And There’s the Ocean

Thomas Houseago did not know who he was, or where he was. He was scared. It was 2020, the early months of the pandemic, and the artist had spent several months in a trauma rehabilitation facility in Arizona, after a violent breakdown triggered by the death of his father. He had undergone EMDR, theta crossover, neurofeedback, personal and group therapy, but he was not getting better. He had begun having intense somatic episodes that resembled epileptic fits. 

The Arizona facility transferred Houseago to a specialized center in Los Angeles, which they felt might better be able to help him. The next stop on his journey would be a secure psychiatric unit, and he knew it.

“I honestly wanted to be sectioned. I was just like, ‘I’m dangerous, get me out of here,’” Houseago told me. “I was not a safe person at all, to myself or to others.”