100 Days of 1st Episode Pyschosis: A non-fictional Work of Fiction?

Prologue

A Life Leading to Psychosis

I wanted to stay dead. The fact that I wasn’t dead frustrated me, mostly. I would wake up every day and with a sigh of disbelief I would roll myself out of bed. For years I would wake up with the peace of my dreams still lingering in the forefront of my mind only to fall into dread and the insurmountable weight of the coming day. Everyday. After I died and came back midcycle, this morning routine became that much harder. That’s my own personal theory at least. of what happened to me over the first few months of the 33rd year of my life. 

It would take me some time to find the reason to be grateful for a life that felt like a jail cell, a life sentence on an endless loop. This is my story. My name is Juniper Snow. That’s a pin name for sure. I began long before this journey, in a small rural town in northern Alabama. I was the only child of a single parent. There were tough times, as many experience, job losses, money troubles, abuse, addiction, an unhealthy home, all of this led me to enjoy my life in an imaginary world as a child. Always seeking the next made-up thing. The next story of fantasy I could get lost in for the day. 

Life as I knew it was good, for a while. Then the fuckening began. Even as a small child my mother expected the world from me, but not the kind of world a toddler can provide. I was expected to provide her with comfort, security, love, and the companionship that comes with an adult relationship. My mother raised me to be her life partner. She decided she wanted a baby because she was tired of being alone in life.

My mother is a narcissist with borderline personality disorder and probably some other stuff going on too but, as most in her generation, seeking therapy is not a thing. She had me to save herself from herself. As a figure that could take care of her, provide emotional support for all of life’s struggles. She probably did weird shit like masturbating while I breast fed if I’m being frankly honest. She often held me accountable for things outside of my control and would blame me for the adult decisions that I shouldn’t have been asked to make to begin with. She made me grow up way too fast. I was never allowed to just be a kid. I was always expected to be more mature than other kids my age. My mother has always been, and will most likely always be, no more than a 3-yearold emotionally. This left me emotionally deficient from a young age. Not having the guidance to understand and navigate the kaleidoscope of feelings that come with growing. I felt I was always playing catch up. Seven minutes slower than everyone around me. 

I remember a time when I went for an overnight stay with an aunt. I was three. It was easter weekend at the grandparent’s house. Every year there was a big dinner when all the family members immediate and distant would come by for the annual gathering. My mother was adamant that I be back at the grandparents’ house the next morning, no later than 10 a.m. sharp. I remember her showing me on the clock on the wall what 10 am looked like. The big hand straight up and the little hand on ten. I knew she would yell if I wasn’t back on time. Again, I was only three. What control did I possibly have over an adult? Juniper Snow you better be here at 10 a.m. or you’re going to be in big trouble.

This was an example of my mother’s abuse style, she was telling me this in front of the aunt I was staying with as a way of saying ‘make sure the kid is back on time,’ but instead of saying it to the adult she said it to the kid, in front of the adult. Passive aggressive. To this day, this is my mother’s primary form of communication. She will talk about you behind your back, in front of your face. The next morning, we were 10 mins late returning to the house. I knew I was in big trouble. I do not remember the punishment but there definitely was some sort of ‘make the toddler feel like shit because she couldn’t control another adult human being’s time management skills.’ I was never allowed to leave the grandparents’ house for overnight stays after that. If I left at all, my mother would be a chaperone. I would have a recurring dream for years associated with the mishap. In the dream I am always going to or leaving the grandparents’ house. I am always alone. I am always a small child. I’m sitting in the back seat of a car, and the car is driving itself down the road. I’m trapped in the car. It drives past my destination. I’m always left with this feeling of fear and not being able to control the car, or the situation. The panic of knowing I’m going to be yelled at for something I didn’t do. 

