jacob sanders

frank zerilli

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M A D N E S SM A D N E S SM A D N E S S

M A D N E S S

Issue6

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carl zeller

kyle stecker

crzeller.com

kylestecker.comcontributors

M A D N E S S

katy travelstead

writing director- jason melton @captainjmoseseditor, design - jacob sanders @jacobsandersart

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@kevinjaystanton

@drewalderfer

M A D N E S SM A D N E S SM A D N E S S

M A D N E S S 3

kevin stanton

drew alderfer

kevinjaystanton.com

drewalderfer.com

April 2014

M A D N E S S

Frank Zerilli

Carl Zeller

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JACOBUS BITES INTO THE FLESH of his girlfriend. ‘tastes like candy’ he says. his girlfriend wants to know what kind of candy it is so she can get a better idea of what she tastes like. ‘babe, what kind of candy do i taste like?’ jacobus’s girlfriend says to him. ‘i guess you taste like nerds rope’ jacobus says ‘stale nerds rope.’ jaco-bus’s girlfriend’s face goes from elated to sullen. ‘babe, i always thought i’d taste like fillet mignon’ she says ‘i thought my body’s taste would be full of flavorful dec-adence instead of like dollar store candy. jacobus stops eating his girlfriend, spits a chunk of her ass out of his mouth, looks up at her and says ‘this is the first time i’ve eaten meat in years’

jim jim doesn’t know where he’s going to dump ric flair’s body. two hours ago, he showed up to ric flair’s private estate to play a game of chess. jim jim lost this game of chess and decided that ric flair had to pay for it with his life.

somewhere in hammond, indiana jayce brings his newest victim some tea. he walks down to his cellar, pours the tea, and asks his latest victim if he’s having a good time. his victim shakes violently and screams ‘no.’ jayce tells his victim to shut the fuck up and drink the tea before it gets cold. his victim screams ‘let me the fuck out

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of here.’ jayce tells his victim that if he doesn’t drink his tea or screams again or his tea gets cold then he will cut off his victim’s left big toe similar to how he cut of his victim’s right big toe two hours earlier. jayce’s victim quickly drinks the tea. ‘this is actually pretty delicious’ his victim says. jayce cuts of his victim’s left big toe any-way.

in 2010, jacobus met his girlfriend at a trader joe’s near rogers park in 2011, they moved in togetherin 2012, they went on their first vacation as a couple in 2013, they moved to a new apartment in 2014, they decided to break up because jacobus moved to brooklyn and went in-sane. rather than judge his insanity, she decided to have him eat her as a last hurrah

jayce doesn’t know what happened to his brain. one day he woke up and his brain just wasn’t right. he was doing his podcast and his brain kept getting worse and worse and worse. a couple of hours later, he was waterboarding the person who he interviewed for his podcast. a couple of hours after that, the interviewee was getting his big toe chopped off. a couple of hours after that, the interviewee who was now a victim had stockholm syndrome and decided that he was in love with jayce. this whole ordeal was very fucked up indeed.

‘ha, i won’ says ric flair ‘i know’ says jim jim ‘woooo!’ screams ric flair ‘i’m going to murder you maybe’ says jim jim‘why?’ says ric flair ‘because i hate losing’ says jim jim ‘i thought we were friends bro’ says ric flair‘ i thought we were too and i idolize you a lot but i’m only friends with people who let me win at everything. sorry’ says jim jim‘you’re crazy’ says ric flair ‘duh’ says jim jim

7Jacob Sanders Kevin Stanton

Kevin Stanton

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WHEN I HEAR THE WORD, I picture a man on the street talking to himself or screaming about the end of the world. Then I think insan-ity, the diagnosable mental illness that surrounds us. I think of the daily routine of some people’s lives as maddening. Its 6:30 a.m. and the alarm is ringing. The baby has been awake for 15 minutes already. Get up, get the baby, make the bottle, hand the baby to daddy. Go downstairs, put on the coffee, pack

school lunch, use the bathroom, pour the coffee, go back upstairs. Wake the daughter, everyone gets dressed, walk her to school, get home, eat breakfast, play with the baby. Then finally sit still in front of the TV. It’s now 9am. An hour later feed the baby, lay him down for nap, start cleaning the house. There’s an assortment of tasks to choose from. Dishes, laundry, sweep-ing, it’s never all done at the same time. Then the baby wakes. There are 3 hours to fill before

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he naps again, and it’s time to get the daughter from school. Those three hours go by the fast-est. While entertaining a one year old, trying to tie up loose ends with outside commitments, and continuing to clean, plans are already being made for dinner and what will happen tomorrow. Daughter is home, tired and crabby, while baby naps. 5 o’clock, feed baby, play with kids. 6 o’clock. Dad’s home, start dinner, talk to daddy, get kids in bath. 7 o’clock, start bedtime rou-tines read books, sing songs, kids are asleep by 8. Back downstairs finish cleaning. 9 o’clock, if there are no other outside tasks to finish this is free time. 10 o’clock, bed time. Within a blink of an eye its 6:30 a.m. again.This in itself sounds like an endless circular life that would make me insane, or anyone really. But in actuality, it is my life, and aside from the few moments of typical parental doubt and stress, I really do love it. I can’t help thinking though, that what makes a sane person crazy will make a crazy person sane.For years I lived as a “free spirit” or at least that was the nice term my family used when I was drinking, using drugs, and all around act-ing wild. I never pictured a life with a husband or kids. I always looked at that lifestyle and thought it trapped people. I truly believed I would go crazy if I had to live that way.Imagine you wake up in your bed one morning. Before you even open your eyes you can feel the sun pouring through the window and you know it’s late. As you open your eyes, you start remembering your current situation. You’re six months pregnant and everything is going wrong.This was me a little over a year ago. I knew I had a severe high risk pregnancy, and on this specific morning, my husband and mother were attempting to make me take an hour drive to

