The Georgie Gust Exhibit

Book Four of the groundbreaking bestseller Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography, The Oxygen Tank, shows Georgie back in his morning routine of breaking coffee cups, falling in the shower, and of course, meeting Claudia for the first time. Georgie's house grows in size and grandeur with every dream. Claudia has an affair with Sir Tony Halldale and is caught by Georgie. Claudia is hit by a car and paralyzed. She then drowns when Georgie takes her boogie boarding on his boat. Georgie tries to kill himself. Ben is realizing that everyone is crazy in some way, not just him.

Book Three of the groundbreaking bestseller Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography, Porcelain Utopia, explores Dr C's interactions with Georgie and Ben. She thinks that dredging up Ben's past will somehow fix his present. Ben describes what went down at the holdup with the cell phone "bomb." He describes being booked into the psychiatric ward. Ben develops a strong obsession with Claudia/Heidi. Ben describes his first sexual encounters at age 10, in the Boy Scout treehouse. Ben describes some of his mother's abuse and neglect of him as a child. Dr C points out that Georgie looks more like Ben's mother than Ben does. Ben is haunted by a demon that resembles his mother. He remembers being sexually assaulted by his mother at age 11.

Book Two of the groundbreaking bestseller Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography, Freak, explores Ben's days at Wakefield. School is too traumatic, so Ben lets Georgie attend and take the abuse. The book explores Georgie's relationship with the original Claudia Nesbitt, the girlfriend of the jock Ozer, who tormented Georgie mercilessly. Claudia befriends Georgie and loves him for who he is. The other good part of Wakefield is Heidi Berillo's philosophy class, in which Georgie excels. Heidi encourages him to write an essay for the prestigious Winterbourne Scholarship. Georgie discovers alcohol and is constantly hung over. He is arrested for drunkenness and bailed out by Heidi, who keeps encouraging him. Georgie wins the Winterbourne prize but loses Claudia to suicide.

A young man battling extreme mental illness brings his sadomasochistic fantasies to life in Harnisch's (Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia, 2014, etc.) latest novel.As this riveting story opens, Georgie Gust, a suicidal Tourette's syndrome patient, tells his doctor he wants to leave the mental institution where he's been committed. When the doctor puts him off, Gust finds himself buffeted by violent fantasies of escape, and he even prepares to hang himself. The novel plunges readers into the mind of a man at war with his own urges, memories, and sexual obsessions. After a scene shift, Gust's chauffeur, Ben, delivers him to his empty home, where Margaret, his only friend, visits to check on him. However, she annoys him because "she seems to care." Later, Gust, a foot fetishist, gives a pedicure to his sexy neighbor, Claudia, in a scene lit with unexpected poetry and poignancy. As the narrative viewpoint flickers among Gust, Ben, and a quasi-omniscient third-person perspective, Gust's voracious appetite for pain prompts him to hire Claudia to torment him. (He has wealthy parents, so he spends cash liberally.) When Claudia's house goes up in flames, she moves in with him, and their sadomasochistic bond descends into extraordinary, hallucinatory violence. In Claudia's hands, Gust discovers new depths of masochism, and she finds joy in tormenting him. Despite the garishness, brutality, and squalor of many passages (which are not for the squeamish), more sophisticated readers will appreciate the extraordinary feat Harnisch has accomplished. He lucidly, poignantly conveys a mind rivenwith what are, after all, human vulnerabilities: mental pathologies, shameful fantasies, anguished doubts about the natures of reality, love, and memory. In the hands of a lesser writer, these themes would splinter the narrative. Fortunately, the author masters his material; readers will believe the voices that vivify it and compassionately wish them to find the healing that eludes them.An extraordinary, harrowing odyssey into an embattled self, full of humor, compassion, and a rare understanding of mental illness.--Kirkuk Reviews

