Joe Rogan - Ryan Sickler Tells Funny Stories About His Schizophrenic Cousin

Instant trauma. I mean I have mental illness. I have a cousin who is paranoid schizophrenic, all right, and my dad would tell me about he's my... I don't know how the fucking second remove shit works. He's my father's first cousin, okay. Still alive. Dude smoked a cart and a cigarette in three days. Whoa. I mean we have no idea how he's ever a throat fucking left, but he was really fucking... he was a black belt in karate. He was great at lacrosse. He had Hopkins, Syracuse, big schools looking at him, and then he'll tell you he started doing drugs and he went fucking the Sid Barrett route. He just went off the fucking deep end and he's permanent disability, diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, and you know he's... we all love him, but and he's fucking hilarious. Like he'll play with it because sometimes he's on his meds and you can tell you're like, oh you're dialing in right now. I'll start telling family secrets. I'm like don't listen to him. Like no, no, no, right now is when you listen to him. I can see it in your eyes. The other times he's off looking over here like, oh you don't know what you're doing. But we would go... like he had an apartment and I would go visit him from time to time and he had poetry and sayings and stuff written all over the wall and I'm like what is this? He's like, well at night when I'm home alone the doctors come in through my window. They drop liquid acid in my ears and they knock me out and then they start taking samples of my body and after they leave the love of my life comes and I can't communicate with her. So this is how I communicate with her. These are there for when she comes in to speak for me and I'm like, holy shit. So his windows are nailed shut to keep the doctors out. I'm like how's that work? And he's like it's not working. So one day I'm over there and he's watching TV with the volume all the way down and the radio up and that's how he's watching this program and I'm telling you it started to fucking make sense. I was like I gotta get the fuck out. I gotta get out of here Gary. I'm out of here on this. There's a disease that I'm trying to remember the name of it but it basically is when people are around schizophrenics for too long they develop schizophrenia themselves. Really? Yeah there's some people who are sympathetic to it to the point where God I want to say it's called allophrenia. There's some sort of a disease that occasionally infects people or gets people that visit people in the hospital that are schizophrenia. So someone will come like family member will come visit you and they will get diagnosed and they will get admitted themselves. And they'll actually develop it. Yeah they get it. I don't know like to what stage but apparently it's a potential issue for some people because like look have you ever been hypnotized? No. I thought it was horseshit to my friend Vinnie Shoreman who is a sports hypnotist who works with a lot of fighters. He hypnotized me. I'm like whoa this is real. It just puts you in a very bizarre state. Do you feel that state? Yes you're there. You're awake. You're conscious but you're in a strange state. You feel something. Yeah like you're like like you're in a tube of consciousness or something like you're in a womb. It's very very interesting but I'm listening to him and he's a friend. I trust him. He's a great guy so I wasn't weird about it so I was like oh yeah you could do it. Go ahead let's see what happens. I was kind of skeptical. I was like this is horseshit. But I've been to if you've been to one of those hypnotist comedy shows. No. My friend Frank Santos. He was a guy who uh he's passed away but he was a big-time comedy hypnotist guy in Boston and in Rhode Island and he had a show and he I saw his show man he used to do like one night a week at Stitches and one night a week at Nick's Comedy Stop and dude we would go down there on days off just to watch. It was crazy. He would take people out of the audience like who wants to be hypnotized and he had a weird way of talking. Who wants to be hypnotized? You want to be hypnotized? Come on up. He was like a around jolly fellow. Real friendly glasses you know like totally unassuming. You didn't think you'd and then he would bring these people on stage and he would just be able to take sweetie you're gonna go under. You're gonna you're gonna fall asleep. You're gonna fall asleep when I snap my fingers. You're gonna think you are Sally Fields and right next to you is Burt Reynolds. Oh yeah. Smoky in the band. And you would see these people and they really they were like smoky we got to get away from the police. Like they really believed. He had this one guy he told her. They would they would actually speak like that person. Oh yeah yeah yeah they didn't know what they were out of the mind. This one guy he told the guy this was the 80s he told the guy that the guy was having sex with Madonna. He's like underneath you is Madonna and you're squeezing her booties your booby her boobies and she's naked and you're about to have sex with her. You're gonna have sex you're