go stay at my parent’s place with my 3 year old daughter for the duration of my pregnancy. I knew that the drive would be stressful to my body and easily harmful to my son still grow-ing inside me. I knew that if something were to happen on that drive we’d need an ambulance to meet us on the side of the highway. I was ter-rified of losing my son. Everything I did was based on his survival. I could not risk his life. I could not imagine living with the guilt of caus-ing his death. I knew if I lost him I wouldn’t have the strength to kill myself, and living the rest of my life knowing I was the reason he had died was a kind of torture I did not want to live through. My mom was standing in my room helping me pack. I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I was going to her house. The entire time I watched her putting clothes in bags I just kept crying. I couldn’t explain to her that I knew for a fact if we took this drive, the worst would hap-pen. My thoughts were racing. I was worried for my daughter. How would something this traumatic affect her? If she saw me dying and her brother die at just three years old, how could she cope with that kind of fear and trauma? I couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t possibly take this ride. It was out of the question. I couldn’t even get out of bed and go downstairs. Yet here I was being told by the people I love the most in the world that not only would I have to do that but go above and beyond. It felt like they were telling me to walk across a rope bridge suspend-ed above a volcano while holding my two chil-dren. They were CRAZY. They had no clue what they were talking about. But I knew this was an argument I was going to lose. I began telling myself everything would be okay. If paramed-ics were needed they would come in time and everything would be okay. I convinced myself

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to take it one step at a time. My mom brought my shoes to my bed. I was so nauseated. I hesi-tantly tied them and stood up. She then walked me downstairs. I was feeling light headed and my breathing was becoming short and fast. As I put on my coat I thought I was going to pass out, that’s when I realized tears had been streaming down my face this whole time. My mom handed me a pillow and opened the front door. I hugged the pillow and dug in my nails as I started down the front stairs and made my way to the car. My daughter was already buckled and ready to go in the back. I gave her a smile over my shoulder, reclined the front seat as my mom laid a blanket over me, and I closed my eyes. I prayed to fall asleep, to be taken away somehow so I wouldn’t have to deal with the nausea, dizziness, and light headedness I was feeling. My mom got in, put the car in drive, grabbed my hand, and I told her to squeeze it as hard as possible. Suddenly I woke up, I was in the driveway of my mom’s house and we had all survived—for the time be-ing.I found myself in these life threatening situations on a daily basis. Every single decision I made throughout my day was based on how it would affect the survival of myself and my son with the consideration of the damage I was doing to my daughter and husband. I refused to leave the house. I was scared to do anything. I was afraid to be around a lot of people and afraid to be alone. Everything had a degree of fear related to it. Even eating scared me. The real reason all of this was happening was not because of a high risk pregnancy. In fact, my son and I were the picture of physical health. I was suffering from a severe panic disorder and agoraphobia. But when you’re in the midst of a mental break down, deciphering between real-

-ity and delusion is nearly impossible. You’re aware of how unreasonable your fears are and that there is a falsity to everything you’re think-ing, but it doesn’t matter. That logical part of your brain is getting smaller by the second and the irrational side is growing. No matter what your husband or mom or doctor may tell you, it doesn’t matter in the end. This crazy side is louder and much more convincing, and what’s more, it is causes physical symptoms to further its argument that everything is wrong. In a word it’s madness.Six years ago I began suffering from severe panic attacks. It took a year to figure out what was happening. It wasn’t until I was completely home bound that I sought professional help. I didn’t leave my house for 31 days. I could hard-ly step on the porch to smoke without feeling anxious. Trying to describe to others what was happening in my mind was impossible. To have a mental disorder that also elicits physical symp-toms was terrifying, isolating, and could really only be described as maddening. I had thoughts that weren’t my own. I could hear my voice in my head saying things that sounded insane, yet I couldn’t convince myself they weren’t true. I knew I was going crazy, the logical side of my brain was still functioning, but its voice was turning to a whisper while the panicked side was screaming and setting off every alarm in my body. As of today I can been be clinically described as a high functioning sufferer of severe panic disorder, agoraphobia, depression, and an eating disorder. And the main thing that saved me was the very thing I thought would kill me. A routine lifestyle, having some predictability, or stabil-ity, has helped me and freed me more than any medication or therapist. And somewhere in all of

this I found my voice. I’m closer now than ever to being able to describe what life with these dis-orders is like. I’m able to talk to those close to me and others who are afflicted with this and feel more understood than ever. But the madness still lingers. While I’m walking with my daughter, I’ll picture a car jumping the curb and plowing over me while my daughter watches as my entire torso is smeared across the pave-ment, and she lives forever trau-matized by my death. Or, I’ll step into an elevator alone and assume it will break down leaving me trapped for hours until I slowly suffocate. These absurd thoughts are daily, they have become just another part of my routine, like putting on the coffee, and I don’t see or think there is any real end to them. Madness has become my normal. It’s no longer the crazy looking guy who shouts about the end of the world. It’s me. I am the picture of internal madness, and some days I can’t help but wonder: what point am I going to take my madness to the street?

Drew Alderfer

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