The Georgie Gust Exhibit

The point of this series is to start a conversation about how those of us diagnosed with psychotic disorders get people to believe our truths. After all, once you’ve been diagnosed as being psychotic, your credibility is never the same, even when you’re speaking the truth. I have a podcast on iTunes in which I reveal a lot about myself, and lately I’ve noticed how much these podcasts have been tea...

In the old days of war, the winning army pretty much got to loot the countryside and take what they wanted—wealth, crops, women, whatever. These would be the spoils of victory. In a relatively civilized setting, we tend to use this term symbolically or metaphorically. The winner (the victor, the victorious one, the one who gets the victory) gets whatever benefits go with the actual winning of the...

People with depression cannot “snap out of it.” My moods change frequently, and I am currently depressed. There is nothing more depressing than suffering from depression and still feeling sad. So, what's the point? Will it pass? No doubt. I forget what it's like to smile, and I mean for more than a couple hours now; I’m talking about now, not later. I forget what it's like to be a lovely or loving...

Sometimes, I feel that I don’t know what’s going on or that I don’t care about anything. I am confused by my feelings, because I’m not able to explain how I feel, except for the emptiness, and I feel that no one is really there for me, even if they are, or that nobody understands me anymore. It feels like I have nothing to look forward to. I'm a compulsive liar, but I don’t understand why I do it....

Paranoia: The word is there, no doubt, in the dictionary. But not the feeling. Derived from the ancient Greek, 'paranoia' originally referred to a distracted mind. But distracted from what? The definition claims that the distraction is caused by false beliefs that someone is persecuting us. But if you or I are afflicted with paranoia, we know, wholeheartedly, that these are not delusions. People a...

I love inspirational quotes and sayings. Most are simply reminders of how we should live life. Of course, this is easier said than done, and I think that's why they float around everywhere, from Facebook to Twitter to blogs. No matter how challenging things can be in life, keep going. Never give up or quit. There are no other realistic options. We are all pushed to our limits at times, and there m...

My name is Jonathan Harnisch. I have schizophrenia with psychotic features, but schizophrenia and psychosis do not have me. I cannot distinguish what is real and what is not real. My thoughts, mood and behavior are altered, and they change frequently. Sometimes I believe that I live in a psychiatric hospital and that my experience is worse than a hellish nightmare. At other times, I don't believe...

The curtain opens. I am Jonathan. I have schizophrenia. I don’t want to make a big introduction. Perhaps some of you have read my work before. For me, schizophrenia is similar to what I have read. In the early material, from such turn-of-the-century psychiatrists as Kraepelin and Bleuler, there seems to be plenty of subgenres or comorbidities with this condition, which I have had since I was a boy...

My name is Jonathan, and I am a tobacco addict. Life goes on without smoking, but for now I fight for life. I don't write off a thing. It feels like hell, but I know it is peace—and strength. Overall, the symptoms are temporary, so far. I am nowhere near the end of the addiction, but I am on my way. I think: Help! I am kicking the habit. They are not going away, these withdrawals. The nicotine and...

Second Alibi: The Banality of Life is the sensational prequel to the groundbreaking work, Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography. Harnisch's The Banality of Life handles the backstory of Georgie, Ben, and Claudia, further incorporating the invisible studio audience introduced in Alibiography. Ben's confessions flourish, written once more in his noteworthy and imaginative style. Harnisch seduces the re...

Book Six of the groundbreaking bestseller Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography, Of Crime and Passion, explores romantic love through the story of John Marshal, who is taught by a prostitute that one can get everything one wants through seduction. John wants glory and personal prestige and vows to get it by obtaining lowly positions in upper-class homes, and then seducing the one woman in the househo...

Book Five of the groundbreaking bestseller Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography, Glad You're Not Me, takes the act of transgression to another level. Harnisch, the author himself, discovers he has been fictionalized as a character in an old friend's chapbook, and decides to come out of the woodwork as a real person, The Mentally Ill Artist, in this explicit transgressive reaction chapbook.

