Took a few days but I'm caught up on the recent developments in Rudyard's breakdown. Here are some of my theories:
Drug Abuse/Schizophrenia
Kratom
I know several people in grad school who utilize kratom as a tool in a way adjacent to how I abuse nicotine and caffeine during crunch periods. I collaborate with academics often while they're on low doses of kratom; without prior knowledge of their consumption, it would be impossible for me to sense their high. From Rudyard's own words, he's been utilizing it in the same manner--this being said, addicts don't tend to explain their drug use with the utmost honesty.
There are many posts in this thread describing high doses of kratom as a hallucinogen, which is incorrect; a more appropriate classification is dissociative. One of the main effects is internal hallucinations, which are visual hallucinations that only occur within an imagined environment; think of these as waking dreams or rotating an apple in your mind. From what I read, kratom hallucinations tend to be similar to hypnagogic scenarios, which are the brief hallucinations that you may experience as you fall asleep: the feeling of falling, patterns on your eyelids, flashing lights, etc.
Now, to get to the fun stuff: kratom can apparently lead to psychosis, particularly in users plagued by schizophrenia. In a study conducted in Malaysia, it was found that patients under the effects of high doses of kratom can develop psychosis-esk behaviours along with grandiose delusions; this study has been challenged by others who suggest there is no link. In a case reported by the West Virginia University School of Medicine, a PTSD-ridden veteran experienced extreme sleep deprivation for seven days, along with auditory and visual hallucinations, delusions of grandeur and paranoia.
Ayahuasca
Ayahuasca is the holy grail of hallucinogens--I assume you've all heard a hippie ramble about DMT. Ayahuasca uses the same hallucinogenic chemical; however, its method of ingestion results in different effects. Ayahuasca is typically a brew of two plants, one containing DMT and the ayahuasca vine containing MAOI. The inhibition of MAOI allows DMT to diffuse unmetabolized past the stomach and small intestine, allowing it to cross the blood-brain barrier to active receptors within the brain; without MAOI or an adjacent compound, DMT is oxidized and rendered biologically inactive by enzymes in the digestive tract. Due to Ayhuasca's method of ingestion, trips can last anywhere from 3-14 hours. Effects range from standard pattern recognition, colour enhancement, tracers, etc; more intense effects can include internal hallucinations and external hallucinations: believable and autonomous from the user, typically of personal, religious--Good old Odin--spiritual, etc; cognitive effects range from, mindfulness, ego death, increased empathy, a perceived exposer to the inner mechanics of consciousness--you can name several of Rudyard's recent videos that could be derived from this. And, of course, this powerful bastard can lead to the effects of psychosis and illusions of grandeur; who would've guessed?
If there's a drug to attribute to his delusions, this would be it.
Schizophrenia
Rudyard isn't out of the age-of-onset schizophrenia, typically emerging in males between late adolescence and early twenties. I'm aware his mother is nuts; if she has schizophrenia, it would predispose him. Another possibility I'd like to suggest is drug withdrawals: similarly to schizophrenia, some drugs change levels of neurotransmitters, resulting in the brain temporarily processing information in atypical ways. Lord knows the flurry of chemicals running rampant in Rudyard's system; it could be possible.
An Alternate Approach Based off Character
Rather than attempt to describe this analytically, I'd like to write about a guy I knew, who we'll call Brad. Brad introduced our group of slacker teens to Death Grips and their revolt against music theory, Neutral Milk Hotel and their tales of saving Anne Frank, Merzbow, noise music, and the importance of texture rather than melody in music. It should be obvious that he was just a hipster /mu/tant; however, to a bunch of 15-year-old Tyler, the Creator fans, his taste seemed refined; he uttered words, terms, and ideas we'd never heard before, therefor he must be a genius! Brad told us that he was working on a "pigfuck industrial" album, which, while the terms made zero sense to us, we assumed that his genius had carried over to this mysterious project; he'd surely go down into the annals of history as a great innovator of music. He quickly became the "music guy," and his opinion was gospel; he loved it.
