Later that morning…

Here I am sitting in the cafe. Waiting for breakfast. Just caught up with an old co-worker of my dad’s. I updated him on my life. He said it sounded like things are going well. I had to stop for a moment and think… yeah, actually, he’s right.

It’s hard to dig into the past, especially when you are facing down the ugliest, most horrifying aspects of said past. In the end, I’m glad I did it. I’m glad I finally opened the box. I finally have an answer to the question I’ve been asking myself for years: “What the hell happened to me?”

After my experiment with the mushrooms, I’ve finally found the calm and peace I’ve been striving for for years. I stopped being angry at my family because I finally understood they were brainwashed and hurt too. Those programs destroyed my family. We are not alone.

I still believe there is something dark within in my mother that the program brought out in her. I do not think she will ever believe me or understand what I went through. She carries so much hatred for me. She cannot stand to see me happy or thriving. She cannot apologize. She just yells and screams and destroys what I love so she can maintain some sense of control. I know for certain that I do not want a relationship with this woman. I cannot have her in my life. I cannot forgive her for the things she has said and done. I just need to take space away from her forever.

My dad was easier to forgive because he’s dead. The dead have a different energy. They understand the world in a different way. It’s easier to imagine you’re speaking to a ghost and write out the script you yourself need to hear. Still, I feel that he is with me. I feel that he understands me. I feel the sorrow, the regret, the sadness, the hope that we can still fix something that felt like it could never be fixed. I want to fix that relationship. If I have to write a story about it like I’m Luke Skywalker and he’s Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Force Ghost visiting to give me advice, so be it.

All of this being said, this is all in the past. Well, sort of. The TTI is still active and at large. I have a very real responsibility as a writer and a survivor to share my story with the world, name real names, and reach out to the people who can help stop this force of evil in the world. For the first time in my life, I feel like this is something I can finally achieve.

Any time I tried to talk about it in the past, it would hurt me so much that I turned to drink. I would freeze up as the flashbacks took over my body and my mind. They replayed in my head over and over. I felt those emotions as if I was still back there, trapped in the hospital with no hope and no way out. I wanted to erase the horrible memories forever, but I couldn’t. Not with alcohol. Not with anything.

Instead I learned that the only way out is through. I did the research on the mushrooms, I replicated the experiment in my own house, and I used this magical medicine to break through the cycle of trauma and free myself from the pain and torment I have been enduring for most of my life.

Now, the seasons are changing. Spring is coming. I survived the cold, dark winter. I survived the Troubled Teen Industry. I survived Big Pharma. I survived the harsh conditions of the endless wilderness that is South Dakota. I survived rape, abuse, and torture.

I lived. I died. I was reborn again. And I survived to tell the tale.

I am not alone.

If there are any other survivors out there reading this post right now, you are not alone. You are not alone. There are so many of us. There is power in numbers. We can change this system. We can change the future. We are the only hope for these kids now. We survivors must come together to share our stories.

We will survive! Hey hey!