finished p5r a few days ago ruined my life fr 😿

January

I’m not sure how it happened, but it happened again. Once I lose control over it, it’s game over for me. It’s a scary feeling to be out of touch with reality, when my mind takes full control of what I’m doing – sure, that’s what a mind is for, but unlike other people, those are the demons that take over control.

Moving to Helsinki was supposed to be a new beginning for me. I was happy Joone trusted me enough to give me the opportunity to live with him in the city, otherwise I would be living in the streets of New York by now. I was going to share an apartment with him but only under a few conditions:  first one; to quit heroin and cocaine, and slow down on the alcohol. Second; to behave properly, which only works for me if I follow anger management classes again and see a therapist. I was going to start at my new job on January 15, a software engineering job – it was a big opportunity for me to get my life back again. Make money and save money to move back to New York. The first week in Finland was terrible, a living nightmare, truly. I was withdrawing from heroin and cocaine – I was sweating, feeling paranoid, behaving very aggressive towards people around me. I could easily smack someone. I have never seen Joone that moody before, I could see at his face that he was done with me. And he’s always the happy, fun guy who wants to keep things positive all the time. He ordered a seat on the other side of the plane because I ‘embarrassed’ him. When we landed in Helsinki, we had to meet the Airloft staff for an explanation. Great. That was just our flight journey, but it continued to be like that for the rest of the week at least.

I didn’t have any drugs, and I had to wait for my antipsychotics to come overseas, which was due to the end of the month. I felt really scared when I was sober, I was on the edge of losing myself. I knew it was coming, I could feel it. Anything could trigger it. But I tried to stay strong, and sometimes when I felt really messed up I just drank a bottle of vodka which helped me go through the day. Joone was not happy with it, clearly, while he was busy making plans to renovate and design the house. I just couldn’t be there where his mind was at that point.  I became an insomniac;  I couldn’t sleep without medication or drugs, I hardly slept 2-3 hours on a night and because of that I became delusional. I had dreams about my childhood with my father back in Finland. What he did to me and to my mother, the smells of rotten flesh, the tracks of blood on the walls – and even when I woke up in bed, I saw my father bending over me wanting to strangle me with his bare hands,  and it made me panic, and felt like I was suffocating. But it was only a delusion, I realized everytime Joone ran up to me to help me. Joone was very concerned, while he had a busy job himself he couldn’t fully focus on because of the care he had of me. And it made me feel bad, like the fucking bug I am, the stress I cause for the people around me that love me. So, what I do is detach myself from those people by isolating myself or walking away from home – I don’t like the feeling of bothering people with my crazy mind all the time;  enough is enough. I needed a break from my people, but the dangerous thing about is that I have time alone for myself, and just in those times when I feel like I’m on the edge of something scary, it can be seriously triggering. 

Moving to Finland reminds me of all of the things that went wrong in my life. This is the land where I was born, where the misery started right away. I was born in the wrong family. My mother was a sweetheart, but my father’s negativity ruled my life;  no one or nothing could beat his negativity – negativity in a sense that was not just emotional and physical abuse,  he made me feel very frightened about life on a very young age. He made me believe in Devils, witches, he showed me what murder is like (he has some blood on his hands), he showed me what happens to a human and animal corpses once it dies. He literally, showed me, in front of his eyes. In Satanic ritual nights, we went into the woods, with other members of the Satanist community including family members. I was about 4 years old when I saw my father stick a sword in a goat’s heart, with a big smile on his face, to sacrifice the goat by burning it to ashes. Everybody was clapping and yelling. I remember I was crying and I wanted to escape and go back home but my father busted me, got insanely furious, tied me up to a tree and left me there during the whole night on my own in the woods. There were fucking bears there. Lucky for me it was around May, so the temperature wasn’t that cold anymore. But traumas like these will stick with me for the rest of my life.  The way he behaved at home was insane, my father is a true lunatic. Very paranoid, schizophrenic, but more than all, the Devil himself; and he believes to be;  he is a Satanist, and as a Satanist you have to believe to be your own ‘God’,  and that’s the motto he lives by. He could do anything to me and my mother. He had no boundaries. He would abuse me in front of my mother’s eyes until the point I blacked out, when all I remember was how I heard my mother hysterically crying and screaming, and my father hysterically laughing like some psychopath. After several smacks I wasn’t even conscious anymore. But it happened every week.  I remember the sleepless nights I had as a child, when my father would sneak up to my room and tell me one of his ghost/witch stories, right after that he wanted to touch me. And he didn’t want me to scream for my mother, so he pushed a pillow on my head and nearly suffocated me, while he was doing all kinds of things. And I remember all the restlessness I experienced as a child. Everything was so terrifying.  I never knew the feeling of safety, it wasn’t there;  my mother could give me it to me for just a moment,  until my father disturbed it once again.  And these are just a few memories, but I could write a book full of them.

I struggle with not just schizophrenia, but very intense PTSD, and ever since I came back to Finland, I constantly see flashbacks from my past. Just split moments of those traumas, but the most horrifying images flash before my eyes. In combination with schizophrenia, it can make me very delusional. Just about the moment I mentioned earlier, how I saw and felt my father strangling me when I woke up from nightmares. 

