I just thought I'd put this out there for anybody who it might help.

Around halloween this year I had a major psychotic episode. Truly terrifying, confusing, frustrating, just a whole ball of my world crashing down on me.

For most of my life I had felt an increasing alienation due to then undiagnosed neurological disorder, which prevented me from a sense of kinship with the rest of the human species. I just quietly stomached the difficulties I faced, assuming that I was somehow just keeping myself deficient and not pushing myself hard enough. I refused to reach out to anybody, and just resigning my life to a quiet solitude of maintaining purely functional relationships with others and doing my best to cope with my poor management of life skills.

The only escape I had was in music. In music there was an opportunity of dialogue in pure creative expression. I would play my guitar for 8 to 9 hours a day, just grinding my fingers into blisters and flagellating myself for every musical misstep I took. It was the only sense of purpose I had, and in times where I lost that spark to keep myself going musically I would fall into really dark holes of self destructive thought and deleterious behaviour.

On the weekend of halloween this year, I had a major psychotic episode. Hallucination, delusion, paranoia, voices, the whole 9 yards. I'm still recuperating, and have finally let go of the fears and stigmas of facing mental health head on to seek treatment for whatever it is I'm going through. One of the biggest inspirations I cling to is knowing what somebody out there, someone I deeply respect who's music has resonated with me more than any other music that that I've experienced, has both fought this battle before and now has a significant place in musical history. More than anyone else, the story of Devin Townsend has helped talk me off of that ledge, helped me quell that element of existential surrender that pushes me to embrace the most ultimate forms of self destruction.

I won't let myself stop perservering. If I stumble I'll queue up Ki, take a deep breath and forgive myself to the best of my capacity. If I can leave a musical legacy half as much as you have it will all have been worth it.

So thank you, Devin.

Glad to hear the Dev helps you through it. I hope you'll get the treatment and help you need, man, stay strong

Thank you for sharing your story.

I hope that you get better soon. Thinking of you.

Well, the way that I view it is it's less about getting better and more about understanding the boundaries of my experience, the limitations that I work within and the strengths that I have and how to create a structural framework within myself to deal with my issues.

I have no doubt in my mind I'll get my shit together and be flying high, I just figured that it's important to put out a constructive narrative for anyone out there that might be in a dark place that even though they might be socially othered and have western culture impose internalized shame about managing their mental health, that they don't have to feel alone about it and that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. If Dev ever gets wind of it great he deserves to feel like he's left a powerful imprint on another human's personal existence since I think that there is a beautiful mythology to his triumphs and struggles; it's entirely epic in the classic sense of the word. If he never does, at least if anything a couple forum dwellers here can at least have something to brighten their day if they're facing their own struggles, regardless of source.