Psychosis not that Crazy

The word psychotic often is used as a derogatory remark, it sparks fear in our heads. And the even more clinical-sounding psychosis makes me think of it as an actual condition not reserved to the few in mental institutions.
I have been reading Marya Hornbacher’s Madness: A Bipolar Life, in which she describes at one point having a psychotic break (meaning the first time you break into psychosis) & believing that she is a millionaire high-society lady that should be treated with utmost respect due to her superior station.

This threw me for a loop considering I have never been told what psychosis feels like, only textbook descriptions from the outside of what it looks like.
Her descriptions of the sights, sounds, tastes & feelings of psychosis almost surprised me because like many people something as serious as psychosis frightens us to no end & to hear of someone I feel I know almost intimately from her writing, experiencing this lessened the stigma I had about it.

Because after all, she is not forever tainted by the fact that she has endured psychosis, unable to give us all her life story & insight into the life of a person with bipolar.
I am surprised that it surprised me, oh well she’s been psychotic, maybe it isn’t the end-all of end-alls. Even the most open-minded & accepting people must admit that we’ve unduly labeled some people as damaged goods, (was once psychotic!) it is more terrifying to those who do not understand it.

I hardly ever hear of what people experiencing delusions of any kind are feeling, how they feel rather than just a description by the DSM of what it looks like, what to ‘watch out for’ as if it is a monster hiding around the corner ready to steal our sanity at any moment.
Maybe the fear is rooted in our fear that it could happen to anyone, or maybe because it is an unknown to us.
Whatever it is we’re truly afraid of in regards to psychosis, I have lost some of my fear, this may sound odd but it does’t seem as crazy as I once thought it to be.

The Romance of Pain

I have heard so much about people being utterly sick of their pain, physical & emotional. Yet some seem to be attached to it, they romanticize it. They are in love with it to the point that they may purposely deny & give up treatment of it. It gives many a sense of purpose, a sense of fulfillment even if it is distressful. I have searched for a name for this but have been unsuccessful. Is it a form of narcissism or just a feeling that one is empty without a deeper meaning to things as well as something to focus on?

I think of people (like me) who know just about everything about their illness & almost take pride in the title disorder.
It bores many people to think of a normal life without pain & drama, it can be a reason many people relapse. 
Not just the melodramatic poems on emote websites titled “I can only feel pain” but people with major depression, eating disorders, substance abuse or any other issue who have no clue that they love their pain. I think more people than we realise have this problem of having a place in their heart for their anguish, who think they’d be nobody if it weren’t for their pain.

If you have any more information of the romance of pain they please contact me I’d love to do an interview, receive more info or just have a definite name (if there is one) about the issue of romanticizing your illness.

Newsflash: It’s all your fault fatties

Another book offering “tough love” (although I hear no love coming from this message) for those who are “obese” called Die Fat or Get Tough: 101 Differences in Thinking Between Fat People and Fit People, author Steve Siebold interviews people on their thoughts about food & weight, namely so-called fat & fit people.

“The differences in thinking between the two groups were so extreme, someone had to write a book and tell the truth” he proclaims.

The truth, the truth that fat people need stark self-discipline & a finger pointed at them to lose weight?

In the article, he states that fat people believe diets don’t work, because they don’t want to take the blame for their failures to stick to those diets. Fit people, though, believe diets work – it just requires selfdiscipline.

Who are these “fit people?” People who constantly diet & watch every morsel that passes their lips while they stray away needless hours at the gym?
Fitness is one thing, self-discipline is another. People are less likely to stick to a healthier lifestyle when it is greatly inconvenient & let’s face it, is not healthy at all & is a depriving diet.
Studies have shown that as many as 90% of people who go on diets regain all the weight they have lost & sometimes even more.
But of course, it couldn’t be a diet industry & pop culture screaming at us that we’re fat slobs could it? Feeding on our emotional insecurities with promises of thinness & grander?
Apparently not, apparently we must rise above the ungodly temptations of dessert & strut right past the Thanksgiving pie. 