People with depression cannot “snap out of it.” My moods change frequently, and I am currently depressed. There is nothing more depressing than suffering from depression and still feeling sad. So, what's the point? Will it pass? No doubt. I forget what it's like to smile, and I mean for more than a couple hours now; I’m talking about now, not later. I forget what it's like to be a lovely or loving person, or if I ever was such a person at all – one of love, of goodness, of graciousness. I forget how it feels to truly live, much less how to live life to the fullest. I just exist. Right now, I simply exist, with my pulse and my breath and maybe some tears, if I am even able to let them roll a river down my face and flood the seas and the world with them, to get them out. I try to get myself out of this mood. This life. This episode of depression. Sure, I'll return to normal. Sure. Still, I have temporarily lost the point of living a life, pretending to smile or laugh, or getting a joke every darn hour when there are people around me who only want to see me happy. Well, I am not happy, and overall I have not been happy for most of my life. If anything, I glamorize the past, and even the present, sometimes. It'll pass, but that's not the point. The point is how I feel now. The point is right now. 
Yes, I know it will pass. I know people love me, but I do not currently know what that should feel like. I just can’t remember. I feel so lost. Gone. Yet I continue, and therefore I “inspire,” I’m often told, but I am still depressed. I am still in this chair, writing out this rubbish because it gets so overbearing I can't tell you. I'm not alone. I know that, too, but that feels and sounds so contrived and lackluster, uninspiring, to me right now. 
I pretend to be so damn nice and funny and charming for others, just for "them," so I don't lose a Facebook friend or whatnot. Nevertheless, I have zero real-life friends. I’m not sure if I ever have had any. Well, maybe, sort of, but they probably felt sorry for me. Who cares? I don't know. I am not even my own friend. This has been true for most of my life. I got into a good school, which I didn't even belong in. I lived my former Hollywood life, which never did anything for me worthwhile. I exaggerate about how cool that time in my life was, way back, back in the day. Now, I can barely move. I can barely see. I've been here many times, so don't worry about me. Just send a hug, as if I'd ever feel any real hug; virtual hugs are probably better because there is no effort involved. No feeling, and I can just barely feel. 
This is why I write this kind of stuff. “Just keep writing,” says that little voice in my head, “Get it all out, all that you can.” Do it now. Now. Now. Now. Get me out of right now. Remind me of some clever quote or cliché, reminding me how they are just reminders over and over again of how hard it actually is, in this case for anyone, to do, let go, move on, it'll pass, it'll pass, and so forth. 
I pretend to live, pretending to be myself, as if that would ring true. “Oh, that's just your mental illness speaking,” some say. Well, then I guess I am just one full bag of happiness, and I am over it.

Sometimes, I feel that I don’t know what’s going on or that I don’t care about anything. I am confused by my feelings, because I’m not able to explain how I feel, except for the emptiness, and I feel that no one is really there for me, even if they are, or that nobody understands me anymore. It feels like I have nothing to look forward to. I'm a compulsive liar, but I don’t understand why I do it. I create intriguing stories about myself, to the point that I can’t even tell who I really am anymore. I lie to feel better about myself. Maybe, once I realize I'm a spectacular person just the way I am, I will stick with the truth. I also try to respect people, including myself, who maybe don’t deserve it. This does not reflect the other person’s character but reflects mine, and I miss the mark, sometimes, out of frustration, questioning why “it’s always me” who tries to be right. I feel that other people are wrong at times, but at the end of the day, respect is better than lowering myself, even the tiniest bit. I’m better than that.I just woke up from another nap, and I write down my scattered thoughts about emotional pain, while in a state of complete confusion because of the disorder currently in my life. Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most, though it might—just might—return even if only for a second. I believe I have lost the battle with my own mind, but I still carry on feeling completely alone in the enterprise, which is where I want to be. I want to be alone. It is the closest thing I can think of to pressing the pause button on life, especially in the relationships I have with other people. I am a bad person to my wife. My biggest fear has always been that eventually she will see me the way I see myself. I can’t stop thinking that I’m saying good-bye to my own sanity. I believe I have lost this war, perhaps a long time ago. My mind has always been a dark place and not somewhere I would want my worst enemy to be, but despite all of these feelings, I still battle depression and man, am I tired. I want to feel like me again because, for a long time now, I have felt like someone else. The old me disappears as I fall deeper and deeper into oblivion. I need to be alone without any more external drama or chaos. I do not know how to deal with this feeling, except through anger, disdain, or withdrawing completely. When I can, I try to keep up with my art because it has saved me. For my own good and the good of others around me, I believe I need to be alone but not to be lonely, only to find some enjoyment or interests in my free time, which let me be myself. Otherwise, I serve no purpose and certainly no positive purpose. I don't think I was ever meant to be or have ever served any purpose, except to communicate through my art, mainly my writing, to share these feelings for those who cannot. I have nothing else to lose. Sometimes, I feel the stress of everything in the world trying to claw into my mind, all at once and constantly, and I need something to help push me through life. Something like writing, or maybe music, or at times, just sleeping and not participating. I have miserable feelings inside me that I can't seem to control, though sometimes it feels like I can. Continuously, I fail and I hurt people, causing other's anguish, wretchedness, hatred, and more. I feel that I cause the same in myself, and so, I stand back. I no

