I Am Going Back To Concordia University September 2007

It has been quite sometime since I studied at the University level, this September I will be returning to school after having not been in University for years. When I first came back to Montreal back in 1985, I took a couple of courses at the University level while I was finding a new direction to my life. I first enrolled in Concordia University's English Literature program back in '85 before I took other courses in the Engineering field at the CEGEP level in Quebec, Canada. Now that I more or less left working as a trade person to earn a living, while pursuing my artistic endeavors, I decided to return to school to enhance my educational back ground in the arts. This fall semester I will be taking a creative poetry course to strenghten my writing skills around poetry and I plan to take another course during the Winter semester as well. I started saving money from my monthly disability allowance to prepare for going back to school. During this time period that I was saving my money, I came across information that the Schizophrenia Society of Canada was giving out bursaries to persons with schizophrenia to return to school. Taking the bull by the horns I tracked down the Schizophrenia Society of Canada on the Internet and got them to send me the bursary application. After much ado with the application, along with getting my Psychiatrist to fill out her section of the application, I faxed it off before the dead line and waited for the response. By the end of July 2007 I got my bursary cheque in the mail and all is set to return to school this coming September. The bursary will cover the cost of a course and books during the fall 2007 and winter semester of 2008 and it gives me time to prepare for my schooling come September 2008. I started with taking one course this fall to help me get back into the grind of studying again and evaluating how I do in school. I am really looking forward to starting school and learning again for I felt that I was stagnating a bit while on disability pension. I lacked my mental challenge that work used to give me, hopefully being in school at the University level will give back the every day challenge that I miss. Grant you I am only in school one evening a week but to produce and get good grades will be a challenge all the same. The social structure of interacting with other students will also be good for me, for I do spend too much time by myself. The summer will soon be coming to a close and it is back to the grind after Labour Day weekend. The Art Group at the Hospital will be starting up again after Labour Day as well, I was only off from my music group at the hospital for the month of July with the Music Therapist being on vacation. So as it goes I continue to forge out a career for myself in the arts with skill development. The music lessons at the Hospital, the Hospital Art Group and returning to school all lead to me bettering myself in the arts so that I can improve my artistic capabilities so that I can make something of my life again through the arts.

It Has Been A Balancing Act Walking An Iron Fence Through

The Mental Health System For 23 Years

No system is ever totally fair and I always walked the spikes of a iron fence through the mental health system, if I had constantly listened to Psychiatrists, I would probably still be a walking medicated zombie as they have made me on several occasions over the years. Grant you, I did go into semi psychotic states over my apparitions/hallucinations when I was younger, due to the isolation caused by speaking of the subject matter. The medication never changed my thinking process nor my approach to the subject matter I had to deal with, it just numbed me out so I could not function like other people. Apparently, having visual hallucinations as Psychiatrists call them, is one of the rarest forms of schizophrenia. When hospitalized as an inpatient, I was pretty well on my own as I was out of hospital. The Nurses never really had the time to sit down and discuss my schizophrenia with me, you would only see them at medication time or tending to other patient's needs. If I complied with taking my medication in Hospital, I got discharged after three months observation. During the first seven years of my treatment I was put on inter-muscular injects for being a non conformist and tried to hold down a job. In twenty three years I have never had a intelligent conversation about my apparitions/hallucinations with hospital staff, the limited conversation revolved around taking medication and side effects of the drugs I was consuming. It was like I was not allowed to be my happy go lucky intelligent self, the hospital staff preferred me heavily sedated so I could not function to my full ability. Perhaps their own ignorance of what my schizophrenia was all about, led them to over medicating me, if only they could have taken the time to talk to me about my situation. A lot of the time when not an inpatient and taking pills, I self medicated at lower dosages and got a job in my field of expertise. When working, I consumed my fair bit of alcohol and marijuana thus pissing out the limited medication that I was taking or caused a difference when on injections and found my conversation around my apparitions/hallucinations in bars and at parties. Over the years I have heard all sides to the subject matter of visual hallucinations and have personally grown by discussing them. Continuing my education at night in the engineering field while working, kept my mind trying to attain a higher level of self understanding with my condition through principles of logic from the engineering discipline. With the passing of the years, I have come to a conclusion that there is a logical discourse to my apparitions/hallucinations, my theological foundations evolved out of it, thus my shaman antics with my ritual of prayer and belief system came into being. My apparitions/hallucinations are a guiding force that keeps me faithful to my Gods and Goddess', I have seen many a ghost and ghostly things over the years and have learned not to put excessive meaning into them but use them for reflective meditation about life in general. They serve me well as does my limited amount of medication that I now consume, even although I detest it sometimes! At the present time, I take my perscription of 3mg of risperdal and it can take the edge off my anger with how my life turned out. My Psychiatrist seems to believeI should be on more medication but people that know me say I am my old self again, especially my parents! I still have my apparitions/hallucinations on different occasions, as they do have a way of guiding my faith in something greater than us humans, the Lord speaks in mysterious ways!

