Cocoa butter...
Hands down, the only healing substance I was introduced to during my stay at Lenox Hill Hospital’s inpatient psychiatric unit.
It happened during an activity I have since coined Psych Ward Surfing™
As I found myself floating in the air while being carried by a group of staff members into a padded room while my hands were in the air pleading for peace and saying “you’re doing this, I’m not doing this”; I must confess that the majority of my consciousness was focused on the following…
“Yo, what is this Jamaican cafeteria worker wearing on his body right now? Dude smells absolutely incredible”.
Unfortunately that beautiful scent slowly faded away as I proceeded to find myself on the ground of a room that resembled a prison cell surrounded by a now even larger group of staff members. As I looked across a sorry lineup of faces that literally looked possessed by the devil I felt a needle being forcibly injected into my arm as I politely just finished the sentence “No, please don’t”.
They say this whole human experience is a cosmic play and the only words that can do justice to that moment are indeed… curtains down.
I woke up alone on the floor with a nurse guarding the locked door from the outside. I remember repeatedly going up to the small window as I was coming to and asking, "where am I?" He would look me in the eye each time and tell me repeatedly “you’re in the hospital”.
This was within the first 24 hours. The final tally ended up being nineteen days. Voluntary isn’t so voluntary after you sign the dotted line but are interested in talking with a human being rather than simply taking pills.
What horrific act did I commit to end up warranting such “treatment" might you ask?
I raised my voice in the cafeteria and asked for peace because a fellow customer said something that scared me. It was my first morning in the psych ward after a night of not sleeping and as I approached my table with my food an older customer I got bad vibes from the night before said to me “C'mon Erik, you know it’s going to happen”.
I got scared, put my tray down, put my hands in the air in a surrendered fashion and asked for peace. Within seconds I was surrounded and the whole dramatic scene I just described unfolded. Please don't forget I was also paying thousands of dollars out of pocket for the privilege of this whole experience.
Many could corroborate my story, including the customer I bonded with most that also happens to be an international lawyer. His sister had him 5150’d. He liked to talk about the multiverse and the doctors pumped him full of so much lithium his legs started ballooning up like Violet from Willy Wonka. Try not to get all worked up about that though, they wrapped plenty of gauze around those things and made everything a-okay.
There was also a woman who was clearly being tortured by negative energy and thought she had gangrene. She would repeatedly walk up and down the hallways asking for help and was awfully curious where my pizza was coming from. I heard a nurse freak out on her and yell “You have delusional disorder!”. When they got sick of listening to her they would just take her to her room and start pumping in the ol’ snooze juice.
Slit wrists. People recovering from electroshock. The list goes on.
A psych ward is like a tragic cosmic symphony. On the one hand there’s a dude sitting next to you drawing pentagrams and punching the wall but then there’s also a woman gracefully dancing around the library while reorganizing the hospital’s entire bookshelves in perfect height order.
The doctors don't have a fucking clue what’s going on with all this energy and they’re running around playing pharmaceutical whac-a-mole.
It's raw. It's horrific. It's painful. It's also peppered with moments of profound beauty that I will never forget.
Honestly, I’m tired of talking about this stuff but my spirit guides are guiding me to do so. It’s been five years and it’s clear some of this trauma is still stored in the body. If you saw that Courage video I made you may notice there are a few images sampled from the film A Beautiful Mind.
I completely broke down in tears editing the sequence with the syringe. All these years later I still reexperience the sensation of the poison entering the body when I see that image of the fluid moving through the tube. It's not a feeling I would wish upon anyone.
At this point I have purchased and tried at least eight different brands of cocoa butter. I am still yet to locate the exact one dude was wearing. I found one that’s really close, but I know it’s not the real deal. That hasn’t stopped me from putting it to good use though.
Northwell Health. Lenox Hill Hospital. Cafeteria dude. And most importantly.... the spirit of cacao. Namaste! I bow to you.
Thank you for not only introducing a beautiful new moisturizer into my life, but also adding an entire new dimension of wondrous smells to my stroking sessions. It has truly transformed my life and the lives of others in a way that can not be quantified by modern science.
If there are any cocoa butter aficionados of there, please feel free to share your recommendations with me. I'm all ears over here.
Unfortunately the hospital was not rad enough to offer silver gowns but if you know anything about the Daniel I’ve mentioned in other posts you might get the reference in the headline image.
Hang ten 🏄🏻♂️ 🪐