Some random thoughts about schizophrenia: Reply to "Kez" from 6th August: (spoiler)
- From: "MonkFish" <fonkmish@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 10:00:44 +0100
With many apologies to everyone in advance for the shocking '>' situation .
.. .
On 6th August, "Kez" wrote:
>Hello Monkfish. I am also a long-term sufferer from >paranoid schizophrenia
>and I read your posts, under "an >identity crisis" with interest. I have a
>few friends, and >most of them are schizophrenic too, and nearly all of
> >them are mentally ill in some way. The little >schizophrenic world I live
>in can be quite a nice world, >with CPNs and doctors to help, and friends
>to care. I am >also lucky to have supportive parents, who look after me >a
>lot.
>
>I think like you I have spent a lot of time wondering >what schizophrenia
>is, and what makes a schizophrenic a >schizophrenic. However after my brain
>melted big time >last year, I have forgotten it all and am more interested
> >at the moment in Big Brother than my illness. I have >occasional thoughts.
>Today I thought "it's not really an >illness" which seemed true. But it
>gets to be a bit of a >minefield very quickly.
>
>I spend a lot of time talking to my voices, when they are >there. I don't
>really know what they are, though. My >psychiatrist said they were in some
>way my own thoughts, >but I thought that was silly. I tried to explain to
>him
>what voices were but he didn't really say anything back. >I do know they're
>a hallucination, but, as I told my >doctor, the only practical way of
>dealing with them, is >to treat them as real people. Most of my friends
>don't >hear voices.
>
>I relate to a lot of what you say about schizophrenia >being shocking to
>people. I think though this is mostly >stigma, and the media view of
>schizophrenia, which is >that we are all potential axe murderers. It's a
>very >sinister thing. However, I find that it is in fact >schizophrenics
>who are usually the ones who are >vulnerable and need a degree of
>protection. I read in New >Scientist recently that schizophrenics are less
>able to >understand things like deception and lying, and less >capable of
>lying. I think it's true that schizophrenics >tend to be a little more
>innocent of such things.
>
>It strikes me that you write like you have racing >thoughts all the time.
>Is that true?
>
>I believe that schizophrenics need relaxation and a >relaxed lifestyle
>above all else
>
>-- kez
>
Hullo, Kez!
There's a quite a lot for me to get through here, so I'll have to skimp a
little bit on the detail and miss out one or two things altogether. As the
title says, these are some random thoughts about schizophrenia.
Much of what I offer here for consideration about the workings of sz is
taken from books.
I've replied to the above post on a new thread so I'm not contaminating
anyone's else's, and with a spoiler so there can be no mistake. The rest of
you can't say haven't been warned, this is looooong, and what we are talking
about here is going to be pretty mental, but nothing like as mental as it
could get; for sz, this is tame.
In fact, in sz terms, I've always considered myself something of a
lightweight. I know this is a very, very good thing - if not flat-out
self-deception - but since my recent 'improvement' (another
self-deception?), when I read posts on alt.support.schizophrenia, for
example, I can't help feeling like I'm back in the showers at school again
with all the big boys, feeling hopelessly inadequate.
It's an illustration of my attitude sometimes that I have a sort of
symptom-envy, "Oh, wow, it would be so cool if I had THAT!" (inappropriate
affect).
This comes undoubtedly from the fact that I spend so much time thinking
about all that I read about sz in the books and relating what I read to my
own experiences. I am trying to convert myself into a living case-study,
for two reasons.
The first is simple defence. If I think of myself in the abstract, I don't
have to confront the reality of it all. This is also why I sometimes make
light of my symptoms.
The second is that I know more about myself, my background and all the rest
of it, than I will probably ever know about any other person. Therefore, if
I really want to know about the fundamental processes of sz, what better
lab-rat to dissect than myself? I am helped by the fact that, so I have
found, during times of florid experiences, my brain tends to come apart
quite readily in my hands, affording lots of fun insights.
This is the sort of thing I believe tends to appal certain non-sz people.
People hear the phrases 'hallucination' and delusion' and think they know
what sz is, that these are ordinary people who see and hear things that are
not there, but the things that are commonly NOT known about sz experience is
the /total/ transformation of experience these conditions often entail.
It is like quantum mechanics. If you are not currently sz and *not* shocked
and disturbed by schizophrenic experience, then you haven't properly
understood the experiences we talk about. It is a fundamentally different
order of experience of both self and world than the non-sz can really get to
grips with without some form of indoctrination.
Much of the second by second lived experience of the sz is in complete and
total violation of the non-sz's understanding of what it is to be real,
living human being - although the sz typically remembers that other people
do not experience the world as he does and so realizes to some extent that
he has gone astray, and is very disturbed by that.
As far as the non-sz is concerned, because there isn't that shared framework
of experience between the non-sz and the sz that makes normal social
discourse possible - they are just not receiving from him the normal social
'cues' that they need to understand the other person and feel understood by
him, the cues that form the very basis of even the most rudimentary
relationship - the sz is felt to be completely beyond the pale. He is, in
this view, not human.
