The Georgie Gust Exhibit

Ben Schreiber knew Wakefield Academy would be a disaster before he even arrived. It would be the same as his last school--the taunting, the judgment, the panic at being an all-too-obvious schizophrenic in a crowd of teenage brats hungry for a target. His fears are confirmed the moment he steps out of his parent's rusty car to the mocking sneers of his posh classmates. So what does Ben do? He retreats into himself, allowing the second being within his body to rise to consciousness--Georgie Gust, an angry, resentful, Tourette's-ridden personality, suspicious of everyone and trusting of none. Georgie navigates Wakefield campus within the smog of self-hate. He hates how his body twitches and his words betray him, hates how his odd walk brings cruel laughter, hates the stares that follow him when he tries to disappear. Georgie quickly attracts a crowd of tormenters lead by a cocky lacrosse player, Ozer. It's Claudia, however--Ozer's beautiful and troubled girlfriend--who captures Georgie's attention. Claudia alone does not join in with her friends' jeers, choosing instead to come to Georgie in friendship, her own demons lurking just beneath skin's surface. Though Georgie fights to believe no one can ever understand him, Claudia does. She is there when he drinks himself into a stupor every night and shows up for class hungover; she is there when he is harassed and beaten by their peers; she is there when his academic brilliance begins to gleam, nurtured by the support of the philosophy professor, Heidi. It is for fear of hurting Claudia that Georgie begins to care for himself; he stops drinking, throws out his cigarettes, and devotes himself to the pursuit of a prestigious scholarship. But nothing is ever so easy. As Georgie begins to heal beneath Claudia's warmth, he fails to see her own troubles. For how could someone so beautiful, smart, and well-liked know what suffering is? Surely, her problems run only so deep as her cheating boyfriend and exam stress. It is Heidi, the philosophy professor, who calls Georgie out on his selfishness. On the edge of a cliff, Heidi accuses Georgie of choosing hatred and isolation, of rejecting the love of others because hate is easier than accountability. Georgie both wants to be loved and desperately fears it. Georgie's defenses, while justified, are selfish ones, and they lead him to miss the warning signs in the one person he loves. One morning Claudia is gone, and it is Georgie who finds her broken body twisted in a tree on that same cliff where Heidi scolded him. So selfishly had he thought he was the only one with illness; she had understood him better than he ever knew. Claudia's death both destroys and saves him. It is for her that Georgie chooses to use his illness rather than hate it; for her, that he laughs at his absurdities instead of fall victim to them; for her that he opens his life and ultimately wins the scholarship. In the end, it is what Georgie thought impossible that leads him out of the darkness: acceptance. If only he'd recognized it before she chose to die.

Jonathan Harnisch has proclaimed himself the King of Mental Illness. A schizophrenic with Tourette's, he often feels like a twisted character treading in an otherwise ordinary world. It comes as both a shock and a familiar feeling, then, when he discovers that a friend and fellow author has written him into her book. Seeking to displace the perhaps one-dimensional image created of him, Harnisch sets out to write his own account of the characters that have ruled his life—bare, raw, and endlessly revealing. Glad You're Not Me is a rarely seen, shocking account of living with schizophrenia. Written in chaotic vignettes that resonate to the same frequency as William Burrough's Naked Lunch, the pages leap from bitter honesty to barbed defenses to deeply disturbing pornographic fantasy. Harnisch's disturbed, arrogant, and brutally authentic voice is unapologetic in its obscenities and dangerous desires, for mental illness comes with no filter—it is dark, it is troubling, it leads its audience into confusing places. To censor the words within this book would strip it of its integrity, for the reader must see, however horrible, the truth of illnesses of the mind.

Class Agenda:

• When should someone seek assistance?

• What is a diagnosis?

• When do we diagnose?

• How come Thomas Szasz, (Psychiatrist; 1920-2012) says society creates abnormality?

• (Ironically, while Szasz's political position (that people should not be locked up just for being different) prevailed, many in the psychological and psychiatric professions rejected his theoretical position (that there is no such thing as mental illness). For example, Kety (1974), responding to Szasz's statement that mental illness is a myth, collected all the evidence for genetic influences on schizophrenia. He concluded, "If schizophrenia is a myth, it is a myth with a strong genetic component" (p.961, “The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct,” 1961.)

• What are some of the historical treatments of mental illness?

• Who have been some of the first early names for writing treatments?

Guest Speaker: Jonathan Harnisch, Author of Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography 2014), Second Alibi: The Banality of Life (2014), Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia (2014), and Lover in the Nobody (2014); Film Producer and Screenwriter of On the Bus, all of which are studied in the genre of mental illness and schizophrenia, in particular, based on Harnisch's personal experiences, and also being taught by Dr Edwards, PhD-MBA, at Northwest Missouri State University, in Maryville, MO.

Jonathan Harnisch Literature on Amazon: amazon.com/Jonathan-Harnisch/e/B00K9LI9E4

Northwest Missouri State University is a public institution that was founded in 1905. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 5,542, its setting is rural, and the campus size is 370 acres. It utilizes a trimester-based academic calendar. Northwest Missouri State University's ranking in the 2015 edition of Best Colleges is Regional Universities (Midwest), 80. Its in-state tuition and fees are $8,156 (2014-15); out-of-state tuition and fees are $14,407 (2014-15). (Source: U.S. News & World Report.)

