-fledged communication mechanism. By the time I was in the hospital one click signified “yes” and two clicks “no”.

During the days leading up to my hospitalization and the weeks/months afterward I ran almost every single decision I made by the clicks. “Should I go to the bathroom?”, -click-, “Should I eat yet?” -click-click-, “Should I get up to check if the hospital door is open?” -click-. In that way I lived with a virtual 8-ball in my head directing my every move and so on that first night I must have gotten up and walked down the hall to check if the door was unlocked about 10 times. Each of those times at the direction of the clicks. “Is it time now?” -click-click-, “How about now?”, -click-click-... “Now?” -click-

In my mind it was important that the timing was right, that there were no guards watching and that rescuers had arrived and were waiting for me in some back parking lot. I was so sure I was being clever in avoiding detection but now I am certain that somewhere in that building there was a guard watching a camera rolling his eyes or laughing every time I tried.

In the following mornings I learned that Johnny’s exuberant behavior wasn’t just related to my coming out as “Christ”. Again, and this time without prompting from me, he went off on a yelling, preaching rant around the common area and again they tranquilized him. I honestly feel he lacked proper attention and support. Someone who saw him for who he was and gave him the focused time he needed. How many people are abandoned to the system to be tranquilized every day like this?

On my final day in the hospital Johnny timidly approached me in the afternoon, after coming too from his morning tranquilizers, and asked me to sign his bible. Out there, somewhere in southern California I assume, there is a bible signed “Erick Christ”.