Illicit Drugs and Schizophrenia

Today I'm going to talk about the prevalence of illicit drug use among schizophrenics. Most people think that drugs like marijuana, amphetamines, heroin, etc. will undoubtedly cause schizophrenia, or any other mental illness. And while it's true that drug use is high amongst the mentally ill, psychiatrists still do not know if the mental illness leads to the drugs, or the drugs lead to the psychiatric hospital. I suspect it's a little from column A and a little from column B.
     And in many cases illicit drugs are actually beneficial to schizophrenics. In my many admissions to psychiatric hospitals over the years I have met a lot of my fellow schizophrenics who smoked marijuana in order to quell the voices in their head. And these voices needed to be subdued, spending all their time making derogatory remarks about them, interspersed with loud, persistent screaming. The nurses too, in these hospitals, recognised the health benefits of marijuana for some of their patients and turned somewhat of a blind eye to their indulgence whilst in hospital.
     But by far the worst drug for any of the mentally ill is the cigarette. About sixty percent to eighty percent of those mentally ill smoke cigarettes (http://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-7-cessation/7-12-smoking-and-mental-health/), in Australia.but, again, psychiatrists are unsure as to why there is such a large prevalence. Whatever the reason(s), about fifty percent of many long time smokers die from their addiction
( http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/putting-a-number-to-smokings-toll/), whereas there have been no recorded deaths from marijuana use, a very common drug used among the mentally ill. Although, having said that, recent German research claims to have identified the first two such deaths; these findings have been seriously questioned however (http://time.com/10372/marijuana-deaths-german-study/).
     Aberrant Selected has many stories involving the mentally ill using and abusing drugs and, as in real life, portrays it as a love-hate relationship. I certainly do not glorify the drug use in the book but have tried to show that they have their place amongst some of society's most fragile. Let's hope that eventually cigarettes are outlawed and thus increase the survival rate of these delicately poised minds.

The Book's Preview

I thought I'd start off this blog with a preview of Aberrant Selected, with a short story that is fairly representative of the book. The book was also written to show a very humane side of mental illness. In my many admissions to psychiatric hospitals over about a decade I have found the mentally ill to be the most genuine people of all. They simply have no agenda(s) and are just wanting to continue quietly cruising on in the knowledge of their very unique secrets. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story below.

Hath Crowned Me

© Denis Fitzpatrick, 2015

I have chosen to be homeless in order to completely escape the Man: the Man and his unfair monies, the Man and his bigotry, in short, all the squalor that defines the Man. And it’s not so bad being unsheltered; I have welfare and my only real expense is food and water. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink alcohol, and I don’t take any drugs, not even the drugs I’m supposed to take, the ‘medications’ for the voices that only I can hear. These voices are great, keeping me uplifting and constant company, intellectually stimulating me, and they have been doing so since I moved onto the streets at the age of twenty-one, two years ago. I just got fed up one day, watching more news of war, and walked out of the share house I was in, never to return, vaguely looking for something permanent and noble. Mind you the voices had been preparing me for this adventure from about a week beforehand so it came as no surprise really when I watched myself walk out of that house in Chippendaille.

     The adventure is now really beginning in earnest for about three weeks ago, somewhere in nearby Redferne, in the wee hours of the morning, near a public park approached through a short avenue alternately planted with tall, ancient elms and shorter Banksia trees, the voices and I witnessed my creation of something from nothing but my dirty hair. A twig in fact, about six or so centimetres long, a few millimetres in diameter, and looking very, very brittle. The voices have now started calling me God, but I’ve asked them to not call me The Maker, in case the real God shows up. I can always tell Him I was just preparing the way for Him. But to this twig.

