The Georgie Gust Exhibit

Description: "Many do not realize what you are really feeling from day-to-day," commented one viewer on Facebook. And as another commented, “This is a brilliant video (series). It's like it's controlling your illness. Your fight to stay focused is brilliant; you say you "can't think straight," but it doesn't feel that way watching this now as I am. You are saying you cannot put your thoughts into the sequence you want them to be.” She continues, “ I can feel the need for you to complete this video. It's probably one of your best; it felt very authentic and real.” It's easy to criticize those who suffer from mental illness, and difficult to imagine what those afflicted with it really go through." This video aims to increase understanding and empathy of schizophrenia.

Disability abuse occurs when those with disabilities are abused physically, financially, verbally or mentally due to the person having a disability. As many disabilities are not visible (for example, asthma, learning disabilities) some abusers cannot rationalize the non-physical disability with a need for understanding, support, and so on. Scattered Addition To This Post [Unedited]: Carol M. commented publically below. I feel a response garners an opportune time and as a topic to run with suiting well as my morning writing session, which I have done most days if not every day for 25 some odd years, a great deal of which keeps me going, alive, and thriving the best I am able. I seldom if ever get writer's block but I'd like to reply though tossing and turning in various random directions but within this now-edited addition to the original post regarding the definition of disability abuse. It has taken me over an hour to write and without my editor, and I would endeavor to think my reply might suit to attach to this post. I believe disability abuse runs rampant in al parts of the world. It is a shame, and almost inevitable. In advance, a note that one of my eyes has become blind recently and tardive dyskinesia in my fingers leave me little ability to type or think straight. I apologize for typos. I have recently been copying and pasting archived posts, old and new (book reviews, etc.,) or just keeping my posts short and sweet, as if on Twitter … But, same here. Disability abuse seems impossible to prove. Having schizophrenia and, therefore, delusional thoughts make it impossible for anybody, from doctors, family, to lawyers (those who matter most) to believe our truths. Having schizophrenia, bipolar disorder (schizoaffective), borderline personality disorder, and PTSD primarily makes me unreliable, in many ways, or, at least, seem to. Nobody believes our truths. I detail this in some of my literature but nonetheless, that is the bottom line. I can't say much more due to this being a public page but I believe we are, or rather I'll speak for myself, that I am alone in this disability abuse, a victim of it, by many, if not most in my life here in "real" life. It becomes a never-ending hell if you will. Thank you for writing in recently Carol. To all of you who do so for that matter. I learn so much from you. I see a mirror or reflection of myself, sometimes with or without mental illness necessarily being involved. Universally, I believe we sail the same ship. Mental illness brings our human vulnerabilities, on another level. I'm compelled to mention this month's best-selling book by a landslide, Lover in the Nobody, the psycho-sexual thriller, and though not on Amazon, but in the literary magazines, the standalone novel has been reviewed again, by far my most well-written and praised work or the written word. It was the only novel I had outlined. The rest of the literature I write. I do not usually define the outer edges of my writing prior, as one reviewer of The Brutal Truth noted on February 10th, 2016, that all thoughts remain in print, therefore in his words "dazzling," unique, etc. Wishing more and more of you might read what I write professionally. It is quite difficult to sell the heavy duty literature I tend to write, often challenging reading, confusing and explicitly sexual, but not to promote my writing as much all of which one can be find by a simple Google search, or on http://www.Alibiography.com/After all, as I bring up now and then this page is by its description and intention an author site. It has just turned into something greater, better. At the same ti

The Brutal Truth

Reviewed by Scott Neuffer

February 10, 2016

With electric prose, Harnisch makes a strong case for the rights and dignity of the mentally ill.

No one grasps the human mind quite like indie writer and artist Jonathan Harnisch. In his new collection of essays, The Brutal Truth, he explores the lurid twists and turns of his own schizophrenia. With his trademark dazzling style, he makes a strong case for the rights and dignity of the mentally ill.

