The Schizoaffective War pt 2

Episode 15- The Schizoaffective War pt 2

A quick note to readers: This entry includes some of my most personal opinions. The conversations between “the voices” and me are written as accurately as I can remember them. Some of the views I share here are things I have never said out loud to anyone. I am not writing only to share my thoughts on certain subjects, but to show how my mind kept me locked in conversation and away from the help I needed.

When the voices said, “That’s all, folks,” I thought it was finally over. I felt incredible. After several months of constant torture, questioning, and testing, I believed that I had passed something important. I expected an immediate reward. I remember thinking, “This better be more than a job with the CIA. For something like this, I deserve an amazing life.” I believed this was some kind of trial, and I believed that trial was over.

Things were peaceful for about 2 days. I was in a great mood. I was engaged with my family again. But it wouldn’t last. “Fast Eddy” came back. This time he seemed more determined to break me.

It began with, “Hey, Pat!” The moment I heard it, I wanted to cry. He continued, “Pat, I know you thought this was over, big guy, but you still have so much to learn. We’re going to start with how we talk. We have a language here.”

I used my new superpower and changed Fast Eddy’s voice to Mickey Mouse’s. That trick usually stopped the voices, but Fast Eddy pushed through it. “If you do that, this just goes on longer. There is information you need to hear, Pat, so I would stop if I were you,” he said.

“Fine,” I said. Then I added, “Asshole, at this point, the money needed to make up for this bullshit is somewhere in the billions.” Fast Eddy answered, “Pat, there just might be money for you at the end of all of this. But first things first: you need to learn a few things, and then you need to push through a few things. As you may have figured out, this is for all the marbles.”

“What are ‘the marbles’ in this case?” I asked. “I’m glad you asked, Pat. Unfortunately, I can’t answer that right now because we need to get you focused on the task at hand.” “Fine. Let’s just get this over with,” I replied.

“Pat, I’m going to ask you some questions. I need you to focus on two things: what I say and how I say it.” “Fine,” I answered. At this point, I was in shock that I was still hearing voices.

So, a new game began. Fast Eddy started by asking, “Pat, do you do what you say?” I answered, “Yes, I do what I say. Right now, I’m saying this better lead to something amazing, or we’re going to have a problem. At a certain point, I’ll do something about it.” Fast Eddy replied, “Okay, so you do what you say. Do you say what you mean?” “Yes, I say what I mean,” I answered. “Great. So, you do what you say and say what you mean, right?” “Yes, I do what I say, and I say what I mean,” I replied. “Perfect. Do you mean what you say?” he asked. “What’s the difference between saying what you mean and meaning what you say?” I asked.

“Just answer the question, Pat. Do you mean what you say?” he asked. “Yes, I mean what I say,” I replied. “Okay, so let me get this straight: you do what you say, you say what you mean, and you mean what you say, right?” he asked. “Yes. Where is this going?” I asked. “Pat, stay focused. Do you say what you do?” he asked. “I think so. I tell people what I do,” I replied. “Wrong, Pat. We don’t say what we do. But we do what we say. You follow me?”

“Okay, what are we doing here?” I asked. I was getting more pissed off with every sentence he spoke. “Just put it all together, Pat,” he said. “Fine. I do what I say, I say what I mean, and I mean what I say.” “But?” he asked. “But I don’t say what I do,” I replied. “You’re getting there, Pat. Do you mean what you do?” he asked. “Sometimes,” I answered. “Perfect answer. Sometimes we mean what we do, and sometimes we don’t,” he said.

“Then sometimes we wouldn’t mean what we say, right?” I asked. “Nope. Who would you be talking to if you were saying something?” he asked. “People who know,” I answered. “Another perfect answer. That’s right. So, do you mean what you say?” “Yes, I mean what I say, and sometimes, I mean what I do,” I said. “Here’s the curveball, Pat: right now, can you mean what you say and say what you mean? Can you do what you say and say what you do?” he asked.

“Yes. Right now, I can mean what I say and say what I mean. I can do what I say and even say what I do.” “And why is that, Pat?” he asked. “Because of what I know,” I answered. “Which is?” he asked. “Nothing,” I replied. “Not bad, Pat. Another way to say that is, ‘I have nothing meaningful to say or do.’ You follow me?” he asked. “Sure, I follow,” I answered. “And will you ever have something meaningful to say or do, Pat?” “When I know something,” I replied. “And who tells you something worth knowing?” “Someone who knows,” I replied. “And when is that, Pat?” “I don’t know.” “When we let you fucking know,” he replied.

This game went on for several hours. Fast Eddy asked the same questions in different orders until they began to feel like limericks. They took on a song-like rhythm, but he always ended with, “When we let you fucking know.” As I remember it, the game started around 10 a.m. and stopped at 5 p.m., when I said my blood sugar was low and I needed to eat. Fast Eddy asked what I was going to eat, and I told him, pasta. Then he explained that “pasta night” was sacred and that no one would dare bother me on “pasta night.” I was too tired to laugh.

That evening, the voices were barely audible. I heard little comments here and there, but Fast Eddy was not speaking.

I meditated that night to try to relax. Sometime around 11 p.m., a woman began speaking in my ears. She sounded older, maybe in her sixties. She said I would have the morning to myself, but people would be visiting in the afternoon. They were coming, she explained, to understand what was happening to me.

“Patrick tomorrow will be a tough day,” she said. “But there are important people who need to understand what you’ve been going through your whole life.” I paused a moment, then asked her, “Just more CIA?”

“No. These are people who work with the CIA.” I asked if she worked for the CIA. “No, I work with another group, Patrick,” she answered. “Well, what does your group want?” I asked. “We want to make sure you get everything, Patrick. Everything you were supposed to get a long time ago.”

“Which is what?” I asked. “Patrick, you have been through a lot. All you need to know is that it hasn’t been for nothing. Try to rest now.” Then I heard something turn off in my ears. Again, it sounded just like a television shutting off. I left my meditation room and headed to bed. It took me hours to fall asleep. My adrenaline was pumping, and I couldn’t shut it off. Sometime around 3 a.m., I finally passed out.

I woke up around 8 a.m. full of energy and ready for this “hard day” to begin. I went downstairs to grab my coffee, then headed back upstairs to lie in bed and enjoy the peace and quiet. My wife was dropping our oldest off at camp, and our youngest was downstairs with her grandmother.

I was excited that morning. I thought, “There will be people listening to this today, and I’m sure they’ll want to stop it. This must be the end.” I was also excited because the woman I had spoken with the night before said she was “making sure I got everything I was supposed to get a long time ago.” It felt good to believe someone had finally recognized how difficult my life had been. I believed my pain would end soon. I believed all these voices and intrusive feelings somehow meant my suffering was almost over. I sat in bed for hours that morning, waiting to hear the woman’s voice.

Around 11:30 a.m., Fast Eddy began speaking in my ear. “Hey, Pat! Today is going to be a little uncomfortable,” he said. I asked, “Is the woman I spoke with last night in the room with you?” “Yes, she is,” he said. “But she’ll be speaking with other people most of the time. I need you to focus on my voice, if you can.” Then I heard the woman’s voice. “Patrick, I am here, and there are other people here as well. I will speak to you at times, and when I do, do your best to follow my directions.” “Fine,” I replied. “Okay,” she said. “We are going to start now.”

The woman’s voice seemed to grow louder, and her tone became more professional. It sounded as though she was addressing a large group of people. She said, “Patrick, there is a hidden camera in your room. I need you to get out of bed and stand up straight so people know you can hear me.” I got out of bed and stood up. I heard the woman say, “This is Patrick, everyone.”

Then she said, “Patrick, you are going to feel different sensations in your body. When you feel them, do your best to describe them.” “Okay,” I replied. “Sit back down on your bed, Patrick.” I sat down and waited.

A few minutes later, I began to feel a burning sensation on my left leg. “I’m feeling some kind of heat on my left leg,” I said. No one answered. Then the burning intensified. It felt as if someone were burning my leg with a lighter or a candle. “You are burning me!” I yelled.

Fast Eddy yelled back, “Pat, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s not real!” “It feels fucking real to me. Stop this shit!” I said. Then I heard the woman speak. “We can do this to any part of his body.” As soon as she said that the pain faded away.

Then the woman spoke again. “Patrick has been throwing up every day since he was nineteen, and here’s why.” Suddenly, I felt an intense wave of nerves—the kind I used to feel in the morning before leaving for a job I hated. Then came the vertigo, followed by nausea. The sensations kept getting stronger. The room started to spin, and I knew I had to get to the bathroom. I made it to the toilet and threw up.

Then I heard the woman’s voice say, “This has been happening to Patrick every morning since he was a teenager.” As she said that last sentence, I heard a man speak over her. “Is this necessary? We believe you. We don’t need to see Patrick in pain.” His voice sounded agitated.

“We want to make sure people understand,” the woman said. “This has been going on for most of Patrick’s life. People have known about this, and no one has done anything about it. I am here to make sure Patrick gets everything that is owed to him.” Then the same man said, “I don’t have a problem with that. I do have a problem with what is going on here.”

Things were silent for a few minutes. I sat on the toilet, waiting for whatever was coming next. Then I heard the woman’s voice again. “Patrick, please go back to your bed. We are going to continue. Everyone, this won’t last much longer, but there is a bit more you must see.”

When I came back to bed, I didn’t sit down. I decided to lie down instead. A few minutes after my head hit the pillow, a new sensation came over me. My throat tightened, and my nose felt completely stuffed. I couldn’t breathe. Then it felt as though someone was squeezing my ribs.

A thought came to me, and I said it out loud: “You are fucking simulating waterboarding!” “Yes, Patrick, that is what this is supposed to feel like,” the woman said. Then I heard Fast Eddy’s voice. “It’s not real, Patrick. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s not real.”

Then the intense nervous feeling came back. The vertigo and nausea came with it, and I rushed to the bathroom. In the middle of vomiting, I asked, “Is this fucking necessary?” I heard the agitated man’s voice: “No! No, Patrick. This bullshit is not necessary.”

Then he sounded as if he were speaking to the woman. “This better have an amazing ending, or we are going to have the biggest problem we have ever had.” The woman answered, “Understood. Thank you.” Then I heard the man speak to me. “Patrick, we are done here. Go lie down and rest. No one else is going to touch you today.”

I went back to bed and laid down. I was exhausted. I didn’t realize it, but this had been going on for hours. I knew my wife would be home with our oldest daughter soon, and I could hear my youngest waking up from her nap. Somehow, I had to find the energy to be present at home. I went and took a hot shower.

After putting on my sweatpants, I went downstairs to see my baby. She was awake and playing, and it was almost time for her dinner. My wife was home with our oldest daughter, and they were watching a movie. I picked up my baby, then cuddled up with my kids on the couch. We watched Moana. I felt better. I could still hear murmurs in my head, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Focusing on my kids helped. Once the movie was over, it was dinnertime. I had been throwing up and feeling nauseated, so I was not ready to eat. I couldn’t even look at food, so I headed upstairs to lie down.

As my head hit the pillow, Fast Eddy started “doing his thing.” As usual, it began with, “Hey, Pat!” Soon after, he introduced a new game. As usual, it was a wordplay game. I told him I was too tired to play. He answered, “That’s the point, Pat. You don’t need to worry about being good at this. This is what we call ‘bringing you down.’ We just keep you going for a little while. It’s something we do for our guys when they have been put through something hard. It’ll help you let go of everything that happened today.”

I lay in bed, going back and forth with Fast Eddy, until my wife and kids climbed in. I had decided to hide everything that was happening to me from my family. I knew everyone would tell me I was crazy. “All of them will gaslight me,” I thought. So, whenever Fast Eddy was talking, I would go into another room until “the game” was finished.