having sex with her right now. And the guy had an orgasm on the stage. He's he's sitting there on the stage like oh and the audience is I'm talking people are falling out of their fucking chairs crying laughing. You couldn't but it was real man and some people it wasn't real like some people would look at him and go hey hey buddy hey buddy look at me look at me. You're not under. Come on come off the stage guys like oh and the guy would climb off the stage. He would know who was under and who wasn't under. I mean this guy was a man. He would work with people who were trying to quit smoking or trying to quit gambling. I had a friend that did the smoking thing. Gambling booze. Apparently they can do it with a lot of different things with but smoking is a big one. But he he just could do it to some people and I'm telling you quick he would do it and there's fucking 300 people in the room but he would be like I'm gonna count my fingers from the count of three. You're in the car and the police are chasing you. One two three. What are you doing now? I'm in the car the cops are chasing me. And it was just instant man. I mean it was some people they just fall into these states of mind and they're open to suggestions. Some people can be hypnotized and this is why some people I think join cults. Like I'm watching this new the Netflix program Wild Wild Country. Yeah. Fucking crazy. I just started. Crazy. But some people I think are more susceptible to suggestion and more susceptible to cults. And I think that is that's what's happening. I think that's what's happening with with this alifrenia thing if that's what it's called. I might be remembering that incorrectly. But this this thing that being around a schizophrenic person is like whatever weird error their brain is making. Your brain tunes into that error and you start going crazy too. As soon as that shit made sense I was like I gotta get the fuck out of here because he's done crazy. He's harmed. He's never hurt anyone but he's still you know these days he's wait he's probably he's probably in his 60s not in any kind of shape. But back then when he still knew martial arts. Oh dangerous crazy man. He was dangerous but he never hurt anybody but he knew how to. And so one day there's Eastern Avenue in Baltimore for lack of a better term the Ventura Boulevard of Baltimore. Shops everywhere and everything. And there was this one woman that had cut his hair one time. And for him excuse me to touch his head was a big deal for him. So he immediately fell in love with this lady. Her name was Carissa. So he went home and got his guitar. And the thing about this guitar like this dude would pawn his bed his guitar everything. But that guitar was always out of tune exactly the same way. You understand what I'm saying. Does that make sense. OK. So always fucked up but always consistently fucked up every guitar he had. That's how he tuned it. That's how he heard it. Oh wow. So he writes her he writes her a love song and he wants to go up to her shop and now sing it for her. So he goes up. He stands out in front of the shop and he gets her attention. He's got his guitar and he's gone. It starts off where he goes. Chris I love you. In Baltimore accents her name's Carissa but he says Chris. OK. Chris I love you. Chris I need you. Then he goes Chris it'll die. Chris it'll cry because I would've died. Chris it'll. And she's freaking out like what the fuck. Yeah like your eyes. So they call the police. He gets arrested. Oh no. But he doesn't understand why he's arrested. In his mind what did I do wrong. I just wrote a beautiful song for someone I care about and I wanted to share it with her. So my cousins all of us were like we got to go to court and watch this. This is going to be fantastic. He's got to go to court. So they bring him out from the back. Oh no. And he stands up and it's a female judge and his mom my aunt Marguerite she's my great aunt my grandma and sister but extended family big time and we're all there watching. And the judge says ask the girl her side of things. She's like will this happen. And he's like she's like would you like to speak on your behalf. He's like I just don't understand what I did wrong. I wrote a song for someone I care about. I just wanted to share it. And she's like would you mind sharing some of the lyrics. And we're all like oh shit and he fucking Chris I love you. Chris I need you. Chris don't cry because I want to die. She goes okay okay that's enough. That's enough. And then they're about to let him go because they understand I'm going to put a restraining order. He's under supervision but they're about to let him go. And she goes oh wait a second. Oh there's a oh there's still an open charge here on the books. So we're going to take you back to that. He starts losing his shit like what. My M.R.G. stands up and to a judge she goes hun we drop those charges. Everyone calls people hun and Baltimore. She goes hun we drop those charges. That lady said first of all you don't call me hun. I am a judge. You address me as your honor. We're all like I am hungry. You got schooled by the judge. And they fucking took him back and he was