Book Four of the groundbreaking bestseller Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography, The Oxygen Tank, shows Georgie back in his morning routine of breaking coffee cups, falling in the shower, and of course, meeting Claudia for the first time. Georgie's house grows in size and grandeur with every dream. Claudia has an affair with Sir Tony Halldale and is caught by Georgie. Claudia is hit by a car and par...

Book Three of the groundbreaking bestseller Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography, Porcelain Utopia, explores Dr C's interactions with Georgie and Ben. She thinks that dredging up Ben's past will somehow fix his present. Ben describes what went down at the holdup with the cell phone "bomb." He describes being booked into the psychiatric ward. Ben develops a strong obsession with Claudia/Heidi. Ben de...

Book Two of the groundbreaking bestseller Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography, Freak, explores Ben's days at Wakefield. School is too traumatic, so Ben lets Georgie attend and take the abuse. The book explores Georgie's relationship with the original Claudia Nesbitt, the girlfriend of the jock Ozer, who tormented Georgie mercilessly. Claudia befriends Georgie and loves him for who he is. The other...

A young man battling extreme mental illness brings his sadomasochistic fantasies to life in Harnisch's (Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia, 2014, etc.) latest novel. As this riveting story opens, Georgie Gust, a suicidal Tourette's syndrome patient, tells his doctor he wants to leave the mental institution where he's been committed. When the doctor puts him off, Gust finds himself buffeted by violent f...

Written in the vein of Catcher in the Rye or The World According to Garp, When We Were Invincible is a coming-of-age novella, which details the experiences of outsider Georgie Gust navigating the fictional St. Michael’s Academy, a prestigious East Coast boarding school. Georgie suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome and early onset schizophrenia, which makes his journey all the more poignant. In additio...

Etch A Sketch On Acid: Mind-Blowing Artwork Short Film w/ Sketches and Music by Jonathan Harnisch

Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography Reviewed by Alex FranksOctober 14, 2015 This, it is easy to imagine, is what life with mental illness is like for some: full of continuous questioning, rationalization, guilt, anxiety. Jonathan Harnisch: An Alibiography presents a simultaneously dazzling and frightening portrayal of mental illness through the eyes of several characters—though all embodied in the...

At the opening of Living Colorful Beauty, the reader is presented with two protagonists. There’s Ben, the narrator of the preface, who relates the story of the awful sex education classes he sat through in middle school and of his subsequent discovery of his father’s collection of pornography; and then there’s Georgie, a sexual submissive with a foot fetish, who is obsessed with his beautiful and...

A chapter from “Sex, Drugs, and Schizophrenia by Jonathan Harnisch”. Harnisch (Second Alibi, 2014, etc.) offers a novel that investigates the fractured mind of a schizophrenic. “Let’s get the facts straight up front, to avoid any confusion later,” the author states at the start of this wild, candid book. “I am a person first, a human being, just like anyone else. Maybe a little different, that’s a...

#MentalHealthAwarenessWeek Status Update: Every week should be #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek. It's always time to talk about #mentalhealth and #mentalillness: However, this morning I have come to realize that there is nothing more liberating and freeing than deciding to and committing to NOT doing, taking the full day off all work and activities, canceling all meetings, and so forth, just because I a...

My name is Jonathan Harnisch. I have schizophrenia with psychotic features, but schizophrenia and psychosis do not have me. I cannot distinguish what is real and what is not real. My thoughts, mood and behavior are altered, and they change frequently. Sometimes I believe that I live in a psychiatric hospital and that my experience is worse than a hellish nightmare. At other times, I don't believe...

My name is Jonathan Harnisch. I have schizophrenia with psychotic features, but schizophrenia and psychosis do not have me. I cannot distinguish what is real and what is not real. My thoughts, mood and behavior are altered, and they change frequently. Sometimes I believe that I live in a psychiatric hospital and that my experience is worse than a hellish nightmare. At other times, I don't believe...

My name is Jonathan Harnisch. I have schizophrenia with psychotic features, but schizophrenia and psychosis do not have me. I cannot distinguish what is real and what is not real. My thoughts, mood and behavior are altered, and they change frequently. Sometimes I believe that I live in a psychiatric hospital and that my experience is worse than a hellish nightmare. At other times, I don't believe...