For the next few months, I went through the same kind of torture. The woman was no longer leading the effort; a man who said he was a doctor had taken over. The woman was still present. She would ask about the sensations I felt, and then the doctor would cut in and describe what was happening to me.

Each day, I was “poked” in my stomach and head. Each day, the vertigo and nausea came back. These feelings were always preceded by the doctor’s explanations of how the “technology” in my body worked and how it created the sensations. These sessions lasted between three and five hours. They were painful.

I remember one sensation that seemed to simulate dying. My breathing stopped, and my vision narrowed until I could see nothing but pitch-black darkness. By the time that happened, I was too tired to care. I just mumbled, “You guys can go ahead and kill me if you want.”

During and after every session, voices I didn’t recognize would express outrage. The first time I heard this, it truly made me feel better. But by the third month, I stopped caring. At the end of each day, Fast Eddy was there to keep me going. He had an endless supply of games and jokes.

I was vomiting every day. My weight, however, kept going up because of the medications I was taking. It increased so much that I became worried. My whole life, I had been underweight. Now I had gone from 145 pounds to 205 pounds, which was incredible considering the stress I was under. I also wasn’t eating very much. I was strung out.

During this time, by the end of each day, I didn’t care whether I lived or died. The only thing I cared about was someone “paying the piper” for everything I was being put through. This should have been a very dark time for me, but for some reason, I had an enormous amount of energy at the start of each day. Every morning, I woke up and thought, “This must be the last day.”

This torture routine, as I said, lasted three months. During that time, there was all kinds of drama among some of the people who were watching what I was going through. There always seemed to be a new group of “important people” coming in to see me get tortured. But one evening, in autumn, everything changed.

I had just come from one of the “torture sessions” when a new voice introduced himself. He started to say his name as Chief Petty Officer, but then someone cut him off and explained that I wouldn’t be able to hear it. “I find that interesting,” the officer said. “Pat, I just introduced myself as Chief Petty Officer. What do I do for a living?” “My guess is you’re in the Teams, sir,” I replied. “Well done, Patrick. Which Team, Pat?” the man asked. “Well, I’m guessing you’re in Virginia with the rest of these guys, so it’s likely you’re on SEAL Team 2, sir.” “There you go, Pat. Sounds like you know a little something about us.”

A voice interrupted and said, “He knows everything you can know about the Teams without being a SEAL. Even a few things he shouldn’t know.” “I heard that about you, Pat,” said the SEAL. Then he added, “We know quite a bit about you too, Pat. How ya feelin’?” “I’m hesitant to tell you. I would like to say this is nothing, but I am not in great shape right now,” I replied. “No shit,” replied the SEAL. “You have been getting hammered around the clock by these assholes. No one would be doing well.”

Then it sounded as if he was straightening himself up in his chair. He said, “Pat, I am here because people are getting very curious about what has been happening to you. I’m saying very little right now. You understand what I mean when I say that, right?” “Yes, sir,” I replied. “I understand you have been tortured. Is that right?” he asked. “I am not sure what to call this, sir,” I replied. “You call it torture, Pat. That’s what you call something like this.”

“Pat, when we create extremely uncomfortable conditions for a prisoner, what do we call it?” he asked. “You call it enhanced interrogation,” I replied. “Well said. And who receives that treatment?” he asked. “To my knowledge, it is used for unlawful enemy combatants or terrorists with high-value intel,” I replied. “Not bad. When do we use enhanced interrogation?” he asked. “When all other means have failed,” I replied.

“Well said. Are you a terrorist, an unlawful combatant, or even someone who holds high-value intel? And what is ‘high-value intel,’ by the way?” “Intel that is needed to save lives. And no, I don’t fall into any of those categories,” I replied. “The way to phrase that is, ‘Fuck no, I don’t fall into any of those categories,’” he said. Then he asked, “Patrick, would you consider anything you have been through to be enhanced interrogation?” “Yes. I have been ‘music tortured.’ That was a few years ago, and since then I have been through much worse. However, ‘music torture’ is textbook enhanced interrogation,” I replied.

“Nope. That is not textbook. That has been banned for a long time now. Patrick, I am not sure what to call what you have been through. I guess torture is the only word,” he said. Then another man spoke to the Chief Petty Officer. “Patrick has been sexually assaulted during this process.” The SEAL’s volume went way up. “Is that a fact? This is where I stop being curious, and things start happening to some of you.”

Then I heard voices saying things meant to calm him down. The Chief Petty Officer spoke over them. “This is how this is going to go. John is going to be in this room for the duration of whatever you call this bullshit. This is going to end soon; I’m thinking this week. Sound about right to you?” Then a voice spoke up and said, “We are just trying to make sure he gets everything.”

“He better get everything on the planet for this shit. If he doesn’t, then we will be putting all of you through something. Am I clear?” the SEAL replied. Everyone in the room seemed to agree. “Patrick, it’s time for you to sleep. These guys are done. We are going to get some good people in here, alright?” “Yes, sir,” I replied. Then, once again, the sound of a television turning off rang through my ears, and everything went silent. It was still early, but I thought, “If that really was a SEAL, maybe I should just go to bed.”

I woke up the next morning feeling extremely energetic. I use that word instead of refreshed because, during this entire period, I never had a day when I woke up feeling refreshed. But there were many days when I had an abundance of energy. I didn’t hear Fast Eddy the night before, and the Navy SEAL had given me a new sense of hope. I believed someone was in my corner. I thought, “One way or another, this is going to end.”

I spent that morning looking for jobs. While checking my email, I saw that a recruiter had sent me a message about a new opportunity. She asked me to call her the next day. That made me feel even more hopeful. I needed to help my family. They hadn’t been my priority for almost a year. It wasn’t my fault; I had been going through something incredibly intense.

Around 2 p.m. that afternoon, I heard a voice I hadn’t heard before. The voice said, “Hi, Pat. We’ve got a whole new group of guys here. No one is going to touch you, okay? The guys here are guys you’re gonna like.” “Sounds good. Do I get to know anyone’s name from this new group?” I asked. Then a new voice spoke, almost yelling, “You’ll know mine, Pat!”

“Sounds good. So where are you guys from? Is this still CIA?” I asked. The same man said loudly, “We are D.O, Pat. It’s D.O, not D.O.O, Pat.” D.O means the Directorate of Operations for the CIA. These guys are the closest thing to what movies and television portray as CIA officers. Many of them are in the field, solving problems face-to-face.

“Well, that’s nice. Hey, when is this over? I need to be compensated for my whole fucking life,” I said. The same man said loudly, “I like this fuckin’ guy.” Then he continued, “Pat, my name is John. I think you can hear that. Please say it back.” “John,” I said.

“Good. Pat, we want this to be over even more than you do. But it’s a process. I want you to try to understand that everything we are doing here is for you. This is all about you. It is something you will understand completely when all of this is over.”

I started to really listen to John’s voice. He had the voice of an “old-school man.” It wasn’t a New York accent, but it was something like it. I pictured him with jet-black hair and a mustache. I could imagine him as the kind of man who fixes old cars in his spare time.

“What do you do for D.O, John?” I asked. “Pat, if you asked most guys in D.O what they do, you would get a real ‘fuck off.’ But since you and I will be spending some quality time together, I’ll tell ya. I work at the Farm.” “John, I don’t know why, but that makes a lot of sense,” I replied.

“Yeah, well, you don’t know what we do at the Farm, Pat. Try to let go of the CIA-movie bullshit. But we are gonna teach you a few things that we teach at the Farm. Sound good?” John asked. “John, I must be honest: if all of this is only for a job with the CIA, then I must regretfully decline. When I consider all I have been put through, this has to be for more than just a job.”

“Pat, if this were something we did to people just so they could work for the CIA, there would be no one working for the CIA,” John replied. “Okay,” I said. Then I added, “I have always been interested in the CIA. I would love to work for the CIA.”

Right after I said that I heard a chair being moved, as if John were pulling it closer. There was a long pause, and then John said, “You know, I never ask why someone wants to work for the Agency. Most of the time, we know why a candidate wants to be with us better than the candidate does. But what we can’t know is what a new candidate feels they bring to the table. This is a hard question to answer because most people who want to work for the CIA don’t have a clue what life is like in the CIA. But we need to know what they think their strengths are. So, what strength do you feel you possess that may be of value to the CIA?”

I paused for a few seconds to gather my thoughts, then said, “John, recently I watched a commercial for a Masterclass. These are virtual courses you can purchase online, taught by someone considered to be the premier expert on the subject.” Then John interrupted. “And you saw the commercial taught by one of our old deputy directors. He was talking about skills the CIA teaches that are applicable to business, right?” “That’s what I saw,” I replied.

I continued, “He mentioned that the most valued asset an officer in the CIA can possess is empathy.” “He is someone who would know, Pat. Empathy is a must-have to work in D.O. Why do you think that is?” John asked. “I think it’s because the CIA figured out that people always end up doing what they feel, not what they think,” I replied.

“A truer statement than that has never been spoken, Pat. Most people do what they feel. They may start a project, a task, or even a life choice by making a cognitive decision, but it is almost always driven and finished by what they feel. So how does empathy fit into all of that? Before you answer, I need you to tell me what empathy is,” John said.

I answered, “Emotions resonate differently for someone who is an empath. They understand the emotions of others instinctively. Most importantly, someone with a great deal of empathy doesn’t just feel the high highs or the low lows of others. The small, mundane emotions resonate strongly as well. People with this talent are usually good at reading people or reading the room. People who are great at it can influence and inspire others, usually using words as their only tool.”

“Okay, Pat. That’s some of it. Not all of it. But using what you know about empathy, how does this talent help us at D.O?” John asked. “I think reading the room, so to speak, is what the CIA does,” I replied.

“Explain what the CIA does, Pat.” I had the feeling that John was listening very intently after he said that. “I think the standard answer is, ‘Protect the sovereignty of the United States of America,’” I replied. “That is a very good answer. I know where you got that, Pat. Do you agree with it?” John asked. “Partly. But common sense tells me that your job is to listen to the wind,” I replied.

“Interesting. What does that mean?” John asked. “What I mean is that you guys use every tool you have to predict where things are going. I am talking about any economic, social, or political changes that might affect the sovereignty of our nation. It also includes criminal activity. Most people think all you do is gather intel on criminal activity abroad, but I don’t. I think that’s a big part of it, but not all of it. Besides, I believe that having intel on everything I just mentioned helps root out criminal activity.”

“No shit, Pat,” John replied. “John, I think you guys do a lot of work here in the States. I know you say all your work is done abroad, but I think that’s bullshit. I think you do a lot at home.” “Do ya? Well, who knows, Pat? Do you know? What do you know, Pat?” John asked, laughing. “I know nothing, John,” I replied. “We are going to go over why that’s a good thing, Pat.”

“We need this to get back on track,” John said. He continued, “You believe that empathy is a big part of what we do at D.O. I agree. Do you think your talent is empathy, Pat?”

“I spent some years of my life as an artist, John. In my opinion, no one can be an artist without a great deal of empathy. The job of an artist is to inspire. To do that, you need to understand what inspires people. In my case, I was an actor. An actor needs to understand which parts of the text are meant to inspire. An actor needs to understand how to evoke emotion from an audience. The text has words that can help create that emotion, but the actor needs to relate to the text and deliver those words in a way that creates a response. An actor must have a talent for empathy to do this consistently.”

“Well, fuck, Pat, maybe we should just hire actors,” John said with a chuckle. “Pat, acting was many lives ago for you. I am surprised you even remember that part of your life,” John said.

“John, it’s all I’ve got. I truly don’t know what the fuck we are doing here. I don’t know why you guys have put something in my body that allows us to talk like this. I also don’t think I’ll ever understand why or how this technology creates sensations in my body. I am sincerely confused by this whole fucking thing,” I said.