   Just one night, I remember walking out the door, without telling Joone, without telling anybody, knowing it wasn’t a very good idea, but somehow I felt like I needed it, like some kind of trance I ended up in. I sat on the stairs of the city centre in Helsinki – it was snowing – I was cold and alone, smoking cigarette after cigarette. My first day at work was the day after tomorrow. I remember thinking, ‘now this is a realistic thought I’m having’. But that thought quickly faded away. I don’t know, I just couldn’t live in reality anymore, it took me too much effort to keep pushing myself back in reality, because I felt my mind constantly wandering off. Thinking about my past; the urge and desire I have to kill my father; how sorry I feel for my mother all the time;  how I became the mentally fucked up person I am today;  how I fuck shit up, how I blame all the misery on my father;  my drug habit I’ve been dealing with since age 16. All of that… it doesn’t go away. I need to accept the loop I’m living in.    And sometimes I can not believe I am alive. Barely alive. Physically, well, I’m physically strong. But mentally… Mentally I am so damaged… That I doubt if things will ever be OK with me. I was lost in thoughts.

Then, suddenly,  I saw a woman with a child walking by. The child was about the age of 10, I believe. However, it took all of my focus and made all of my thoughts go away.  They were walking in the snow, the child was laughing- they were clearly happy. I stood up from the stairs and followed them.  I believe that was the point where the psychosis was triggered. I followed them and yelled, “Keila!”;  it seemed to feel so right to me. That was my daughter walking there. I ran up to them and I saw the mother protecting her child as she yelled at me. She yelled “Apua!”, means ‘help’ in Finnish. I told her that that child is my daughter. I was very confused but I knew I was right, I was completely convinced, but why is Keila with that woman?  It made me frustrated. The woman became aggressive towards me and started to push me away. I wanted to take Keila with me, but she started crying. Later on, I realized there were some people watching the situation. It made me uncomfortable. I looked at Keila, and my mind went empty. The mother yelled at me all kinds of things like ‘pedophile’ and ‘creep’. I wanted to say a lot of things but no words came out. She yelled at me that she was going to call the police and that’s the moment when I took off.  I ran away. I kept running for about 10 minutes. I stopped to smoke a cigarette, somewhere in an alley. I started to experience the world around me somewhat foggy and blurry, and I remember I was detaching from reality. Yes, I heard a voice inside my head that made everything worse, whispering to me that I am a creep, and it is my fault Keila is dead now. This certain voice I hear, is very important to me, because he speaks the truth and all of my deepest insecurities. When he comes it’s panic time. I saw people walking by but I knew they weren’t real. The cars passing by, they weren’t real. And I looked to the sky and I felt so alone, and scared. Like the child I was back in the woods, left alone tied up to a tree. Abandoned. Frightened. And I remembered Keila in my mind, the sweet child I lost. I finally came to the realization how much I miss her. All the time in New York I was doing drugs to forget about her. Not just my past, most of the time it was her.. The memory I was pushing away. I figured I never really talked about her death with friends because what happened to her is probably the worst traumatic experience I have dealt with in my life. My father ended her in the most cruel way, like he’s been doing to a lot of people and gets away with it every time. And my father, he’s highly intelligent but it makes him behave like a fuck ass, but he is smart enough to hide from the police. From that point on,  I couldn’t think about anything else but Keila.  She is there, buried, in the woods where my father lives, my father knows where she is and I want to be the one to bury her, and say goodbye one last time.  But unfortunately, my father lives in Lapland, which is about 800 kilometres away from Helsinki. But I was in complete trance and I probably seemed very disorganized and disturbed to the people around me, but I had to go to Kuusamo by train. Kuusamo, the little Santa Claus town. It’s beautiful there, but there’s a lot of dark energy going on.  The demon inside my head encouraged the plan to find Keila’s body. “Do it”, it says repeatedly.  Since that moment when I took the train, everything became to blurry to go in detail about this journey. I remember I was sitting in the train and felt all eyes looking at me, I probably have been talking to a wall or something, I acted very discomforting. I knew I was in a train but I was seeing and hearing all kinds of things that made me freak out. It was very bad. Everything was too vaguely to put into words. I do remember how things went completely confusing when two police women came up to me to talk. First thing I did was telling them that I never killed anybody, I wasn’t the guy they were looking for. I thought they wanted to arrest me for homicide. I’m still paranoid about everything that happened in the past, the blood on my hands that still smell so fresh to me. They took me with them out of the train into their car and I thought they were going to murder me, I thought those were two people dressed up as police women, they are spies from Russia. Oh, I was convinced. I started to panic and freak out and that’s when things esqualated like crazy. I’ve been put down on the floor and put in a cell for the night.   Next morning, Joone came to visit me. He was very angry but very concerned about me and wondered what the Hell I’ve been up to. I never told him what I was up to. I was still very insane and everything and my speech was completely disorganized; I couldn’t really speak properly because my brain was bouncing around with thoughts. That always happens when I have a psychosis. I could hardly follow him but he thought it’s for the best to put me in a psychiatric hospital for the upcoming weeks, to shake the disease off, and until I get my medication from overseas. I agreed. He called me crazy for wanting to dig up Keila who’s been laying underneath the dirt for 4 years already. Maybe it is crazy but not for me in that moment.

The same day I went to the psychiatric hospital where I had a meeting with the chief. It was a terrible meeting because I couldn’t function properly.  The world to me still felt like it was fake and I was still very focused on my journey to find Keila. Luckily, Joone was there next to me, and he told the chief about me, my health, my background.  Next thing I knew I was placed in the public department. I still had no idea what was going on. I knew I had a lot of therapy sessions the first three days in the hospital. I was really numb, so I could get anything off my chest and it made it all sound so shallow.  They gave me medication that just made my symptoms get even worse, but it gave my emotion back, which is not always a good thing. When I gain emotion back, I mostly get really frustrated and aggressive about everything.  I can’t really say I’m a happy person, I don’t act like it. I see the world in black and white.