My Port Hole In Life Was Certainly No Setting Sun

This image was taken when I was young and a seafaring man with nothing but dreams for my future, how I now know nothing but shattered dreams. As a young man I thought I would build my fortune as a seafaring man then go on to meet a woman and have a relationship that led to a Church wedding to settle down to have a family. Instead I ended up in the bowels of the Canadian psychiatric system in Newfoundland , Canada and returned to Montreal diagnosed with schizophrenia. OK, I worked hard at being a functional "schizo", took my medication and got a job and returned to school at night to build a life for myself on land, still dreaming of meeting a special woman and getting married in a Church. It did not exactly happen that way, three relationships later and spending most of my adult life by myself, I feel lost at turning 47 years old with only a state subsidy with a disability pension along with a Quebec Government welfare payment to bring me to a minimum allowance as a bit of a starving artist. What woman would want me now? With parshly being stricken with extra pyramidal side effects (EPSE), I am not fit to work as a trades person full time any more. Last time I worked a full summer as a trades person, I found myself up a 20 foot ladder being stricken with EPSE with a plastering tool in my hand, it did not make me feel exactly comfortable, it was like it was time to retire as a trades person and plug away trying to earn a living at a desk job as a full time artist. Now I can only fantasize of having a woman in my life, ideally she would be a career woman that would not mind using me as a tax write off. Fat chance of that happening! Then on the lighter side of things, Mom & Dad are planning to re-write their will to accommodate my situation. At present they are looking for a way to put my limited inheritance into a trust fund to facilitate my financial situation, I can get cut off part of my Government income if I inherit any amount of money, thus I would have to live off my inheritance too soon until it runs out and ending up back on a welfare plan with my disability pension until the day I die. Sure I am happy having the apartment I now acquired with my little art studio, with the intent of returning to school in September in the arts at University level. Once again trying to make something of myself again, except this time a bit late in life. My heart stills pangs to have a decent woman part of my life so I do not go to my grave totally sexually frustrated in my old age, Psychiatrists were always good at making me impetant or taking away my orgasm with medication, until I fought back for my own dignity. I am not young any more and I notice the difference in my manly blessing from its youthful desiring abilities, what a way to put it but it is part of growing old that I have to accept, along with spending most of my adult life single and only fantasizing about having a woman. The dumb life I carved out for myself, first standing up and applying the Canadian Shipping Act in the offshore oil industry which led me ending up in psychiatry to get diagnosed with schizophrenia, then standing up for the Canadian National Building Code regarding bad renovation practice as a "Schizo" Engineering Technician and getting Court Ordered Injections administred on me along with long term ensueing EPSE out of it. OK I am no longer on Court Ordered Injections and take pills again but I still have the the EPSE that put a damper on my life. I can look like a bit of a freak in public when stricken with them, but still plug away and call Psychiatrists assholes for pumping full of drugs instead of spending time talking to me about my apparitions/hallucinations, oh I forgot, that is a Psychologist's job at $60/hour which I never had! After 23 years in psychiatry, my file is so thick my Psychiatrist gets lost and has a lack of insight regarding me with reading it and I end up paying the price tag with bullshit, with no setting sun in my port hole of life!