“Pat, it’s not just about a job. This is about you. We are helping you. You are right about one thing: you are an empath. You can feel things other people can’t. You can also read people and situations in a way others can’t. However, you used to be a lot better at it. We are going to stop here for today, Pat. Get some rest. Tomorrow, you have a job interview. Although, for the life of me, I can’t see why you would want to go back to selling marijuana. But you want to help your family, and I get that. There are better ways to do that, Pat. Get some rest.”

As soon as he said, “Get some rest,” everything went silent. I went downstairs, ate quickly, and went back to my room to sleep.

John started talking to me around 8:30 the next morning. He said, “We are gonna teach some first-day shit today, Pat!” I was drinking my coffee alone in my bed. “I have a job interview at 3, John, and I am not going to miss it.” “We won’t let you miss it, Pat,” John replied. “Okay. Let’s start,” I said. “Okay, give me a few minutes,” John replied.

Ten minutes later, I heard a chair being pushed in. John said, “Okay, Pat. Day-one shit. Why did I imply that knowing something isn’t a great thing?” “I have no idea,” I replied. “Well, that’s because knowing something means you gotta work on something. Pat, people who work for the CIA love their jobs. But what they love even more is a clean desk. What do I mean by that?”

“I have no idea. Just tell me,” I replied. “It means that everything they were responsible for is either finished or handed off to someone else so they can do their part. Everyone at the CIA loves a clean desk,” John said. “Everyone at every job likes a clean desk, John,” I replied. “I understand that. But a clean desk at the CIA means you get your life back.”

“Okay,” I replied. “So, the worst thing you can do is bring someone you work with into your shit when they shouldn’t be. You understand?” John asked. “Yeah, don’t talk about your shit to anyone. I got it,” I replied. “To ensure this doesn’t happen, we have a way of speaking to someone who needs to know about our shit without getting into specifics.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Today, I’ll give you the bare minimum.” “Sounds great,” I replied sarcastically.

I pictured John leaning back in his chair. “Okay, so when I say, he said something, what do I mean?” “I have no idea,” I replied. John said, “I’ll give you an example: my dog Ralph expects me home at 6 pm. I have newspapers spread out in the living room so he can piss while I’m out. One day, I get home at 8 and find the newspapers torn throughout the house. I say, ‘Ralph, you said something.’ What do I mean?” “I think you mean that Ralph tore up the newspaper to give you a ‘fuck you,’” I replied.

“Exactly. Now I must act. I gotta clean up the newspaper, apologize to Ralph, and make every effort to be home by 6 going forward. You follow me?” John asked. “Yes. Saying something means that an action has taken place that makes a statement, and that statement needs to be addressed,” I answered. “That’s right. It can be an action, but it can also be actual words. Either way, we need to address it. Sometimes we say, he said something. Sometimes, we say, she said something, but most times we say, they said something. You follow me?” John asked. “I follow you,” I replied.

“Good. Then there’s, doing something. Here’s my example: I come home on time and find that Ralph has taken a creamy shit on my favorite chair. I say, ‘Ralph, you did something.’ What do I mean?” “I am not sure on this one,” I said. “It means that Ralph fucked up, and now we need to change something to make the wrong things right. In this case, it means that Ralph needs to go through potty training all over again. I need to make a point, so this doesn’t happen again. You follow?”

“Yes. Doing something is much worse. It means something has occurred that caused a change, and now we must do something to correct that change. Am I right?” “You are correct,” John replied. “Pat, I think you understand the difference between sayin’ and doin’. Let’s take a break. You should go eat something,” John said. “I wish I could. I’ll take a few minutes and just sit in peace, if you don’t mind.” I heard that same sound of something turning off in my ears. I took a deep breath and let it out. Then I began to stare out the window.

Twenty minutes passed, and I started to hear a few different voices saying things I couldn’t quite understand. Then I heard John’s voice. “Pat, we’re back. We got through sayin and doin. Now it’s time to talk about: something happened here. Again, I’ll use Ralph as the example: I come home with a lady friend. She goes to sit down in my chair and realizes Ralph has taken a shit where she is sitting. She gets up and her backside is covered in Ralph’s butt mud. She is pissed. I say, Something happened here. What do I mean?”

I was laughing uncontrollably. “I’m sorry, John,” I said. “I have no idea what that means.” “It’s fine to laugh, Pat. Here’s what that means: Something happened here means that something has occurred that we cannot deny because people have seen it and were affected by it,” John explained. “Okay, that makes sense,” I said, still laughing.

“Okay, now when something we can’t deny has happened, we say one of two things: We gotta call someone who knows about this, or We gotta call someone who can do something about this. What’s the difference?”

“This one I understand. When you say, call someone who can do something about this, it means local law enforcement, the FBI, or the equivalent of the FBI abroad. When you say, call someone who knows about this, you mean a CIA officer or an agent,” I replied. “You know the difference between an officer and an agent?” “Yes, I know the difference,” I replied. “Pat, it could also mean that we need to speak to an intelligence officer in some other country. You understand?” John asked. “Of course,” I replied.

“Okay, well, you understand everything I was going to go over today. Take the rest of the day. You have a job interview in just under four hours. I hope that goes miserably.” “I need this job, John,” I said. “You need a job, Pat. You don’t need that fucking job. But do what you gotta do.” After he said that, everything went silent.

I had my job interview at exactly 3 p.m. that day. It was only with the recruiter, but she fired questions at me for almost an hour. Somehow, I knocked it out of the park. She said the owner would want to speak with me. He was traveling at the moment, but she said he would call me in two days. This was great news.

I remember thinking, All of this shit is going on, and I can still kick ass at a job interview. I called my wife and told her about it. She was thrilled and relieved. We had been living off my stock, and it was selling at a very low price.

I’m ashamed to admit this, but I was spending a lot of money on clothes during this time as well. Since the voices and sensations started, I had developed an online shopping addiction. At the time, I believed someone would compensate me for everything I had been going through. I believed there were people who knew what was happening to me, and I was certain they would make sure the government paid for what they had done. I was sure there was more for me in all of this than just a job with the CIA. So, I felt comfortable spending money.

The next day, I went through my regular morning routine. I woke up at 8 and grabbed a coffee. For some reason, my stomach was a mess, and I needed to get to the bathroom badly. As I was finishing up, I heard John say, “Well, Pat, looks like you did something.”

I heard a lot of laughter, and then another voice spoke. “Pat, something happened here.” I heard the voices laugh even louder. “I think we need to call someone!” John said. He was in hysterics. Then another voice said, “Not someone who knows, though. Okay, Pat?”

I was laughing too, but I had to pull myself together and address it. “So now we are watching me in the bathroom? What could you possibly be getting out of that?” I asked. “Pat, all of this is about you. We don’t get anything outta listening to you use the bathroom. But when it comes to D.O, Pat, you never know what could be of value later,” John said, still chuckling.

“Okay, John, what are we planning on doing today?” I asked. “We are just talking today, Pat,” John answered. “About?” I asked. “Give me a few minutes. I need my coffee too. Then we will have a chat.”

“Quick question. Who is in the room with you, John?” I asked. “My guys. All my guys. You’d like them,” John answered. “Now, let me have my coffee,” he said.

About 30 minutes passed. Then I heard John’s voice. “Yesterday, we talked a little about empathy, and we talked some about what you believe the CIA does. I believe you came to some conclusions about life in the CIA based on what you heard one of our guys say about empathy. Now, Pat, I am not going to tell you whether you are right or wrong about what we do here. What I will say is that you have some interesting thoughts. I would like to know how you got there,” John said.

“You mean how I got to the whole ‘you listen to the wind’ thing?” I asked. John replied, “Yeah, or anything else you might believe the CIA does.”

“I got a piece of information. I heard that the CIA values empathy, and then I applied common sense. It gave me enough to conclude that an innate understanding of human nature is something the CIA values highly,” I said. John replied, “You could say that about a lot of jobs, Pat.”

“I have never heard anyone in upper management or in a C-suite role say that they value empathy above all else,” I replied. “So, Pat, that’s what we are going to talk about this morning. You have a neat little gift with common sense. You have a way of tying creative thinking to some high-powered common sense,” John said.

“It only applies to work, John. I am terrible at applying common sense to life unless I am giving advice to others, which I guess is true for most people. But I don’t make the best life choices. Well, I start with good decisions, and then things go south,” I said.

“What did we say about feelings, Pat? Decisions can begin with cognitive thought. However, what drives a person is their feelings. For you, Pat, your feelings easily override your cognitive thoughts. So, you tend to fuck up,” John replied. He continued, “But, Pat, your life has also had some pretty big successes, and those feelings of yours saw the job through. Don’t forget that.”

“Okay.” John asked, “Do you believe you use common sense in a different way than other people?” I answered, “I believe that common sense is the language of empathy. I am an empath. So, yes,” I replied.

There was a long pause after I said that. I heard voices speaking, but they were only murmurs. After about two minutes, John said, “Pat! You just said something.”

I paused for a few seconds. “Yeah, well, to me, common sense, most of the time, speaks to our most basic emotion or instinct: survival. But common sense can, when used for something more than just staying safe, speak to all our emotions. For me, when I am trying to learn something difficult, I work to whittle it down to common sense,” I replied.

“Pat, that’s what smart people do,” John said. He continued, “I have never heard anyone say that common sense is the language of empathy, but I agree. It is a hard concept to get across, Pat. People who have a good understanding of empathy would agree with you. That is a piece of information people feel more than they understand conceptually. But you explained it well,” John said. My phone rang right after he said that.

When I looked down at my phone, I saw a number from Houston, Texas. The recruiter had told me the owner of the company I had applied to was based there, so I knew it had to be him. I answered, and sure enough, it was. He called a day early, which felt like good news. It meant they really needed someone.

The owner of the company sounded like he was well into his seventies. He explained that he funded the company, but his son was running it. Then he asked me cannabis-related questions for well over an hour.

When he was done with that, he asked about everything I had done in the cannabis industry for another hour. He and I got along well. At the end of the conversation, he asked if I could fly to Colorado the following week to meet his son. I agreed.

When the call ended, I hung up and had a little celebration in my head. I thought, with everything going on, I could still land a job.

The celebration didn’t last long. A few minutes after I hung up, I heard John say, “Well, that went a whole lot better than I expected. How do you feel, Pat?” “I need a job, John. My family and I are barely scraping by because I spend all my time dealing with your shit,” I replied. “Our shit is the important shit. You working for another marijuana company isn’t important. But we’re gonna let you crash and burn on this. Make this the last cannabis company you work for, Pat,” John said. “Well, thanks, John,” I said sarcastically. “We’re gonna wrap up for the day. We might chat again tonight; we might not. We’ll see.”

I had a good night with my family. My wife was happy that I had done well in my interviews. Every now and then, she would ask if I was okay. I had been telling her I was fine, but she could tell that I wasn’t. After I did well with the interview, though, she seemed happy and more at ease with me. I played with my family until the kids’ bath time. That night, I helped dress my oldest and tucked both of my children into bed. Once they were down, I went to my meditation room. I had a feeling John, and I were going to talk that night.

I sat and listened to music for a while. For some reason, music was starting to sound better. I was more engrossed in it. It sounded the way music used to sound when I was a kid. I listened for about an hour before I heard John’s voice.

“Hey, Pat.” I noticed a change in his tone as soon as he said that. He either sounded tired or relaxed. “What’s up, John?” I asked. Then I added, “Is this getting to be a little too late for you?”

“Nah, Pat. The guys and I had a drink with dinner, and all of us are feeling relaxed. How are you holding up?” John asked. “I am not going to be up late tonight. I am exhausted,” I replied. “I don’t blame you. You had a long job interview today on top of everything else that’s going on for you. You should be tired.” “I am,” I replied.