It was probably the 5th or 6th day in the hospital. I have a personal nurse, she’s really tough to me. I don’t know what happened in my mind, but I became very delusional and my mind made me believe that she was Keila’s mother. The girl I made pregnant when I was 17 on a vacation in Finland. And fuck, it made me angry. The nurse was talking to me about my medication but I didn’t believe her for shits. She wanted to poison me. It was Keila’s mother in disguise. I had to end her. I jumped up on her and put my hands around her neck, I wanted to strangle her. I yelled at her where Keila is, because I somehow believe she is still somewhere. I attacked her and I really felt so much adrenalin that I really wanted to finish her. But of course, there are cameras, guards everywhere around the place. The guards came to shake me off of her, they were pushing me on the ground, and I remember how I went totally crazy. I was so angry I didn’t kill her. She knew about Keila all along, and now she was trying to poison me with her medication that only made me feel worse.  The guards bruised me, handcuffed me and dragged me to a different place of the building.  Sometimes, in moments like this,  my life is just like a movie. It’s a crazy thing but it just happens. I was put in an isolation cell. I had to stay in there until I calm down. But I have been here before, I know exactly what it is like to be in an isolation cell. It takes me back to the time when I was a kid living in a psychiatric institute in Russia, where I lived for a year in an isolation cell because, same thing; I was really aggressive.  

My psychiatrist here, Kallio, she is a good person. She is about 60 years old and she’s really fun. She makes me feel calm. I was beeped up to come for a therapy session around 2 o’clock.  I walked in her office and the first thing she said to me, “Oh honey, you look terrible”.  I just like it when people are straight up honest. “I am terrible”, I answered. She shook her head and smiled at me, asked me to sit down on the chair next to her. We had a good conversation and she asked me about the situation that happened earlier,  “a little dramatic of you, don’t you think?” Yes, I suppose. But I didn’t answer. She wanted to clear something up by mentioning the following symptoms; that she had seen my struggling with mood swings, how I could be easy and calm and next I turn into some kind of beast. The fact I can’t be cool around fellow patients in the public department because they made me aggressive very quickly. She mentioned my criminal background, how I still want to work illegally, and because I like the thrill of it- the fact that I still want to meet my father to kill him, it gives me the thrill of life. I always want to do something stupid; live my life on the edge. And my dramatic activity around here. She summed up to me and asked, “Has any doctor or psychiatrist in your life ever mentioned borderline personality disorder to you?”.  Well, it made me laugh really hard. “I don’t want another label sticking on me for the rest of my life, Kallio. I have enough shit going on. What you call ‘borderline’ are to me just personality traits. I can be very expressive, that’s it.”  And she gives me the ‘psychiatrist-stare’.  I confessed, “OK, yes, they mentioned it earlier in my life. That I have borderline personality disorder, but that was a long time ago. I was probably 15 or something”. She nodded. But I looked at her suspiciously, and said “But I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I don’t want medication for it, I don’t want to label myself as a borderline person. I don’t want to be a person with paranoid schizophrenia AND borderline, you know how crazy that sounds?”.  It made her laugh, she told me I’m not crazy. She promised me to leave it by the labels I know for now. 

The next day.  The nurse that I strangled was absent. She didn’t want to finish the treatment with me. Obviously. So I got a male nurse. Every morning they give me my medication but the voice in my head keeps convincing me that it’s the poison that is slowly trying to kill me. In the end, I take the medication but it takes a lot of time and effort for the nurses. I hated the medication they give to me. Back in New York, I had amazing stuff.  It made me feel awake, and all the voices, the hallucinations and delusions were muted, not entirely, but for a greater part, yes, definitely. I told the nurse I’m waiting for better medication to arrive from the United States, which made me become very political and I told them in English, with my perfect New York accent, that Finland is a shot hole. That Finland is not important to anybody, and that everyone here are freaks; and I’m not talking about the people in the psychiatric hospitals, I’m talking about all population of Finnish people. I told them I was glad I was only 50% Finnish, and the rest English-  which made me brag in a Sheffield account. I went kind of crazy again, very frustrated with everything. So I was sent back to Kallio’s office for another session. Right after that I became more calm again.

The next day.  Joone came to visit me. He also told me I looked terrible. But he had a surprise for me, and he showed me my medication which arrived from overseas. It put a smile on my face and made me want to hug him. I felt much more comfort now I have those pills.  I had to wait for my psychiatrist approval of the drugs, since it’s from America where any pills are stronger. But Kallio knew that the pills from Finland didn’t make me feel any better.  Luckily, they were approved and I could start the next day with my new medication to see if things are going better for me. The next couple of days went so much better for me.  I was placed back into the public department and I actually made a few friends, too. Kallio said I could celebrate my birthday at home, which was due on a Friday (perfect), but I had to be back the next day around 5 pm.