My mother always liked putting me in the spotlight at these family functions and holidays. Show everyone the new dance you learned at preschool, or JuneBaby tell everyone that story you told me in the car on the way over. I appeased most of her requests. Occasionally I would get stage fright. I would run to mother and grip onto her for dear life. I would start noticing around ten years old that this was solely for the pleasure and benefit of my mother. It had extraordinarily little to do with her pride in her daughter’s abilities. She was using her child to deflect away from her own shortcoming. Until those shortcomings would be beneficial. 

She would wait for everyone ever conceived to gather around the table for dinner. Oh, I just don’t know what June and I are going to do. The car is down again. I don’t know how I’m going to get it fixed and also pay for her school clothes this year.  Awkward silence followed by slighted glances. No one would ever call her out on her back handed ways of asking for help. It was never a sincere question that was asked. It would be a generalized statement that people are then supposed to feel sympathy for. That sympathy should in turn inspire the person to be generous. If they offer it to her she doesn’t have to return the favor. It’s only a oneway transaction. Manipulation. Somehow my mother’s inability to provide a financially stable, emotionally healthy home was my fault. June and I are going to be hungry these next two weeks because she had to have money for a field trip. I’ve wondered in recent years if she had gone to therapy, or gotten a dog, instead of creating a human if her life wouldn’t have been so hard.

On the two-hour long car ride back to our small rural town, mother would rehash the weekend. The way this one was dressed, or how this one was acting, or how that one cousin’s child didn’t say yes ma’am and no ma’am and got away with it. Always looking for the deflection. A way of victimizing herself, and demonizing everyone around her, including me. 

It would be well into the night by the time we would arrive home from our weekend adventure. We would have a carload of things to unpack. The family knows not to say my grandmother was a hoarder. Her house was always pristine. However, I will say she had an incredible talent for filling up someone else’s car with what she would call things she didn’t have room for.  She would buy novelty items and force any old items on her unsuspecting visitors. My mother and I would spend days going through the myriad of items that were sent home with us, but in true perpetuation we would not dare throw any of it away.

My mother’s reasons never faltered. She has held onto some items for decades under the pretense, if her mother were to ever visit, she would want to see the items she had so generously offered us. My personal favorite has always been it’s a family heirloom. My mother has tried over the years to bestow these said heirlooms onto me, as some kind of generational shrine. I’ve refused most everything and started a fair share of disagreements, over junk that should have been thrown away 30 years ago. Not stored and held precious to then be forced onto another. If that wasn’t a visualization of generational trauma in motion, I don’t know what else would be..

My mother would eventually take her frustrations, over any little thing, out on me. She wouldn’t physically harm me, such as beatings. That was not my mother’s style. She was subtle, with an air of backstabbing humor. She would use her words to tear me down, dim my light. She used every type of verbal abuse I can think of, from gaslighting to manipulation, to name calling. She would flat out tell me I didn’t love her if I could see another person’s point of view. I wasn’t allowed to disagree with her. Ever.

She kept me in this constant state of pity for her and eventually myself. ‘Poor mama. No one understands what it’s like for us. It’s so hard being on our own’ We lived several hundred miles away from anyone we could even consider a relative. Isolated, and alone. My mother would use this as a reason why everyone was so unjust to her. Why we were the target of ridicule. We weren’t part of the group, we were the outsiders. It’s only been in the last couple of years of my own adulthood that it finally clicked. I was never the target; I was only a distraction.

Sexy Baby

When I was considerably young, around two years old. Mother started seeing a man that would grow to be a father figure in my life. He would soon become the person that stole from an innocent child. I’m sure there were times earlier than I can remember when he sexually abused me.

The first time I can remember, I was six. 

He frequently watched me while mother was working. I don’t remember her ever having a normal 9-5 shift. She worked in a manufacturing plant making ceramic tile for most of my childhood. Her shifts were always 4midnight, or 6 at night until 6 in the morning. She very rarely worked day shift, that I can remember. 

On this particular night, I wanted to play house. I was going to be the mommy he would be the daddy. My favorite baby doll, aptly named old baby, was our pretend child. I role played the classic husband and wife scene. Two people meet, get married and they start a family. I kissed his cheek and proclaimed We’re having a baby! It’s time! we need to go to the hospital. With my old baby doll shoved under my granimals shirt, I hopped on the bed to give birth to our wonderful new addition. I pulled the child from under my shirt and squealed with laughter.