“You did good today, Pat. On all fronts. I’ll bet music is sounding pretty good these days,” John said inquisitively. “Can you hear when I listen to music?” I asked. “You were listening to Counting Crows. I can hear it. You have nice taste in music,” John said. “How did you know music sounded better?” I asked.

“Pat, it’s gonna keep sounding better. This all goes somewhere. I’m done for the night, Pat. Why don’t you either turn the music back on or go to bed?” “I’m going to listen to music for a while longer,” I replied. I put my earphones back in and listened to music for about an hour. Then I walked into my room and went to bed.

The next week was very different. John and the rest of the guys in the room kept making jokes. It went on all day in my head. They used You said something and You did something to joke about everything that happened to me.

When I spilled my coffee, they said, “Well, Pat, you did something.” When my wife brought home a new dog without asking me, I heard, “Oh shit, she did something.”

But their favorite time to joke was when I went to the bathroom. Then I would get it all: “Pat, you did something.” Then another would say, “I actually think he said something with that one.” Then another would add, “We need to call someone. Someone who can do something.”

They laughed and joked all day long. Of course, I laughed too. Sometimes they had me on the floor, laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. This went on for an entire week.

I started using the sayings too. I would say them to myself anytime something small happened. Those little sayings were infectious.

At the end of the week, I had to fly to Colorado to meet with the CEO of the cannabis company. It was a one-day trip. I was flying in on Friday to meet him and leaving Saturday morning.

I didn’t hear any voices in my head during the entire flight to Colorado. I met with the CEO and toured the company. I was extremely disappointed. I had worked for a top-tier cannabis company while working with my dad. This company looked like it had been thrown together over a long weekend.

The CEO was clearly looking for quick money. They were understaffed and disorganized, and the equipment looked like it had been purchased secondhand. I knew this wouldn’t be my last stop. Still, the CEO and I had a good meeting. He was a nice guy and he wanted me to start as soon as possible. He was just looking for someone to lead his sales team.

I told him I would need to work remotely because I was not ready to uproot my family. He was fine with that. We had a quick dinner that night and talked shop. When dinner was over, we shook hands, and I told him I would be ready to start the following Monday. He said, “Great. We look forward to bringing you on.”

I caught a ride back to my hotel, texted my wife the good news, and went to bed quickly. I did not hear one voice that night.

I was back home by 2 p.m. that Saturday. My house was empty. My wife had taken the kids to the park. I walked upstairs to the bedroom, and as soon as I sat on the bed, I had an adrenaline dump. I needed to sleep. I undressed and crawled under the covers. I thought, “Everything is taking a toll on me. I need to rest more.” I drifted off to sleep and didn’t wake up until I heard my kids come upstairs for their bath. I slept for about six hours.

My wife came into the room, smiled, and asked how the job interview went. I said, “Well, I told you I got the job, so it went pretty well.” “How do you like the company?” she asked. “Well, they are just figuring things out. These guys are a true start-up. There’s a lot to do,” I said. “That’s good, Pat. You like start-ups,” she said. “Yeah, this should be fine.” I could hear my oldest splashing in her bath. My youngest was walking around naked, waiting to take a bath with my wife. I loved this time of night.

When the kids were out of their baths, we crawled into bed as a family and watched a nature video together. This was something I used to do with my older daughter before I went to rehab. She would pick an animal she wanted to learn about, and we would find a video to watch just before bed. We watched a video on cheetahs that night. I felt good that night. I felt normal.

When the video was done, I kissed my kids and went to my meditation room. I wasn’t ready to sleep yet. I turned on the little red light and shut off all the other lights. I put my headphones on, but before I could turn on the music, I heard, “Welcome home, Pat.”

“Hi, John,” I replied. “Well, you got the job,” John said. “I did,” I replied.

“You think you’re ready to get back to sales, Pat? I mean, you haven’t really processed what you’ve been through yet. It’s not going to be easy to just let this all go and get back to doing what you used to do,” John said.

“I have to try, John,” I replied. “Like I said, we are gonna let you crash and burn on this. We can’t stop doing what we are doing, Pat. But we can let you work,” John said. “Okay, thanks,” I said.

Then there was a long pause. I thought John had left.

Fifteen minutes later, I heard John say, “Pat, in honor of you getting this job, we are gonna give you a piece of intel.” “Is that a good thing?” I asked. “Yeah. You aren’t gonna do much with this one,” John said. Then he added, “We really had you going with the ‘sayin’’ and ‘doin’’ thing, didn’t we?” “I laughed my ass off. It’s hard not to think about it. It got in my head during my job interview, and I almost laughed in the guy’s face,” I said.

John’s voice was very relaxed, as if we were talking “off the record.” He said, “This is something we introduce at the Farm in the first week. We say to the class, ‘Gonna be a while before you guys are D.O. But after this week, you’ll start to sound like D.O.’ Then we explain ‘sayin’’ and ‘doin’’ and all the rest, just as we explained it to you.”

John continued, “Just as we begin to move into the next lesson, we have one of our guys do something stupid, like spill something or drop food on his shirt. When he does, one of our guys says, ‘Well, you just did something.’ The guy who did it replies, ‘You just said something.’ Then one of our other guys says, ‘Fuck, we gotta call someone.’ The class tries not to laugh, but they always do. Then we just move on and wait.”

“During the next two weeks, the candidates say that shit all the time. We try to rope them back in, but we know the whole class will keep saying all that shit. So, Pat, knowing that, what do you think we are doing with them?” I got it immediately. “Fuck you, John,” I said. John started laughing. Then I said, “It’s inception, isn’t it?” “You got it, Pat! That’s what we are doing with it. And Pat, it always works,” John said.

“This is the type of shit you do at the Farm?” I asked. “There’s a lot we do at the Farm, Pat. That’s just a fun one,” John said. “You guys got me pretty good,” I said.

“I’ll give you something else, Pat. We put a stop to this by saying something like, ‘We aren’t paying a six-month hotel bill for you fucking guys to fuck around. Knock off the kiddie shit.’ That usually stops most of them. But in almost every class, one or two people will keep it going. This distracts everyone, and some people get really annoyed. Our guys always pretend to be pissed at the ones who are still saying it, but we are learning something. What do you think we are learning, Pat?”

“I think you’re spotting guys who would be a good fit for counterintelligence. You’re seeing how long those candidates can keep the other candidates off track,” I replied. “Pat, not bad. That’s all you get tonight. Way to go on the job front. Have a good night.” I could tell John wasn’t going to say another thing, so I put my earphones in and listened to music until I felt tired.

The next day was Sunday. My wife had planned a play-date with some of the mothers from my older daughter’s class, and she was taking our youngest along as well. They were heading to a beach about an hour away. Dads never really attended these outings. I know a lot of dads go to them in other places, but the ones my wife attended were only for moms and their kids. So, I had an empty house for the day.

I was becoming addicted to listening to music. I grabbed my coffee and earphones, then settled into my meditation chair. I didn’t hear a single voice for most of that morning. It was just me and music I hadn’t listened to in years. I was rediscovering my youth through the music of the ’90s and early 2000s.

Every once in a while, I threw on new music. I couldn’t believe how good music sounded to me.

At 11:30, I heard John’s voice. “No church today, Pat?” “Good morning, John. No, no church. You guys ruined that for me,” I replied. “We were fucking with you during church, Pat?” he asked. “Yeah, in the worst way possible. You guys fucking assaulted me!” I replied.

“Well, sorry about that, Pat. That wasn’t my guys; that was another group.” He continued, “Pat, going to church and having a relationship with God is a good thing for you. It helps, Pat. You should start going again.”

“I’ll start going when this is all over. I can’t even pray alone because you guys are talking to me around the clock,” I replied. “It’ll be over soon, Pat,” John said. “I guess this is a good time to discuss something you said, Pat.”

“Fine. I was hoping to have a morning to myself, but let’s get this over with,” I said. “Give me three minutes so I can grab another coffee,” John said.

The three minutes became twenty. I was cleaning up my daughter’s room when I heard John’s voice. “Pat, sorry about that. Something else came up that needed my attention.” “It’s fine, John. You were going to ask me something?” I asked. “Yes! That’s right, Pat, I was. Let me see what that was,” John replied.

A few minutes passed, and then John started speaking again. “Pat, a while ago, you said to one of the guys that we were ‘proving the devil’s point.’ You remember that?”

“I remember telling one of you guys that you better pay this bill, or someone else is coming to collect it,” I replied. “Yeah, then you said, ‘The one who is collecting is the one whose point we’re proving.’ You were implying that the devil is the one collecting this bill,” John said.

“I didn’t quite say it like that, but yeah, I meant the devil,” I said. “You think he collects the bill, Pat?” John asked. “Yes. For something like this, I think he does,” I replied.

“Okay, and how are we ‘proving his point’?” John asked.

“John, I am not a biblical scholar. I have read the New Testament a few times and was going to finish the Old Testament when you guys showed up and started your bullshit. But I’ll tell you what I meant. Hopefully, we can wrap up early today,” I said. “Go ahead, Pat,” he replied.

“I believe the argument between God and the devil is about our free will. I am Catholic, and this doesn’t fit neatly with Catholic beliefs. In fact, the only book I could find that supports this belief is the Book of Mormon. I am not Mormon. However, I feel as though God’s second-greatest gift to us, aside from life itself, is free will. My belief about the devil’s disapproval of our free will is somewhere in my gut. For some reason, I believe the devil thinks God’s way of doing things is the right way. However, I also believe the devil doesn’t have any faith in us, and I believe he goes out of his way to prove that we shouldn’t have free will.”

 I continued, “What has been done to me proves the devil’s point. I believe that people have used technology and sinister manipulation to break my free will. I believe my life has been, in some ways, directed. So, to all who have done this to me, I say congratulations: you’ve broken the one rule God himself doesn’t break. You have taken away my free will. I believe that if there are ever reasons to go to hell, that is the biggest one.”

“I don’t suppose you believe in the whole ‘hell is a sinner’s heaven’ thing, right?” John asked, laughing. “No, bud. I don’t think Paradise Lost is correct on that one. I think hell is hell,” I said.

I continued, “You know, John, I have some idea what hell is.” “I thought you might, Pat. Please, go ahead,” John said. He gave a nervous laugh as he spoke.

I said, “I believe hell is a place of hopelessness, despair, and repentance. I’ll tell you how I got there, bud.” I paused for a minute. I knew what I was about to say, and just saying it pissed me off.

I took a breath and said, “I know what hell is because I have been put through a little of it. I sat in rehab prepared to kill myself because someone had put it in my head that I had done horrible things—things I didn’t do. While I was there, my body was going through some of the same shit you guys have been putting me through. I felt sensations that didn’t come from me, John.”

I continued, “Every second I was there, I wanted to die. Every thought I had during that time led me to believe I was a piece of shit. Every night, in my head, I was saying goodbye to my children. I thought I was either going to die or be thrown in prison.”

Then I said, “Within the first two weeks, I felt hopeless. What I mean by that is, I couldn’t imagine any future for myself that wasn’t painful. By the third week, I found despair. What that meant to me was, I couldn’t think about my past, my present, or my future. Any thought about the past was painful, the present was painful, and I believed the future was going to be worse than all of it. There was no escape. I was in prison in my own mind.

As my mind cleared, I thought about everything in my life I had done wrong—the real stuff. That was when I started to pray for forgiveness, and John, it made me feel better.”

I continued, “I started to notice that all the people in that center who had hit rock bottom, and knew it, were doing something similar. They were attending the Sunday Bible study. This is how I came to my understanding of hell.

When people go through the worst things in life, they turn to God. That is what hell does, John. Hell makes sure that when you repent, you mean it!”

I stopped talking after I said that. As I was explaining it, I realized how much anger I still had in me. There was a long silence.  John broke the silence and said, “Pat, I think I agree with your assessment on this. I am sorry you went through all of it. At some point, Pat, you will understand all of this.”