Friday, I woke up feeling great. I love my freedom and to have my freedom on my birthday is the best I could wish for. Joone picked me up with his car, and we drove to the south of the country. Back to Helsinki.  I know I felt tired at the moment, just exhausted from the whole situation. Joone was talking about what to do with my birthday, who to invite, where to go, this and that. But I wasn’t that much of energy yet, even though I was excited. I don’t know, I just went really quiet after everything that has happened.  Once we arrived at our new apartment,  I saw how much effort Joone put in making the place look nice. Just lovely. He’s such a hard worker. I’m not a man of compliments, but you can sense it when I appreciate something. Joone and I decided to go out for dinner and party later at Tavastia, which is a rock club in Helsinki. It’s a good place.  Joone was like, “you’re not going to drink much tonight, right? Since you’re on medication”. Well, once I drink, I’m gonna drink until I pass out. He was constantly saying it and I said “no, I’ll be careful”. But inside I was laughing. Of course I’m gonna drink. I’m 33 now, feel old as balls, I want to feel 23 again.  We beeped up some of our friends, we don’t have many friends here yet, because we just moved here,  but some old friends from pastimes were invited for my birthday mesh. I think we had dinner with 9 of us, which started around 6 until 8.  Well, I couldn’t behave, I drank like there was no tomorrow. I think I had about 3 red wine, later on I went crazy on the vodka again. I just love vodka, it’s so good here in Finland. I was extremely tipsy, but so was Joone. I talked to him in the bathroom of the restaurant. “I’m drunk as shits, man”, while slurring my words. He was all happy like, “me too!”. I asked him if he cares about the fact I’m this drunk already and it will definitely get even worse tonight. He answered, “I don’t care. It’s your birthday. If you want to fuck yourself up, just do it. It’s your birthday. We’re gonna get shit faced anyway so I kind of expected it”.  It made me feel so thankful for having that guy in my life. He’s all concerned and tough on me sometimes, but other times he doesn’t even care anymore and he still gives me the freedom to do whatever I want. He’s not going to boss around. I think I told him I love you or something.

We went back to pay and unto the next venue;  Tavastia. Dark nightclub/bar sort of thing. Nothing can beat New York bars but as long as there’s booze, I’m not complaining. Joone and I made a deal how we’re both gonna get laid tonight and make it rough. Joone can easily get anybody, but quite frankly, we’re not in a gay bar this time so it’s gonna be 50/50 who’s gonna get the chicks.  I’m a playful flirt, but I can’t be too drunk because it makes me really sloppy and it makes me want to skip the flirting part and go right over to the sexual part. I sometimes need to remind myself to be careful with girls. Women. Chicks.  Especially when I’m drunk. We were with 6 people hanging at the bar, Joone and I, Joone’s sister; Eeva (she’s badass), Valtteri, Matleena and Seepo, people we met earlier while going out in Helsinki. Cool people.  First hour Joone became friends with tons of girls,  as if he has some chickmagnet in the inside of his coat. Think they were probably talking about fashion or that kind of stuff. But good for me. Thank you, Joone.  The girls weren’t making much contact with me but I didn’t really fancy them much either. Then after a shot tequila, Joone was all starting to promote me “This guy here, has been a model in New York, and he’s half British!”   It’s kind of embarrassing to me, I don’t find it flattering at all. All I could think was ‘Joone stop it, I’m gonna tell them myself once I get the chance’.  It is crazy how these girls started to hang around me immediately. I thought it was stupid. Just because I’ve been modeling in New York, I’m half British, you want to fuck me?   That is so fucking cheap. Cheap, cheap, cheap. So I ordered vodka at the bar and went outside for a smoke.  Cheap bitches. I became a little frustrated but I had to control myself. Nobody talk to me. Then Matleena came outside with some guy she probably met here. Laughing. She was really shit faced, I could see. She was like “Hi Aleksander! Meet Matti!”  This and that.  They smoked with me, but the dude went to the bathroom inside.  I asked Matleena, “do you think bitches only love me because I’ve been a New York model and because I’m half British?” She started laughing. “Who convinced you that?”.  “Some girls Joone is hanging with at the bar.”  “No, the right bitch loves you for the intelligent person that you are”, she said. Now, that’s flattering. I gave her a hug. I wanted to kiss her but I didn’t.  Matleena, she’s alright. She’s so friendly and sweet.  So we went back to the group and at the end of the hall I saw Joone sitting on the bar drinking even more shots.  I knew that I probably have to drag him home again, just like last time we went out, I literally dragged him home in the snow. Next time he’s gonna pay me for it.  I saw Joone was hanging with a Latino guy, and I was all like “Who’s that?” and he says he’s Juan from Venezuela, this and that, he’s gonna do him, blah blah. Now Joone has scored, I need to score as well.  Maybe a couple of shots will do the trick.  I went off alone and started hanging in the front hall with some girls. I pretended to be American, and they were all falling for it. I just needed to fuck someone, cheap or not.   I saw Valtteri walking towards the men’s bathroom and he was all like, ‘follow me’. So I did. And he took me into the corner of the bathroom and offered me some coke. Fuck yes, that’s what I need. We went snorting like beasts and he said “I’ll catch you later”. I went back to the front hall to my girls. They were so drunk. We started talking some more. They were all starting to get clingy, especially this girl from Sweden. She was really into me. She was touching me and hugging me, and I slowly felt the cocaine rush coming. I just didn’t care anymore. We made out. I just didn’t care anymore, I dragged her to the men’s bathroom. Men were watching but they were all encouraging and supportive to our sexual act.  We made it a quicky, but it was allllllright.

The rest of the night was a total blur to me. I continued to drink. Joone passed out for half an hour at least, he was backstage. I just laughed at him. All I can remember is that we had a good time. It’s fun to go out every now and then.  I remember vaguely walking home from the club to our apartment. It was snowing like crazy.  It was just me and Matleena, Joone and Juan. I have lost the rest of the group but I didn’t care. I think Joone tripped about 70 times on our way home because he was blinded by the snow. He fell on the hood of a random car parking in the streetway. Totally messed up.  It was 6 in the morning and I invited Matleena in my bed. We were doing alright there. Next morning we woke up, feeling completely buzzed but a night like this is worth it all.