Paranoia: The word is there, no doubt, in the dictionary.
But not the feeling.
Derived from the ancient Greek, 'paranoia' originally referred to a distracted mind. But distracted from what? The definition claims that the distraction is caused by false beliefs that someone is persecuting us. But if you or I are afflicted with paranoia, we know, wholeheartedly, that these are not delusions. People are harassing and persecuting us.
Who the hell are they? Why the hell are they following us? What the hell do they want?
We have become the target of a vast conspiracy stretching on invisible webs across the surface of the planet. It lives in the telephone wires, the cell towers, the papers, and even online—perhaps even inside the dictionary itself.  It spills out of radios and, these days, my iPod… the damn TV too. It nests in the hearts and minds of my family, friends and loved ones.
And it’s coming to get me.
There might be many reasons why they chose me, and why they chose you. But we have—in fact—been chosen, you know? People are jealous of us. After all, we’re smarter than “they” are. They are after our brilliant knowledge, our money, our ideas, our mind, and all the rest of our stuff. According to the dictionary, many of us paranoiacs have "feelings of grandiosity and omnipotence." But no book really understands, though there are some excellent ones out there, including: Understanding Paranoia: A Guide for Professionals, Families, and Sufferers by Martin Kantor; Delusional Disorder: Paranoia and Related Illnesses by Alistair Munro; and Whispers: The Voices of Paranoia by Ronald Siegel, the first page of which I have paraphrased slightly in this post, adding my own take given my own voices and current experiences with this diabolical perplexity.
You and I really do possess remarkable talents. We are mathematicians—like "the Great John Nash!" Inventors (that would be me). Prophets (you?)… That’s why we are all so attractive and so inspired, so envied. There is nothing in life that we cannot accomplish.
I haven’t slept in two days, and I currently fear a complete psychotic break from reality as a result of my life being its own thriller-movie conspiracy—of which I am, of course, the victim.
This is no freaking joke. At this point I am aware that my beliefs are “only t

Written in the vein of Catcher in the Rye or The World According to Garp, When We Were Invincible is a coming-of-age novella, which details the experiences of outsider Georgie Gust navigating the fictional St. Michael’s Academy, a prestigious East Coast boarding school. Georgie suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome and early onset schizophrenia, which makes his journey all the more poignant.

In addition to When We Were Invincible, I have written several screenplays and the semi-autobiographical novel, Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography. My own diagnosis of Tourette’s Syndrome and other mental illnesses informs my work and helps educate the public on what it is to live with these disabilities.

"Everything is fine externally. This is an internal problem."

— Maureen Cooke-Harnisch

I'm lost. I don't know what to do with my life. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I don't know what I want to see. My world use to be worth living for, and now it's hard enough just to be me.