Something Theo told me once is on my mind today. He said that, if given to a person with a healthy brain chemistry, many modern targeted neurotransmitter drugs will cause textbook cases of other psychiatric conditions. They’re temporary, of course, fading as the brain reasserts its metabolic right to maintain its own neurotransmitter levels. But observations have been interesting. Zytokol, the “schizophrenic miracle drug,” of the last century, produces not schizophrenic psychosis in a healthy brain, but something called “Limbic God Syndrome.”
Patients still hear voices, but the voices are implicitly trusted, their messages soothing and pleasant. The patient experiences ecstatic, ‘rushing’ sensations throughout the chest and body trunk, often resulting in deep, regular breathing. This breathing, in turn, often produces hyperventilation, making the patient’s fingers and lips buzz. When Zytokol inevitably hit the streets, they called it Goddy, God, or “G”.
The amazing thing about God was that you could take it for almost as long as you wanted. Start with ten to fourteen hours. At hour seven you could take another, fall asleep, and your dreams would be full of the most intricately detailed revelatory visions you could ever hope to have, wave upon wave of “Yes, Lord, I understand” experiences. You wake up with the name of God on your lips and another four or five hours to go before you need another one. Breakfast becomes a holy rite. Cooking it becomes inspired service to the Almighty. Awareness of the interconnectivity of all life increases. Some have reported acute interest in skilled mathematical play. It is, in fact, rumored that Fetter’s Theory was worked out under the influence of Zytokol.
Unfortunately, like all drugs, Zytokol exacted a price. The body could only generate so much of a given neurotransmitter, and when the brain’s supply began to decrease it resulted in strange food cravings: burnt molasses, raw potato, massive quantities of hard sausage. Eventually the brain gave out, and after about four weeks achieved a semi-catatonic state, somnambulant, which lasted anywhere from a few days to months at a time. Usually, crushing depression and nihilism followed.
It didn’t take long for someone to figure out that a diet rich in certain fatty acids and amino-building block supplements could avert some of that. Dr. Craig Matthews built a retreat in Northern Colorado, well stocked with such supplements and equipped with enough padded rooms for 1,500 people to ride out the downtime. He build a lab for manufacturing Zytokol, and eventually killed 150,000 people when in his increasingly sticky-fingered befuddlement he produced an ‘invert’ batch. Created as the result of a half-degree-Celsius error at a crucial point in the manufacturing process, some of the molecules involved were exactly backwards. Just wrong enough to bind themselves to an assortment of neural receptors that they had no business binding themselves to.
Thousands died by beating their heads into walls or asphalt. Others took as many people with them as possible. There were mass slaughters in restaurants, schools and bars. It was estimated that, over the course of two weeks, 7,000 “inverted” G-heads had killed 143,000 people around the globe. That’s about 20 people per inverted person.
It still happens from time to time, as chemists of lesser and lesser talent take over Dr. Matthew’s old business, which survives despite God’s reputation for turning some percentage of its users into mass murderers. The good doctor himself put a meat thermometer through his eye during a live interview on the evening news shortly before his trial was to begin. His diary explained that he had brought the thermometer along with him because he was being compelled to show everyone how hot his brain was inside. This was Dr. Matthew’s interpretation of Deuteronomy 4:24: “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” Dubious exegesis; fantastic television.
I tell you all this to encourage you—if you are not some future incarnation of myself—to fully believe this simple truth: people shouldn’t take medications that aren’t prescribed for them.
