The Schizo-Stroller

Seriously though, just came across this bit of news (a bit late I know)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6033013.stm

Although it’s not really ‘news’, ‘experts’ and users have both been saying this for years. Although, personally, I’m relatively relaxed with the word, I use it as a hanger to put my issues on and I feel it  explains away my symptoms so I feel I’m not mad, I’m ill and I can keep a handle on things, it’s a bit hard to explain that any better.

However at the same time I’m cautious about telling people I don’t know in case they make presumptions about me based on their prejudices about the word before they get to know me. The rough and the smooth.

Perhaps a more medically or psychiatrically specific word or group of words for each clutch of symptoms would be preferable. But changing schizophrenia to one other word such as ‘integrated disorder as the Japanese have done is just changing the name of the problem like changing Windscale to Sellafield, Marathon to Snickers (still haven’t forgiven them for that).

As someone mentioned in the one of the comments to one of my posts, there’s debate amongst, at least, some who think there may be a link between early forms of shamanism, faith-healing, witchcraft and general seer type stuff and mental illness. This by no means gives any credibility to these experiences in any sense of there ‘truth’ or ‘reality’, nor vice versa. But it’s an interesting debate

There have been many things that have been accredited to the early forms of religious experience, from drug taking to the fear of natural events. I will probably say more on what I perceive as a link between madness and mental health in the future, but some of my experiences I think bring, at least to me, a possible suggestion to the formation of symbolism in myth, or the other way round (i.e. the power and universality of the symbolism of these myths has effects on me), or, perhaps, both.

A lot is mentioned in myth and symbolism about doorways as gateways or portals to other worlds, states of mind, dimensions, selves etc. There is however the basic experience of moving from one room to another. I used to find that my voices changed when I went through doorways, or, they having been quiet, would start, but something would often happen to them merely by walking through a doorway. Now this could be due to anything from the change in physical, visual environment, smell, sound to the sheer experience of moving through a physically smaller gap.

Whatever, I think the awareness of this phenomenon, my change in voices is merely my personal manifestation of this experience, could have influenced early myth creators. The awareness in turn having been brought about, potentially, by an altered state, which, perhaps could occasionally have been what we would call today a mental ilness.

Mad, innit.

I’ve just been to my local shop which is literally only two minutes walk away and I thought I got abuse off two people, one on a mobile and one walking past. Both about the same thing which could only have come from the fact that, in my fucked mind view, someone was transmitting lies about me.

I don’t know who this person is or what they have against me or why they feel the need to do it. but it happens a lot.

Now I have enough touch on reality to be aware this is probably all in my mind. But it does raise a question: for these two people to have done this not only would they have been uncritical of the lies someone they don’t know said about me, but felt they should share their indignation with me in the form of verbal abuse on the street. Does this mean I believe there are people out there capable of that?

The sad thing is I think I do.

I got a twitch in my leg the other day and it made me consider, as many other times have, the positive difference medication can have.

When I became ill and I was really high (in a delusional/ hallucinatory sense), any vibration; sound waves, trains/ cars rocking, TV flickering and twitches in my body, would transmit words and sentences to me, this was beyond just hearing disembodied voices, this was communicating using the vibrational characteristics of the fabric of the universe (I thought).

And as I listed one of these was twitches in the body, many people get them, they’re just small, localised muscle spasms. however due to my altered state, they spoke to me. The twitches would transmit whole sentences to me, I could sit there having conversations with the twitches in my body, they were relatively intelligible and coherent. This was not a form of Morse or other code I made up, these were clear distinct english words. It was a very strange experience.

But now, happily or sadly, depending on your point of view, they are just twitches. Mere bodily vibrations. They have nothing to say. Sometimes I get a slight glimpse of a possible suggestion that some communication may be about to occur. But it never does.

I would like to introduce you to two of the ‘personalities’ that talk to me. (These are not my ‘other’ personalties, I do not have multiple personality disorder I have schizophrenia – get it right).

I have given them names, one (sorry about this female readers I’m really not a mysoginist) is female and I call her ‘the bitch’. She’s the nastiest of my voices and is constantly abusing me, picking up anything stupid I think and crtiicising me for it, harshly. And no reasoning, pacifying, arguing or generally putting my point of view across will calm her down or, basically, get her to piss off.

The other, main one, is male and I call the ‘annoying pissant twat’. Again he picks up on stupid things I think, we all think stupid things at times, no-one is perfect, but this one will then go on and on and on and on and on (get the picture?) about them. Repeating the words ad infinitum. He’s the really annoying one, but he’s the one I really lose my temper with because after an hour so of the same shit going on in your head it really pisses you off.

