The Schizophrenic Struggle

Suffering from a disease like schizophrenia is difficult. Going psychotic usually involves being forcefully hospitalised and treated against your will. There are various treatments, such as antipsychotics, Electro-Convulsive therapy and even lobotomy. The treatments are far from perfect, with side effects numbering in the hundreds. There are different groups who offer different opinions and information and its hard knowing what to believe. On top of all this, there is an underlying disorder which can send you into a different world full of alien voices, disturbing visions and bizarre delusional beliefs that you are often lost in, unable to distinguish fantasy from reality.

Often, if someone becomes psychotic they are taken from their home by force, by a team usually accompanied by a police officer. I remember one time I was sectioned when the team came to my house, I punched one of them, they pinned me to the ground and handcuffed me as my dog snoop tried attacking them. I was forced into a mini bus van and taken to hospital with the guy I punched twisting my arm every time I hurled abuse at them. It really hurt, and I was very scared because of it. I was lashing out. I knew I was going to hospital probably for god knows how long, and that meant no more marijuana which I had been self-medicating with to stop the fear I was experiencing from hearing voices and seeing things.

Once there I was given psychiatric drugs, and the rest is a blur. But ive been there numerous times. I know your given the option to sign yourself in so that you are voluntary , but if you don’t you become involuntary and are kept there until you either defeat the psychiatrist in circuit court, or they deem you well enough to leave. Even if you are voluntary, if you try to sign yourself out you can be made involuntary then and there and kept in. It is a very traumatic experience being taken and locked up for being ill.

You are then put on antipsychotic medication. This comes in the form of pills or injection. If you refuse to take the pills they can legally overpower you and inject you with these chemicals. There is much controversy surrounding these medications because there is no test to prove that there is a chemical imbalance in the brain, the only way to diagnose someone with a mental illness is to observe their behaviour. But the medications block dopamine receptors along with serotonin in the brain.
The medications usually stop the psychotic symptoms in most people. Voices stop or become distant and easily ignored, visions fade, and delusions disintegrate. But it is a long process taking weeks or even months. During that time you are kept in hospital, unable to leave.

If the medications don’t work, other treatments are considered. One is the archaic brutality of Electro-Convulsive Therapy. This is where they strap electric wires to a patients head and induce seizures by electrocuting the brain. Recently they have started giving patients general anaesthetic but if you’ve ever seen the procedure performed, you will no doubt be shocked and appalled.

I met a patient the last time I was in hospital that was having it done. She complained that her memories were all gone and that only traumatic ones remained. She couldn’t remember her childhood or most of her adult life either, and had trouble holding a conversation with me as she had bother focusing and paying attention. I was angered by what the doctors had done to her and I urged her to get off the treatment. But she told me the pills didn’t work so there was no other option, her doctors had convinced her it was the way forward.

When you are forced into hospital you are now given a booklet informing you of your rights. One read will leave you disturbed. They still practise psychosurgery here in Ireland. If you are able to consent and a group of psychiatrists decide its in your best interests, you can be lobotomised.

This is an age old practise, a relic from the days of early psychiatric treatment. They drill a hole in your skull, and remove part of your pre frontal cortex, in an attempt to pacify you and get rid of the psychosis. This part of your brain is essential in cognitive functioning and removal of it leads to patents that resemble living zombies.

I can say from experience that for months after a psychotic episode you are confused and open to suggestion. If you were convinced to undergo this horrific procedure you may well fall victim to the trap and end up lobotomised and zombified!
This brings us back to the antipsychotics, medications some patients have called ‘ a chemical lobotomy’ due to their effects on motivation, emotion and general well-being. While they do treat the psychotic symptoms of the illness in the short term, there is such a thing as tardive psychosis, which can develop over time, in which the medications themselves cause a psychosis. There are disorders such as cardio vascular disease, diabetes and various movement disorders that can develop from long term use of these medications.

The psychiatrists do not give informed consent in my experience. They have a duty to inform you of the possible side effects and alternative treatments before you commit to any. But they downplay these side effects and push for you to be medicated long term, often prescribing higher doses than necessary until you are dosed to the eyeballs for years!

This is very worrying given the possible side effects, but aside from talk therapy and learning to live with the voices there is no other option. Groups such as the hearing voices movement ascribe to the view of social psychiatry, where it is believed that traumatic events you have experienced in your life cause the symptoms such as voices and visions, and that the disease model is wrong. There are various hearing voices groups all over the world where voice hearers can come together to support each other in coping, analysing what the voices are saying and how it relates to life, and what you’ve gone through in hopes of defeating them.

This can be helpful and they often quote the fact that many ‘normal’ people live with voices all across the globe, hearing helpful voices that don’t cause them any distress. They are not taken on by psychiatrists at all though, who prefer the disease model of schizophrenia and rely on medicating to cure the symptoms. There is no way for a psychiatrist to refer you to one of these groups , you must find one yourself and attend.

In America , there is not much of a health care system and people have to pay to seek psychiatric treatment. This results in high rates of homelessness and incarceration of the mentally ill, who often end up self medicating with dangerous street drugs and getting locked up because of it.

This is the alternative to medication, being psychotic. While groups such as the hearing voices network claim you can learn to live with it , I personally believe its unacceptable to be walking around psychotic. I cannot be hearing demeaning, nasty voices all day commenting insults on my every thought. I cannot believe there are aliens trying to beam me up to their ship, or be watching the flames of hell dance around me every day. I may be able to learn to control it but I would rather not have to deal with it at all.

For me, antipsychotics keep those symptoms at bay. They cannot help with the negative effects of the disease such as not having much emotion, being socially withdrawn. Or the intellectual deterioration over the years either. But at least they keep the voices and visions at bay.

There is so much information out there, so much studies it would take ages to get through them all. I read what I can here and there, ive read studies that suggest the antipsychotics cause the degenerative effects of the so called disease, that trauma causes the voices, ive read that its genetic, and it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain, ive even read that it is a shamanic experience to do with the spirit world, and that a psychotic experience is no different to a religious one.

It is difficult discerning between fact and fiction for a mentally ill, medicated person. You are caught in a storm of different information with psychiatrists saying one thing, then anti-psychiatry saying another. People in the middle saying aspects of both have credence and shamans telling you it’s all a spiritual experience.

Not only is the schizophrenic mentally ill, but he is on dangerous psychotropic drugs to control it, which can cause serious disorders, he is coping with the trauma that may have caused it and on top of that he is trying to find out the truth about it all before its too late. All this combined leads to a very confused , frightened mind state. If you know someone who is mentally ill, be sure that they are going through a lot.