I didn’t know Mark 5 was about me until years after I survived.
Growing up, I read the story of the man with Legion like it was some ancient spiritual horror tale — a guy screaming in caves, cutting himself with stones, naked, isolated, chained up because nobody knew what the hell to do with him.
I never thought I’d recognize myself in him.
But now, looking back at my twenties and especially those waves from 2019 to 2021, I see it clearly:
I am the man among the tombs.
Not metaphorically.
Not symbolically.
Not as some poetic stretch.
No — in the truest sense of the story, I lived what he lived.
Not possessed.
But unwanted.
Misunderstood.
Feared.
Isolated.
Left outside the community whenever my mind broke open and spilled its chaos into the world.
And when I finally came back “clothed and in my right mind,” the church wasn’t relieved.
They were afraid.
Just like the townspeople in Mark 5.
THE TOMBS
People think “the tombs” means a cemetery.
It doesn’t.
It means exile.
It means the place you get sent when your mind becomes too much for the community.
When you don’t fit their structure.
When your reactions don’t match their expectations.
When your questions aren’t welcome.
When your pain isn’t neat or polite or easy to counsel through.
I was sent to the tombs long before 2019.
Liberty University.
The churches over the years.
The silence and distance from people who didn’t understand what was happening inside my skull.
The stigma.
The misunderstandings.
The “you’re rebellious,” “you’re ungrateful,” “you’re unstable,” “you’re making everything difficult.”
No one said it out loud, but the message was the same:
“Go live among the tombs until you’re normal again.”
Except psychosis doesn’t work on a schedule.
And untreated schizoaffective disorder doesn’t go away because people need it to.
WAVE 1 — 2019
“They tried to chain me.”
The first wave wasn’t a dramatic explosion.
It was a quiet fracturing.
I wandered in North Carolina, disoriented, detached from the world, drifting like a ghost.
Burned my own hair.
Recorded myself saying things that didn’t make sense.
Drove on E, spinning out on an exit.
Walked miles without glasses until I was stranded in an industrial complex.
Stayed outside like someone who no longer lived inside the world everyone else lived in.
Then the moment that should have killed me:
Central State.
The assaults.
The trauma.
The breaking of something inside me that I wouldn’t understand for years.
I was alone in the tombs.
Not dramatic.
Not cinematic.
Just gone.
The man in Mark 5 cried out day and night.
I didn’t cry out — but my mind did.
And nobody heard it.
Nobody knew what to do with me.
Neither did I.
LEGION REFLECTION #1
When I read Mark 5 now, I see a man who was not wicked — just abandoned.
Not possessed — just sick.
Not dangerous — just unprotected.
That was me in 2019.
WAVE 2 — 2020
“Breaking the chains.”
If 2019 was exile, 2020 was eruption.
I blew up openly publicly.
Facebook meltdowns.
Confessions that were half-delusion, half-desperation.
Anger that wasn’t anger — just untreated symptoms.
Statements that made people step back, as if I had infected the air around me.
Barncat.
Lucifer.
These persona fragments weren’t characters — they were the edges of a mind splitting under unbearable pressure.
People feared me in 2020.
They avoided me like the townspeople avoided the man with Legion.
Not because they were cruel, but because they didn’t understand mental illness — not real, untreated, unmedicated psychosis twisting the internal world into something unrecognizable.
This was my second tomb.
LEGION REFLECTION #2
“They bound him with chains, but he broke the chains.”
People tried to “help” me the only ways they knew how:
Distance.
Silence.
Warnings.
Unfriending.
Concern mixed with fear.
Like the townspeople in the gospel —
the community didn’t know what to do with a man who couldn’t control the storms inside his mind.
WAVE 3 — 2021
“The storm.”
This was the collapse.
The bald head.
The third eye.
The identity swings.
The belief that I was the “Ancient of Days.”
The frantic posts.
The apocalyptic thinking.
The delusional clarity — the kind that feels so real you could bet your life on it.
Shaving my head wasn’t a style.
It was symbolism.
A ritual my psychosis created.
Tweet storms.
Busch
Spiritual paranoia.