In reference to fat rights movements, he says:
“It’s a whole movement because they’re failing. Now they want people to accept it and make it look like it’s a condition they were born with. It’s killing them. Someone’s got to shake them up.”

Ever hear of genetics? Evolution? The human body was made to keep weight on, not take it off. If obesity in itself, the actual accumulation of fat on the body, were as deadly as it is made out to be humans would have adapted to where weight is not put on so easily.
I more often hear of people dying directly from starvation than I do overeating, since when have we heard of mass reverse famines striking the heartland as masses of people dropping dead of this deadly disease?

Maybe we ought to try something a bit bold, a bit shocking.
Listen to your body, your body is not stupid, it will tell you if you are hungry, what your hungry for and how much it wants.
But in a place where we think of our bodies as crude, disgusting things that must be contained, we think of our body as the enemy.

That we must be harsh & strict with ourselves when it comes down to the very nourishment that allows it live.

My message of tough love to Steve Siebold: Eat the damn piece of Thanksgiving pie & shut up about it.

Kate Moss – An ill woman

Unfortunately petite supermodel Kate Moss is not only known for her model, acting & fashion work. She is also notoriously known as an anorectic & drug addict.
In a recent interview she says a motto she tries to live by is “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” A popular slogan of the pro-ana\anorexia online communities. She adds:  “You try and remember, but it never works.”

This has many in an uproar, angry that someone frequently thought of to model for anorexia is saying something like this out loud &
that it is irresponsible & fuels more distorted thought from millions of girls who inspire to look like her.
My initial reaction was anger, but we cannot forget that Kate Moss is a sick woman. Years of torturing her mind & body from eating disorders & cocaine abuse has a devastating impact on oneself.

She knows she is seen as a poster board for the anorexic ideal and she says this, what I see is an ill woman trying to build herself up on her obsession.
It is irresponsible that she says this so blatantly knowing of the impact it will have, but it’s regrettable that along with the pressure to have the perfect body, she is expected to have a perfect soul.

It’s often been debated as rather or not to hold famous people responsible for their actions’ impact on those who admire them.
And while they do have more of a responsibility to do this than the average person, it is not always necessary that we hold them to higher standards than we do ourselves.
Kate Moss is sick, it is tragic that she believes & tries to abide by that quote.
But I feel that she actually deserves more help than a backlash.  
It angers me that we blame her & her alone for her illness, rather than the industry that exploited her endlessly as the heroin chic look.
I am not defending her statement, I am defending the fact that she is an ill woman. An otherwise physically & or mentally healthier person would not say that.
Not guilty by reason of insanity perhaps.

“But it never works” she adds, on her deepest level she knows that it does not work, it leaves with more pain. Her haunted eyes reveal this, the young woman who aspired to be a petite model & her emotional instability were & are exploited. It saddens me more than it angers me, she is ill, she needs help.  

Kate, thin never feels as good as freedom feels.

The Personality (disorder) Party

Since I spend so much time thinking about things I wondered what it’s be like to have a personality disorder party. I figured it’d be something like this:

There’s one of each; histrionic, narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive, avoidant, paranoid. antisocial, dependent, borderline & schizoid.  

The obsessive-compulsive is throwing the party, but is busy counting the amount of cups in the kitchen. People start to wonder where he is, then the histrionic volunteers to sing loud karaoke as entertainment.
The narcissist is making snide comments about how he is the karaoke master & that the histrionic sucks.

The borderline gets mad at the fact that the obsessive-compulsive is still busy counting & preparing things in the kitchen & decides to call up her boyfriend & dump him because she’s so mad.

