Please read this post from Schizophrena at the Schoolgate. If Louise Gillett suspicions are correct, then chemical castration is one side effect of antipsychotic use that doctors routinely do not disclose to their patients. Yet, science also flirts with the idea that schizophrenia confers an evolutionary advantage for future generations. (See David Horrobin, The Madness of Adam and Eve). If science is correct, then there is an evolutionary DISADVANTAGE for people with a schizophrenia diagnosis not to procreate.

Excerpt from Amazon:

It’s icy cold here. I’ve stopped bragging that since I’m Canadian,  I’m used to this kind of weather. This kind of weather sucks. I no longer have the 40 below wardrobe thanks to the effects of currently living in a more moderate climate. I got rid of the unfashionable Eddie Bauer stuff years ago. Our small apartment is driving me cabin crazy! The only way to make a small apartment bigger is for the people who live there to stay in their rooms or go outside. This works okay for Alex, our middle son. He’s got a new job that requires that he arrive at 8 a.m., so he’s long gone by the time I get up. He gets home usually around 9 p.m. after socializing with his friends.

This leaves Chris. Ian and I are at work all day, and Chris is alone much of the day, which is not a good thing. Combine that with the wickedly cold weather and self isolation is paranoid-provoking. He sees his psychiatrist, and his occupational therapist, and his voice teacher, but that’s kind of “it” in terms of a reason to go out the door during the day. Luckily, he’s got a roaring nightlife, for the first time in years, with his various musical commitments. And, a friend of his from first year university (imagine staying in touch with a classmate when you left university after only one year!) has moved here.

Believe me, Chris is mentally stable and I expect him to stay that way. He is a different person in so many ways that the collapsed shell of himself that he was when he had his full blown psychotic episode that landed him in the hospital eight years ago. Would I say he is symptom free? No. The more he stays indoors by himself, the more his mind races. He still has trouble knowing what he’s supposed to do in a room. He lingers, he hesitates, he stands in the threshold of a room, undecided about what to do next. Here is a more descriptive example. Ian and I are in the kitchen making dinner and talking about our day. Ian notices that Chris has appeared in the hallway, and is standing facing the kitchen directly, but not saying anything to Ian or me. I’ve tried to explain to Chris that there is a purpose to being or transitioning through a room. We enter to sit down and read a book, or to shake hands with a guest, or whatever. The point is, Chris, either get into the kitchen and talk (How’s your day, is always a good opener), or go off and do something else, but don’t just stand there. 

The good news is that the occupational therapist, under some pressure from Ian and me, has hooked Chris up with an employment counselor. Chris has filled out a vocational aptitude test for her, called the “Jackson” something or something. Chris pointed out that all these tests seems to have the name “Jackson” associated with them. I immediately thought of Jackson Triggs, but then remembered that Jackson Triggs is a brand name for my beloved red wine. The Jackson test is kind of bizarre. It has multiple questions that, I kid you not, go something like this.

Would you prefer to raise turkeys?

or

Draw a blood sample?

That’s all for now. Stay warm.

Gianna Kali at Beyond Meds highlighted in her post today this quote from R.D. Laing.

The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one’s mind, is the condition of the normal man. Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal. Normal men have killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow normal men in the last fifty years.~ R.D. Laing

Which brought to mind the famous Stanford prison experiment

From Wiki

The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted from August 14–20, 1971 by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University.[1] It was funded by a grant from the US Office of Naval Research[2] and was of interest to both the US Navy and Marine Corps in order to determine the causes of conflict between military guards and prisoners.

Zimbardo and his team selected out of 75 respondents, the 24 males whom they deemed to be the most psychologically stable and healthy.
 
The participants adapted to their roles well beyond what even Zimbardo himself expected, leading the officers to display authoritarian measures and ultimately to subject some of the prisoners to torture. In turn, many of the prisoners developed passive attitudes and accepted physical abuse, and, at the request of the guards, readily inflicted punishment on other prisoners who attempted to stop it.

Sometimes I wish that I could return to the state I was in before Chris and I embarked on the schizophrenic journey, the journey of awakening. I was superficially happy; I didn’t want to know about life’s darker side.  I  can’t go back to what was, and I also know that my life is much richer now, but still, there is this tinge of wishing that I didn’t know so much, perceive so much. If I feel this way, as a mere observer on this journey, imagine what the full experience must be like for Chris and others.