As time went on, we grew up and started thinking for ourselves; his opinion was no longer of utmost importance; when he introduced us to Lil Peep, there was no fan fair, with the lot of us instead telling him that he was gay and made faggot music. We never heard a note of his genius album and quickly forgot about it.
To give some context, Brad wasn't the most intelligent guy. He fell into the lowest-level classes and struggled with emotional conversations; he graduated but never made it to post-secondary. Until he became the music guy, his social life was absent, and people held him in low regard; now that we'd moved on past his short stint of success, he had become who he was before, and his illusions were shattering.
As we forgot about his greatness, his conversations transitioned to rants about how miserable he was--y'know, the usual suicidal tangents every 16-year-old hears. These conversations resulted in the attention he had previously received and the occasional mention of his supposed greatness to cheer him up. He became addicted to this empathy and sucked it out of us like a vampire. One day, he was confessing how his parents would hit him; the next, he was beaten up by a Mexican in the school washroom--a weird lie considering that I have never seen a Mexican in our country, much less at our school--whenever he drank into a euphoria his lies would become more traumatic, and we'd give him more of what he was looking for; if his genius was crippled by mediocrity, he would be broken.
Of course, like any act of praise, our empathy waned as confessions piled up; with his group of followers losing interest, he began his greatest act of fibbery: a month-long performance on how a family member brutally molested him, a lie so perfectly crafted that we would be cruel to deny him support.
Inevitably, he was caught retelling lies incorrectly, and his spiderweb of fibs collapsed. Over the course of years, he confessed to the truth and made more in their place.
I hope you can see some parallels between Rudyard and Brad. Since prose isn't my strong suit, I'll detail some of the mirrors I've seen while watching Rudy's breakdown.
For one, it's evident by now that Rudyard isn't the genius he presents himself as. His ideas are surface-level, typically recited from his goat, Peter Turchin. However, when his channel was smaller, his knowledge was enough to convince his teenage alternate history fan audience that he was a great like Nietzche. I believe, in some regard, Rudyard's development is stunted, either from his ego or autism; he acts like Brad did as a teenager, spouting off trivia and other information he's read online to appear like the man in his fantasies. With a larger viewership, Rudyard is reminded of his mediocrity; I believe, in some regards, this is the basis of his Twitter-spergging. He's insecure, or at least trying to ignore the reality of his intelligence; this was evident when he debated Vaush, started losing, and screeched, "I'VE READ MORE ACADEMIC BOOKS THAN YOU!"
I think it would be wrong for me to sit here and ramble about how he wasn't molested; I'll write on the pretense that it isn't the case; however, I'm not concrete on this. It would be very possible that these confessions are based in reality and extended by drug use, or worse, they're all true. Being "broken" is romanticized to a highly unhealthy degree within our society: there's no higher regard than to be a troubled genius. If you can't make it as an artist, academic, or what have you, the next best option is to be broken: to be pitied. The truth of this is evident from the amount of TikTok teens labelling themselves as traumatized, rambling for video after video about their struggles, or the same kids rambling about their various mental illnesses and inabilities to have an easy life. Personality disorders like these can be addicting; people who follow this behavior often do so without intending to. When Brad fibbed, he did so in a drunken euphoria, assumably without consciously registering what he was saying; when questioned on a sober day, he'd brush it off, ashamed about his lie but knowingly unable to walk back on it without destroying his relationship. Rudyard is caught all too often lying about his success, achievements, social clubs, etc. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to suggest he's a pathological liar. I'm all too familiar with the tone Rudyard spoke with in his confessions.
His breakdown was miserable to watch; it could be because I became aware of him through his alternate history videos and witnessed his descent from the origin, but he seems more like a harmless autistic history nerd than the traditional lolcow. If even a fraction of what he's said his mum did is true, it's a heart breaking tale. I'm afraid that even if he recovers to the level of sanity he held before, he's ruined his ability to be seen as anything more than those rants. I hope one day Rudy can go back to drawing fictional maps; he seemed to enjoy that.
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