The antisocial is charming the dependent & trying to get her to come up to his cabin in the woods for the weekend, she says she’d love to but she doesn’t want to be away from her sister for too long.
The histrionic then is angered when no one is paying attention to her singing, she screams, makes a scene & storms off. The narcissist then volunteers to show everyone his superb acting skills & pretends to have a heart attack, crying & looking surprised.  

The paranoid is worried that the antisocial has possibly poisoned the obsessive compulsive & goes in to check.

The schizoid has not done or said much since being there & thinks about leaving early. The borderline then decides on a whim to go get burgers from Wendy’s for everyone & the paranoid escorts the obsessive-compulsive out & repeatedly asks if he’s okay.

The avoidant arrives late & nervously tries to explain why she was late & the narcissist snickers, the antisocial winks at the avoidant which makes her feel uncomfortable. The paranoid is then concerned with the schizoid’s silence & worries that he may have an ulterior motive. The borderline returns with the burgers & strikes up a conversation with the antisocial.
The obsessive-compulsive is now washing a stain that the histrionic by spilling a drink when she stormed off.

The avoidant & the schizoid share brief, but awkward eye contact. The narcissist tells the dependent that the histrionic should have had more control of herself & that he would never go off like that. The antisocial & the borderline plan a weekend together at his cabin, the paranoid glances nervously at the schizoid & antisocial. The histrionic has since left long, dramatic messages on everyone’s phone about what happened at the party.

The schizoid leaves, the avoidant goes to the bathroom & performs a breathing exercise. The narcissist explains to the obsessive-compulsive that he is washing the stain incorrectly & insists on showing him how it’s done.
The borderline is now on the phone with her now ex-boyfriend explaining her new found love with the antisocial.
The antisocial is trying to assure the paranoid that he has nothing up his sleeve, the paranoid does not believe him.
The borderline convinces the antisocial to leave with her & they leave.

The paranoid calls the borderline’s family & warns them that a “sneaky” guy is interested in their daughter.
The narcissist tells the paranoid to stop being so histrionic.
The obsessive-compulsive is at his wit’s end & tells everyone to leave.
The avoidant comes out of the bathroom & waves goodbye to everyone.
The dependent calls her mother to come & get her.
The obsessive-compulsive now has a headache. There is a long, awkward silence in the room.

The narcissist declares that he doesn’t need this & that he has better things to do & leaves.
The dependent’s mother arrives & takes her home, the paranoid worries that the dependent’s mother may be drunk.
The paranoid leaves, the obsessive-compulsive begins to clean the room top to bottom.

The (disordered) end.

Ignore the cliches & gender stereotypes, it’s just all in good fun.

Was a Schizoid Personality a factor in the Ft. Hood shooting?

Colleagues described Nidal Malik Hassan as ”paranoid, belligerent and schizoid.”
Schizoid? Schizoid is a very rare personality type (or disorder), thought to effect less that 1% of the general US population.

A comprehensive list as follows:

CLINICAL FEATURES OF SCHIZOID PERSONALITY DISORDER

	OVERT	COVERT
I. Self-Concept	Compliant; stoic; noncompetitive; self-sufficient; lacking assertiveness; feeling inferior and an outsider in life.	Cynical; inauthentic; depersonalized; alternately feeling empty, robot-like and full of omnipotent, vengeful fantasies; hidden grandiosity.
II. Interpersonal Relations	Withdrawn; aloof; have few close friends; impervious to others’ emotions; afraid of intimacy.	Exquisitely sensitive; deeply curious about others; hungry for love; envious of others’ spontaneity; intensely needy of involvement with others; capable of excitement with carefully selected intimates.
III. Social Adaptation	Prefer solitary occupational and recreational activities; marginal or eclectically sociable in groups; vulnerable to esoteric movements owing to a strong need to belong; tend to be lazy and indolent.	Lack clarity of goals; weak ethnic affiliation; usually capable of steady work; sometimes quite creative and may make unique and original contributions; capable of passionate endurance in certain spheres of interest.
IV. Love and Sexuality	Asexual, sometimes celibate; free of romantic interests; averse to sexual gossip and innuendo.	Secret vouyeristic and pornographic interests; vulnerable to erotomania; tendency towards compulsive masturbation and perversions.
V. Ethics, Standards, and Ideals	Idiosyncratic moral and political beliefs; tendency towards spiritual, mystical and para-psychological interests.	Moral unevenness; occasionally strikingly amoral and vulnerable to odd crimes, at other times altruistically self sacrificing.
VI. Cognitive Style	Absent-minded; engrossed in fantasy; vague and stilted speech; alternations between eloquence and inarticulateness.	Autistic thinking; fluctuations between sharp contact with external reality and hyperreflectiveness about the self; autocentric use of language.

