warehouse types that live in East London. Very free spirited.
I got chatting to her mates. I went round her place afterwards to pick
up something to smoke. I got chatting with one of them about psychosis
and psychiatry.
she had a friend who'd been through psychosis and gotten a diagnosis of
schizophrenia. I enquired what was wrong with him, i.e. what did she see
as the experience or person which became pathologised with the diagnosis.
She wasn't sure. We talked about psychosis. It is obviously a confusing
and highly distressing experience. I explained that in itself that
didn't mean it was an illness. Though the medical establishment have
sought to apply a biological explanation it doesn't mean the experience
is invalid in the same way that love has biological causes but isn't an
illness.
What she struck on was the change. Her friend had changed after
psychosis and because of it (in her mind). This to her was the effect of
tie supposed illness.
I found this description of illness interesting. I asked her what was
wrong with the change. For her this had not been something considered.
I can't remember if I explained my life story to her and the
relationship to psychosis. The person I was almost 9 years ago is very
different to the person now. If he could see me now he'd wish I'd never
become who I am. I was a corporate tosser back then with money on my
mind. I was interested in the construct measures of success and had
psychiatric crisis not happened I would be in a very different place.
I wouldn't be living in this tiny box room where the carpet can barely
be seen for all the rubbish covering it. I wouldn't be living in my
dad's place. I wouldn't have decaying and broken electronics equipment
or buy my clothes on ebay. I wouldn't spend my days as I have for too
long drinking alone. I would be able to recount the places I'd been on
holiday in the last few years rather than trying to explain that sitting
in a park in north london is enough for me. I wouldn't be getting
refused job interviews for roles at half my value. Before psychiatric
crisis I'd gotten recruited to one of the best companies to work for in
the world and one where thousands of people would apply for a place on
their graduate scheme. I wouldn't be unwashed, unshaven and unclean.
I would also never have written this blog nor researched into mental
health as I have for the last few years. I wouldn't be committed to
making a difference...and in all fairness I'm not sure how much of that
commitment is left any more.
My life on my old measures is shit. Pre-psychosis measures. I would have
killed myself back then if I thought who and where my life is now was a
certainty.
But I changed too. I have learned to try to find value in the smallest
things because the old consumerism happiness isn't available to me. I've
sought other goals, goals which have needed a lonely and obsessive
pursuit to get the small distance I have thus far. I would never have
started this blog. Not without pay. Instead I did. For 2 years I've
battled to understand mental illness and it's left me a broken man.
Shit. I was a broken man a year ago.
Was the change worth it for me? That isn't the point of the post. Was
there a significant change in me? fuck yeah.
"…Jesus Christ might simply have returned to his carpentry following the
use of modern psychiatric treatments."
William Sargant, British psychiatrist, 1974
Reposted from - http://www.psychquotes.com/
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