Chapter 8. Randy’s Case: “They stole my brain and I want it back.”

Client Name: Randy

Age: 32 years old

Gender: Male

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Occupation: Unemployed

Current living situation: Lives alone in a cabin in the mountains, 25 miles outside of town

Why are you referring this person for an evaluation? Randy needs a psychological evaluation to see if he is suffering from a mental disorder. His odd, disruptive behavior caused him to be arrested and charged with the misdemeanors of assault and battery following a physical attack on a waitress in a local diner and several patrons who tried to intervene. His odd behavior has continued in jail, where he bangs on the bars of his cell constantly. He has also damaged jail property—he threw his metal dinner tray at the closed-circuit television, denting it. The jail superintendent wants him charged with destruction of jail property. We are requesting that Randy be evaluated to see if he should be referred for mandatory psychiatric treatment, rather than remanding him to the penal system where he may not get adequate care.
- Judge Judith Ginsberg, District Court

Randy: [sounding distracted] Sure, I told that judge woman already. They – you – want to get inside my head. But I told her – I told her – I’ll tell you, they won’t find anything. My brain is missing, and I don’t know who took it.

Randy: I came – I come down from my cabin to town, 25 miles by the crow flies. The crows and the game and the other birds and my vegetable garden are how I get food. I collect rainwater or get my water from streams. I live off the land. I heat my house with trees. I’m a survivor – I’m a survivalist …revival survivalist. No electricity – you have to watch out for that. Very tricksty. But I come – I came to town to get a few supplies. Some groceries – I don’t have chickens, I don’t have cows, so I have to buy their by-products. What they leave behind. I buy coffee – can’t grow that in Colorado not on the mountain not on the plains. I stop by the library – such a nice lady, she gets me such nice books. Philosophy and history, none of those trash novels and hunting books. She orders them from the booksitorium, just for me. Then I always end with the diner, always the diner.

Randy: The other day? The day of others? Oh! The diner. Have to watch out for the TV at the diner. The one waitress – she knows. She will turn it off, the infernal box, the TV. But she wasn’t there. I needed something to stop the noise! I asked the girl waitressing to help me stop the noise. “What noise?” she says, as if she didn’t know. What noise, what noise? The noise in my head! [smacks hands on ears] I can’t stop it, it won’t stop ever since the TV stole my brain. She tried to be funny oh she tried to be clever and told me to tell them [gesturing as if to entire room] about the noise, said she might want to listen, too. She knows better. That’s what the noise wants! So I reached over and I grabbed her – grabbed her front – grabbed her shirt and told her, I warned her “Kill the noise or I’ll kill you.” Then they were on me! So many people grabbing and shoving. So I kicked, I bit, I threatened, I fought. Then they called the police – never trust ‘em! I tried to trust ‘em years ago, the boys in blue, they just ignored me and the TV got worse and now my brain is gone. [suddenly quieter, somewhat fearful] But when I saw them I knew – I knew it was THEM. And so I said to them, I told them, "So, it's you. You’ve been after me for years – putting arsenic in my garden, taking money out of my bank account. And stealing my brain – don’t think I forgot that. But you will pay for this. The Chief is looking for you."

Randy: They’ve been there. They’ve been there and I didn’t even know it. Ohhh yes, they’ve been there. Really noticed it in college. Oh that man, the Dean. He tried to hide it, but oh no, he was the problem. He stole her, my girlfriend. She broke up with me – it had to be him. And the probation, for academics! 3.8 GPA my first year, straight A’s in high school. And he tries to say “probation.” [raising his voice] For what? For majoring in history? For trying to learn from the past? For sleeping and eating junk food when he stole her – stole her? He said I didn’t go to class! Class didn’t need me to go. So he expelled – expelled me! I think he was threatened by me. [quieter] But I was glad, because then I got to live at home with the TV and then I realized they were there. I would yell at them, in the TV! When they – the parents – when they were gone for the weekend, I fixed it. I pulled out the box, the cable box, the brain-sucking box, and I hammered that TV. Smashed it good. They – the parents – they didn’t understand. I explained it so clearly that the box was taking thoughts from my brain and sending them to the TV and I didn’t want everyone to hear the thoughts – they’re mine! [becoming upset, more emphatic.] My thoughts belong to me, and to no one else. Whoever tries to take them is going to have to pay. So I talk to them, all the time, I have to tell them. One, two at a time, I talk to them. They’re so clever ... others say they can’t hear them.

Randy: They took me and they locked me up in over overnight – overnight. And there was a TV right there, right outside the bars. Like they knew, like they were taunting me or trying to get information. So I tossed ... I threw my plate at the thing ... the TV thing. I asked them: Why are you doing this to me? You stole my brain, what else do you want? What else does it want?

Randy: Three boys – one older, one younger. My big brother, the older, he left us ... he shot himself when he was only 30 – 30! So much to live for ... He had a good job – all supposed to have ... [lecturing self] “Son, get a good job!” said the parents. He could live among the people. He didn’t have to live off the grid, like me. So why did he shoot? My dad is an electrician, he was strange, always strange, I think because of the electricity – tricksty. Paranoid, he was, always watching – he knew. My mom taught kids, elementary kids. She learned, she learned how to deal with dad. [As if lecturing himself] Be quiet, be passive, appease him. Otherwise ... the bad side. They – the parents ... didn’t talk, not much, and when they talked, only arguing.