Thinking everything was connected.
Thinking God was speaking directly in codes.
Thinking pastors were hiding things.
Thinking I was part of some unfolding cosmic narrative.
Then, the day I left, my car was running at the boat dock.
Walking off.
Leaving my belt, my jacket, everything.
The police.
The ambulance.
The incoherent statements.
The 5 Whys.
The strange answers about hidden things and conspiracies.
This wasn’t mania.
This was psychosis swallowing me whole.
This was Legion screaming in the tombs.
This was life-or-death.
And somehow —
I didn’t die.
LEGION REFLECTION #3
“He cried out and cut himself with stones.”
Mine were different stones.
Intrusive ideations.
Confusion.
Ego death.
Despair.
Spiritual distortion.
The feeling of unraveling.
But the cry was the same.
The loneliness was the same.
The exile was the same.
CLOTHED AND IN MY RIGHT MIND
The miracle.
Invega.
That was the moment everything changed.
After 13 years of being on the wrong medication, everything finally made sense.
The voices quieted.
The chaos stilled.
The storm stopped.
For the first time since I was 17, my mind was mine again.
I was alive.
I was stable.
I was clear.
Like the man in Mark 5, my miracle wasn’t flashy — it was internal.
“He was clothed and in his right mind.”
And just like the Gospel says…
“…and they were afraid.”
THE CHURCH’S REACTION — “AND THEY WERE AFRAID.”
You’d think the church would celebrate my clarity.
My healing.
My return.
My sobriety.
My stability.
My desire to grow.
Instead:
One pastor told me to pray about attending again.
Another pastor said I should stay wherever I am and “consider if Cornerstone is right for you.”
Both told me not to come back yet.
Both backed away — carefully, politely, spiritually sanitized.
They didn’t ask how God healed me.
They didn’t ask about my mind.
They didn’t ask about my survival.
They didn’t even ask if I was okay.
They just created distance.
Exactly like the townspeople who saw the healed man and felt uneasy.
The man was changed —
the community wasn’t.
LUKE 15 — THE FATHER’S RUN
This is where the story shifts.
If Mark 5 is the world’s reaction to mental illness —
Luke 15 is the Father’s.
The Father doesn’t hesitate.
He doesn’t screen.
He doesn’t hold meetings.
He doesn’t require permission.
He doesn’t evaluate motives.
He sees his son from far off —
and he runs.
He runs to the one everyone else is unsure about.
He doesn’t fear the scars.
He doesn’t fear the history.
He doesn’t fear the instability.
He doesn’t fear the broken years.
He embraces first.
He restores first.
He celebrates first.
Then he speaks.
This is the God who met me in my psychosis.
Not the pastors.
Not the church structures.
Not the institutions.
God ran toward me when everyone else stepped back.
THE CALLING — “GO HOME TO YOUR FRIENDS…”
When the healed man begged to follow Jesus, Jesus didn’t let him.
He didn’t say,
“Join our group.”
“Sit under our leadership.”
“You need overseers.”
“You’re not ready.”
“Slow down.”
“Meet with me privately first.”
Jesus said:
“Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.”
That’s what I’m doing now.
That’s why I survived.
That’s why I didn’t become permanently psychotic.
That’s why I didn’t die in 2019, 2020, or 2021.
That’s why the episodes didn’t destroy my mind forever.
That’s why I’m here at 34, stable, clear, writing, working, helping others.
I have a story.
A warning.
A testimony.
A calling.
A responsibility.
Not given by pastors.
Not given by churches.
Not given by communities.
Given by Jesus Himself.
TO THE ONE STILL LIVING AMONG THE TOMBS
If you’re reading this and you feel exiled, misunderstood, unstable, unwanted, or feared…
If you feel like the town has chained you with labels, silence, or distance…
If you feel like your mind is a storm you can’t explain…
You are not alone.
You are not unlovable.
You are not beyond restoration.
You are not too broken for God.
You are the one Jesus walks toward.
And one day —
You’ll be seated, clothed, and in your right mind, too.
And the world may not know how to handle your healing.
But the Father will run.