“Sure,” I replied. “I think that’s it for the day. I need a drink,” John said, laughing. Then John added, “Enjoy the afternoon, Pat. Tonight, we gotta go over something else.”

“I am going to give my kid a bath tonight, or at least help in some way, John,” I said. “We will do it a little later in the evening, Pat,” John replied. “Fine,” I said.

My wife didn’t come home until 8:30 that night. She had called ahead of time to ask if I could help unload the car and help with the girls. Both girls were dressed in pajamas, and my youngest was fast asleep. I unloaded the car and carried my youngest to her bed. My older daughter was exhausted, and my wife asked me not to rile her up in any way. My older daughter crawled into bed, and I could tell she was almost asleep. I kissed her and said goodnight. Then I went back to my meditation room to listen to music.

I hadn’t eaten anything that day, and I wasn’t hungry at all. I spent the entire day listening to music and shopping online. My body was desperate for dopamine, and I was looking for it through music and shopping. I should have been meditating, eating, and going to the gym, but the voices—particularly John—were keeping me at home and locked in conversation. I was always waiting to hear from him.

Around 9:45, John spoke. “How are ya, Pat?” he asked. “I don’t have a lot of time tonight, John. I have my first day of work in the morning,” I replied. “I know. We won’t be long tonight.”

Then there was a pause for a few minutes. John said, “You got pretty worked up today, Pat.” “John, I have been through enough. This needs to lead to something. I can’t just keep doing this bullshit day in and day out,” I said.

“I understand, Pat. It’s nice to see you get worked up. No one deserves to be treated like this. You have to stand up for yourself.” Then there was another pause. I heard a chair being pushed in.

“Pat, there was a time when you were a lot better at standing up for yourself,” John said. “I agree. A lot of that has to do with my body. My nervous system doesn’t let me eat, and I become weak. When that happens, John, it changes my whole demeanor,” I replied.

“I bet. When you were a trainer, your body seemed to function well, didn’t it, Pat?” John asked. “Yes, it did. But I had to work out nonstop to be hungry,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s also when you did all that Israeli stuff, right?” “Yes. I trained to fight and fought all the time. For some reason, it helped my stress level. There was a time when I was addicted to it,” I replied.

“You trained at David’s place? The place is called IKMA, right?” John asked. “Yes, that’s right. You did your homework,” I said. I was impressed.

“Pat, some of those guys work with our guys. Did you know that?” John asked. “Yes, I knew that. It is kind of the point of that school. Civilian training is something they do to pay the bills. The core business of IKMA is to work with military and law enforcement,” I said.

“That is an aggressive place to train, Pat. You weren’t fucking around.” “I had always wanted to train in Krav Maga, and David had the best reviews in the country. It was just luck that I lived close to the training facility,” I replied.

“You became an instructor for David, right?” John asked. “Yeah. I took the course and then started teaching a few classes for IKMA.” “And the Israelis came over to train you for that certification, right?” John asked. “Yes, they did,” I replied.

John asked, “What was that like?” I answered, “Well, it was a challenge. They paired us up according to size to train, and the guy I was training with wasn’t a very good fighter. So, the Israeli instructor partnered me with a guy who outweighed me by 100 pounds. The guy he paired me with was also a personal trainer, but he wanted to be a professional fighter. The course lasted two weeks, and by the third day, no one wanted to go as hard as we were being pushed to go.”

I continued, “The problem was that the Israeli instructor was the scariest man I had ever known. If we didn’t go hard on each other, he would come over and start going hard on us. He would hurt us, so we learned pretty quickly that it was better for us to beat on each other than to have him beat on us.”

John said, “That man’s name is Yigal, Pat. He was your instructor for that certification.”  “Yes, and like I said, he is the scariest man I have ever known,” I replied.

“Do you know what he used to do for a living, Pat, before he worked for the school in Israel?” John asked. “Yes,” I replied. “He was a special forces paratrooper, and then he became the weapons specialist for the IDF—the Israeli Defense Forces.”

“That’s as bad as they come, Pat. He should’ve scared you. Guys like that are scary,” John said. Then John added, “But in the end, he liked you, Pat, right?” “Yes, he seemed to like me. He wanted me to train in Israel and put pressure on Dave to get me to go out there,” I said.

“But you didn’t go, did you, Pat?” John asked. “No, I didn’t have the money. David offered to pay half, but I still couldn’t do it,” I said.

“They wanted you out there so you could see who they actually train, Pat,” John said. He continued, “The school in Israel is one of the toughest fight schools in the world, Pat. It is the premier school in Israel. That school is for guys coming out of Wingate who are looking to become special forces. They wanted you to see that, Pat. They wanted you to understand what they do there.”

“You know a lot, John,” I said. “You met Nir too, right?” John asked. “Yes, I met Nir. That’s the biggest man I have ever seen,” I said.

John laughed and said, “Pat, that’s the biggest man anyone has seen. But he’s a good guy. He works with our guys a lot.” I wanted to go to bed, so I took a long pause and started straightening up the room.

After a few minutes, John said, “You know the best thing that came outta that place for you, Pat?” “What, John?” I asked in a tired voice. “Your respect for the military. You read every decent book you could find about special forces,” John said. “Yes, I did, John.”

“I also noticed that you try to save ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ for people who have served,” John said. “I try,” I replied, “but those words still slip out when I’m speaking to civilians, especially here in Florida, where everyone says ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am.’ Still, I do my best to reserve them for military or law enforcement.”

“And why make that effort, Pat?” John asked. “Because sacrifice… is the ‘big thing’,” I answered. “Pat, you just said something. Get some rest. We are done for today,” John said. When John was done speaking, everything went silent, and I knew our chat was over for the day.

The next few weeks were very difficult. John was right: I had not processed everything I had been through. I couldn’t focus on work.

It didn’t help that the company was incredibly disorganized. On my first day, I was told there was a big problem between sales and operations. The people in operations were complaining that the sales team promised fast delivery, and the delivery times they promised couldn’t be met. The product wasn’t always available at the time of the sale. It needed to be made, and that took time.

As I started to dig into my sales team’s processes, I realized they were saying whatever they needed to say to close the sale. They weren’t realistic about what we could deliver or when we could deliver it. They were “flying by the seat of their pants.”

I began putting together standard operating procedures, or SOPs, for them. The company had bought software that could help the sales team track sales, manage their day, and understand their clients’ buying patterns.

The problem was that the software required the salespeople to enter data. This team had never done that, so the software was useless.

I pulled the sales reports from the previous year and entered the data into the software for the team. I also worked with operations to connect our inventory-management system to the sales platform, hoping it would keep the sales team from making promises we couldn’t fulfill.

But everyone on the sales team was related to the CEO, and none of them wanted to enter new data into the system. They believed operations simply needed to move faster, and the CEO agreed. Without that data, though, they couldn’t manage their day, see what inventory was available, or build a real pipeline of business.

Those are basic responsibilities in any real sales organization. The processes I was trying to put in place were meant to create efficiency, improve speed, and help us manage our clients’ expectations.

I tried everything I could think of to get the team to start organizing themselves. However, the CEO didn’t have my back. He just wanted the sales team to “make the sale” as quickly as possible and by any means necessary. This included dropping prices so low that we didn’t make a profit on the product. Every time we did that, I got a call from the CFO, who blamed me.

I tried several times to “crack the whip” on the sales team. I went as far as threatening to put a hold on paying commissions until they started doing things the right way. I was always overridden by the CEO.

By the second month, I stopped trying. I realized that the CEO wanted to lead the sales team. All he wanted from me was help with marketing, so I became the director of marketing. I worked with our graphic designer to put together some essentials, including a new website.

By month four, I was checked out. Some of that had to do with how the company was being managed, but most of it had to do with what I had been through with the voices.

My nights were spent with John. During my first four months with the company, the conversations were light. He would talk to me about quitting the company and make jokes about everything I was going through at my new job. After four months, John stopped talking about my job and started speaking to me the way he had before I was employed.

“Pat, you didn’t really get into the Illuminati night the way we had hoped you would,” John said with a laugh. “Yeah, well, I don’t really believe in the Illuminati,” I replied. “You’re not the type, Pat,” John said. I replied, “That Illuminati shit needs to go. Someone needs to put an end to all of it. I have friends who get into conspiracy theories, and it becomes an obsession for them. By obsession, I mean it starts interrupting their lives.” John replied, “There will always be people who believe in conspiracies. When this is over, what will you think of our government?” “I don’t know, John. It depends on how it ends,” I replied.

Once again, I heard a chair being pushed in. John said, “Pat, the one thing you do believe in is that business and government can be intertwined.” I replied, “No shit, John.”

John said, “And you thought you did something wrong with that deal you were working on—the one you believed pissed off the government.” “John, all I know is that my phone was clicking, and I know what that means. Also, every time I drove anywhere, I saw vehicles that looked government owned. John, something was going on.”

“Pat, that deal didn’t mean shit. You weren’t in trouble. The stuff that was going on was a little different than what you think. A little more basic,” John said. “Care to share, John?” I asked.

John replied, “At the end of all of this, you’ll understand.” “If this ever ends,” I said. “It does, Pat,” John said in a sullen tone.

“Let’s go back to this business and government thing. How do you think that all works, Pat?” John asked. “I don’t know, John. I have some guesses, that’s about it,” I said. “Do your best,” John replied.

“Well, I don’t believe in the Illuminati, but I do believe in Super PACs and special interest groups,” I said. “That’s good, Pat!” John said, laughing. Then John said, “That’s because they exist, Pat.”

“John, what I can say is this: I wasn’t a lobbyist for very long. But I worked as one long enough to realize that behind closed doors, the aisle between the two parties is razor thin. Political survival and the needs of special interest groups are paramount in the game of politics,” I said.

“There is a lot to that, Pat. I can see why you would say that. I can tell you, from my personal experience, that the divide between the parties is not ‘razor thin.’ It is the real thing. But I agree that negotiations can happen between the parties, especially when it comes to creating or passing a bill, that can certainly make it seem that way. We do agree, however, that political survival plays a huge role in politics,” John answered.

“My question is: how much political sway can an organization like BlackRock have?” I asked.

“Pat, you just named an organization that, through no fault of its own, is tied into government. Groups like BlackRock—and there aren’t many like BlackRock—manage assets. BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world. So, yes, Pat. BlackRock does manage some money for the government,” John said.

“No shit, John. And BlackRock and other organizations like Vanguard also manage money for governments abroad, correct?” I asked. “Yes, that’s correct,” John answered.

“So let me ask you: how much intel is being traded between those organizations and the CIA?” I asked. “Almost none,” John answered. He continued, “Pat, there are several laws that prevent something like that from happening.”

“I know, but there are executive authorizations and specific security warrants that can bypass those laws,” I said. John replied, “Pat, those are not something you can just go and get. You are talking about warrants that the FBI could get if there was some kind of threat. Where are you going with this?”

“My point is this: no matter how you look at it, business is involved with government. It is easy for me to spot when a bill has been influenced by corporations or special interest groups. I have seen bills that seem to cover a dozen unrelated subjects, yet somehow they all end up tucked into the same piece of legislation. I’m not saying every bill like that is designed to make both sides happy for the benefit of a corporation or special interest group. I agree that isn’t always the case. But I sure as shit have seen it happen.”

“Well, Pat, I think you were right the first time. You are just guessing. But you have seen what you have seen. I won’t argue that,” John replied.

“Pat, you need to know that organizations like BlackRock are run with the highest level of integrity. They are good people,” John said. “John, I am sure that’s true,” I replied. Then I said, “What I’m saying is that it’s hard to believe that the CIA—an agency with an entire division of people who have degrees in economics—doesn’t get any information from the world’s largest asset managers.” John answered quickly, “We don’t need to, Pat. That’s all you need to know.”