(Akhtar, S. Schizoid Personality Disorder: A Synthesis of Developmental, Dynamic, and Descriptive Features. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 151:499-518, 1987.)

I scoffed the first time I heard of the description of Hassan as a schizoid personality. But many of the characteristics fit & many don’t as I will try to detail below.

COVERT: ”Feeling inferior and an outsider in life“ 
I mentioned in the wake of the shooting that he was consumed with rage & feelings of violation. 
Contrary to popular belief about schizoid personalities, schizoids are not cold & emotionally flat, only outwardly seeming that way.
Recurrent feelings of being an outsider, a sense of lack of belonging only exaggerated by alienation & hostility in the Army.

OVERT: ”Vengeful fantasies; hidden grandiosity”
As with most or all eventual mass-murderers, revenge fantasies can be a common precursor to the actual act. Also, he did have grandiose beliefs of his religious faith that served as the eventual trigger. He did not keep all of his deep overt feelings inside as many of his military colleagues reported that he was engrossed in his faith to the point of fanaticism.

COVERT: ”Withdrawn; aloof; have few close friends; impervious to others’ emotions”
This seems to me to fit. But what I believe if he is a schizoid is that he had\has deeply rooted passion, red-hot emotion that he had tried to conceal in an effort to fit in & belong. But after being “violated” (the word that pops up again & again) so many times, his deep began to boil over, finally exploding to violently that ”the whole stove broke.” If you don’t mind analogies.

OVERT: “Exquisitely sensitive; deeply curious about others; hungry for love; envious of others’ spontaneity; intensely needy of involvement with others; capable of excitement with carefully selected intimates.”
Very sensitive. This I agree with 100%. Curious I tend to doubt.
Hungry for love yes, needy of personal relationships yet somewhat indifferent to the actual act. May appear “picky” in reference to friends & romantic involvements. I do believe I heard he had joined an online Muslim dating service, never finding anyone that fit his standards.  

COVERT: ”Vulnerable to esoteric movements owing to a strong need to belong; tend to be lazy and indolent.”
He was described as being somewhat indolent by his peers, which most likely lead to further feelings of unaccecptance & anger.

OVERT: “Lack clarity of goals; weak ethnic affiliation; usually capable of steady work; sometimes quite creative and may make unique and original contributions; capable of passionate endurance in certain spheres of interest.”
Obviously no lack of ethnic affiliation. Used his ethnic & religious affiliation to fill his own sense of needing to belong & be accepted, which he had difficulty getting from his peers. His speciality in psychiatry shows that he had the ability to make constructive contributions.

COVERT: ”Asexual, sometimes celibate; free of romantic interests; averse to sexual gossip and innuendo.”
As with many religious extremists, they may claim an utter lack of interest, or “temptation” to sexual matters. While this can be a sure source of pride, very few are literally asexual.

COVERT: ”Fluctuations between sharp contact with external reality and hyperreflectiveness about the self”
I wonder about hyperreflectiveness. Since he is psychiatrist & spend much time ”in himself” if he knew all of these things about himself instead of seeing it as purely an issue of race & religion. 