I call them ‘personalities’ as, and I’ll relate this to a program on Channel 4 that I saw, which really struck a chord with me (if anyone has any more information on this I’d appreciate it as I’ve found nothing more since), that talked of voice-hearers creating distinct personality models that talked to them. Now these ‘models’ I have really do have distinct autonomous personalities, minds of their own you could say. Now, I’m aware it is in a way my own mind creating and controlling them, albeit unconsciously, but the fascinating thing is they are created out of people I’ve met, and, I think this is important, the fears of people I don’t want to meet, that have become, through my experiences of them, distinct and autonomous.

The fact that my constant companions are negative, and exemplify people I really don’t want to have as my constant companions, says loads about any self-destructive urges or low self-worth I may have, I’m sure. I should point out I don’t choose friends on this basis in my ‘real’ personal life. It tends to be an unconscious thing my mind is doing to me, but it’s something I have to work out myself (or with help) outside the confines of my voice-hearing.

My mind abhors a vacuum, it has to fill in the gaps. I remember thinking that to relax myself, the reasoning be if I was more relaxed I’d have less voices, I’d take up yoga. But I was in the middle of a class and everybody was being so calm, concentrating and relaxed I suddenly realised I wanted to scream to break the silence.

It’s been so long since I’ve had a day without voices or some kind of thought interruption I’ve come to accept it as normal. If I suddenly find that my mind is quiet I suddenly panic. Not necessarily that I’m frightened by the silence but that I’m so used to being randomly attacked by my voices I’m suddenly on the defensive, thinking ‘why’s it quiet?’, ‘where’s the next attack going to come from?’.

So I’ve realised that, in a way, I’ve got so used to my voices that I almost create them when they’re not there. Like a war zone, where silence means imminent attack. But it’s not as simple as that, when I am able to snatch a brief period of calm, I enjoy it, but the fear that this calm will ultimately be destroyed by a voice attack becomes in a way a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet that, unfortunately, doesn’t mean that if I can accept the quietness my voices would go. Were it that easy. I never created my voices, consciously anyway, in the first place. It’s the anxiety that increases their frequency but it doesn’t cause them to occur. They will come anyway.

The trick I think is to learn to enjoy the silence when I can get it. Not panic. I know the voices will come. Just don’t fear them coming. Accept it, move on and enjoy myself while I can. I’m finding it easier to do so all the time, but I can’t force it, if I let it happen it’ll happen, I have to be patient and not worry about it because that’s what destroys the silence that I can get.

I like this one:

“The trouble with democracy is the people don’t always vote for who you want them to.”

Jon Stewart, The Daily Show Global Edition, More4.

Just came across this:

” I need not think, so long as I can pay.”

 Immanuel Kant in ‘An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?’

One of the problems with trying to maintain some kind of rationality when you have a mental health problem is evidence that your delusions/ hallucinations are not in fact real.

One of the results of this is what I call ‘the pointless conspiracy’. It follows a very Descartian problem – the guy who said ‘I think therefore I am’. As I have mentioned I suffer from thought transference or the semblance of telepathy. However the way this manifests itself is that other people can hear my thoughts even though I can’t hear theirs unless they talk directly to me, which then become a form of voice hearing. But generally I don’t hear other people’s thoughts in the same way they, supposedly, hear mine. Which is a bit unfair really.

So if it seems to be that other people can hear my thoughts the obvious test would be to ask people whether they can. And I have done and invariably they say ‘no’. But, the question then pops into your mind – ‘What if they’re lying to me’. Paranoid I know, but you’d be a bit brain dead if you the question didn’t at least cross your mind. As it happens all the time and is real to you, after a while it seems a reasonsable supposition.

However another question should then cross your mind. What is the point of them lying. If there were one or two people this happened with, perhaps it would be harder to criticise, but my experience is that everybody can hear my thoughts. So if everybody is lying that makes it quite a massive conspiracy. What’s more it’s really stupid. It is a ‘pointless conspiracy’. I can’t see what everybody would gain from not telling me. I’m not that paranoid.

So although it is not unfalsifiable, ultimate proof that it’s my imagination, a delusion, a hallucination. I really can’t see that the whole of the rest of the world is that fucking pointless. So I’m willing to hedge my bets. I’m not that paranoid and I’m not that self-involved (even though I’m writing a blog).

It is an utterly pointless conspiracy

I was going to have a lie in this morning. But I got woken by a phone call, I thought it could be family or friends, so I answered it. It was a sales call. I explained I wasn’t happy about being woken by someone selling me something.

‘I’m not trying to sell you something’ he said, ‘I’m trying to save you money’.

Evil!

Evil, lying fuck!