  January was crazy. Literally, crazy.

JANUARY

I’m not sure how it happened, but it happened again. Once I lose control over it, it’s game over for me. It’s a scary feeling to be out of touch with reality, when my mind takes full control of what I’m doing – sure, that’s what a mind is for, but unlike other people, those are the demons that take over control.

Moving to Helsinki was supposed to be a new beginning for me. I was happy Joone trusted me enough to give me the opportunity to live with him in the city, otherwise I would be living in the streets of New York by now. I was going to share an apartment with him but only under a few conditions:  first one; to quit heroin and cocaine, and slow down on the alcohol. Second; to behave properly, which only works for me if I follow anger management classes again and see a therapist. I was going to start at my new job on January 15, a software engineering job – it was a big opportunity for me to get my life back again. Make money and save money to move back to New York. The first week in Finland was terrible, a living nightmare, truly. I was withdrawing from heroin and cocaine – I was sweating, feeling paranoid, behaving very aggressive towards people around me. I could easily smack someone. I have never seen Joone that moody before, I could see at his face that he was done with me. And he’s always the happy, fun guy who wants to keep things positive all the time. He ordered a seat on the other side of the plane because I ‘embarrassed’ him. When we landed in Helsinki, we had to meet the Airloft staff for an explanation. Great. That was just our flight journey, but it continued to be like that for the rest of the week at least.

I didn’t have any drugs, and I had to wait for my antipsychotics to come overseas, which was due to the end of the month. I felt really scared when I was sober, I was on the edge of losing myself. I knew it was coming, I could feel it. Anything could trigger it. But I tried to stay strong, and sometimes when I felt really messed up I just drank a bottle of vodka which helped me go through the day. Joone was not happy with it, clearly, while he was busy making plans to renovate and design the house. I just couldn’t be there where his mind was at that point.  I became an insomniac;  I couldn’t sleep without medication or drugs, I hardly slept 2-3 hours on a night and because of that I became delusional. I had dreams about my childhood with my father back in Finland. What he did to me and to my mother, the smells of rotten flesh, the tracks of blood on the walls – and even when I woke up in bed, I saw my father bending over me wanting to strangle me with his bare hands,  and it made me panic, and felt like I was suffocating. But it was only a delusion, I realized everytime Joone ran up to me to help me. Joone was very concerned, while he had a busy job himself he couldn’t fully focus on because of the care he had of me. And it made me feel bad, like the fucking bug I am, the stress I cause for the people around me that love me. So, what I do is detach myself from those people by isolating myself or walking away from home – I don’t like the feeling of bothering people with my crazy mind all the time;  enough is enough. I needed a break from my people, but the dangerous thing about is that I have time alone for myself, and just in those times when I feel like I’m on the edge of something scary, it can be seriously triggering.  

Moving to Finland reminds me of all of the things that went wrong in my life. This is the land where I was born, where the misery started right away. I was born in the wrong family. My mother was a sweetheart, but my father’s negativity ruled my life;  no one or nothing could beat his negativity – negativity in a sense that was not just emotional and physical abuse,  he made me feel very frightened about life on a very young age. He made me believe in Devils, witches, he showed me what murder is like (he has some blood on his hands), he showed me what happens to a human and animal corpses once it dies. He literally, showed me, in front of his eyes. In Satanic ritual nights, we went into the woods, with other members of the Satanist community including family members. I was about 4 years old when I saw my father stick a sword in a goat’s heart, with a big smile on his face, to sacrifice the goat by burning it to ashes. Everybody was clapping and yelling. I remember I was crying and I wanted to escape and go back home but my father busted me, got insanely furious, tied me up to a tree and left me there during the whole night on my own in the woods. There were fucking bears there. Lucky for me it was around May, so the temperature wasn’t that cold anymore. But traumas like these will stick with me for the rest of my life.  The way he behaved at home was insane, my father is a true lunatic. Very paranoid, schizophrenic, but more than all, the Devil himself; and he believes to be;  he is a Satanist, and as a Satanist you have to believe to be your own ‘God’,  and that’s the motto he lives by. He could do anything to me and my mother. He had no boundaries. He would abuse me in front of my mother’s eyes until the point I blacked out, when all I remember was how I heard my mother hysterically crying and screaming, and my father hysterically laughing like some psychopath. After several smacks I wasn’t even conscious anymore. But it happened every week.  I remember the sleepless nights I had as a child, when my father would sneak up to my room and tell me one of his ghost/witch stories, right after that he wanted to touch me. And he didn’t want me to scream for my mother, so he pushed a pillow on my head and nearly suffocated me, while he was doing all kinds of things. And I remember all the restlessness I experienced as a child. Everything was so terrifying.  I never knew the feeling of safety, it wasn’t there;  my mother could give me it to me for just a moment,  until my father disturbed it once again.  And these are just a few memories, but I could write a book full of them.

I struggle with not just schizophrenia, but very intense PTSD, and ever since I came back to Finland, I constantly see flashbacks from my past. Just split moments of those traumas, but the most horrifying images flash before my eyes. In combination with schizophrenia, it can make me very delusional. Just about the moment I mentioned earlier, how I saw and felt my father strangling me when I woke up from nightmares.  