I’m not saying for sure if he is a case of a schizoid personality or not.
But rather I found this list to be very interesting & thought a look through it would help in obtaining a clearer profile of Hassan. 
The fact that he had so much intense emotion inside makes me think that he is not schizoid, but as the list details above schizoids may only appear without much emotion. 
I also think that his affiliation with any organised terrorist groups was a great wish for him at best, and that among many other things the shooting may have been a final attempt of acceptance (from the extremist crowd).

We shall overcome… schizophrenia?

Of all mental illnesses, schizophrenia may be the most stigmatised & feared.
The idea that someone can overcome it, just as someone can overcome depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder seems to boggle the mind of many of us.

This headline captured my attention in a Google search because we rarely hear of schizophrenia being beaten.
Although, no mental illness can be “cured” outright, this paints a picture that we need not be afraid of those with schizophrenia (even of those with paranoid type), because even though it is difficult to treat, it can be done.

Despite the fact that it is one the most serious of mental disorders, as you can see it is not a sentence of perpetual insanity.

This woman has seen that & has used her experience  to the benefit of others like her. It is seldom that we get to hear from people who have schizophrenia, mostly because even if they are not at presenting symptoms we assume that they’re still crazy.
Even so, I express a curiosity for those experiencing psychosis, even if they are “crazy” we must at least try to understand why they feel the way they do. How else do we then come up with an efficient treatment?

Of all the things I’ve read about mental illnesses & what the sufferer may feel like, but I have not come across much that explains what the schizophrenic
experiences.
No matter how disconnected they may be at times, I still feel that they are thought of as a disorder, rather than a person with a disorder more than any other mental illness there is.

So bravo Eleanor, thank you for showing us that you are not defined by your illness, that you & many others have the ability to overcome schizophrenia no matter how difficult it may be.

Oh, don’t you call me a feminist!

Words, words, words. The word feminist has become one of those bad words, an insult even. The image of a feminist has become somewhat of a man-hating, butch-haired loud-mouth. An ugly image for what is not a bad thing.
It’s a shame that feminism is a word that sends not only certain men but women too running.
I may very quietly call myself a feminist, and that irritates me that I feel timid about that title.  

In a world where our mouths have become label-makers, spitting out dozens of easily applied labels per second, I pause before I use that label on myself.
As with many titles such as liberal or independent, feminist typically paints a picture of an almost female chauvinist.
I don’t believe that feminism is or should be about all women standing up & fighting men, I don’t think feminism should just be reserved for women either. As odd as that may sound, we can never achieve equality without help from the other side.
The other side, as if we are fighting a war. You’ve heard the saying “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.” No actually, we’re both from a planet called Earth, we’re both of the same species & we shouldn’t be acting as if this is the war of the ages.

As I pointed out in my previous post here, men are subjected to the same stigmas about being feminine as women are.
It’s a stigma that goes back to the sort of Adam & Eve, who submitted to the temptation of the fruit?
It’s the stereotype that fills me with rage, utter fury at the way women are supposed to behave, the way we have to show the utmost restraint at all times.
But this fury is at the greater culture of our society, not at men.
Yes women have been oppressed by men for so many centuries, but changing & resisting that oppression is not an angry backlash at the opposite sex that has us looking much like the old ”enemy.”

Being an “angry feminist” only causes more friction between men & women.
So what am I if I am wary of being called a feminist? Is it time for a new word? Is it time for a new, more collaborative movement?
It is not that women who call themselves feminists have always been somewhat chauvinistic in their practices, not at all. 
Women have gained a phenomenal amount over the past few centuries, in some countries more than other, in some countries less than others.
My mission is one of an understanding of each other, not a holy war against the male gender. “Men cause all the wars in the world!” I’ve heard many women say before, but we can’t forget such peacemakers as Ghandi, Thich Nhat Hanh & Martin Luther King jr.

And we can’t ourselves declare war against an entire sex, men are not the problem, humans are the problem.