The Mentally Ill

pauli

Junior Member
Messages
141
The Mentally Ill

This may seem like a strange topic, but I've been interested for some time in mental illnesses. I would hate to have one myself, but I'm particularly interested in schizophrenia and psychotic illnesses - I read that about one percent of the world's population is going to experience a schizophrenic episode at some point in their lives - I think that works out to be 600, 000 people in Britain. I don't think all of them have the full-blown illness, but they experience at least one episode.

Hi Doc,

There is no reason to feel a bit strange for bringing up this topic. Schizophrenia and psychosis is a fascinating study. I have read up a bit about it. There are opinions that run the gamut. Most theorists believe that psychotic illnesses are not fixable. A few think that they can be fixed, depending upon the person and the level and degree of their illness. As a psych student, I did a lot of reading about how Jung approached "dementia praecox," aka schizophrenia, and he had a number of successes in treating these sorts of patients. However, it does not work in every case. There are some patients who are too far gone; their ego has been replaced with a more or less collective sort of personality. Cases like that are very sad because they are not fixable.

In recent times, psychiatry has turned to drugs to try and fix the problem. Unfortunately, the cases are chronic, so the drug use is life-long - or at least until the body rejects the drug and then it has to be replaced.

As to psychotic episodes, those aren't always a bad thing. They can be good if it corrects a problem that the person is having. As an example: there was a patient, an American, who once saw Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist/psychotherapist. After listening to her first few dreams, he realized she was working up to a psychotic break that would be devastating to her personality. However, he did see a way she could survive once that break happened so he chose to work with her. During her treatment, he pumped her full of information and symbolic interpretations, knowing that this would be vital for her once the break occurred. She was not aware, however, that she was moving in that direction - and he felt it best not to say too much about it. So, after she returned the to States, within a few years, the psychosis became manifest. She was interned in a mental institute until it all resolved itself. In the end, all of the work she had done with Dr. Jung coalesced her personality and she not only survived the psychotic break, but thrived after it happened. She went on to lead a normal and happier life. So, psychoses aren't the end of the world per se, however, they can be devastating if they spiral downward and lead the person into a destructive pattern of psychotic breaks - one after the other.

sigh.. All of that said, mental illnesses are a fascinating study.
 

Ralan

Member
Messages
361
The Mentally Ill

The Bluebird

Early morning slithers in through gaps in the curtains and batters my eyelids bloody
Six o'clock screams the alarm, I imagine myself getting out of bed.
Seven o'clock screams the alarm, must have drifted off again.
I crawl into the bathroom, immerse my head in the drug like effects of cold water
And insert my disposable eyes in order to retain my youthful attractiveness at forty-nine.

It?s mid-winter, I remember, as I press the small button which unlocks the doors of my automobile.
The windscreen requires a dose of antifreeze. Upon arrival at work I receive a routine reprisal
For arriving two hours late; my boss is comically fat and hairy and
I would laugh but for the years of abuse as a youth, leaving me with a habitual fear of authority figures.
My mind slowly greys and blurs as I am absorbed into the computer screen; I miss my coffee break in order to
Avoid the mocking eyes in the numerous cold faces of younger workers with brighter futures.
I hate the computer; it runs off mathematics; I hate mathematics, and have in the past tried to free myself from
It?s stony grasp, but always failed on account of its authority over me and my internal and controlling fear.
I unknowingly work past five o'clock, unsurprisingly un-notified by the mocking faces leaving desks nearby.

On the drive home I fall asleep at the wheel and collide with a people carrier
And within minutes emerge from the groaning wreckage onto a country lane
I realise my head is bleeding profusely as I peer into the windows
Of the vehicle I have unknowingly doomed
The children on the back seats are already dead, the head of one grotesquely smashed
Against the seat in front, spattering every window with an abstract of dripping crimson fluid
Finding the passenger seat empty, my eyes continue upwards to the women at the wheel.
She dies slowly under my passive gaze, noisely sputtering blood onto the dashboard and
Across her own face, as I reflect on my failure to raise a family despite my many
God given years.

I leave the scene, wandering along the road in the direction of my home
My vision begins to blur, and I remember the gash in my head; I am losing too much blood
I manage to reach a bridge and spew out my emotions in great gushes of vomit before
The loving numb of shock suddenly abandons me and I collapse
My leg is broken, I realise, looking down to see the bloody yellow bone protruding from my aging flesh
I fight the pain, but as it wins control over my body I am subdued, It becomes my master and I fear it
It seems to me my death is even longer than the mother's, but at least in some small way justice is done
My vision long abondoned, the now encompassing pain begins to associate with faces in my mind
My father, the bigger boys at every school, my flatmates, my hairy boss,
I struggle, but as always I am beaten back, subdued, and made a slave to the controlling force
The crushing pain. All other troubles forgotten, I am haunted only by my failure
The last desire of my life is to cry, but my body is too lost to me even for that

Suddenly my senses flare back into life for one more moment of reality
I am intensely aware of the gravel cutting into my face, the freezing cold, the lightly falling rain
The furious white hot scream of pain from my leg, the dull throbbing in my temple as the blood flow slows
The sounds of rising wind and life in the evening, the vision of a bluebird, landing briefly on a bridge post
And peering knowingly into my eyes before taking wing and fading into the blue of the sky
Finally I am left alone in the darkness with my breath, which after a ferocious fit of desperation
At last begins to slow, and comes to a stop as I drift away into an eternal, warm and loving sleep.
 

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