Understanding Chronic Schizophrenia

UNDERSTANDING CHRONIC SCHIZOPHRENIA
BASED ON OBSERVATIONS AND TWO YEARS OF A PERSONAL
ASSOCIATION



Schizophrenia, is a very serious and debilitating disease. Information
is poorly processed by the aberrant mind and most often misinterpreted.
The schizophrenic, hears voices and developes over time an association
with these voices even establishing an odd trusting friendship. The
peculiarity about the diease is that reality for the schizophrenic is
mostly confused in a seemingly normal world. The voices control the
life of that individual. They take on many personalities. Is the brain
defective? Is the circuitry wired wrong? These voices do not have faces
and cannot be seen. Yet, for the schizophrenic they are real and
alive.
If you take for instance, a simple case of depression, where you could
loose a job, a close friend, a house, a gambling bet, even a family
member. Sure, these things are disappointing and many times painful to
endure and often lead to depression. Somehow though if you are mentally
and emotionally strong you can recover and resume a so called normal
life. You would just be sad for a while then emotionally recover and
get on with your living. For a person with schizophrenia it is quite
different. There periods of depression are deep and last for weeks
evens months inaddition to the constant interference of these voices,
which are at the core of the disease. What are these voices and where
do they come from? Why do they have such power and affect in the life
of this individual? Labeling these aberrations as delusions is like
treating a toothache with a piece of candy. The psychiatric world
however does just that. They are trained to treat the disease
professionally, with the available resources, drugs nothing more.
What does the word schizophrenia mean anyway you may ask? Literally, it
means non-psychosis. Schizophrenics are not likely to harm others only
themselves. Self-persecution and guilt for their misdeeds of the past
are usually the cross they bare. They often want to die and can't
forgive themselves for these misdeeds. These wrongdoings are often
religiously rooted and play themselves out over and over in this
person's mind. Constantly reminding him/her of how imperfect and evil
they are. As a result, they are always seeking forgiveness, from God
and from others. Meanwhile the objective of the voices is to dominate
and devistate there lives by creating an inter-world of confusion. A
world that only exist to the patient and no one else.
The lady that I know with this disease gave names and personalities to
her voices. There is Papa, Mama, The Nunery, The General, The Evil ones
that finds her ugly, mean and racist and they tell her, "she should be
working for shit black bitches raising their children as punishment for
her bad attitude toward the military. I asked her to explain to me what
that meant. She said, " the black females have husbands, who were in
the military and have power and authority to abuse other people and
their wives are respected for this and can do whatever they please even
abuse their kids in public infront of her." I ask her how did she come
up with this hypothesis, because she is not at all racist and it
sounded like racial overtones in her complaint against the black
females. She replied some General, who sounds black to her in her head
keeps commanding her to have these black females kids takin away from
them, "they're shit god aweful mothers, the general says!" She further
stated, she had lived with a black woman and had taken care of her
children while the mother went to work. Being a Social Worker by
profession she felt that the black woman was to stricted and should not
hit her children under any circumstances that these forms of punishment
where barbaric and primative. She claimed she never hit nor spanked her
daughter and said that she turned out o.k..
When I first met her I thought she was a normal person and had no idea
she had been in and out of mental institutions. She was in remission at
the time so things appeared normal. Sometime later though she had a
relapse and had to be hospitalized. That is when I learned about the
disease she had hidden all that time from me. As I sat in the hospital
along side her bed she began to open up and tell me what she perceived
to be the truth about things.
She said, " there is an organization to blame for the ticker in her
head and that they, the tormentors can put the radio chip on a low or
high frequency and cause her electrical shock if she does not obey
them!" She said, when the episodes are really bad the only way she can
get relief is to lay in bed and bang her body and head up and down
really hard to stop the shock. This she said was the only thing that
worked for her. Later, seeing her in the act at times I could not
believe what I was witnessing it reminded me of the exorcist. To make
matters worse, she made these ridiculous sounds and outbursts of
laughter that had the overtones of satanic crys! I thought to myself
"If she's just looking for attention it's the most ridiculous way of
doing it that I have ever seen." The sounds she makes when she is being
shocked and electrocuted by the Cursors sound like utterances from some
demon. Her face is distorted and pale. She no longer looks herself, her
hair in a wild, entangled web from not being combed. Her lips are sort
of purplish, with glaring eyes as if something is scaring the hell out
of her.