screaming going on. Did they put the family put a charge on him. Yeah he had he would do things like he would show up to their place in a cab. The man they pay for it they didn't he'd throw a brick through the window. So they had him arrested for that. Jesus Christ. And they really did drop the charges but it was just a clerical error that never made it to the paperwork and she's like I gotta do what I gotta do. We're taking you back today. And he was they were pulling him back and he was gone nuts. Oh my god. Oh yeah so that ended up that fucking haircut. But he would say shit to me. He would swear to me that nurses would give him head in the hospital. And then part of the time I don't know. But one that really blew my mind was he had this scab on his stomach and he was like they keep coming in and cutting me and testing me. They're taking me to the doctor today Ryan. I think I got something. I think I got a disease and that that cut. I'm like what are you gonna do. He's like I got a plan. So I talked to him later that day and I'm like what did you do about that disease man. He goes you know what I did with that scab. I picked it off and throw it away. He thought like the scab held the disease and you could just pick it off and flick it away like that shit's gone. He's just out of here now. He imagined. Wow. That's where he gets. I talk about it people. It's not funny mental and it's not. Mental illness is obviously not funny but the shit he would do we would take him. So be me and my two brothers his daughter and two sons on Christmas Eve we'd go over. We'd take him a plate of food. We'd hang out with them for a little while and shit and there'd be times where he's like you guys got a joint. Like we shouldn't be smoking. So we give him a joint. Oh no. And he smokes it and now we're driving back to my aunt's in the city which is 12 minutes away. We get back. What are you all giving him. We. He would rat us out. He's like they came over gave me that food. Thanks by the way they gave me a big fat joint. So then we would play that. Why are you listening to his crazy ass. Nobody gave him like we all had to be on the same team. Oh he would he he he smokes. He would come to my grandmother's house when I live with her. He'd sit in a chair and he smokes cigarettes like this. I mean he doesn't pull it any farther away than three by three inches from his mouth and not just down down down done and he'll do he'll go through three packs. My his mom died of breast cancer and she would say all the time. I don't know how he even has a fucking throat left and I'm dying of cancer over here and he is he's still alive still alive smoking cigarettes like that too still smoking cigarettes like chain a carton in three days. What is a carton. I don't even know 20 packs. That's roughly seven packs a day. Something like that a day for decades for decades. Oh my God. That is so crazy. Now what do you remember what he was like before he was schizophrenic. I don't because when I was a kid he was already gone and but my dad loved them and would bring him out to the house because he was safe. He was just crazy. He would say shit and he'd be like don't you know don't give him a break. Yeah don't be that's right. Be nice. Don't give him a fucking brick. But my dad would tell me all the time he was a phenomenal athlete. Like I said great at karate. He had a black belt. He was a great across. No just he he tried to tell me. So Highland Town is the area where my aunt is the old Greek town in Baltimore. It's not it's you know Greek is long gone in that neighborhood. But that's where he grew up and he would try to tell me that Highland Town was the Haight Ashbury in Baltimore. I was like get the fuck out of here with that garbage. But he was doing acid you know early 11 12 and he dabbled. I think he said that early and then eventually after like into the college years the 20s he really fucking ramped it up. So he was fine before that. Yeah 100 percent. You know that's a common story. The common story is people that have a tendency to schizophrenia or maybe they have a likelihood of developing it later in their life. Acid trips, mushroom trips, heavy psychedelics tend to bring out schizophrenia. They tend to make it manifest. So maybe he was ripe for it because there's there's no other mental illness in the family. It's just him. Just him. Yeah man I think especially when you're young you know I mean think about how many people have had horrible horrible acid trips. Just taken way too much and tried to fight it and just been fucked up for days and weeks and then you still feel slippery. Like life feels weird even after those trips. I had a DMT trip one time that fucked me up for a couple weeks. Like for a couple weeks after I'd be driving my car to be thinking there's going to be a car that's going to launch itself off the fucking the the oncoming lane and fly right into me. I was thinking I had this image that was going to be upside down and the the car was going to hit the windshield. Flying upside down. Flying upside down and just slant for weeks after this. Yeah weeks. Weeks afterwards. That's why I'm scared of that shit. It's because