Just one night, I remember walking out the door, without telling Joone, without telling anybody, knowing it wasn’t a very good idea, but somehow I felt like I needed it, like some kind of trance I ended up in. I sat on the stairs of the city centre in Helsinki – it was snowing – I was cold and alone, smoking cigarette after cigarette. My first day at work was the day after tomorrow. I remember thinking, ‘now this is a realistic thought I’m having’. But that thought quickly faded away. I don’t know, I just couldn’t live in reality anymore, it took me too much effort to keep pushing myself back in reality, because I felt my mind constantly wandering off. Thinking about my past; the urge and desire I have to kill my father; how sorry I feel for my mother all the time;  how I became the mentally fucked up person I am today;  how I fuck shit up, how I blame all the misery on my father;  my drug habit I’ve been dealing with since age 16. All of that… it doesn’t go away. I need to accept the loop I’m living in.    And sometimes I can not believe I am alive. Barely alive. Physically, well, I’m physically strong. But mentally… Mentally I am so damaged… That I doubt if things will ever be OK with me. I was lost in thoughts.

Then, suddenly,  I saw a woman with a child walking by. The child was about the age of 10, I believe. However, it took all of my focus and made all of my thoughts go away.  They were walking in the snow, the child was laughing- they were clearly happy. I stood up from the stairs and followed them.  I believe that was the point where the psychosis was triggered. I followed them and yelled, “Keila!”;  it seemed to feel so right to me. That was my daughter walking there. I ran up to them and I saw the mother protecting her child as she yelled at me. She yelled “Apua!”, means ‘help’ in Finnish. I told her that that child is my daughter. I was very confused but I knew I was right, I was completely convinced, but why is Keila with that woman?  It made me frustrated. The woman became aggressive towards me and started to push me away. I wanted to take Keila with me, but she started crying. Later on, I realized there were some people watching the situation. It made me uncomfortable. I looked at Keila, and my mind went empty. The mother yelled at me all kinds of things like ‘pedophile’ and ‘creep’. I wanted to say a lot of things but no words came out. She yelled at me that she was going to call the police and that’s the moment when I took off.  I ran away. I kept running for about 10 minutes. I stopped to smoke a cigarette, somewhere in an alley. I started to experience the world around me somewhat foggy and blurry, and I remember I was detaching from reality. Yes, I heard a voice inside my head that made everything worse, whispering to me that I am a creep, and it is my fault Keila is dead now. This certain voice I hear, is very important to me, because he speaks the truth and all of my deepest insecurities. When he comes it’s panic time. I saw people walking by but I knew they weren’t real. The cars passing by, they weren’t real. And I looked to the sky and I felt so alone, and scared. Like the child I was back in the woods, left alone tied up to a tree. Abandoned. Frightened. And I remembered Keila in my mind, the sweet child I lost. I finally came to the realization how much I miss her. All the time in New York I was doing drugs to forget about her. Not just my past, most of the time it was her.. The memory I was pushing away. I figured I never really talked about her death with friends because what happened to her is probably the worst traumatic experience I have dealt with in my life. My father ended her in the most cruel way, like he’s been doing to a lot of people and gets away with it every time. And my father, he’s highly intelligent but it makes him behave like a fuck ass, but he is smart enough to hide from the police. From that point on,  I couldn’t think about anything else but Keila.  She is there, buried, in the woods where my father lives, my father knows where she is and I want to be the one to bury her, and say goodbye one last time.  But unfortunately, my father lives in Lapland, which is about 800 kilometres away from Helsinki. But I was in complete trance and I probably seemed very disorganized and disturbed to the people around me, but I had to go to Kuusamo by train. Kuusamo, the little Santa Claus town. It’s beautiful there, but there’s a lot of dark energy going on.  The demon inside my head encouraged the plan to find Keila’s body. “Do it”, it says repeatedly.  Since that moment when I took the train, everything became to blurry to go in detail about this journey. I remember I was sitting in the train and felt all eyes looking at me, I probably have been talking to a wall or something, I acted very discomforting. I knew I was in a train but I was seeing and hearing all kinds of things that made me freak out. It was very bad. Everything was too vaguely to put into words. I do remember how things went completely confusing when two police women came up to me to talk. First thing I did was telling them that I never killed anybody, I wasn’t the guy they were looking for. I thought they wanted to arrest me for homicide. I’m still paranoid about everything that happened in the past, the blood on my hands that still smell so fresh to me. They took me with them out of the train into their car and I thought they were going to murder me, I thought those were two people dressed up as police women, they are spies from Russia. Oh, I was convinced. I started to panic and freak out and that’s when things esqualated like crazy. I’ve been put down on the floor and put in a cell for the night.   Next morning, Joone came to visit me. He was very angry but very concerned about me and wondered what the Hell I’ve been up to. I never told him what I was up to. I was still very insane and everything and my speech was completely disorganized; I couldn’t really speak properly because my brain was bouncing around with thoughts. That always happens when I have a psychosis. I could hardly follow him but he thought it’s for the best to put me in a psychiatric hospital for the upcoming weeks, to shake the disease off, and until I get my medication from overseas. I agreed. He called me crazy for wanting to dig up Keila who’s been laying underneath the dirt for 4 years already. Maybe it is crazy but not for me in that moment.

The same day I went to the psychiatric hospital where I had a meeting with the chief. It was a terrible meeting because I couldn’t function properly.  The world to me still felt like it was fake and I was still very focused on my journey to find Keila. Luckily, Joone was there next to me, and he told the chief about me, my health, my background.  Next thing I knew I was placed in the public department. I still had no idea what was going on. I knew I had a lot of therapy sessions the first three days in the hospital. I was really numb, so I could get anything off my chest and it made it all sound so shallow.  They gave me medication that just made my symptoms get even worse, but it gave my emotion back, which is not always a good thing. When I gain emotion back, I mostly get really frustrated and aggressive about everything.  I can’t really say I’m a happy person, I don’t act like it. I see the world in black and white.