In contrast, when she is on her medication and calm she is always
trying to help others especially black females. She idiolizes them for
being as she acknowledges so pretty! She brags about their pretty black
hair and their african features. She also confessed to me at times she
wished she had been born black. She thinks of black females as
goddesses compared to herself. "They have some of the most beautiful
bodies," she states. "Look at me Wes my thin unattractive withering
body and tiny breast I'm a wreck. All black women are built like
gazelles, she declares." (This is a myth all black women are not
beautiful; she even makes the same statement about jewish women having
big butt's and breast compared to her own, disclosing her inferiority
openly.) Moreover she has had relationships with both white men and
black men. She told me that her last male friend, a black man was in
the CIA and had a chip in his head. Often he would go on long
assignments authorized by the Pentagon and Washington and would be gone
for weeks at a time. I asked her how did she know that! She replied, "
he told me so!" Was this guy lying or mentally ill himself or maybe
just taking advantage of her confused aberrant mind? Nevertheless, she
believed him and felt as if she had found someone like herself, no
thanks to the help of the voices. In retrospect, she has been trying to
normalize this illness that has invaded her life for fourteen years so
that people would except her the way she is and not ostrisize her, this
hurts her most of all. She cry's for long periods of time afterwords
about the social neglect and ill-treatment she receives from
others.
Religious organizations, looks at this illness as demonic possession.
Judy, (my friends name) befriended a black minister that lived in the
same neighborhood thinking that he could resolve the problem for her,
that is, to get the evil spirits off of her. She told me how at times
she would go see the minister to get some relief from the shock by
having him pray for her thinking that he could exorcise the demon from
her body. After a while she was highly disappointed with this man. What
happened was that the minister lead her to believe that he too had a
chip in his head, later he recants his story. She said that when he
would pray in tongue's he would make these sounds and utterings just
like the one's she made when the Cursor's would give her electrical
shock and would curse her for not obeying them. He told her finally
after some months of falsely attempting to free her from the so called
evil spirit, she needed to be in the hospital?.. As a result of her
disappointment in this man of God she began to dispise him declaring
once more that he would not take the chip out because he worked for the
government or the military secretly and was told not to help her, by
black officials.
Judy, is the mother of a 37 year old daughter and has a grandson. She
is white and 60 years old. When her daughter was just ten years old,
she saw judy physically beaten and abused by her father. Judy mentioned
a most severe beating she endured living on the farm in Reilly Township
10 miles outside of Oxford, Ohio with her family by her husband. She
said he pounded her in the head with closed fists as if he were in a
fist fight with a man on both sides of her head a countless number of
times, over something trivial that she failed to elaborate on.
Ironically, nothing was ever done about it. She said that at that time
her husband was the only one working in the home and if he went to jail
he would loose his job at proctor and gamble. She went on the say she
had a daughter to raise and could not do it alone, he was making pretty
good money and they needed ever dime he was earning at the time.
She had had extra marital affairs she mentioned but said she was not
alone, so had her husband. The most troubling was that her daughter
Laura, was witnessing these violent beatings judy was taking and the
cheating that was going on, on both sides by the both of them. Finally,
judy was not allowed to see her daughter, who was taken away from her
and put in the custody of her father, claiming adultery and mental
anguish. She, had been hospitalized many times prior and this was used
in court by her husband, to put an end to any chance of her raising his
daughter at all. For judy she had no alternative but to submit knowing
that her own husband had had her a few times before hospitalized
himself. This too was used in court to seal her fate. Just one more
tragedy to add to the suffering and disappointments.
Judy's mother still alive at that time was no help, she said. "Mom
turned against me. She took Richards side. There I was without my
daughter and my marriage, why?" Afterwords, hopelessly defeated she
moved to Hamilton, Ohio where she lived at the YWCA and worked at
Frisches Restaurant after getting her divorce in 1978. Eventually she
lost job after job trying to handle things best she could alone given
the circumstances, because she had always depended on Richard, since
their marriage. In time her mom died leaving the car and her posessions
to judy's only kid sister and nothing to her. The tears flowing down
her eyes as I listened to her tell me how heartless
and uncaring her mother was toward her before she died. Then, a change
in attitude, a moment of silence than an abrupt yell, "I hate her, I
HATE HER!!! I'M GLAD SHE'S DEAD!"
Her uncle committed incest with his daughter then committed suicide.
"How could he be so horrible, she screams! The filthy pig!!!"
Didn't he realize what he was doing to the family. I don't care if he
was in the FBI! They let him get away with it, those mother fucking
PIGS!!!" Then spontaneous bursts of crying and sobbing and deep
regretable depression.
She used to believe in God at some point in her life she told me. Now,
she is an atheist and goes to the Unitarian Church. She says; "how
could a God let someone put a ticker in my head and cause me all this
pain and suffering, if he's there how come he does not kill the mother
fuckers and make them pay for this horrible crime they've done to me?"
"There is no God, there is no God!!!!!!" Then she crys and crys and
crys. As merciless as this may seem even more merciless are the voices,
who have not abated not even for a moment in fourteen years . They are
always there to remind her she has an aberrant mind. They are extremely
compulsive they tell her many times when to wake up, what to eat, what
to wear, where to go, who to talk too, how to shop in a department
store and what to buy. They make her think that they (the voices) can
at any time kill her right on the spot where ever she may be. She is so
terrified that if the voices say to kiss the ass of a black person, a
jewish person, an arab, an oriental, whomever she is driven to do it.