     Like I said, it was in the wee hours of the morning and I had decided on a bit of a ramble. I usually stay in a park and read throughout the day, and when it’s raining I find a bench under cover where all the shops are. I was simply strolling and happily chatting away with the voices when I felt one of my dreadlocks on my right suddenly, and inexplicably, tighten. Then some sort of droplet emerged and began bouncing against the top of my right cheek. It felt like it was giving me a kiss each time it bumped into me. I instinctively thought of it as Mistress Nature. Then the dreadlock began growing, quickly, but it felt harder than normal hair. It felt like wood. While the twig formed from my hair the droplet shape bumping against my cheek made each kiss more quickly, sometimes lingering over the odd one, and remaining separate from the twig, holding on with an intangible force.

     Seeing a small tree come up dead ahead of me, about fifteen paces away, I had almost already expected. The tree came out of the darkness and I made a mental note to walk into it. I did so to enforce my memory of having created the twig before I brushed passed the tree. It seemed a rational choice at the time.

     When I came out from under the canopy the twig was barely dangling from the dreadlock and the droplet shape had disappeared. I carefully took it in hand and looked at it under a streetlight.

     Yep, a twig, just like I felt, very dry and brittle. I had my backpack with me so I took out the tin of mints that I always keep there in case the boredom gets too much, emptied out the sweets, and carefully placed the twig inside the tin. A snug fit. I then wrapped the tin in a t-shirt and carefully placed it into the backpack. The question I have now for you, dear reader, is: hath Nature crowned me God? Are the voices right? Is in fact that twig my mighty sceptre? We’ll see.

*

It’s now been a year since those dark hours of the morning and I’m still out here, evading the Man. After having marvelled at the twig safely ensconced in my bag for several weeks I decided it was best to bury it. Thus I went looking for an abandoned house, with a nice garden hopefully. Squats I’ve mostly avoided because the Man patrols them. No-one bothers me here in the park. Anyway, I found an old, derelict house and safely committed the twig, in its tin, to the earth.

     The voices stopped calling me God after I buried the tin and also told me later that night that I would eventually return to the buried secret, unable to avoid the fate of its implications: I had created something out of nothing substantial, whilst feeling the growing joy of Mistress Nature. Does this indeed make me God? Quite likely, methinks.

     Anyway, something has reminded the voices and they have brought me back here. The abandoned house is being fixed up now but my little spot is safe. The treasure is again safe in my backpack and I am now on a bench in Prince Alfred Park, Redferne. It is here that I will begin my rule, it is here that my Godhead will step out into the world to claim it as entirely His own, wielding righteously through the wand of my special relic.

     My first act will be to loudly proclaim to the world the fact of God’s arrival. Everyone should know. I can also proclaim some of the secrets that the voices have revealed to me over the years. Let me just prepare myself.

*

What did I say about the Man? There I was, publically revealing my great news, and two police officers on pushbikes pulled up in front of me. And now I’m in Rozella Psychiatric Hospital. Again. In the locked ward. The nurses have allowed me only a small pencil and this notepad.

     Funny thing though is that some of the voices’ secrets I’ve revealed to the psychiatrists have impressed them unexpectedly. They invariably say that they have their own unique and appealing logic. But the doctors also assure me that I have no influence, that my conjectures must ultimately rely upon posterity. And that, reasonably, is that. I’m just a powerless homeless guy. I am doomed to obscurity, God or no, so I may as well give up my Godhead: it just isn’t worth the extra effort. Best to remain somewhere safe, reading, drawing maybe every now and then for a change.

     Suicide is an option of course. After all since I’m God, but still bound to be unnoticed, obscure, and of no influence, why go on, having so much power, but completely unable to use it? Who knows, maybe all that dammed power is bound to eventually break me and suicide is really the only option, especially considering that my Godhead is bound not to be acknowledged.

     But then if I commit suicide there will never be a chance for me to express my Godhead in this world. There’s always the remote chance, by mutely holding my Power, that it will eventually blossom while the whole Universe bows at my feet.

     No, I won’t commit suicide, I’ll just bide my time, always on the lookout for that one hope of heralding in my Godhead. Which reminds me, I better not let the nurses and doctors read all this, I’ll never get out!