That was when it happened. He knelt over the bed and asked one question. Do you want to see how mommies and daddies really do it, how they really make babies? I was six years old. This man had been my father figure for as long as I could comprehend. This was one of my trusted adults. I said yes. He climbed on top of me and began kissing me on the mouth. He had never done this before; it was odd to me.

He began pushing himself onto my baby body. He could tell I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. He told me this is what mommies and daddies do. If I wanted to be a real mommy one day I needed to get used to it. I told him I didn’t like it and I didn’t want to play anymore. He told me that if I stopped halfway with any other man, they would just take it from me. That I had to finish what I had started. I disassociated.

I remember climbing down out of my mother’s bed, scared, humiliated, and a whole array of emotions that a 6-year-old brain cannot name. He got his nasty sex on my baby brain. I was no longer innocent. I was no longer a child that looked at the world with wonder. I could only see with sexy baby eyes. I could only feel the uncomfortable feelings. I lost something that day.

I tried to tell mother what happened. Her frustration increased as her perfect child, trying to explain something she didn’t have words for, was shutting down. I did not know how to explain it. I didn’t know what words to use to tell my mother what he had done. She was yelling. I had given her enough information to be suspicious.  I lied to her no mommy he didn’t touch me I promise! He was right. I was going to be in trouble if I told her. She was going to be mad at me, she was already showing the classic harsh tone, and scrunched facial expression I knew to be anger, towards me. I did utterly lose many things that day, faith in my mother’s ability to protect me, being most prominent.

Events like this one went on for years. He had me convinced that this was what everyone did, or this gem: my mother wasn’t doing these things for him anymore and if I wanted him to stay in our lives, I had to do the things that my mother refused to do. I would wake up at night with him touching me. He would stand over me masturbating in the dark. He forced me to watch pornos while he did whatever they were doing, to me. The abuse continued until I was thirteen, when he did in fact leave for another woman. You can only imagine what that did to me. After all those years of desperately trying to keep him happy so he wouldn’t leave…. I couldn’t make him stay, not even with my body. The one thing he told me would keep him around, always. 

It would be three years after the abuse stopped before I would realize that it was in fact not a normal act. That I had been molested. I had heard the term for years, but it never registered with me. Being molested was something that happened to other kids when the man didn’t love them. But daddy dearest loved me. He would tell me so after an encounter. I only do these things because I love you and your mom so much, but if your mom isn’t going to keep me happy you have to, or I’ll leave.

I don’t know what I thought would happen if he left. I can’t think of anything he contributed to our family. He never worked that I could remember, and he was always drunk or well on the way. To this day, I still can’t stand the sight of a Busch beer can.

I would eventually work it out in my mind that what he did to me was wrong. I was seventeen when I finally worked up the courage to tell my mom. Her response, no he didn’t Juniper Snow. It took me three weeks to convince her that I wasn’t lying, and this man had molested me from the time I was six until he left us for another woman. 7 years. He had molested me on an almost daily basis for 7

years. 

The induction of sex hormones and chemicals into my system triggered early puberty and I was on my way to fully developed and menstruating at 9 years old. My rapidly developing body was constantly objectified at the backwoods public school I attended. I recall having my shirt pulled up in the hallway by a couple of boys, on multiple occasions because as they said, I had to be stuffing my bra, there was no way my tits were actually that big. I would tell the teachers, but nothing was ever done. I vaguely remember being told it was somehow my fault that these boys were physically attacking me in the hall. That was the last time I said anything to anyone about it. Luckly for me the next school year most of the other girls were beginning to catch up to me so I was no longer the only set of tits to harass.

I was never the best student in school. I fought through undiagnosed learning difficulties and neurodivergence. I would find out years later that if I had been a 7-year-old white male, who couldn’t sit still, I