Reading On The Internet Has Given Me Understanding Of My Survival with Schizophrenia

I always tried to relate to myself, in my process of self psycho-analysis, why I survived better than some others in psychiatry that I know who deal with schizophrenia. With reading up on schizophrenia and mysticism on the Internet, I have found a very interesting article on the subject by Sandra Stahlman. Her writings on the subject can be found at: http://sandra.stahlman.com/schizo.html It is interesting how Sandra writes "...This expansion of the self, often referred to as loss of self, may not be beneficial for someone who does not have a "strong" sense of self to begin with. To these people, a mystical experience can be frightening and confusing, to say the least. " I relate to this phrase very closely because I have a very stong sense of myself, I feel my up bringing by my parents has a lot to do with this, in adolencences I got bedside stories of Robert the Bruce never giving up to lead his people as King of Scotland, in my teenage age years I got stories from my Father about how Scottish Engineers in World War Two got the reputation of getting machinery up and running in battlefield situations against all odds. With my Scottish heritage in hand and by applying my Engineering logic instilled in me during my Canadian Coast Guard Training, I took on my altered mystical states of consciousness during apparitions/hallucinations with a vigor of adventure, while learning what the other side holds to teach me in these states of pre-psychosis. Over the years I learned how to go into these altered mystical states willingly and come out of it with no lingering psychosis. No one was there to teach or guide me with ways to do this. You learn the hard way through applying logic, of when to pull out of the altered mystical states, leaving your thinking process from that time frame of altered state, as being part of the mystical experience. Grant you, during this time frame that one goes into this altered state of consciousness, if observed you are deemed psychotic. Well, if you are applying Shaman type antics during your alter state like my self, you would seem crazy to any observer. The trick is ,if you enjoy the experience of altered states of mind, that can lead to psychosis and treatment for schizophrenia, you have to learn how to come out of the altered state of mind and start living the reality of the "normal" once again. It did not come easily to me, it took years of meditation and learning, going through hospitalizations for acting different during my Shaman antics in my altered state. The best way for me to go into altered states of consciousness now, is to stay away from people who would observe me as crazy, locking my myself in my apartment and do what I do with my Shaman's Metaphysical objects of ritual and belief. Unfortunately, I now have a spouse that would worry, if I was to do it now and more than likely she would feel a lack of understanding for my motives and actions during this type of period dealing with my Shaman antics. This type of balance of knowing your Shaman antics look crazy to most, if not everyone, leaves you not wanting to upset those around you. My spouse and I joke that we need a large house, where I could have my corner to indulge myself in my altered states of consciousness, not interfering with anyone else's every day life of the "norm". Ritual and prayer is very common in our society but when one creates his own odd looking rituals and prayers to fulfill the Shaman type tendencies found in schizophrenia, the individual is deemed psychotic. Then again, how many people with schizophrenia actually enjoy these mystical altered states of being? Then there is point of learning to pull out of it and start living a normal life where you would not be considered crazy upon observation. During these time lapses in another state of being, a oneness with everything around you is there, I have witnessed many an occurrence that defies engineering logic. Knowing this at the time of an "occurrence" of the para-normal in the altered state, it always lead me on to mind expanded thoughts about the subject. From Greek, "para" means beside, thus using the phrase "besides normal" one is left open to deduct that it is normal to bounce between "normal" and "para-normal" through altered states of mystical consciousness. The problem lies in breaking out of that semi-psychotic mystical state and return to the "norm" with out hospitalization and medication administered by a Psychiatrist. It can be done for I have done it, learned things come out of it depending how you handle it and what you do with it. From madness to genius, schizophrenia to Shaman antics, it can be a very humbling experience that so very few get to experience and control on limited amounts of anti-psychotic medication.It is in persons with schizophrenia to try and save something or the World, to be the "Savour" etc, first they have to learn how to save themselves from the pyschosis of the mystical state, that can come to the individual with the common genetic structure of schizophrenia. From Shaman to Metaphysician, the calling is in most persons with schizophrenia who are not afraid of their altered mystical states of consciousness.