Thank you for taking the time and interest in mental health education and advocacy. More to come; it has been a true pleasure to be a guest with the 2 featured back-to-back classes; the first day of the trimester had not been recorded properly. This recording on January 20, 2015, is the second class day of the trimester; Abnormal Psych. Please spread the word for mental health awareness. Next up will include a Q&A with the author, Jonathan Harnisch, and material on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), definition, symptoms, and so forth.

Thank you,

— Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography

"I use my experiences, good and bad to inspire and I will not stop... This is one sentence in this life story I'm writing and I'm not the editor and there are typos." 

-- Jonathan Harnisch, An Affirmation of Life

MENTAL HEALTH EMAIL FROM MY PERSPECTIVE TO MY COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPIST REGARDING SCHIZOPHRENIA, ETC.: I had fallen asleep by the time I received your text reply. I am not too clear on what I would want to discuss. Indeed the overall lack of control I have over my life/lifestyle, (i.e. my wife, etc.,) over every little thing. Not being allowed to close my blinds when I would like onto dispensing/often incorrectly dispensing what I ingest into my body (i.e. medication, drinks, etc.,). Evidently, complicated matters. Some I might need and some are helpful, perhaps it's my shame, rather my sense of self-worth takes a tumble. Aside from IPT (above) onto medical: My psychiatrist (I do feel I cannot work with her, she is unwilling to talk healing/medicine, just as my wife (and my father) will not discuss finances.) Further, if I had skin cancer on my back for months, I wonder why hasn't it been addressed. Meantime I have been relapsing (worries me) not necessarily just to get control back, but because I'm dispensed approximately two small drinks and then unlimited tap water, and I become thirsty since it is liquids in general not just water as the hospital said which needs restriction. I have been driving out to get energy drinks and sodas, for each early morning. I understand all of this is complicated and can bring me down to thinking my life is one massive delusion. Then I become my literature. Never the less, I have some ideas on Wall Street perhaps. Otherwise, I have been using my funds to promote my Facebook page and purchase for my wife mostly expensive presents, a couple of thousand dollars in the past week alone with budgeted things for me, some not. These are things I like to do. But at least, you have my notes here having thought about it some. Yesterday I indeed blocked my psychiatrist (and my wife) from contacting me (paranoia, control, etc.) Too often I just can't handle the interpersonal conflicts. Other things, too, but I would likely focus on the overall control issue at hand, perhaps it is something deeper going on than what lay on the surface, control. Been doing well since I woke up at midnight, alone, here. I wish it could be that way forever. Maybe we can set up something earlier by phone today, or I can just see you on Tuesday. I am here in general until early afternoon usually. There’s more, my inability to speak sensibly, my bouts of anger, which I try to suppress, even on Facebook, to others and myself defending oneself and not admitting when they might or might not be just wrong. Think everyone is both jealous of me, and need, and want and then take all they can get from me, emotionally and physically, and so forth. Does this help? Want to talk this morning or noon or so, if I can? Thank you.

Inspiration for the Happy Heart | We're in this Together | Reconciliation With My Father And Family | Monday, January 18, 2016, 5:00 AM (MST)

Manifesto on Mental Health (2013) Sequel to Being A Mentally ill Artist (2012) A Portrait of Mentally Ill Artist Jonathan Harnisch in December 2013

Jonathan Harnisch | Saturday, January 23, 2016

A mentally ill man wrestles with his fetishes and inner demons in a novel that goes to extremes. Jonathan Harnisch’s Lover in the Nobody is a cross between intense sadomasochistic erotica and a psychological memoir, complete with graphic torture scenes and a compendium of characters that may or may not inhabit the head of the protagonist. Not for the faint of heart, this is a take on sexual fulfillment and schizophrenia. Georgie Gust has Tourette’s syndrome and dissociative identity disorder, and is in the process of checking himself out of the mental health facility to which he self-committed. The depths of his depravity and the nature of his mental illness are explored through interactions with the three main people in his life—his chauffeur, his friend, and his lover. The line between reality and Georgie’s fantasies is often unclear. Georgie is a fascinating character with a varied and somewhat disturbing inner life. Erotic fetishism and violent fantasies give an odd structure to his random thoughts; the more he focuses on any particular fantasy, the clearer and less random his thinking becomes. When Georgie is with his therapist, his thoughts bounce between people he knows, and then he concludes, “They’re nothing in my world, Dr. C. In my world, they don’t even exist. That’s the beauty of it, you see.” Then, a few random thoughts later, his focus hones in on Dr. C’s breasts and feet, and his thinking becomes more sequential and orderly as he relates his fantasy: “She wants me, wants to seduce me. Tempting me like that. With her tits. Her feet.” The frenzy and disorder in Georgie’s brain are well represented in Harnisch’s writing style. Because the point of view shifts from Georgie to the chauffeur to a somewhat omniscient third-person narrator, with font changes marking interjections, it is sometimes difficult to grab on to what is real. Wobbly perspectives seem to emphasize the mentally unbalanced nature of Georgie’s life and sexual fantasies. The unpredictability and violence of his fantasies also clearly illustrates his continual internal struggles. Sadomasochistic scenes are detailed to the extreme. “I wish I could have the courage to abandon myself from all of my obsessions,” writes Georgie in his diary, very aptly summing up the totality of his experiences. Those who appreciate descriptive fetishistic erotica or have an interest in the motivations of the mentally ill stand to appreciate Georgie’s experiences, whether real or imagined.

-- Foreword Clarion Reviews

The challenge one faces in understanding the nature of cognitive impairments in schizophrenia is that at least on the surface, individuals with this illness appear to have deficits in a diverse array of domains, such as working memory, language function, executive function, episodic memory, processing speed, attention, inhibition and sensory processing.