I developed a brain lesion that turned me into a maniac for a week

I started hearing voices after a few days


I could’ve never imagined the way the last month of my life has unfolded. In order for you to fully understand what happened to me, I will need to go back to the very beginning.

It begins with heartbreak. After a casual fling with a manipulative blonde babe, we got in a terrible fight. She kicked me out of her apartment and I was devastated. So I did the most therapeutic thing I could think of and went to the store to buy five bottles of my favorite wine.

The week that followed was full of sad music, inebriation and visits from friends making sure I didn’t drown in a glass of cabernet sauvignon. After a day of drinking, I attempted to stand up, but I ended up intensely knocking the top of my head against the metal edge of my bunk bed.

My friend Marla worriedly asked if I felt concussed. With slurred speech from the wine, I told her I felt perfectly fine and that she shouldn’t worry.

The model and I back when we were still cute.

A week later, nurses at the hospital would tell me I had developed a subdural hematoma of the frontal lobe. But I, of course, didn’t know that yet.

I didn’t notice any odd behavioral changes until a few days after my injury. At first, the world suddenly began to appear visually brighter and more colorful. I felt a lot more energized mentally and it even seemed easier for me to concentrate and contribute during class. I would later come to associate these feelings with the beginnings of an uncontrolled episode of pure mania.

It felt like being taken over by waves of powerful euphoria and rushes of productive energy – I had never experienced the feeling before. Everything looked and felt trippy. At the neurologist’s office in a week’s time, I would find out I was bleeding from the part of my brain that controls judgment, which explains why my behavior grew progressively erratic and peculiar as time went by.

While unknowingly injured, I began to realize I didn’t feel physically tired, so I simply decided not to sleep. After going without sleep for a little more than 24 hours, my mind started to play weird tricks on me. Inanimate objects would appear as if they were glowing, I would hear noises that weren’t there and the whole world around me started looking and feeling as if I were in a dream.

To fight off the massive headaches, I decided to drink large amounts of wine. Again, I had absolutely no sense of judgment to tell me that decision was wrong or unhealthy in any way.

In one episode, when I was very intoxicated and in a half dreaming state, I became incredibly inspired by the songs of one of my favorite records of all time: Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black.

I was so emotionally touched by her lyrics and her troubled life that I assembled a kind of shrine for her. In my head, I wanted to give her spirit the proper rest I felt she deserved. As I write this, I still have no idea what was going through my mind as I arranged all my books on the floor of my dorm room in the shape of a giant cross, placed a picture of Amy Winehouse in the center and spilled red wine all over it.

My greatest creative achievement of all time.

When my roommate walked into our dorm room the next morning, she found me meditating next to the cross of books on the floor. Apparently, I was claiming Amy Winehouse was the Jesus Christ of our generation. “I don’t think I understand,” were the only words she said to me. At the time, she probably thought I was on some bad trip, as did the nurses, doctors and police officers who would meet me in the psych ward two days later.

The day following the Amy Winehouse episode, I aimlessly wandered around UT’s campus. I made it to most of my classes but felt dazed.

The lack of sleep was beginning to give me vivid visual and auditory hallucinations. I remember thinking I could communicate with angels, extraterrestrials and spirits of dead people. I felt particularly connected to the souls of some of my inspirations, such as Kurt Cobain, Frida Kahlo, Jesus Christ, Allen Ginsberg, Buddha, Hunter S. Thompson and Michael Jackson, among others. As I was walking, I would hear voices calling my name and see bright, colorful lights all around me. Inanimate objects would morph into faces, and even my own mirror reflection would change the longer I stared at it.

By then, I would describe what I was feeling as a full-blown psychedelic experience. My pupils were extremely dilated, my skin was pale and clammy and I had been in a constant state of mild alcoholic inebriation for about three days.

I then texted my mom in detail about everything I was experiencing. Luckily for my brain (and liver), she knew something was wrong when she read my messages, in which I claimed George Washington was my grandfather and angels had spoken to me. She called me on the phone and demanded to know what drugs I was taking, to which I replied with nonsense about aliens landing on the UT tower.

I took this picture because I was 100% sure aliens would land on it any second.

It turned out aliens didn’t show up that night after all, but my mother sure did. After making the four hour drive from our home in Brownsville, TX, all the way to Austin, she picked me up from campus and took me to a hotel to have a long, serious chat with me about my drug use. She wanted to have an intervention.

I assured her over and over I hadn’t taken any drugs besides alcohol (which was true). Although she seemed shaken by the events, she also seemed relieved to blame my psychotic behavior on alcohol intoxication gone bad. My mom said she would need to spend a few more days with me to make sure nothing else was seriously wrong. She wouldn’t have to wait much longer to see her normally laid back daughter transform into a totally unrestrained maniac.

The next morning, when I was screaming my favorite Back To Black lyrics and other nonsense in the hotel parking lot, my mom made the decision to drive me to the psych ward. When we arrived, I took off my shirt, loudly yelled “OM” and sat upright on my hospital bed meditating until the sleeping pills the nurses gave me finally kicked in.

A mirror selfie I took on my first night back from the hospital

Eventually, they explained my subdural hematoma and the recovery process. Luckily, there are no lasting effects and the blood clot that formed in my brain from the impact has reabsorbed. I’m now completely healthy and back home doing the things I love most, like relaxing, writing and yoga. I no longer build crosses for dead superstars or claim they’re the new messiah.

All in all, I would say my life is going pretty well so far.