sCHIZoPHReNIa diARiES
TRUE STORIES BY REAL SCHIZOPHRENICS
Tim Thorburn's Autobiography
TIM THORBURN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Basic Training was very hard for me. It was only 6 weeks but the mental breakdown that they try to induce on the trainees can be difficult and make the stay seem like forever. I had never been around so much yelling in all my life, I was never really yelled at growing up but rarely ever needed to be anyway as I was very well behaved. I kind of felt sorry for my mom and wanted to make her life a little easier as my sister was a total ‘basket case” growing up. The weeks continued with training, mental abuse, mental bashing, yelling and more yelling till finally I was through.
I took a bus from Lackland AFB to Shepard AFB where I learned the “ins and outs” of a TF33 jet engine. I was pleased to find that some of my fellow trainees from my flight in Basic Training were in my same class at Tech School. The term of my education was short, about 8wks, but when I graduated I felt comfortable around a jet engine, at least this particular model. In Basic Training I had requested my top 10 choices for what base I would eventually be stationed in. There were no guarantees you would even get one of your choices. Ellsworth AFB in Rapid City, SD was choice #1; Fairchild AFB in Spokane, WA was #5; I got the latter. I chose Fairchild because I knew a family, The Pedersen’s, whom I’d known from our summer cottage, as they have property next door to ours. The Pedersen’s resided in Portland, Oregon; about a 5 hour drive from the base. I grew very fond of them and went to visit whenever I had the chance. After graduation from Tech School I took 2 weeks leave and went home. The day after my birthday 07-17-2000 I arrived at Fairchild late that night. The morning would proceed with in-processing. Within weeks of arriving I received 2 stripes to signify the rank of A1C or E-3.
I had my own personal dorm room and only had to share the common areas with one other person. After in-processing I began on-the-training on KC-135 aircraft which utilized an F-108 jet engine. The engine was completely different from the one I was trained to work on in Tech School but the general mechanics of it were the same and I grew to find that because of the design and because it was a newer engine it was easier to work on and maintain. Besides performing maintenance on the jet engines I was also required to perform maintenance on the APUs (Auxiliary Power Units) which are the starting devices for the jet engines and are a small jet engine themselves. I missed my home life terribly and called home and took leave as often as I could.
I didn’t have many friends in the dormitory even after the first 2 years of living there. I was very much a loner and my social life reflected that but I soon became friends with TSgt Ensor, the Dorm Manager. He was a really great guy and was kind of like a mentor to me and the first person in the military that I had met that had kind of the same mentality as I did. What I mean is that most people in the service are so engulfed in protocol and being the way that the military thinks is the way to be that they forget themselves. I was strong willed and wasn’t about to change for anyone and never did, I complied with the absolute bare minimum and no more. I was later told I had a personality disorder that didn‘t agree with military service. I am proud of that and think it speaks volumes about my personality. Not only was Ensor not just another “robot”, he was very much a Christian and following his retirement which was about 1 year after I got to know him he got a job as a pastor in Liberty Lake, WA. I was saddened to see him go but pleased to see him doing something more worthwhile and that he liked doing. I attended the church every Sunday and would visit Pastor Don at his home about once a week.
The training continued for me on the jet engines and at my 2 year mark was due for a promotion to E-4. It was at this point in my enlistment that I grew afraid of every passing day, the more I learned the more I was expected to know and do and with the promotion came even more responsibility. I began to fear progression. In the military you are constantly moving forward but I didn’t want to move forward until I felt ready and didn’t want to be pushed. It was out of my control, I had to move forward and did but not without the cost of my health. I grew more and more stressed about things and it affected my work. I had enough training that I was trusted to work alone on jet launches and one day there was a problem with a jet having excessive throttle vibration from the engines. I was sent up to talk with the pilots about the problem. I had never been more afraid and alone in all my life; suddenly I felt as though I would faint but didn’t. I had no idea what to tell them; some electrician specialists sensed that I needed help and came up to assist my recommendation. We concluded that it was within limits and wasn’t a concern for flight. It was after that that I started to question my competency. I was always a good troop and my supervisor was always impressed with my work ethic but I had a serious problem working alone and the more I thought about it the more the stress seemed to melt my mind and I started forgetting things that I was taught. I began making careless mistakes in the aircraft forms and losing tools or leaving them behind on aircrafts.
A year prior to the 2 year mark I was wanting to make drastic changes to my life. I started eating really healthy and working out 4 hours a day and running 6 miles a day. I got such a high out of it. I was in the best shape of my life. I thought of my diet and exercise as my primary focus and had almost completely forgotten that I was in the military; I just wanted to be this other person. I lost about 30 pounds and I think people at work started to worry about me because I lost so much weight so soon. I wanted to cleanse my soul. I didn’t want to eat anymore I only drank water and worked out and read the bible excessively at home and work. I had been a heavy smoker and drank from time to time but now everything stopped. The more I refrained from the earthly desires the less I wanted them. I read the book “ The Power Of Positive Thinking”. I started to pray for people I didn’t even know. And then I started thinking I was Jesus Christ or a very Christ Like individual or Prophet sent to earth to make right what I thought was wrong.
After these delusions of grandeur, paranoia set in and I started remembering “911” and listening to all the news reports about terrorists and plans for war. I was terrified to go to war. Not to fight for my country but just the idea of having to go some where unknown to me at the drop of the hat. I don’t handle change very well and being deployed would just mess with my world. I had been on a short deployment once to California for 2 weeks while the flight line was getting repaired and even that adjustment was difficult for me. My name was on a list to deploy sometime in the near future and having that on my mind and knowing that it was completely out my hands made me sick. The more I watched the TV the more things just didn’t make sense. It’s hard to explain but it was just very strange television that seemed to be pertaining to me, I thought everyone in the world was passively giving me messages through television that the government knew I was a target of terrorism and that I had something to do with “911” and was giving out classified military information to outside sources. I know now that none of this was true but at the time it seemed very real to me.
To add to my paranoia one of the dorm Bay Orderlies or possibly my neighbor had taken the trash can from the kitchen. It returned a day later. I thought everyone on the base was in on some sort of conspiracy to corrupt me and even if I was innocent they would incriminate me with some kind of war crime. I had the notion that they were looking in my trash for information. I started being careful with what I threw away. Along with the television the radio, books, magazines, even the Bible didn’t seem right. The words were changing to pertain to me. I was in the bath room reading a “Readers Digest” and suddenly I was reading all about my self and my supervisor and everyone I worked with. The article was complete with pictures and everything, I closed it and when I reopened it the article had vanished. I didn’t know who or what to trust. I always had faith and trust in God but even the Holy Bible was not right, when I read it, it was like reading Satan’s Bible. I was terrified. I could not escape from my madness.