It was probably the 5th or 6th day in the hospital. I have a personal nurse, she’s really tough to me. I don’t know what happened in my mind, but I became very delusional and my mind made me believe that she was Keila’s mother. The girl I made pregnant when I was 17 on a vacation in Finland. And fuck, it made me angry. The nurse was talking to me about my medication but I didn’t believe her for shits. She wanted to poison me. It was Keila’s mother in disguise. I had to end her. I jumped up on her and put my hands around her neck, I wanted to strangle her. I yelled at her where Keila is, because I somehow believe she is still somewhere. I attacked her and I really felt so much adrenalin that I really wanted to finish her. But of course, there are cameras, guards everywhere around the place. The guards came to shake me off of her, they were pushing me on the ground, and I remember how I went totally crazy. I was so angry I didn’t kill her. She knew about Keila all along, and now she was trying to poison me with her medication that only made me feel worse.  The guards bruised me, handcuffed me and dragged me to a different place of the building. Sometimes, in moments like this,  my life is just like a movie. It’s a crazy thing but it just happens. I was put in an isolation cell. I had to stay in there until I calm down. But I have been here before, I know exactly what it is like to be in an isolation cell. It takes me back to the time when I was a kid living in a psychiatric institute in Russia, where I lived for a year in an isolation cell because, same thing; I was really aggressive.  

My psychiatrist here, Kallio, she is a good person. She is about 60 years old and she’s really fun. She makes me feel calm. I was beeped up to come for a therapy session around 2 o’clock.  I walked in her office and the first thing she said to me, “Oh honey, you look terrible”.  I just like it when people are straight up honest. “I am terrible”, I answered. She shook her head and smiled at me, asked me to sit down on the chair next to her. We had a good conversation and she asked me about the situation that happened earlier,  “a little dramatic of you, don’t you think?” Yes, I suppose. But I didn’t answer. She wanted to clear something up by mentioning the following symptoms; that she had seen my struggling with mood swings, how I could be easy and calm and next I turn into some kind of beast. The fact I can’t be cool around fellow patients in the public department because they made me aggressive very quickly. She mentioned my criminal background, how I still want to work illegally, and because I like the thrill of it- the fact that I still want to meet my father to kill him, it gives me the thrill of life. I always want to do something stupid; live my life on the edge. And my dramatic activity around here. She summed up to me and asked, “Has any doctor or psychiatrist in your life ever mentioned borderline personality disorder to you?”.  Well, it made me laugh really hard. “I don’t want another label sticking on me for the rest of my life, Kallio. I have enough shit going on. What you call ‘borderline’ are to me just personality traits. I can be very expressive, that’s it.”  And she gives me the ‘psychiatrist-stare’.  I confessed, “OK, yes, they mentioned it earlier in my life. That I have borderline personality disorder, but that was a long time ago. I was probably 15 or something”. She nodded. But I looked at her suspiciously, and said “But I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I don’t want medication for it, I don’t want to label myself as a borderline person. I don’t want to be a person with paranoid schizophrenia AND borderline, you know how crazy that sounds?”.  It made her laugh, she told me I’m not crazy. She promised me to leave it by the labels I know for now.  

The next day.  The nurse that I strangled was absent. She didn’t want to finish the treatment with me. Obviously. So I got a male nurse. Every morning they give me my medication but the voice in my head keeps convincing me that it’s the poison that is slowly trying to kill me. In the end, I take the medication but it takes a lot of time and effort for the nurses. I hated the medication they give to me. Back in New York, I had amazing stuff.  It made me feel awake, and all the voices, the hallucinations and delusions were muted, not entirely, but for a greater part, yes, definitely. I told the nurse I’m waiting for better medication to arrive from the United States, which made me become very political and I told them in English, with my perfect New York accent, that Finland is a shot hole. That Finland is not important to anybody, and that everyone here are freaks; and I’m not talking about the people in the psychiatric hospitals, I’m talking about all population of Finnish people. I told them I was glad I was only 50% Finnish, and the rest English-  which made me brag in a Sheffield account. I went kind of crazy again, very frustrated with everything. So I was sent back to Kallio’s office for another session. Right after that I became more calm again.

The next day.  Joone came to visit me. He also told me I looked terrible. But he had a surprise for me, and he showed me my medication which arrived from overseas. It put a smile on my face and made me want to hug him. I felt much more comfort now I have those pills.  I had to wait for my psychiatrist approval of the drugs, since it’s from America where any pills are stronger. But Kallio knew that the pills from Finland didn’t make me feel any better.  Luckily, they were approved and I could start the next day with my new medication to see if things are going better for me. The next couple of days went so much better for me.  I was placed back into the public department and I actually made a few friends, too. Kallio said I could celebrate my birthday at home, which was due on a Friday (perfect), but I had to be back the next day around 5 pm.