Harnisch’s body of work is a vast, evolving oeuvre of self-referentiality. These essays often refer to Harnisch’s semiautobiographical novels and the alter-ego characters from them. They also incorporate his written contributions to an online support community for the mentally ill.

At the heart of the collection lies the question of worth. Harnisch addresses the stigma of mental disorders and how, in particular, the vibrant and mystical experiences of schizophrenics are discounted by society, leading to social alienation and greater fragmentation of the self.

Harnisch is a sum-total writer working in a postmodern vein. Nothing is left out; every thought gets printed. Sometimes this leads to banality. Humdrum platitudes like “Never give up or quit” and “Keep on keeping on” crop up in the essay “If You Are Going through Hell, Keep Going.”

More typically, Harnisch creates lively and propulsive prose through the use of sentence fragments: “I need my life. I crave life. No false hopes. The real deal. Quit. Win. Stay in the now. Stay alive.” His most electric writing mirrors the “flow of realities” in his mind.

While great for fiction, this stream-of-consciousness method can be problematic in standalone essays. In “It’s Coming to Get Me: The Voices of Paranoia,” the author, admitting he hasn’t slept in two days, defends the logic and reality of his paranoid thoughts about others persecuting him: “But we have—in fact—been chosen, you know? People are jealous of us.” The piece ends with almost no contextualization, leaving a difficult moral question: to what extent should the subjective reality of schizophrenics be respected?

Harnisch does a better job assessing this question and of contextualizing his experiences in “When Delusions Are Real: The Schizophrenic Experience.” In this essay, he incorporates psychologist Jean Piaget’s theory of object permanence.

The schizophrenic mind, Harnisch asserts, interacts with the world in heightened, multidimensional, mystical ways. What others may consider trivial facts or details are endowed with great meaning in the minds of schizophrenics. These manifold realities create a self-mythology full of aesthetic and moral significance. They shouldn’t be disregarded any more than a beautiful painting, a complicated novel, or someone’s religious devotions, he argues.

It is this fluxing intersection of art and life that makes The Brutal Truth a fascinating read. Harnisch aims for a greater understanding of mental illness, but he also touches upon the universal—how we all battle for the dignity of our thoughts and beliefs.

-- Foreword Clarion Reviews

BEN SCHREIBER suffers from a range of physical and psychiatric disorders, ranging from Tourette’s syndrome to narcissism, borderline personality, and schizoaffective disorder. He is hospitalized after a drug-crazed attempt at a bank robbery and is now under the care of Dr C, a female psychiatrist. Ben has little faith that psychiatric medicine will help him rid his mind of the delusions and hallucinations that his disorder presents, as it has done little for him thus far. He also knows that Dr C will not be treating him alone: He must introduce her to the cast of characters that share his brain, including Ben’s alter ego, GEORGIE GUST. Ben/Georgie are not classic “split” personalities: Georgie is a hallucination that springs from Ben’s disease and physically shares Ben’s life, making his symptoms even worse. Dr. C begins to suspect that Ben draws upon Georgie to help him avoid the bad memories that he has suppressed for his entire life and that underlie his post-traumatic stress and anxiety. She must try to get Ben to explore his relationship with Georgie, and the sexual fetishes that are triggered by CLAUDIA NESBITT, Georgie’s highly sexual and manipulative girlfriend, so that Ben can become once again the loving person he once was. She encourages Ben to talk about Georgie and Claudia in their sessions, and more importantly, to write about them as therapy. Ben discovers that writing gives him increasing freedom from the obsessive invasion of his thoughts by Georgie and Claudia and from his dreadful past memories that Dr C slowly uncovers. He begins to hope that converting Georgie to a literary character in the pages of an autobiographical novel will slowly remove him, along with Claudia, from Ben’s mind forever.

Just prior to my diagnosis with early onset schizophrenia.

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