Most writers, poets and artists of all kinds have experienced what happens when everyday reality is stripped away.  Aldous Huxley and Percy Bysshe Shelley come to mind:

“The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend”

― Aldous Huxley
 
Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread,–behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it–he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

―Percy Bysshe Shelley

More on Huxley quote in this blog

I know I’ve repeated what I am about to say many times in other blog posts, but I’m running out of ideas for this blog (LOL) and I figure it never hurts to reinforce what worked for me to keep my head above water in this journey. If it works for me, it might work for other parents in the same boat.

1. My husband, Ian, and I have kept our promise to each other, going on three years now, not to discuss Chris in any way that would signal there is a PROBLEM with him that needs fixing. We don’t discuss Chris’s current job search, his unfinished  university degree, his hanging around the house during the daylight hours without much to do. Because if we did, we would soon start to WORRY and FEAR would gain the upper hand. Chris would bear the brunt of our anxiety, which would not help him to move forward. Ian and I refuse to get sucked into this anxiety inducing zero sum game. Chris is moving in the right directions, on his own initiative, and doesn’t need us to prod him.

2. Entrusting Chris to the hands of other professionals. There was a time when Ian and I needed to get involved with Chris’s doctors, but this regular contact was anxiety provoking for us. Ian and I disagreed about the value of the medications, and it was traumatizing for me, at least, to continually interact with doctors in a clinical setting. Chris is no longer being treated in a clinical setting. His psychiatrist, Dr. Stern, is a private therapist. Though I’m wary about the danger of Chris becoming a perpetual patient the longer he continues to see Dr. Stern, I had to trust her enough to let her get on with her job. So, I haven’t corresponded with Dr. Stern for at least two years now. She’s doing her job, I’m doing mine.  Chris also sees an occupational therapist. While I may wonder what we are paying her for since Chris doesn’t yet have an occupation (LOL), I generally keep my mouth shut and let her get on with her job.

3. Trusting Chris more. This strategy(?) worked better as soon as Chris was able to function better. I remember when Chris left the hospital (for the third time) and I felt that I had “had it.” All the hard work to get him to take his meds, then all the hard work getting him off his meds, still resulted in his landing back in the hospital and back on meds. I was sick of being his nurse. He still needed guidance, but a line had been crossed. The old way of working with him simply wasn’t working. I stopped asking about whether he was taking his meds. He knew very well what the consequences were for going off them cold turkey.  I had to trust him enough to figure that he had learned something from this latest ordeal.

4. Letting go through yoga and meditation.

5. Reading only the good news that other people write about schizophrenia and mental distress. This is becoming easier as there is now more good news on the Internet than when I first got started.

6. Giving Chris daily hugs and praise.

If you want to start a trend with the public, the school system has proven to be a good place to start. I can think of a few trends that I personally witnessed. The first trend was to push technology in the home, not just in the classroom. My husband and I barely had enough money to pay the mortgage, feed the family, and keep the car running, but we kept reading articles in the newspapers that children did much better at school if they had a home computer. Home computers cost $2000, not money we could get our hands on easily.  Huge guilt feelings on our part. Our children would lose any educational advantage they may have had! The parent/teacher interview would go something like this: Teacher: “well, I’m not worried about Alex’s (our middle son) handwriting because he’ll be working on computers in the future anyway. He won’t need handwriting.” The message was clear: Buy a computer or Alex would be chiseling out his writing assignments on stone tablets.

The second trend was the rush to medicate. I again began to feel that my children were being left out. So many children had diagnoses of ADD and ADHD, and dysgraphia (Alex missed out on that one) that the principle’s office had a long line down the hallway at noon of children waiting to be medicated. But, as readers of this blog are already aware, my youngest son Taylor was caught in the ADD web. I was told by the school psychologist that Taylor may never reach his potential if I didn’t put him on Ritalin. I refused to do this. Today, with hindsight, I question who was feeding this information to the school system. Suddenly, teachers were acting like pharma reps.

And, the trend continues. Scare parents into jumping on the digital bandwagon to help Johnny keep up in the classroom. Get the teachers to endorse the product. Get the media to advertise this for you.

iPad a solid education tool, study reports

— More and more schools are jumping on the digital bandwagon and adopting iPads for daily use in the classroom. Apple’s education-related announcements last week will no doubt bolster the trend, making faculty tools and student textbooks more engaging and accessible.

But today another data point emerged, demonstrating that the iPad can be a valuable asset in education. In a partnership with Apple, textbook publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt performed a pilot study using an iPad text for Algebra 1 courses, and found that 20% more students (78% compared to 59%) scored ‘Proficient’ or ‘Advanced’ in subject comprehension when using tablets rather than paper textbook counterparts.