Randy: No, never did. Dad said no, no way. A neighbor said it would be good, would help, after I smashed the box, smashed the infernal TV. But dad said no, “no son of mine is going to a shrink, we take care of our own. Shrinks are not to be trusted.” So the neighbor asks me, do I want help? I want to keep dad happy and so I say, “I don’t need help. I’m okay now the TV is gone.”

Randy: [emphatic] No, never trouble on my part, only on their part. Tried to get help. Went to them, asked to file a criminal complaint. Against who? They say. Like they don’t know. So I tell them, I make it clear, against KBDI-TV. They ask what they did – as if the cops don’t know. So I tell them, real slow so they understand [speaking very slowly and deliberately] “Larceny – grand larceny. They stole my brain, and I want it back.” They let me think I could fill out a report, so I did, and when I left, I heard them laughing. “Boy, it takes all kinds,” they said, and I saw them throw it in the trash. So I left. I left the station and I left home.

Randy: [agitated and almost shouting] I left – can’t you see? I was just telling you, aren’t you listening? [Calming down] I left them – the parents – 10 years ago. That woman – my aunt, she died and left me some money. 50,000 clams. Have to keep them clams safe … them clams … so I put them in the bank. Bought my old truck – not new, can’t trust the new ones, they have TVs. Wrote them a note, the parents, “Thanks for nothing.” Packed and drove and found the cabin, where it’s safe. No parents, no contact. Off the grid. I’m surviving, I’m a survivalist revivalist ... Safer that way.

REPORTER: Do you think you've had a difficult life?

STEVE: Oh yeah. I've had a lot of suffering in my life. I've had a lot of suffering, yeah.

REPORTER: Do you think your life has been harder than other people?

STEVE: Much harder than most people I know. How can you ask that question when I've had 71 psychiatric institutionalization?

REPORTER: Steve, can you describe the transition when you started feeling psychotic?

STEVE: Oh, yes. It's like going to sleep in a penthouse in Manhattan and somehow waking up on the suburbs of Nairobi in the jungle. It's just as dramatic as that, yeah.

REPORTER: In 1969, Steve had graduated from MIT and just finished his first year of medical school. At age 21, he suffered the first of many psychotic attacks. A world full of promise was flooded with fear and paranoia.

STEVE: How do you describe paranoia? Paranoia becomes just so incredibly intense that the feeling that everybody in the room knows what you're thinking, the feeling that everybody in the room wants to control you and get you to act in a certain way, either socially, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, or sexually-- they're all trying to force you to do certain things and act and think in a certain way.

ANDERSON COOPER: So I'm going to put these earphones in. They're going to try to do a series of tests. So I'm now hearing sort of whispers and voices in my head. And the first test is some number puzzles.

FEMALE VOICE: You suck and they know it. Can't you get this right?

ANDERSON COOPER: OK. So I did this test for three minutes. And I did not get a single one. It's very hard to concentrate when-- if it's like music or something constant, it's easy. But people talking to you is very difficult.

So now I'm going to be asked a series of questions by our producer, Susan. And these are basically a series of questions that a person would be asked if they were being admitted to a hospital.

SUSAN: Can you tell me what day it is?

ANDERSON COOPER: Yeah. It's Sunday, June-- I don't know, 7th?

SUSAN: So I'm going to say five numbers. And I want you to repeat them back to me after I'm done. 5, 23, 67, 2, 76.

ANDERSON COOPER: 5, 23, 67, something, 76.

SUSAN: I'm going to say five words. You don't have to repeat them, but just listen to them.

SUSAN: Cat. Book. Cigar. Damage. And rain.

BACKGROUND VOICE: Make you OK.

SUSAN: Can you name the last four Presidents of the United States?

BACKGROUND VOICE: OK for you to be--

ANDERSON COOPER: Barack Obama. George Bush. Bill Clinton. And George Bush.

SUSAN: So those five words I said before, can you remember any of them?

ANDERSON COOPER: No. It's hard when-- because sometimes voices are like whispering, and sometimes they're aggressive, and sometimes they're kind of comforting. And again, with people kind of talking to you all the time, it's--

BACKGROUND VOICE: It's OK.

ANDERSON COOPER: It's hard.

It's really-- it's incredibly distracting on the street to have somebody talk in your head. And it makes you feel completely isolated from everyone else around you. And you don't want to engage in conversation with other people. You're kind of finding yourself wanting to engage in conversation with a voice in your head. Because they're constantly being really negative and talking to you.

And everything they're saying relates to things that you're actually doing. They're criticizing things you're doing. It's like somebody is-- it's like you have a chorus watching you and commenting on what you're doing. And you can't help but-- I literally find myself wanting to respond to them, tell them to be quiet.

And it's incredibly unpleasant. This is a very, very unpleasant experiment. It's eye opening, because it really shows you what other people must be going through who deal with this on a regular basis.

But also, I cannot wait to take these headphones off. Because it's really depressing. It's very, very negative. It makes you feel very, very negative.

It's very creepy. I want it to stop.