I didn’t wait for John to say we were done. I just walked to my bed and crawled in. As I started to drift off to sleep, I heard him say, “Pat, we aren’t done with this. We’ll pick it up tomorrow.”

The next day was hard for me. My head “wasn’t in the game” at work. I was just trying to make it through the day and get to the evening, when I could speak with John. I had something I wanted to talk to him about—something I had forgotten.

Our graphic designer and I worked on the website for most of the day. My day ended at 7 p.m., which was 5 p.m. in Colorado, where my company was located.

I remember helping with my kids that night. We even watched an animal video together. As usual, when it was done, I went into my meditation room.

This time, I didn’t want to wait for John to start talking. I sat in my meditation chair and called out for him.

I said, “John, let’s talk.” It took a few minutes, but I got an answer. “Alright, Pat, I hear ya,” John replied. “John, I want to talk about Facebook,” I said. John started laughing. “Yeah, Pat, I figured that would come up.” He continued, “Pat, normally we have to lead this thing. It helps ensure that this ends as quickly as possible. I’ll make an exception tonight because it’s something we thought would come up. So, go ahead.”

“John, a few years ago, I had a rough night. I felt like I was on hallucinogens and having a bad trip. I was running around my house for no reason and threatening to jump off the roof. My wife called the doctor, and he told me to take two of my benzos and go to bed.”

I continued, “As I was lying in bed, I started playing with my phone. Suddenly, I started getting strange friend requests and seeing messages on my feed that seemed connected to what I was going through that night. After a few minutes of watching this happen on my phone, I yelled, ‘Stop!’”

 “When I yelled that, I got a message on my phone that said something like, ‘Personal algorithm shut off.’ It wasn’t in a text message. This was a large black-and-gray message in the middle of my phone. I wanted to take a screenshot of it, but I was too freaked out.”

 I added, “John, I am 100% sure I didn’t imagine this. I have never told anyone because I knew I would be gaslighted. So, I am going to ask: was that you?”

John sounded like he was covering up a laugh. He said, “Pat, it sounds like you had a bad night.” “Please answer,” I said. “Pat, to my knowledge, we had nothing to do with any of that. I won’t say you imagined it. I’m sure you saw something. But Pat, I have never heard of anyone in the CIA using Facebook to torment someone,” John said. “John, it happened!” I said. “I believe you, Pat. I am just saying that I have never heard of something like that.” “Fine,” I replied. I just had a feeling John was lying on this one.

“John, what’s the CIA’s relationship with Facebook?” I asked. “I genuinely don’t know what you mean, Pat,” John replied. “You are full of shit tonight, you know that?” I said. I could hear John, along with a few others, laughing. “Pat, what do you want to know?” John asked. “I want to know if you can access people’s information,” I said. “This is similar to what we talked about last night. Your question is, ‘Can it be done?’ My answer is: under extremely dire circumstances, we can. But Pat, it’s not that easy,” John said.

I took in what John said and how he said it. He has a talent for moving me away from a subject, I thought. “John, I am having a tough time with your answer,” I said. “It’s the only one I’ve got, Pat, but continue if you want,” he replied. “Your deputy director said empathy is the greatest asset an officer can possess. Empathy helps people understand social and behavioral information in any environment, and it can also be used to influence or manipulate behavior within that environment. So, my point is this: it seems to me that having some control over one of the largest collectors of social and behavioral data would be essential for the CIA,” I said. “Ensuring that we can acquire data essential to the safety and sovereignty of this nation when we need it is incredibly important,” John replied. “Having ‘control,’ as you put it, is not.”

Then he continued, “Pat, brush up on your understanding of the law as it relates to intelligence gathering.”

I took that in for a minute. It made sense, except for one thing... “John, is what we are doing right now legal?” I asked. “No, Pat. Not one single thing we have done here would be considered legal. But this is for the greater good of a good man, Pat. That good man is you,” John replied.

“Pat, I am going to ask that we stop for tonight. I know you want to talk about quantification, qualification, and categorization, but not tonight. I actually need some rest, Pat. Goodnight.” He knew where I was going to go next. Damn! I thought. “Goodnight, John.”

The next few days were uneventful. I was busy working with our graphic designer to finish the website. In the evenings, I worked on smaller marketing materials for the sales team. At this time, I was hoping I wouldn’t hear from John. I wanted to hold onto this job as long as I could, and that meant I had to work on a few things in the evening.

I started to become aware of how little sleep I needed at this time. I felt a kind of “high” every day. My brain was telling me that something amazing was going to happen to me. I was convinced that I hadn’t gone through all the torture and constant torment for nothing.

On Saturday evening, around 11:30, I heard John’s voice. “Still hanging in there, Pat?” he asked. “Hey, John, what’s it been… four days?” I asked. John replied, “Something like that, Pat. How’s the job?” “I fucking hate it. But my household is peaceful, so I can’t complain,” I said.

“Peace on the savanna, Pat?” John said, laughing. Then he said, “It’s what we all want, Pat.” I heard a chair being pushed in, and then John said, “Pat, we are going to address something you wanted to talk about quickly. Then we are going to go over how the rest of this is gonna go.” “Okay,” I said.

“You have mentioned to people that you believe the CIA qualifies, quantifies, and categorizes people. I think you know I am going to tell you we don’t. But please, explain,” John said. I replied, “It’s not complicated. I believe the CIA uses every tool it has to predict cultural behavior. It boils down to quantification. Algorithms are proof of that. Categorization is something we see every day in this country. I’ll give you an example: changing your pronouns.”

“Careful, Pat. That’s a very slippery slope you’re on, and you don’t know who is in this room,” John replied. “John, I don’t give a shit what people call themselves. If people prefer a particular pronoun, I will call them by that pronoun. My point is that people should realize how much easier it is to market to them if they willingly ‘narrow’ their identity,” I said.

“Pat, a lot of people feel as though male and female, he or she, and him or her doesn’t encapsulate who they are,” John said. I replied, “Well, it’s difficult for me to say this, but male and female, him or her, and he or she are some of the hardest things to ‘encapsulate.’” “Explain that one, Pat,” John said.

“Okay, the best way I can illustrate my point is this: imagine gathering 1,000 men from all walks of life. I don’t mean straight American males. I mean, any man who identifies as a man. Have each one of them write down what it means to be ‘a man.’ I can guarantee you will get 1,000 different answers. Many of their definitions would directly conflict with one another.

I am not a woman, but I’ll bet the farm that 1,000 women would do the same. My point is that an individual could spend a lifetime defining what those words mean to them. For me, the definition of being a man is constantly expanding in one way and retracting in another. It is as difficult for me to define that word as it is for me to define who I am,” I explained.

“And you think it’s easier to encapsulate people who have chosen their own pronouns?” John asked. “I think it’s easier to market to them. It’s easier to narrow down what not to say. I am not saying they are easily manipulated; I am saying it gives marketers a nice ‘corner piece of the puzzle’ from which to work,” I replied.

“So, Pat, do you believe we perpetuate that?” John asked. “John, I believe the CIA is somewhat involved with America’s social culture.” John replied, “Nope! I get why you would say that, but there are plenty of other groups that do that kind of thing, Pat. And Pat, before you even say it, we don’t influence voters. That’s where you were going, and that’s not something we do.” I could hear that he was taking this conversation very seriously. There were no murmurs in the background as he spoke. “I accept that answer,” I said. “Pat, you have some interesting thoughts. I’ll give you that,” John said.

“Pat, when this started—that is to say, when we started working with you—you were reading books about how emotions work. Why?” John asked. “John, I was reading a book literally titled How Emotions Are Made. It’s by Lisa Feldman Barrett, and I believe it is the best book on the subject,” I said. “Yeah, I agree. Why were you reading it?” John asked. “Because after I got off the benzodiazepines, my long-term memory started to come back. I also noticed that without the benzos, my emotions were more accessible. At the time, I thought understanding ‘emotional memory’ could help me recover my memories. I believed the drugs affected my emotional state and, therefore, affected my emotional memory,” I said.

I continued, “I believed, and still believe, that events that cause intense emotional reactions are easier to remember. I am an empath; almost everything for me is intensely emotional. However, the drugs dulled those emotions, and so I forgot things.” “Well, Pat, I agree with that. What did you learn from that book?” John asked.

“I learned that emotions don’t live in parts of the brain the way we had been taught. Essentially, we have nervous system reactions, and then we start to define them. The book taught me about ‘emotional constructs.’ To illustrate her point, Barrett mentioned that Japanese and Chinese cultures have more names for emotions than we do. She gave an example: apparently, the Japanese have a name for an emotion that occurs when their pizza arrives late. In that culture, this is a real emotion,” I explained.

“I see where you’re going with this. You believe emotions aren’t quite as real as we think they are. You believe marketing perpetuates these emotions. In some cases, Pat, I agree with you,” John said. “Well, it’s not me. You would agree with her. She talks about the primal emotions that we have instinctively—emotions that have kept human beings alive. But those emotions are nervous system reactions to a given circumstance,” I explained.

I continued, “I remember, when I was much younger, hearing about a study that showed that excitement and joy produce almost the same neurological and bodily reactions as a severe anxiety attack. The situation gives a name to the emotional experience, and that name defines what the person is feeling. It becomes their reality,” I explained. “So, when you read that, do you start coming up with conspiracies?” John asked.

“Not really. I just realized how incredibly powerful things like television are. Every day, people watch or read stories that evoke emotion and create associations in their minds. These associations help define a person’s experience,” I said. “Give me an example,” John said.

“Okay, a palm tree. When people see a palm tree, especially if they don’t live in a state where palm trees are part of everyday life, what do they think of?” I asked. “For many people, Pat, they think of the beach or vacation,” John replied.

“Yes, and for good reason. Many palm trees grow in tropical or warm areas near beaches. And people do take vacations by the beach. But, John, there are places where palm trees grow that are thousands of miles away from any beach. Still, people who are not accustomed to seeing them every day will almost always think about the beach or vacation because that is what we are programmed to think,” I said.

I continued explaining, “Dissociative medications break that kind of association. If someone saw a palm tree while on a dissociative medication, they would most likely see a beautiful tree growing from the ground with distinctive leaves. They wouldn’t associate the tree with the beach or vacation. It would just be a pretty tree. Dissociative drugs have the power to help us rid ourselves of destructive associations. The big picture is that we might lose many of the negative associations we have with each other. If we could get past those associations, we would realize how much we have in common.”

“Do you believe most people have negative associations toward other people?” John asked. “Is that a real fucking question?” I asked. “I’d like to know how you see the world, Pat,” John replied. “I think many people unconsciously make decisions about others before they get to know them. Even if a negative perception is based on rumor, that is still association. Granted, there are some truly bad people in the world, and those people should be avoided. But that’s not common.” “Well, Pat, you learned something. But the benzos were not the only reason you lost your memory. That topic is for another night.”

John paused for a few minutes. I heard chairs moving. Then he said, “Pat, we are going to do an exercise. You are going to talk to some people you have always wanted to speak with.” I replied, “John, I have already played this game. I know there aren’t famous people doing this to my head.” “I know you know,” he said. “But we are doing this anyway, so you might as well commit to it. Just talk as if the person we name is really there. You never know, Pat. It just might be them. Anyway, let’s see what comes of it. Remember, this is all about you.” After John said that I heard my ears make the “shut off” noise. I needed sleep.

It took about a week before I heard from John again. During that time, I heard murmurs and laughter in my head, but nothing distinct. It was just noise.

John started in on me on a Friday night. He introduced me to a “famous person,” and we talked for hours. It was someone I knew a lot about, so the conversation went smoothly. I couldn’t help but get into it.

The person was an actor, and she knew everything there was to know about acting. I knew everything there was to know about her career, and we discussed all of it. At the end of the conversation, she thanked me for my time, and I thanked her for hers.