Friday, I woke up feeling great. I love my freedom and to have my freedom on my birthday is the best I could wish for. Joone picked me up with his car, and we drove to the south of the country. Back to Helsinki.  I know I felt tired at the moment, just exhausted from the whole situation. Joone was talking about what to do with my birthday, who to invite, where to go, this and that. But I wasn’t that much of energy yet, even though I was excited. I don’t know, I just went really quiet after everything that has happened.  Once we arrived at our new apartment,  I saw how much effort Joone put in making the place look nice. Just lovely. He’s such a hard worker. I’m not a man of compliments, but you can sense it when I appreciate something. Joone and I decided to go out for dinner and party later at Tavastia, which is a rock club in Helsinki. It’s a good place.  Joone was like, “you’re not going to drink much tonight, right? Since you’re on medication”. Well, once I drink, I’m gonna drink until I pass out. He was constantly saying it and I said “no, I’ll be careful”. But inside I was laughing. Of course I’m gonna drink. I’m 33 now, feel old as balls, I want to feel 23 again.  We beeped up some of our friends, we don’t have many friends here yet, because we just moved here,  but some old friends from pastimes were invited for my birthday mesh. I think we had dinner with 9 of us, which started around 6 until 8.  Well, I couldn’t behave, I drank like there was no tomorrow. I think I had about 3 red wine, later on I went crazy on the vodka again. I just love vodka, it’s so good here in Finland. I was extremely tipsy, but so was Joone. I talked to him in the bathroom of the restaurant. “I’m drunk as shits, man”, while slurring my words. He was all happy like, “me too!”. I asked him if he cares about the fact I’m this drunk already and it will definitely get even worse tonight. He answered, “I don’t care. It’s your birthday. If you want to fuck yourself up, just do it. It’s your birthday. We’re gonna get shit faced anyway so I kind of expected it”.  It made me feel so thankful for having that guy in my life. He’s all concerned and tough on me sometimes, but other times he doesn’t even care anymore and he still gives me the freedom to do whatever I want. He’s not going to boss around. I think I told him I love you or something.

We went back to pay and unto the next venue;  Tavastia. Dark nightclub/bar sort of thing. Nothing can beat New York bars but as long as there’s booze, I’m not complaining. Joone and I made a deal how we’re both gonna get laid tonight and make it rough. Joone can easily get anybody, but quite frankly, we’re not in a gay bar this time so it’s gonna be 50/50 who’s gonna get the chicks.  I’m a playful flirt, but I can’t be too drunk because it makes me really sloppy and it makes me want to skip the flirting part and go right over to the sexual part. I sometimes need to remind myself to be careful with girls. Women. Chicks.  Especially when I’m drunk. We were with 6 people hanging at the bar, Joone and I, Joone’s sister; Eeva (she’s badass), Valtteri, Matleena and Seepo, people we met earlier while going out in Helsinki. Cool people.  First hour Joone became friends with tons of girls,  as if he has some chickmagnet in the inside of his coat. Think they were probably talking about fashion or that kind of stuff. But good for me. Thank you, Joone.  The girls weren’t making much contact with me but I didn’t really fancy them much either. Then after a shot tequila, Joone was all starting to promote me “This guy here, has been a model in New York, and he’s half British!”   It’s kind of embarrassing to me, I don’t find it flattering at all. All I could think was ‘Joone stop it, I’m gonna tell them myself once I get the chance’.  It is crazy how these girls started to hang around me immediately. I thought it was stupid. Just because I’ve been modeling in New York, I’m half British, you want to fuck me?   That is so fucking cheap. Cheap, cheap, cheap. So I ordered vodka at the bar and went outside for a smoke.  Cheap bitches. I became a little frustrated but I had to control myself. Nobody talk to me. Then Matleena came outside with some guy she probably met here. Laughing. She was really shit faced, I could see. She was like “Hi Aleksander! Meet Matti!”  This and that.  They smoked with me, but the dude went to the bathroom inside.  I asked Matleena, “do you think bitches only love me because I’ve been a New York model and because I’m half British?” She started laughing. “Who convinced you that?”.  “Some girls Joone is hanging with at the bar.”  “No, the right bitch loves you for the intelligent person that you are”, she said. Now, that’s flattering. I gave her a hug. I wanted to kiss her but I didn’t.  Matleena, she’s alright. She’s so friendly and sweet.  So we went back to the group and at the end of the hall I saw Joone sitting on the bar drinking even more shots.  I knew that I probably have to drag him home again, just like last time we went out, I literally dragged him home in the snow. Next time he’s gonna pay me for it.  I saw Joone was hanging with a Latino guy, and I was all like “Who’s that?” and he says he’s Juan from Venezuela, this and that, he’s gonna do him, blah blah. Now Joone has scored, I need to score as well.  Maybe a couple of shots will do the trick.  I went off alone and started hanging in the front hall with some girls. I pretended to be American, and they were all falling for it. I just needed to fuck someone, cheap or not.   I saw Valtteri walking towards the men’s bathroom and he was all like, ‘follow me’. So I did. And he took me into the corner of the bathroom and offered me some coke. Fuck yes, that’s what I need. We went snorting like beasts and he said “I’ll catch you later”. I went back to the front hall to my girls. They were so drunk. We started talking some more. They were all starting to get clingy, especially this girl from Sweden. She was really into me. She was touching me and hugging me, and I slowly felt the cocaine rush coming. I just didn’t care anymore. We made out. I just didn’t care anymore, I dragged her to the men’s bathroom. Men were watching but they were all encouraging and supportive to our sexual act.  We made it a quicky, but it was allllllright.

The rest of the night was a total blur to me. I continued to drink. Joone passed out for half an hour at least, he was backstage. I just laughed at him. All I can remember is that we had a good time. It’s fun to go out every now and then.  I remember vaguely walking home from the club to our apartment. It was snowing like crazy.  It was just me and Matleena, Joone and Juan. I have lost the rest of the group but I didn’t care. I think Joone tripped about 70 times on our way home because he was blinded by the snow. He fell on the hood of a random car parking in the streetway. Totally messed up.  It was 6 in the morning and I invited Matleena in my bed. We were doing alright there. Next morning we woke up, feeling completely buzzed but a night like this is worth it all.

January was crazy. Literally, crazy.