It’s the end of the world as we know it…2
April 2, 2011 1 Comment
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
Of madness and men…
Part 2
Normality doesn’t appeal to me. Many of the people I class as dear friends have to look out of the window in the morning to check which reality is real. Every day I have discussions with people about whether the nature of their experiences is a psychological issue or merely a theological event in their lives. People can and do explain their experiences as communication from aliens, god, demons, ghosts and telepathic thought insertion by other people. When these experiences become visual people will see these things. Seeing is not necessarily believing, and someone who understands their condition can rationalise out that the UFO that everyone else is ignoring as something that probably isn’t really there, though it’s probably a good idea to get inside just in case.
There are many explanations for severe mental illness, with the psychiatric community favouring the medical model… mental illness is due to chemical imbalances in the brain, correct these imbalances and normal service will be resumed. The psychological model tends to the belief that the person you are today is a sum of all the experiences you’ve had in the past. The events that you’ve endured in your past are reflected in the mental health problems you have today. My own thoughts are these are two very polarized camps and the truth is probably to be found somewhere between the two. I am in neither camp; I just work with people for whom unusual experiences are normal.
There are situations that people can be put in that will break them. Trauma, sexual abuse, neglect and other violations will eventually break anyone. Enough stress for a prolonged period of time will break most people and until that breaking point is reached in your life you have no idea how your own mental health issues may manifest. There will be the people out there who believe they could endure anything… two scenarios to think about, the child (male or female) who was repeatedly raped by a family member from the age of 10 to their late teens or the soldier who on his third active tour who swapped Land Rovers with his best mate, then spent an afternoon picking up pieces of him after it hit the IED. These aren’t hypothetical situations, these are real and the simple diagnosis of schizophrenia doesn’t really take into account the violations that occurred in these people’s lives. The unusual experiences tend to respond to these situations, such as the young girl who was told by the voices to hide in the cupboard, were a survival mechanism to prevent her getting raped. When those same voices insist that a 43 year old mother of 4 hides in a cupboard with her children, because they are responding to the current stresses in her life, it is an inappropriate response. The soldier has guilt over the fact that he’s still alive and voices constantly warning him of the potential threats in everyday situations. One solution to kill any potential threat is unacceptable, so he lives in seclusion in his council flat on the top floor of a tower block with a handy balcony for the day when he decides his existence is too much of a burden on people.
Solutions… well we have the antipsychotic drugs. Drugs that will knock 20 years off an average person’s life, some where you legally have to have blood tests every month just to make sure you’re not dying, which on the whole do not stop the experiences. Oh yes people will stop talking about what they live with, either because they don’t want another pill to take or because they’re too drugged up to respond. But on the whole the secondary, sedatory and demotivational effects of the drugs are what is being used.
Hospitalisation is always an option when someone is a danger to themselves or others. Someone who is stood in the middle of Piccadilly Gardens shouting and arguing with people who aren’t there is likely to risk being sectioned. The person who is driving at 70 mph in their BMW with the kids in the back while on their mobile phone faces a fine. One of these people is a risk to themselves and others; the other is a public embarrassment… the unforgivable sin of course is being a public embarrassment or nuisance. Beyond these double standards hospitalisation is not a solution. To deprive someone of their liberties pushes their stress levels through the roof. Sending four men in to hold down the girl whose voices insist she’s about to be raped, so they can strip some of her clothes and inject her causes far more trauma. Send those same four men in to do the same with soldier I was mentioning earlier and the ward is going to be short staffed while at least some of them attend the casualty department.
In my experience adequately supporting people tends to be the best way.
What do I mean by adequately?
First of all mental illness doesn’t mean stupid… I work with people with Masters Degrees in Physics, doctorates in Biochemistry, people who have run national sales departments of multinational companies and worked IT for government departments. Sending a 17 year old on minimum wage around to ask, ‘have you washed your bits today?’ is going to get that 17 year old a lesson in obscene language. Sending someone for 6 or 12 weekly sessions of psychotherapy might work with someone who has mild depression or a phobia of blue cars, but isn’t going to touch deep rooted issues. It means people who have empathy talking, listening and working with people intensively; a couple of hours a week, to many hours a day as necessary and not just on a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday basis. It sounds expensive… well it is, but not as expensive as hospitalization and not as expensive as many of the antipsychotic drugs… and as I say from my experience it works. However it doesn’t have industry lobbyists pushing its agenda here and in the USA, so as a solution it’s overlooked.
Anyway that’s the conspiracy theory that I buy into… I won’t go into the historical abuses and atrocities performed in the name of psychiatry; I won’t go into the many things that have been wrongly seen as psychiatric conditions (in my opinion) as it’ll just reinforce your view of my own paranoia.
Hopefully though this will give you some idea of my own understanding of mental health and where I don’t fit into the scheme of things. This might have bored you, however in my next piece I’ll be looking at all you non mad people out there…
To be continued…