To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche

But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Chapter 29

No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Friedrich Nietzsche

To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.
Friedrich Nietzsche

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich Nietzsche

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Friedrich Nietzsche, “On Reading and Writing”

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 153

The greatest danger that always hovered over humanity and still hovers over it is the eruption of madness – which means the eruption of arbitrariness in feeling, seeing and hearing, the enjoyment of the mind’s lack of discipline, the joy in human unreason. Not truth and certainty are the opposite of the world of the madman, but the universality and the universal binding force of a faith; in sum, the non-arbitrary character of judgements… Thus the virtuous intellects are needed – oh, let me use the most unambiguous word – what is needed is virtuous stupidity, stolid metronomes for the slow spirit, to make sure that the faithful of the great shared faith stay together and continue their dance… We others are the exception and the danger – and we need eternally to be opposed. – Well, there actually are things to be said in favor of the exception, provided that it never wants to become the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, s. 76

From Wikipedia
Nietzsche’s influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism, nihilism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental tradition. His key ideas include the death of God, perspectivism, the Übermensch, amor fati, the eternal recurrence, and the will to power. Central to his philosophy is the idea of “life-affirmation”, which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life’s expansive energies, however socially prevalent those views might be.[

Most of these resolutions have to do with the memoir I have been writing and rewriting going on seven years now.  My writing has gotten better, or at least more precise, thanks to the freelance editor who is helping me whip the chapters into shape. Right now I’m working on the chapter on Family Constellation Therapy. I’m a bit like a plumber who has completely torn apart the kitchen sink in order to determine where the leak is. All the sentence nuts and bolts are strewn on the floor and I’ve got to figure out how to put them back in the right order to avoid taking the chapter apart again.

New Year’s Resolutions

1. Finish editing my book.

2. Finish editing my book.

3. Pepper my posts liberally with LOL.

Reason: I’ve been resisting introducing LOL into my posts ’cause I generally hate using popular and geographically based slang. It’s fine for other people who seem to know how to use LOL appropriately. I also fear a sense of humor doesn’t come across as well as I would like it to in my writing. Hence LOL. It will also make me look more carefree, almost as carefree as I feel these days.

Oh, yes, and Happy New Year everyone!

Enjoy this bit of fun.  Season’s Greetings to all (and to all a good night!)

Or, I could have known sooner, but nobody told me that a schizophrenia diagnosis should not be considered a life sentence.

When Chris was given the diagnosis of doom in Dec. 2003, there was not such a robust on-line community of hardy folk who did not go along with the received wisdom that schizophrenia was a brain disease. Or, if there was such a thriving community, I didn’t know about it.

My main point of reference were the doctors whose business it was to believe in the diagnosis. They were a uniformly pessimistic lot. If they actually thought that Chris had a future that didn’t involve psychiatric medication, unemployment and sheltered living for the rest of his life, they didn’t think to share this information with our family.

My second point of reference were the people who suddenly came out of the woodwork to tell me that their sibling was “schizophrenic,” like when you get cancer and suddenly everybody you talk to has had the same cancer. You had no idea these conditions were so prevalent. My acquaintances were all baby boomers, roughly my age, so their sibling was now roughly the same age as us. The conversation usually went something like this:

Me (hopeful): Oh, so your brother has schizophrenia? Will he be flying over here for your third wedding?

They (frightened look, lowered voice):  “Oh, no, he doesn’t travel very well. He’s been living in a group home near my parents for a number of years now. But (trying to be reassuring), I hear that the medications are so much better these days, I’m sure it will make all the difference for Chris.”

My third point of reference was the chat group I joined within the first couple of years of the diagnosis of doom. I began to notice how drugged up its members were. They accepted their diagnosis and they seemed to accept five, six or seven drugs to get through the day as a matter of course.  Many of them were my age and had been this way for years.

Was I right to panic given the dreadful scenario that was being painted by both doctors and acquaintances? I think so. Unfortunately, my panicking caused me to push Chris into activities for which he wasn’t ready. My panicking caused Chris to panic, naturally. This retarded his growth. If someone had reassured me that there was every expectation that Chris would resume a normal life if he was left alone for a few years to figure things out for himself, with no pressure brought to bear on him to do things he wasn’t ready to do, then I could have relaxed and learned be more philosophical and patient.

Today it’s a different story. Thanks to the Internet and the mounting evidence that puts the diagnosis under scrutiny as never before, there is a shared community of people who know there is a better way. There is becoming a shared understanding of what schizophrenia and how to treat it (needed time out for regrowth).

The stupid diagnosis to begin with, and the fixation of the medical community on using drugs as primary treatment, meant the the good news, which was there all along, was kept from many people who could have benefited from it.