If the voices command her to watch a TV program about black people,
jewish people, white people, orientals or any other subject matter no
matter what hour of the night she is compelled to do it for fear that
the death wish might come true. If she is sleep during the day and on
her medication the voices will many times wake her up and force her to
watch McNeil/Lehr report or local news. She says, she has to do it or
the Cursor's will curse me and make some "piece of Shit" abuse her on
the street, or play out some child beating scene on the Metro bus for
her to witness by some black bitch then shock her in her bone system.
"It hurts so bad and I'm so scared Wes, then she cry's."
When I met her in 2000 she claimed to be jewish. I had no way of
knowing the truth at that time because she was in remission. Her
believing she was jewish was the doings of the voices. They had
convinced her that the Jerry Springer Show, (which was about a man who
had discovered he was jewish), was put on for her benefit to unravel a
long hidden family secret that she had been trying to uncover for
years. She said, "Wes as I sat there I realized they were talking to
me!! All along I was jewish and my mother and father had kept it from
me all these years." She went on to say, " thats why I can identify
them by their features. I've been studying my heritage and learning the
jewish customs and I can tell when I am talking with one by their
noses!" Again this was another myth and the work of the voices to
continue to confuse her and drive her insane.
In 1993, she was diagnosed as bipolar by a pakastanian phychiatrist.
Put on psychotic drugs and sent home to go it alone. She was on
disability but had no one to confide in. Bill, a diabetic, sick and on
medication himself was the only refuge she had. However he drank and
did as he pleased. He to told her he was in the CIA. He would lie and
tell her about the chip implanted in his head convincing her that he
was legitamate. She often asked him to take her to Isreal where they
could live away from the Cursor's, since he worked undercover anyway.
She was convinced that the voices would not be able to find her if bill
and her went to another country to live. She truely thinks that the
voices are a real live covert organization with a television monitor
powerful enough to track her no matter where she is and where she goes,
adding that maybe in Isreal they would be out of range for
transmission! Here in Cincinnati she claims, they can see her every
move! Bill though had made all of it up just to appease judy and to
give her a false sence of relief and support. One day she found bill in
the arms of another woman and decided to give up the relationship, this
was more than she could handle.
Today she takes Serequel and still goes through deep depressions about
her daughter and grandson, who she has not seen in months. In and out
of Christ hospital adleast four times a year on average. Fighting for
every moment of silence and peace she can get from the voices. Sighs of
relief when they leave her alone, even if only for a hour. "Washington
and the Pentagon know who did this god aweful evil thing to me," she
replys. "There all murderers, muRDERERS, MURDERERS!!!!!!!!" Thinking
back she's been trying to solve the mystery of the voices for years
herself. When she is in remission she will go to the public library and
borrow massive text books on both philosophy and religion including
history all for the purpose of trying to get an understanding of what
the voices want and where they might be hiding so she can find them and
kill them herself, since the government want do anything about it
except give her pills. What ultimately happens is that after about a
week to maybe three weeks of steady reading both day and night she
slowly starts to relapse. Apparently the books are a trigger as well as
rejection by her daughter and relatives, and including not being able
to see her grandson. In each case the voices are waiting to take full
advantage of every disappointing opportunity, hounding her with lies
and deceit with respect to who really loves and cares about her, making
her want to not live anymore since she feels so alienated. As a result
of this deceit she truely believes that Washington and the Pentagon can
do something about this if she could only go there and speak with the
officials about this curse!!!! She yells and yells "the voices are not
me, they're NOT ME!!!!!"
In Summary, this is a most mentally crippling disease. Judy's mind is
being destroyed by these voices. To everyone else the voices are
imaginary but to judy, they are real. The psychiatric world cannot see
them, touch them, feel them communicate with them so they dismiss them
as absurdities and abstraction created by the patient, themselves. They
are not in the business of exorcisms. They're goal is to treat the
patient with medication that will prevent any further harm. However,
this objective does not include therapy to deal with the voices, which
are the major problem for understanding chronic schizophrenia. Weather
the voices are imaginary or not is not the most important concern but
that they are real in the minds of the individual, who physiologically
suffers from their presents. Like it or not, demon or imaginary or not
they are there. They cause psychotic tendencies in the patients, INFACT
THEY ARE THE DISEASE, driving the individual to commit suicide
ultimately or willingly give up the struggle of being liberated in this
lifetime and go insane. The schizophrenic needs to be allowed to
express these voices openly and without shame and persecution from
anyone. If there are paradigms to their behaviour then we need to
understand them and question why they are prevalent. Drugs cannot
provide this kind of clinical research. Encouragingly there are
websites that claim they have a method for overcoming the voices. I
reluctantly decline to believe these holistic stories on the internet,
to some degree. Movies like the John Nash story and others attempt to
provide hope to sufferer's of the illness, in truth they do not. Mr.
Nash is perhaps the exception to the rule. I think the reason he may
have partially cured himself was because he thought that higher math
was going to be the discipline that would solve the problem. Nontheless
the treatment of the voices needs to be a priority in todays world. We
have avoided them long enough. One final note, this disease should
alarm any and everyone because the concensus among scientist is that
there is an increased chance that Schizophrenia is hereditary.