A Day In Hospital Back in 1985, According To My Copy of My Hospital File

Well here I am amusing myself with a copy of my Hospital file which I obtained years ago, I fished it out of a storage container of self employment records and processed tax returns. Finding myself looking for a day to refer to for writing about, I am looking in the section pertaining to my first hospitalization here in Montreal, I am picking a day where I can make out what is written for a day's entry, so to correctly transcribe without mistakes. The day as written is 85-3-23, the first entry is at 06:30, a signature before shift change. Well I spent the night sleeping and got up for breakfast like everyone else. The second entry is at 15:00, a signature once again before shift change. Well, what did I do all day? The third entry for the day is at 23:00, a signature once again, then another entry for 23:00 in a different hand writing which quotes me as saying <"I have been lying-my thoughts aren't changed. I will prove what I saw-do they use hypnosis here for memory-do you know psychokenssis-that is what I need". Talking rapidly-pacing corridor-interacting with other patients to play backgammon only. >Then a scribble I can not make out and a signature of the nurse. Well,Lordy, Lordy, Lordy my friend, now is my version and expanded a bit to explain a day in hospital. Rise and shine for patients is some where around 07:00 or so for the early risers preparing for breakfast. According to the hospital file I was on phase one, only allowed pajamas or hospital gown. When breakfast arrives we all get fed on the ward, then off to the smoke room for the after meal cigarette for the smokers like my self. Being on phase one you are not allowed to leave the ward. The morning usually consisted of pacing the corridor from agitation as a result of medication, you could not sit for long to try and do something, there was not much to do any way.Patients would play cards but I was never much of a card player, I preferred the likes of backgammon and chess. So I guess I played some backgammon according to the hospital file. Then again, I remember ending up playing chess with a male Pakistani Nurse in the meal room when it was possible for him to play with me. Not too many patients played chess, some played backgammon, usually card games. It was like I had to play card games to be normal or it was a problem that I only wanted to play backgammon according to the hospital file. Anyway, back to the day in the hospital, Doctors rounds are done in the morning, not much else goes on. If you are not slated for a visit from the Doctor, you have nothing to do except pace the corridor or what ever. So I guess I did not see the Doctor that day because there is not a entry by one commenting on my needs. Lunch would then come and go as the day moves on. In the afternoon sometime, patients that were not allowed to leave the ward on there own, would be escorted to Occupational Therapy where you could do some art or make things from the supplies at hand. Making cigarette ashtrays was always popular. O.T . was for aa hour and then the likes of me would be escorted back to the hospital ward to pace the corridor until supper was brought to us. Obviously I spoke to a Nurse during the evening shift due to the entry I transcribed. My thoughts still have not changed twenty years later, regarding what I saw, my apparition/hallucination is posted on my website at http://www.angelfire.com/folk/docgmcreations under Hallucination or Religious vision. They never spoke to me about it in the hospital to quell the emotions from the experience, it was like the drug treatment would solve everything for me , even although no one wanted to talk to me about it. Regarding hypnosis, well it was a way of trying to prove to the hospital staff what I saw, they would not believe anything I said. As to psychokennisis, coming from kennetic energy in physics but dealing with the mind as in psycho, I ended up reading a lot of material on this subject over twenty years as I came to terms dealing with my apparitions/hallucinations. The rest of the entries during this hospital stay, are all referring to me as dillusional regarding for example, I wanted to get the message to Government, what because I wanted to reveal my apparitions/hallucination to someone and not keep it up bottled inside of myself, like as having been Government trained in the Coast Guard maybe the Government would know what to do with the story of the apparition/halluncination. No sorry, I was dilusional for wanting to tell my story to someone in Government. I since have ,by e-mail and by being part of political parties occasionally over a twenty year span. My thoughts about my life, that I was condemned dilusional for, by the Hospital, have not changed and I have become more of a mystic under their suppression, of over sedating me for no reason, only because they could not handle talking to me about the issues at hand at the time.

"On Assignment" News Report On Mental Health Treatment In Montreal Backs Up What I Write In My Blog

Sunday evening proved to be interesting when watching television, the On Assignment program after the news did a special on mental health consumers and the system we deal with in Montreal. The result of watching the program has left me driven even more with desire to reveal my story to make the mental health system a better place for future people that need help in this capacity. The news report that I watched dealt with the sad ending of the lives of persons coping with schizophrenia because of suicide. Two of the cases mentioned really affected me, due to having "served time" in the Montreal General Hospital's psychiatric ward with them in the passed. It left me thinking, one out of three schizophrenics survive the Montreal General Hospital! It is not very good odds for justification of treatment in the manner in which the Psychiatrists insist on treating persons with schizophrenia. Grant you, one of the persons mentioned in the news cast died from suicide during care at another Montreal Hospital, I am positive I know this person in particular from a hitch together at the Montreal General Psych ward, we can get around different hospitals looking for answers. Here I am left writing my beefs about the treatment plan always administered to me, at times of excessive medication levels, I too thought and consinplated suicide as a way out. No one ever talked to me about the issues at hand, it is a one way conversation in psychiatry, patient talks, then gets the appropriate medication administered for treatment. If you do not voluntary take the medication you will be strapped to a bed and have it injected into you. Then left alone pumped full of drugs and strapped to a bed with no one to talk to about the issues at hand. The only time you will really get to see any one is when it is meal time and you are brought a meal. The straps will be loosened a bit so you can eat, after the meal staff will come to tighten the straps again when you are done eating. This way you can not get out of the straps. I learned to slowly work the re-tightening of the straps so each time I got a bit more play so I could worm my way out of the bed straps. Then I would go ask the staff for a cigarette and they would be wondering who let me out of the bed strapping. This can be a typical situation in the Hospital emergency psychiatry, I went through it many a time. No one would talk to you about your schizophrenic issues that got family members to put you in Hospital for treatment, soon you would be moved up to the ward for your Psychiatric Hotel room for observation by camera for example, still nobody would talk to you about the issues that got you in hospital again in the first place. Being a happy go lucky type of guy by natural character, I was always having the gift to gab on the ward. My intelligence would get other patients thinking and as it was put to me, I talk too much according to a Head Nurse. I responded, "well if you do not like what you see in me, pump me full of drugs to shut me up then". So they did, I was made more of a zombie for being a disturbance on the ward. All I was doing was having fun communicating with other patients and got them thinking. Still, no Nurse talked to me about why I was in Hospital other than,me going off my medication or self medicating as not to be one of their walking zombies. To this day, no one in psychiatry has discussed my apparitions/hallucinations with me, I figured out how to handle them on my own over twenty years. Perhaps you now have an answer for why persons with schizophrenia turn to suicide, I have thought about it my self but always reasoned my self away from it when the system made me a walking zombie with treatment. Talk to me, talk to me is the cry from the "schizophrenic", talk me through these issues!! You get drug therapy instead, left lonely, isolated, frustrated, too medicated to think clearly and only other patients to talk to, then you are are discharged into some care givers hands who puts a roof over your head. This is where you sit around a house medicated, chain smoking, drinking coffee or tea all day, having no money for anything, one thing leads to another and you start looking for a way out, as in suicide. This is the basic type of treatment I have been exposed to for twenty years, I beat the odds, reflecting why, having an education before entering the mental health system and having worn a Canadian uniform in my past, the soldier in me would not give up fighting for what I wanted for my life.