Once the conversation finished, John thanked us both and said to her, “He’s something, isn’t he?” She replied, “Yes, he is.”

So, a few times a week for the next several months, I would talk to an actor or someone else who was an expert on something I liked. The conversations were always about art, acting or music. Every time a conversation ended, John would say, “He is really something, isn’t he?” They would always reply, “Yes, he is.”

After a while, some of the “people” started saying, “Yes, he is. I hope this ends soon.” I was always somewhat emotional after a conversation was over.

Most of the time, when the conversations started, I didn’t remember much about the person I was supposedly talking to. But after a few minutes, my memory of them would come back, and I would remember every detail. This shocked me.

I could feel myself changing during this time. I felt as though I was opening up. I was gentler.

However, these conversations took up most of my time, and I wasn’t as engaged with my children as I should have been. My wife was growing tired of my behavior. I was spending most of my time alone. I wasn’t helping at home, and I wasn’t working much.

We were running out of stock to sell, and she could tell I wasn’t putting much effort into my job.

Sometime during these “celebrity talks,” I lost my job. At the time, I only had enough shares of stock to carry us for four months. I didn’t care. I believed I was doing what I was supposed to do. I believed the CIA wouldn’t let my family starve.

I had been refusing my family’s phone calls for quite some time. I would only talk to my oldest daughter, who lived in New Jersey. I told myself, “No matter what you are going through, you need to talk to your daughter.”

My family was leaving text messages expressing how concerned they were about me. I didn’t want to talk to them. I believed they would “gaslight” me into thinking I was insane. I didn’t view them as enemies, but I didn’t think they were on my side either.

I had no job, which meant I was free to speak with John any night of the week. On a random Tuesday evening, John decided we were going to have an important discussion.

“Pat, you’re not going to be speaking with anyone but me tonight,” John said. “We are going to talk about a time in your life that you have forgotten. I want to talk about 2000 and 2001. You were twenty and twenty-one then, and you spent most of that time studying acting. What do you remember about AMDA?”

“I remember working a lot,” I said. “I didn’t go out much. I didn’t have many friends there. I was extremely competitive about acting.”

“You had a friend who was a teacher, Pat,” John said.

“Yes, Mark Riherd,” I replied. “He was my first acting teacher, and I was his protégé, so to speak.”

“Yes, Pat. Before he taught at AMDA, he taught at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, perhaps the most prestigious acting school in the world. He loved you,” John said.

“I loved when he taught,” I said. “I understood him. I understood what he wanted from me, and his way came easily to me. But his way was difficult for most people.”

“Because he was extremely technical,” John said.

“Yes,” I replied. “He used to say, ‘You can’t always rely on your feelings. Feelings can betray us. Technique is something an actor can always rely on.’”

I continued, “I was tired throughout my time at AMDA because I wanted to be perfect at everything I did. Sometimes I was too tired to perform, so I relied on his technique, and it worked. Back then, I viewed myself as a kind of mechanic. I would break down every part of a script and build a character out of the words, little by little—almost one word at a time.”

“Mark had people come in to watch you act in his class, didn’t he?” John asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Sometimes other teachers came in. Sometimes it was a director.”

“Pat, did anyone famous ever come in and watch you act in your first year?” John asked.

I paused for a moment. John asked the question like he wanted me to think about it. A minute later, a memory surfaced.

“Yes! Natalie,” I said, leaving out her last name.

“And what happened there, Pat?” John asked.

“I remember now,” I said. “She walked onto the stage when I was finished, looked at me, and said, ‘You’re really good.’”

“What did you say back?” John asked.

“I said, ‘You’re always good.’” I laughed at myself as I said that.

“And then you walked offstage, didn’t you, Pat?” John asked.

“John, I was in shock,” I replied. “I didn’t know what to say.”

John laughed. “Pat, a simple ‘What are you doing here?’ would have worked nicely in that situation.”

“I was so new to New York then,” I said. “I was also new to theater. I just thought famous people visited conservatories sometimes.” I was laughing loudly as I said that.

I started to recall meeting her completely as John and I were talking. In that situation, with Natalie, I did the worst thing I could have done. I didn’t say thank you. I just told her she was a good actor and walked away. But I remember walking away quickly because I didn’t want to take up her time. I’m pretty sure I thought I was doing the right thing.

“You forgot about that exchange almost as soon as it happened, Pat,” John said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Pat, you had a few moments like that,” John said. “Good moments that shocked you. And every time it happened, you forgot it took place. Most of the time, you forgot it immediately.”

“Let’s talk about your second year at AMDA. You had a teacher who tried to destroy you,” John said, laughing.

“Yep, Randolph Pierson,” I said. “That was my third semester. Third semester at conservatory is when they begin to weed people out. All the teachers are hard on students that semester. They push the people with talent and push out the people who don’t have it.”

“Randolph had a reputation for destroying a student’s confidence. He was methodical with me. In the beginning, he built me up. Then, midsemester, the class had one-on-one meetings with him. He announced that my meeting would be ten minutes longer than everyone else’s.”

“Patrick’s meeting will be longer,” he told the class. “And I know some of you are thinking the reason is because it’s Patrick. This has nothing to do with Patrick. It’s just how the scheduling worked.”

“How was that meeting, Pat?” John asked.

“He tore me to pieces,” I said. “He made me question whether I even belonged at the school. I walked out with my tail between my legs. I wanted to ask him if he thought I had any talent at all. Instead, I resisted the urge and took the beating.”

“When I got back to my dorm that day, I was determined to beat him. He had just handed out scripts, assigned us to groups, and told us we would perform them as our final project. My goal was simple: do the work, prove I belonged, and make him regret doubting me. I told my girlfriend, ‘I know he wanted to push me, but his insults crossed the line. I am not just going to do well with this script. I am going to do this better than any student ever has.’”

“The scripts were our final project for Randolph. We had more than two months to work on them before performing them in front of the entire school. I worked day and night. Some nights, I fell asleep with the script still in my hand.”

“Every time I performed it in class, Randolph would say, ‘It’s not bad, but it’s not good either.’ I remember feeling that something was missing from the character. The play I was working on was written by John Patrick Shanley, and his writing had a style I couldn’t figure out. It seemed strange and unnatural to me. Then, two weeks before the final performance, I watched Moonstruck, which Shanley had written. Suddenly, it clicked.”

“Do you remember what you said when you saw the movie, Patrick?” John asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I said, ‘It’s a blueprint.’”

“And you were right. What did you figure out, Pat?” John asked.

“I figured out that John Patrick Shanley writes like an opera composer,” I said. “Instead of having his characters sing, he has them speak in a way that feels operatic. I also realized that many of his characters share the same emotional rhythm. In Moonstruck, Nicolas Cage’s character had something in common with mine. I didn’t copy anything, but I finally understood the style, and I folded that understanding into what I was already doing.”

“And how did it go, Pat?” John asked.

“I fucking crushed it,” I said. “Randolph saw it, and his jaw dropped.”

“Do you remember Katrin Hire?” John asked. “Yes, she was in my class,” I replied. “She was very nice.”

“You performed that character with the new style in class before presenting it to the entire school,” John said. “Randolph told you that you had done very nice work. But the next day, Katrin told you something. She had overheard a conversation between Randolph Pierson and Mark Riherd and came to you with the crux of it. What did she say?”

I tried to remember that day. I remembered Katrin coming up to me to share something she had heard, but I couldn’t remember what it was.

“I don’t know, John. What did she tell me?” I asked. “She told you Randolph Pierson had asked Mark Riherd if he could call the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to see whether you could get an audition.”

“Yes,” I said. “I remember that now.”

“Pat, you did some job with that,” John said. “You were determined, and you saw it through.”

“At the final performance, in front of the school, something else happened. Do you remember?” John asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I did well. After everyone performed, they asked the students to stay in the theater. The wife of the owner was there, and she said I looked tired and could leave. In fact, she insisted.”

“Why did they want you to leave?” John asked.

“I never really thought about it,” I said. “If I had to guess, based on how my performance went, they probably said I had given the best performance but wasn’t the most talented. They probably used me as an example of what hard work could accomplish.”

“You’re probably right, Pat,” John said. “They didn’t want you to hear them say that you weren’t the most talented.”

“I would have been fine with that,” I said. “I knew I wasn’t the most naturally talented person there. But I also knew that while everyone else was going out, drinking, and being social, I was in my room working. I was proud of that.”

“They didn’t want you thinking that way, Pat,” John said. “They wanted you to have all the confidence in the world.”

“Only two people complimented me on that performance,” I replied. “That bothered me. I always complimented people when they did a good job.”

“Pat, there were a lot of people in your graduating class who were sick of hearing about you,” John said. “You didn’t socialize, and I understand why. But because of that, people thought you were arrogant.”

“Yeah, I knew that,” I said. “But I wasn’t arrogant. I was afraid of failure. Failure was all I knew in high school. When I got to AMDA, I was determined to be the best. To do that, I had to spend every second studying.”

“Well, Pat, you graduated, and out of your entire graduating class, you were the only one to get an agent. Do you remember what your agent told you about the other New York agents?” John asked.

“Yes,” I said. “He told me there were other agents who wanted to sign me—bigger agents. But I thought a smaller office would be a better fit. I believed I would get more attention there than I would at one of the larger New York agencies. Gary was also the first agent to invite me into his office, and that meant a lot to me.”

“Pat, one of the first things you did after graduation was look for another acting school. You didn’t have faith in yourself. You auditioned for Juilliard, made it to the final round, and didn’t get in. That was an interesting audition. In the morning, you felt fine. But that afternoon, before the second audition, you started vomiting,” John said.

“Yep,” I said. “I was a mess going into that second audition. But I still did okay. I proved what I needed to prove with the Juilliard audition. I wanted to know if I could hang with some of the best students in New York, and I found out I could.”

“That same week, you auditioned for Terry Schreiber’s Studio—maybe the most intense acting studio in New York. You got in,” John said.

“Yes, I did. I was thrilled,” I replied.

“Pat, you were exhausted by then,” John said. “You did not need more acting classes. You needed a lot of rest after AMDA. You also needed to eat and work out. If you had been healthy, you would have had better auditions. You also would have figured out that you need to put pressure on agents, or they forget about you.”

John continued, “You did fine during your first year at Terry’s. He loved you, and he wanted you to have a great career. He pushed you hard, Pat, and for a while, you responded well. Then everything caught up to you, and you started fading. Terry was one of the few people who thought you needed psychiatric help.”

“Yes, I remember,” I said. “He didn’t think I was well. He saw my body get even thinner. I was embarrassed by how I looked in my early twenties.”

“Pat, you shouldn’t have been there. You weren’t healthy,” John said.

“No,” I said. “I was not.”

“Terry had you do a show with that asshole director of his, Peter,” John said.

“Yes,” I said. “Easily the worst man I had ever met.”

“Yes, Pat,” John said. “He wasn’t a talented guy, and he didn’t understand you. You were abused terribly, and when the show was over, you quit acting.”

“Yes,” I said. “I made the worst mistake of my life. But my body couldn’t take it anymore. I hadn’t been eating, and I looked awful. People were making comments about my weight.”

“I blamed it on the pressure that comes with being an actor in New York, but apparently there was a lot more going on.”

I wanted John to change the subject. I didn’t want to talk about acting anymore.

“I think we’ve covered acting, John,” I said. “I’m done talking about it.”

“Okay,” John said. “I have one last question, and then we’ll call it a night.”

“Fine,” I replied. “Please make it quick. I need sleep.”

“Pat, between your time at AMDA and the Terry Schreiber Studio, something important happened to you. Do you remember what it was?” John asked.

I paused for a few moments and thought, I don’t think a single important thing happened during that period.

Then something hit me.

“You mean nine-eleven?” I asked.

