The Mental Gymnastics of Survival in a Psychological Warzone
By King | Pepe”| KunTa’
I spent my first night on the streets not because I was poor, but because I refused to bow. I’m a digital artist. I create crypto art. I use injection drugs. I live loud in systems designed to silence. That combination made me a target — and when the mind is the battlefield, there’s nowhere to run.
From June 2024 to March 2025, I was hunted by a different kind of weapon: sound. High-frequency noise. Whispered messages. Acoustic distortion meant to confuse, destabilize, and finally, erase. I lived with it in Malaysia, in Ethiopia, in Kenya, in Sudan. I wasn’t beaten or imprisoned. I was disoriented — every day, every hour. That’s the genius of psychological torture: no blood, no bruises, just noise and silence used like scalpels.
They call it “non-lethal.” But they don’t live inside your skull.
What broke me wasn’t just the sound. It was being misread — by institutions, families, societies that saw my art as defiance, my choices as threats. Crypto art made me suspect. My blockchain canvas, my digital dissent — it was too decentralized, too free. I didn’t fit the mold. They didn’t want me to. I was supposed to disappear.
Resilience , Angels , 2025 , https://x.com/anglsai/status/1898102005949731165?s=46i
Mental Torture Has a Playbook. So Do Survivors.
I built a system. Not to win — just to stay alive inside my mind. Adaptation became survival. Each tactic a counterweight to madness. A coded language of resistance I whispered to myself in motel rooms, shelters, cyber cafés:
“REMEMBER! IT IS ALL AN ILLUSION.” A mantra to neutralize the manipulated sounds meant to provoke me.
“PROBABLY IT’S RELIC, PROBABLY IT’S REAL!” I learned to accept uncertainty instead of letting it consume me.
“DON’T MOVE.” Stillness became power. Movement, reaction — those gave them control.
“IGNORE THE NOISE AS USUAL.” The noise was bait. I stopped taking it.
I stopped talking, too. “DON’T SPEAK.” Silence was armor. Words could be twisted, used against me. “DON’T PAY ANYONE.” I cut off the leeches. Financial manipulation is just another leash. “YOU CAN ALWAYS STAY AT THE RECEPTION (OR THE PUB).” Public spaces gave me temporary invisibility.
I avoided stimulants. Especially the ones that cracked me open. “DON’T TAKE STIMULANTS.” I couldn’t afford more paranoia. And I stopped trusting anyone. “DON’T TALK TO ANYONE.” I hate what that did to me. But it kept me sane.
And when the streets came for me, I updated the list:
“LISTEN CAREFULLY TO SCENARIOS, EVEN YOUR IMAGINED ONES!” — Paranoia wasn’t a bug. It was information.
“CONFESS IMMEDIATELY.” — If they try to use your thoughts against you, own them first.
“ALL SCENARIOS (TOTAL) EQUALS ZER0.” — No fear, no projection. Let it all collapse.
“GO T0 SUDAN, GET S0ME FAKE P***** & EXTREME LEVEL OF PARANOIA.”* — Sometimes absurdity is clarity.
“DO SOME ART B***!”* — Creating is claiming space.
“F** THE DEAD ONES.”* — Let go of ghosts. They can’t torture you if they don’t matter.
“TAKE THAT (300mg) THE MOMENT YOU WAKE UP.” — Whatever gets you through the morning.
“ENJOY THE S!DE EFFECTS.” — Pain is proof you’re still here.
Mental Prisons Aren’t Metaphors
Silence spins with us , Angels , 2025 , https://x.com/anglsai/status/1918370619646775628?s=46
I’ve slept on couches, curbs, benches. Not because I gave up — but because when you resist systems built on silence, they will exile you. Homelessness is the last tool. They strip away stability until you disappear on paper, then from memory. You don’t even need a jail cell to vanish.
But I wrote this. Which means I’m not gone yet.
What the World Refuses to See
This isn’t just about me. It’s about the systems that chew up anyone who dares to live outside the lines: artists, users, dissidents, the ones who won’t lie down. We’re not just stigmatized — we’re mentally tortured, socially erased, and digitally hunted.
When the world talks about “mental health,” it talks in soft voices about anxiety and burnout. It doesn’t talk about psychological warfare by family, institutions, governments. It doesn’t talk about the quiet brutality of being declared insane for being different.
That silence is strategic. And it’s killing people like me.
We Need to Start Naming the Weapons
Psychological torture is real. It’s happening. Not in prison camps — but in families, hospitals, online forums, immigration offices, and dark hotel rooms filled with noise. It wears the face of care, or discipline, or security. And it is a human rights violation.
You don’t have to understand my art, my drug use, my paranoia. But you should understand this: I didn’t break. I adapted. And I’m still adapting.
That’s not madness. That’s resistance.
KunTa’s Personal Notes
24/4/2025
