Negative Symptoms

This week in our continuing discussion of schizophrenia symptoms I will talk about Negative Symptoms. Once again taking our definition from the Mayo Clinic: 'This refers to reduced or lack of ability to function normally. For example, the person may neglect personal hygiene or appear to lack emotion (doesn't make eye contact, doesn't change facial expressions or speaks in a monotone). Also, the person may have lose interest in everyday activities, socially withdraw or lack the ability to experience pleasure.' (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/dxc-20253198) Again, the characters in Aberrant Selected are all free from these symptoms and I myself have experienced it only once. This was about twenty years ago when the voices had spent the previous night urging me to commit suicide. I had spent that night walking up and down the main street outside of Rozelle Psychiatric Hospital, near the heart of Sydney, willing myself to jump in front of a moving car or truck. When dawn came and I was still alive I decided to check into Rozelle. I was not capable of anything at this stage and spent the morning of the admission just laying on a couch listening to the voices. I was not even capable of smoking, a habit which I have almost kicked. This vegetative living was soon ended when I went back out onto the main road and fairly promptly threw myself in front of a moving milk truck. I collapsed my right lung and spent about two weeks in Royal Prince Alfred hospital, recovering.
     This suicide attempt was one of a number of my serious suicide attempts but I am glad to say that the characters in Aberrant are also not successful in their, rare, suicide attempts. I have always felt it to be cheap drama to have one's main character kill him or herself. For this reason I found the ending to Flaubert's Madame Bovary to be tedious, drawn out, and thoroughly unnecessary. In contrast, my own characters, crazy as they are, generally like living and their mental illness symptoms rather add to their life than take from it. This is simply because my own schizophrenia symptoms have tended to make my life more interesting. That being said though my reaction is very rare and should not be taken as the norm. Still, interesting as my life is, it is now even more interesting in being in a full remission. And more productive.

Being Under Control

•  [excuse the bullet points, everyone; my blogger is having issues.]This week in our continuing discussion of schizophrenia symptoms we'll talk about extremely disorganised or abnormal motor behaviour. The Mayo Clinic defines this as: '[extremely disorganised or abnormal motor behaviour] may show in a number of ways, from childlike silliness to unpredictable agitation. Behavior isn't focused on a goal, so it's hard to do tasks. Behavior can include resistance to instructions, inappropriate or bizarre posture, a complete lack of response, or useless and excessive movement.'  (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/dxc-20253198) 
• None of the characters in Aberrant Selected have this particular symptom and I myself have only had about two brief, but intense, episodes of it. In the first one I became convinced that on my approaching twenty-sixth birthday a handheld harp, and the most magical, would be gifted to me. It was invisible and I often imagined actively practising it in the weeks leading up to my birthday. I had even organised a party to hear me play on the occasion, the most powerful time to play it. I think I named it, The Golden Harp. The eventual performance was brief, and, I now imagine in hindsight, awkward. 
• The second brief but intense experience of this symptom was when I discovered the only true communication, universally understood. This involved holding ones hands, palm down, fingers slightly parted, and the middle fingers pointing downwards, directly out from one. Perfect communication is then achieved by coughing whilst talking and twirling the middle fingers circularly. I often did this while getting some noodles for dinner from a convenience shop in Newton, inner city Sydney, thus proving its effectiveness.
• All in all I guess one could basically classify the schizophrenic characters in Aberrant Selected as simply being too imaginative for their own good. The symptoms expressed by the characters thus become engaging, and actually something to be lauded. Deiyl Fillem is such a character, to be highly commended for his devotion to Luna, the Moon. Still, I'm glad I've had so little abnormal motor behaviour. Something more to gain from being in complete remission with the schizophrenia. Thank God!

Unrelating Words

Following on again from last week, today I'm going to talk about another schizophrenia symptom, disorganised thinking (speech). We will once again look to the Mayo Clinic for our definition: 'Disorganized thinking is inferred from disorganized speech. Effective communication can be impaired, and answers to questions may be partially or completely unrelated. Rarely, speech may include putting together meaningless words that can't be understood, sometimes known as word salad.' (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/basics/symptoms/con-20021077)
     This symptom, thankfully, I have never had and this is reflected in the characters throughout Aberrant Selected. In fact, the characters in the collection, despite their mental illnesses, are more or less lucid. However, when one does suffer from this symptom, all rational conversation is impossible. I currently have a neighbour who is schizophrenic and still refuses to take her medications. This symptom of disorganised speech is very pronounced with her and I have two or three times attempted to talk her into taking the much needed medications. Her replies were mostly in non sequiturs, but with a vague theme running through them that everyone else is crazy, but not her. 
     This incidentally brings me to another observation. Of those few who enter a full remission with schizophrenia a large part of the recovery is done by the patient, recognising that they have a serious problem and seeking the appropriate remedy(s). This was entirely the case with me and with the fellow schizophrenics I have known, and mentally ill in general, who are able to lead a more or less normal life within society.
     But back to this lady with the severe word salad. Most of the time she is more or less understandable but then suddenly she will approach me and declaim a disjointed list of complaints about her life and abuses she has suffered. Whether these abuses are real I don't know, but I suspect that there is an element of fact in these chaotic ramblings. I have since given up reasoning with her as doing so only seems to make her violent and more agitated.
     To conclude, I guess I am a rather fortunate schizophrenic, for once I had been stabilised on the medications the nurses and doctors involved in caring for me sometimes noted that I was very highly functioning. I just wish I could help my neighbour to be similarly healthy.

When Seeing is Believing

This week, continuing on from last week, I will talk about another symptom of schizophrenia, hallucinations. According to the Mayo Clinic these are defined as '. . . usually involv[ing] seeing or hearing things that don't exist. Yet for the person with schizophrenia, they have the full force and impact of a normal experience. Hallucinations can be in any of the senses, but hearing voices is the most common hallucination.' (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/schizophrenia/basics/symptoms/con-20021077) There is one story in Aberrant Selected, entitled 'Luna's Grace', where the main character has almost all senses operating in hallucinatory mode. He becomes convinced that he has become involved in a romantic relationship with Luna, the Moon, even to the point of being able to touch her.
     In my own experience the most common hallucination was hearing voices that were simply not present in Reality. These voices and I, though, had a great time, and we spent almost all of our time together in discussing abstruse philosophy and similar intellectual material. At the time it seemed I was, thanks to these voices, becoming privy to the many secrets of life, but as of today I have not the slightest recollection of what it was we actually talked about.  
     Another hallucination that I had decades ago was of creating a bird from nothing whilst in the process of willing to do so. I, of course, wrote a story based on this experience and it appears in the collection under the title, 'Likewise Curious'. I have also created a cloud out of nothing, in a clear sky, one night in Newtown, a bohemian suburb of inner city Sydney. This creation though was not willed.
     Now that I am in a full remission with schizophrenia I have fairly recently come to the conclusion that all of those voices that I used to hear, an androgynous choir of young people, were my own thoughts being routed through my hearing system. The voices, I believe, were the result of nothing more than incorrectly crossed wires. But having said all of this I sometimes miss the voices as they used to keep me very entertained and interested in life. I predominantly heard them during my five years of homelessness and they made the experience actually enjoyable. But still, it's nice having my own head back again.