“No,” John said. “That was important to everyone on the planet. I’m talking about something that happened to you just after you graduated from AMDA. You met someone, Pat, and you had a very important moment. Do you remember?”

I tried to think of anyone I had met after AMDA, but I couldn’t figure out who he meant. The most important person I had met immediately after graduation was Terry, and we had already talked about him.

“I can’t think of a single person, John,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

There was a pause. I was sure we were not finished for the night because I could still hear murmurs in my ears.

Then John spoke.

“Tomorrow night, you will speak to someone,” John said. “Again, it’s someone you have always wanted to speak with. Pat, this will be the last one of these we do.”

I was too tired to ask who this mystery person was.

“Okay, John,” I said.

“Alright, Pat. Get some sleep,” John said.

Then I heard that sound of a television turning off, and everything went silent. I went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up late. It was the first morning I slept in. My wife had already come back from dropping my daughter off at school.

My wife and I were not in a good place. She was upset that I hadn’t found a job, and she didn’t understand why I had chosen to be alone as much as I had been. We had a fight that morning.

I wish I could have told her everything that was going on with me. At the time, I was convinced she would have me put into a psych ward, and I absolutely would have refused to go.

I believed people would gaslight me if I chose to talk about the voices in my head. I believed the voices were real. I also believed they were going to stop soon and that my family would be rewarded for all the time I had spent being tormented by them.

I believed the voices were the CIA, and I believed I had to play their game for as long as they wanted me to. I also believed they had to be good people, and I believed good people would not let my family get hurt.

During the fight with my wife, I tried to stay quiet. I kept telling her that I didn’t want to fight. I told her I was doing my best, which, at the time, I believed I was.

The fight ended with me going into my meditation room and closing the door.

The fight didn’t stay on my mind long. I was extremely curious about who I would be speaking with that night. John had said it would be the last person I was going to speak with. I knew he wanted me to figure out who it was, but I was stuck. I remembered having a wonderful moment with Frances McDormand while I was in New York, but that happened long after I graduated, and there wasn’t much to tell. It was just a nice moment. Still, she was the only person from around that period who came to mind.

8:30 p.m. came quickly that day. I did look for jobs on my laptop, but my head wasn’t in it. It did, however, make the time pass. At exactly 8:30 p.m., I heard John’s voice.

“Patrick, we have an important night tonight,” John said.

I didn’t think he had called me Patrick at any point during our talks. He didn’t sound like his relaxed self. I don’t know why, but I pictured him dressed up.

“John, I’m not sure who I’m supposed to be talking with tonight,” I said. “The only person I met after AMDA who would fall into the category of someone I would want to talk with is Frances McDormand.”

“Pat, that was a great moment, and you did a good thing with her. But that’s not who you’ll be talking with tonight,” John said.

Then I heard John’s chair being pushed in.

“Pat, I’m going to tell you a story,” he said. “Don’t say anything until I ask you to say something.”

“Okay,” I replied.

“In May of 2001, you graduated from AMDA. You had an agent, and you had moved out of the dorms and into a shitty apartment in Harlem. Sometime late in the month, your agent called and asked you to pick-up your headshots.

“You called the photographer and asked if she had finished them. Her name was Christine. She said they weren’t ready yet, but they would be finished sometime later in the week.

“They weren’t finished until the following week. Christine called you the following Tuesday. She told you they were ready, but she also said she would appreciate it if you came between 2 and 3 p.m. You said, ‘No problem.’

“At that time, you were living with your girlfriend, Teresa. On that Tuesday morning, Teresa picked a fight with you for no clear reason. You wanted to resolve it quickly, the way you always did when there was conflict. Teresa wanted to keep fighting, and she told you she didn’t think your relationship would last much longer.

“You spent the morning and afternoon trying to calm Teresa down. Because of that, you didn’t leave to get your headshots until 3 p.m. So, you were running very late.

“You took a cab over to Christine’s studio and arrived about forty-five minutes behind schedule. You walked up the stairs, and as you entered the studio, you saw someone. Who did you see?” John asked.

“I saw Zara,” I said. (The actress I saw has a different name, but I’m keeping her name out of this writing).

“That’s right, Pat. You saw Zara. When you were a young man, the sun rose and set with Zara. She is a beautiful girl, Pat, but that’s not why you liked her,” John said.

“No,” I said. “I liked Zara because of how she presented herself. She was a young woman with a lot to say. She had a bit of a ‘fuck you’ attitude, but she wore it well. I just connected to her.”

“You called her the most beautiful person in the world,” John said. “You said that whenever she came up in conversation.”

“Yes,” I said, embarrassed.

“So there Zara was, getting changed. You took a quick glimpse and marched over to Christine, who was smiling ear to ear. What did you say to Christine?” John asked.

“I said very quietly, ‘Christine, I can’t meet her. This isn’t the normal celebrity-meeting shit.’ Then I said, ‘You actually found someone.’”

“And what did Christine do?” John asked.

“She kind of ignored me,” I said.

“Pat, she did. She looked at you and said, ‘We have been looking at your headshots, and you look good. Pat, this is Zara.’”

“I fucking remember this now,” I said. “Yes. I was mortified. I looked terrible. I was thin, and I hadn’t taken the time that day to look good because I had been fighting with Teresa all morning.”

“Well, Pat, Zara came over. What did you do?” John asked.

“I looked at the ground for a second and said, ‘Hi, Zara.’ I was hoping I said it in a way that told her I really liked her but couldn’t meet her at that moment.”

“And she looked back at you with the most disgusted expression you had ever seen and said, ‘Hello!’” John said.

“Yeah, she did that,” I said.

“Then you said, ‘Nice to meet you,’ and she looked at Christine, then at you, and with a disgusted look said, ‘Yeah… nice to meet you.’ Then you started to leave. What happened next?” John asked.

“She yelled, ‘No!’ and ran after me. She ended up in front of me as I was trying to leave,” I said.

“What did you say to her when she did that?” John asked.

“I said, ‘You’ll be fine, Zara,’ and then I walked down the stairs.”

“Why did you say that, Pat?” John asked.

“It was instinct,” I replied. “I thought she believed I was a stalker or something. I didn’t understand why she looked so upset with me.”

“Pat, tonight you’re going to talk to Zara. You need to do this, so I’m going to introduce her now. Zara, say hi.”

A woman who sounded just like Zara said, “Hey, Pat.” I knew it wasn’t really her, but I went with it.

We talked for over an hour. We talked about acting, specifically about why I had left. She asked if we could talk about the day at the photographer’s studio, and she made a few jokes about being “the most beautiful person in the world.”

We talked about all of her work, and I told her what I thought of it. It was a beautiful moment for me.

When the conversation was over, John said, “Thank you, Zara. I need him now.”

Zara said, “I would like this to be over for him.”

John said, “Soon.”

Then Zara said, “It’s nice to actually meet you, Pat.”

“You too, Zara,” I said. “Thank you for the talk.”

I was somewhat emotional after my conversation with Zara. There were memories that had somehow been buried, and that talk brought back a moment in my life I had forgotten.

I hadn’t really remembered Zara. I knew there was an actor by that name, but I had forgotten that I had felt anything about her. It was strange to have all those memories of my youth come rushing back.

“We’re not done, Pat,” John said. “That day at the photographer’s studio, after you left, what happened?”

“I hailed a cab. I didn’t want to look for a train station. I just wanted to get home quickly,” I replied.

“Good. Now think. What happened in the cab, Pat?” John asked.

The memory came back easily.

“It was the first time I heard a voice in my head,” I replied.

“That’s right, Pat. And you thought it was God. What did the voice say?” John asked.

“It said, ‘What do you want?’” I said.

“And you didn’t make a big deal out of it, but you did answer. What did you say, Pat?” John asked.

“I said, ‘I just want her safe.’”

“Why did you say that, Pat?” John asked.

“It was instinct, that’s all,” I replied.

“Pat, that day was one of the worst days of your life, but it was also one of the best. There, in an intimate setting, was the one woman you wanted to meet. You were given a warm introduction, and instead of shooting your shot, you decided you hadn’t earned a conversation with Zara.

“You felt as though you had nothing to offer her, and instead of faking it, you chose to politely excuse yourself. That is what a good man does when he’s unprepared for an important encounter. If you had tried to fake it, things would have been worse.

“Patrick, when you look at that whole day, it says everything there is to know about you. That morning, you didn’t want to leave the house until Teresa was happy with you again. You knew you were going to be late, but you put Teresa’s feelings first because she was someone you cared about.

“When you saw Zara, you saw her as the most beautiful person in the world, and you knew you weren’t yourself that day. You couldn’t even offer her a decent conversation because of how you felt about yourself. Still, you did your best to be sweet with her. Even when Zara did something hurtful, you were sweet. Pat, that’s who you are.

“When you were a young man, before going to New York, you were sweet, kind, funny, and charming. But when you came to New York, your body had a bad reaction. You couldn’t eat, and you couldn’t relax. After a while, you started vomiting.

“When that started happening, you changed. You began building defense mechanisms. You didn’t want to be gentle anymore. You thought you looked weak, so you tried to project strength.

“As that happened, you became unhappy. You were driven for a while, and that was what people saw. They thought, ‘He’s a driven, intense guy.’ Little by little, the kind, funny, charming man started to disappear.

“By the time you were a personal trainer, you had become a completely different person. Then came the fighting, and that solidified the tough-guy image you wanted at the time. But the people who knew you knew that wasn’t really you.

“Then there was your sales career, and you wanted to be a high-powered sales guy. You met men like that and said, ‘That’s going to be me.’ But that’s not you, Pat.

“You are the guy in the cab. You are the guy who, even when the worst thing happens to him, finds a way to be a gentleman about it.

“I don’t know who that voice in your head was during that cab ride. My guess is that someone, somewhere, saw that you had just been through one of the worst moments of your life and wanted to offer you something. And I would bet that whoever it was, broke down in tears when you asked for nothing more than Zara’s safety.

“Pat, I am not one hundred percent sure what your future holds. But for it to be meaningful, it needs to be built by the man you really are. I don’t like the Krav Maga sales-guy version of Pat. On another person, maybe I would. But I like the man who talked to those artists and actors about what he loved. That is you, Pat.

“Tonight is our last night together. This will end when you decide to end it.”

“I don’t know how to end it. All I know is that I deserve something for everything I have been through. Things were done here, John,” I said.

“I know, Pat, and you will figure out how to end this.  You will get something out of all of this. It’s a promise. Best of luck.”

I was in tears. The whole evening had been a lot, and I was an emotional mess. All I could say was, “Thanks, John.”

I sat in my meditation chair for hours. I listened to music and tried to fight back tears. I didn’t go to bed until 4 a.m. that night.

The next three months were very hard. My wife wanted me to move out, and I was sleeping on the floor of my meditation room. The voices seemed to be speaking at a much lower volume in my head.

In the evenings, I would hear the voices laughing. I couldn’t tell what they were laughing about. Occasionally, late at night, I would say out loud, “I don’t know how to stop this!”

I started feeling “shocks” in my body. It felt as if someone were shocking me with electricity. It happened all the time, but it was especially prevalent when I tried to sleep.

For three months, I don’t think I slept more than an hour a night.

I had run out of money shortly after my last conversation with John. I couldn’t even afford a haircut, and my beard wasn’t trimmed either. I looked like a homeless man.

My wife wasn’t talking to me much, and she didn’t want me around the children.

My parents had stopped by a few times, but I refused to see them.

So, there I was, sleeping on the floor each night. The voices weren’t speaking anymore; they were just laughing. I was in pain. I was confused. I missed my children, and I felt deep sadness.

It had been two years and nine months of constant torture and torment. I realized in the last few weeks that no one was coming to help me. The voices had done exactly what they said they were going to do: they had tested my faith, and they had broken it.