By the Author / Source: abuaram.site
A few years ago, the Palestinian Authority assaulted and beat me when they took me to the anti-narcotics center. There at the center, I was forced to strip completely naked except for my underwear, and they slapped me hard across the face. They hurt me deeply, those bastards.
That was because I was going through a severe manic episode accompanied by schizophrenia, drinking alcohol in the streets, and enjoying my time. They accused me of exposing myself to a few Palestinian girls in the town of Halhul, north of Hebron, in the West Bank within the Palestinian territories.
That was a lie and slander; I had not sunk to that level. I was just spending hours getting drunk near the IDF barracks. I was having a wild manic episode, wanting to get drunk in the open air, but despite all of that, I never lost my mind to the point of acting completely deviant!
But some people didn’t like my disturbed state of mind combined with drinking. They set an anti-narcotics trap for me, backed by the police force. At the end of a filthy, hours-long session with them, they called my family. My family confirmed that I was a sick person in need of treatment, which cost me two weeks of detainment in a psychiatric hospital. During that time, the doctor claimed to be on my side, asking me, “What do they want from you? What did you do?!”
Back then, I had a different spirit than what I feel now. I used to go out for long hours in the streets and alleys, not caring about my wife and children at home who were waiting for me late into the night.
Even so, late at night I would remember them, bringing them meals and supplies, feeling sorrowful that I had stayed away from them for so long. But when I woke up the next day, the state would return, and I would leave the house until late again.
I think my state and mood back then were linked to a specific psychiatric diagnosis—something deeply manic, accompanied by schizophrenia, severe psychotic symptoms, intense hyperactivity, a loss of touch with reality, and an overwhelming urge to drink alcohol.
I would walk long distances without getting tired, staying outside for long hours without feeling any desire to return home. I was hyperactive, and alcohol didn’t exhaust me; rather, it increased my energy. I didn’t feel sleepy until very late into the night, despite excessive alcohol consumption.
Despite all the flaws of those periods, I remember being very peaceful. I didn’t act dangerously. I was a madman enjoying his time at the peak of an acute mania, but the aspects of that state never drove me to cross the line into wrong or forbidden behavior. I was wearing myself out with drunkenness, madness, and enjoyment, detached from my real world that needed me, yet I was enjoying that madness.
In a broad sense, I was like a lunatic in the forest—enjoying the open wilderness at great risk, far away from my real world, fearing nothing, yet doing no harm to the forest.
Just a madman in the wild, lost in an internal world stealing him away from reality. He felt no ill in that forest; he rested there, even though that forest was foreign, exhausting, harsh, demanding, and strange to him. Yet he felt none of that, barely remembering to return to his normal world.
