The Renfield Syndrome by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 23

It had only been a few days when Caspian began to notice what could only be called a ‘perceptual’ change. His mind had become flooded with thoughts of suicide by every method he could imagine—hanging, a razor blade, or a shotgun barrel placed under his chin or in his mouth. He was generally not one to consider such actions, but the images were so powerful that he had become afraid of executing one, and there is no undo button on suicide. Caspian had already read through the list of side effects, but what he was experiencing drove him to read through them again. As it turns out, thoughts of suicide can occur during the early stage of treatment. Had this been an occasional thought or an image flashing through his mind, he could have ignored it, but the experiences he was having were so powerful that he vowed never to take any more of this ‘so-called’ medication. He remembered what Doctor Sinclaire said: that any of these drugs affect people differently as everyone’s brain chemistry is different. But Caspian was determined to find his own course of treatment, even if it meant giving up entirely, thinking that sometimes no treatment is better than loading someone up on potentially dangerous drugs.

Holding the bottle in his hand, Caspian deliberated as to what he would do: should he continue the treatment he had been prescribed by Doctor Sinclaire or throw the pills down the toilet, watching them swirl as they disappeared? In the end, he was forced to ask himself if he trusted not only the drugs used in treatment but the doctors as well. They seemed secretive and had a strong tendency to ask questions but rarely answer them. His decision was clear, and unscrewing the bottle, Caspian tipped the bottom up and, pouring the small white pills into the water, pushed down the lever on the side of the toilet's porcelain tank. Watching the water spin, Caspian stood confident that he had made the right decision, believing that, considering what these drugs were capable of, they were nothing more than poison. They may alter the mind in a positive way, but the risk of negative effects was one he was unwilling to take. But what would Reuben say? He and Dorothy had always had so much concern for his well-being, and it would likely be easy for him to notice that something was off.

Two days later not only were the whispers back, but they had returned with words. Caspian began to wonder if he had made a mistake, that by having disposed of the medication, he had begun a chain of events that led to both withdrawal and a magnified recurrence of his illness. He decided to ease his mind by walking the trails behind the house. Being among the trees, feeling the breeze on his face, had a healing effect on him. It gave him a bit of comfort with the hope that he would not become lost in whatever it was that seemed to be taking over his life. Without the medication, life seemed to become chaotic. Caspian began experiencing conflicting emotions. He would cry one moment and be relaxed the next, as if he were drifting across the tops of the clouds. The only understanding he had was that it was part of the process of recovery and that he had to wait for it to complete itself. He was wrong.