by banned » Tue Nov 01, 2005 1:17 am
...who opine about schizophrenia have actually known someone who had it, or suffered any of the symptoms themselves.<br><br>Many years ago, Mark Vonnegut, son of Kurt, who was schizophrenic wrote a book called "The Eden Express" about his experiences. He also wrote an essay entitled "Why I Want To Bite R.D. Laing." Laing if you recall claimed that schizophrenia was caused by bad mothering or some such thing. Vonnegut, who is now a doctor, believed that it was a physiological illness. Similarly, Thomas Szasz felt madness was a sane response to a mad society.<br><br>Now, all this theorizing is fine, but it's beyond me how anyone can spend any time at all with schizophrenics and think they're 'onto' anything, at least anything anybody who isn't insane would want to be onto. Schizophrenia is a devastating illness that ruins lives. I worked with a paranoid schizophrenic, a brilliant man whose "schiz" destroyed his life with all his abundant potential. I also met many other schizophrenics while hospitalized for my own severe depressions. NOT ONE of them considered it a gift or a hotline to some ineffable truth--at least not in their lucid moments when it wasn't screwing up their lives. One of my roommates burned her face with a cigarette because her 'voices' told her she was ugly anyway. Another voluntarily hospitalized herself after HER voices told her while bathing her new baby to drown it. Yet another was in and out of state hospitals because the medications would work awhile then quit on him, and this quiet, kind, intelligent man with a great sense of humor would be come a monster.<br><br>The Greeks said "Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first drive mad."<br><br>It's entirely possible that some sensitive, brilliant, psychic souls have been mistaken for "mad" over the years and persecuted for it. That doesn't mean that everyone with "schiz" is a visionary.<br><br>There's a woman doctor named Kay Redfield Jamison who writes alot of twaddle about how great it is to be manic-depressive. Didn't do much for my aunt who committed suicide after enduring years of it. Again, just because Lord Byron was brilliant and probably bipolar not all bipolars are Lord Byrons. <br><br>As someone with, as they say, a "major mental illness" myself, I really loathe being used for someone else's political or sociological propaganda. Yes, SOME of my depression is because to look at the world today and not be somewhat depressed you'd have to be a mite out of touch. But CLINICAL depression, especially the inherited version, is a whole different thing. Depressives do not see reality more clearly. They may identify more things that are bad/sad/wrong, but they are DELUSIONAL about things being hopeless. That is why they commit suicide when to outsiders they seem to be attractive, smart people with lots of talents and advantages. They don't see any of that. All they see is the dark colors and when it's all black, they check out.<br><br>By the way, I usually diss the SF Chronicle, and with good reason, but there is an excellent article front page article on Golden Gate Bridge suicides. As someone who has always had a last ditch plan to do a swan dive off that very structure, I was in tears several times. A pretty, popular 14 year old (who thought she was ugly and disgusting), a near-Olympic level wrestler, a 26 year old college student, saw nothing left in their lives but to jump to their deaths, leaving devastated friends and relatives behind. The 14 year old's father hanged himself this year, 4 years after her death, because he never got over it.<br><br>The romanticization of madness helps no one.<br><br>Read the whole article at:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/31/MNG2NFG1L61.DTL">sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...FG1L61.DTL</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