So much of the institutionally-sanctioned and scientifically-approved abuse,
casually meted out to one sz patient after another throughout the centuries
under the disguise of 'treatment' is a product of this breach of the rule of
shared reality. If you do not empathasize with the other person, you tend
to hurt them whether you intend to or not. But make no mistake, some people
/hate/ schizophrenics.
Whereas the Nazis had to use propaganda to turn the normal population
against the Jews, most non-sz citizens are so naturally disconcerted by the
sz, the same sort of extensive propaganda campaign seems necessary to
/avoid/ the same revulsion. People are afraid of what they do not
understand.
This, I am sure is the source of the media's low opinion of the sz.
Anything they cannot understand - particularly the knee-jerk, lowest common
denominator tabloid hacks - they react to with fear, and they try to
exacerbate this fear to create sensational headlines. People will want to
buy more newspapers to read about this 'menace'.
In the mind of such journalists, reporting frightening things also increases
the perceived importance of the press, who can kid themselves they are
protecting the public rather than selling gossip and innuendo.
Moving onto the rest of your post, it seems to me that there was a period of
two or three years towards the back-end of and immediately after finishing
uni where I was in much the same state that you describe, completely zonked
out. I could just about get through the day if I sat doing nothing and
watching TV - even then it was far from a sure thing.
On the other hand, it could be a side-effect of your meds (it is a little
known irony in the general population that the drugs prescribed to control
schizophrenia tend to /cause/ certain schizophrenic symptoms as a
'side-effect). What does your gp/cpn say about it?
I do not have "racing" thoughts but instead hear an ever-present interior
monologue in a very flat, very steady voice. But it is not a stable,
integrated personality that is conducting this monologue, but is more a
collection of 'part-selves' - incomplete fragments of personality - each
contributing thoughts and continually breaking up each other's flow (often
manifesting in my writing as comments inserted parenthetically).
Sometimes, under times of stress, for safety's sake, I withdraw further and
further from the outer world into just one of my part-selves. What happens
then is that thoughts from other fragments of my so-called personality that
disrupt the internal monologue are experienced as being external to me, as
if they are coming from outside.
I hear voices (but not very often, only in stressful environments).
More precisely, I /experience/ voices. This is why I, and I think others,
talk about the voices "in my head". They are external to what I experience
as 'me' but they are still coming from within the confines of my own skull
and so are not actually /heard/, for the most part, in the same way as the
voices of the people to whom I speak with in normal conversation.
But this does sometimes happen for others; it is different for different
people. I'd be interested to hear about yours or anyone else's experiences,
not just of hearing voices, but anything sz. The full range of sz
experience is incredibley diverse, even within one individual during the
course of his life.
For example, paranoid delusions are apparently quite common in most forms of
psychosis. This I know first hand because, although I do have and have had
paranoid delusions throughout my condition (including over the past few
days), I am not specifically a paranoid schizophrenic (who seem to have much
more cohesive personalities, rather than my shambolic collection of scraps,
is this your experience?).
For me, these aspects of sz such as extreme diversity and the role intrusive
thoughts seems to play in certain 'symptoms' (and other aspects there is not
enough room to go into in any detail here) disqualifies sz as a disease in
the traditional sense.
Instead, I regard 'schizophrenia' as an umbrella term that covers a variety
of quite different experiences ('symptoms') that emerge when one habitually
employs certain defences against certain experiences, or use certain
techniques to understand certain experiences.
If you show enough of these 'symptoms' you are labelled as having
'schizophrenia'.
But you do not have sz, like measles, you /are/ sz (The Divided Self).
Several different authors agree that sz experience derives from a
/heightening/ of conscious awareness. Particularly, an unnatural
self-conciousness seems to play an important role in certain symptoms.
Very briefly, what they say is happening is that, when reflective awareness
is pushed beyond a certain point, weird things start to happen. Thoughts
are 'heard' as voices. Emotions become flattened. One's body becomes a
machine existing in an unreal time and place and from which one is
seperated. The world comes to seem more and more like the set of a movie, or
is felt to be poised on the brink of immanent destruction. The gestures of
the people around you come to assume a special, hidden significance. The
very sense of self comes under threat.
Given that these experiences can be shown to derive from a heightening of
conscious awareness, I, like you, have found that relaxation techniques and
other coping mechanisms that alleviate stress to be absolutely key in
managing symptoms, while trying to stay active and productive prevents the
development of extreme states of self-consciousness.
For this and other reasons, I like art, music, books, films, etc. because
they take me outside my own head to meet directly with reality, and help to
some extent to correct the disturbances of perception and experience.
Regular exercise and household chores also help.
I find routine and social withdrawl help enormously, as well (but the latter
only because other people are a /major/ stressor for me). That way, no
matter how chaotic things might get inside, things remain safe, predictable
outside and I do not tend to react with the same fear in quite the same that
I used to in the early days, which only tended to make things very much more
frightening and confusing (a slight understatement).
In terms of fundamental change of personality, which is what is really
needed to cure sz, I absolutely believe psychotherapy can help, but it is
difficult. The sz is trying to avoid being changed by his relationships
with others at all costs, and has devised an arsenal of defences to stop
that from happening.
But it is far from hopeless. As you say, with help from those around you,
it is more than possible to carve out for oneself a little schizophrenic
world and be happy in that.
Rock on.
T.
.
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