My Letter to the Office of Civil Rights in Boston

Dear Keisha Edwards,  JFK Boston Office Of Civil Rights

I am appealing to your humanity to please read this and if you cannot help me to show it to someone at the OCR who will. In GOD’s NAME  I am suffering from an extreme traumatic reaction to what they did to me, both at the IOL, which case you dismissed, and from my recent stay at New Britain General. How can your office simply ignore this sort of abuse, especially when I tell you that it is routine and SOP there, even though what they did to me may have been worse than the norm by virtue of its excess.

Michael E. Balkunas, MD, chief psychiatrist of the W-1 unit of the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain, deliberately misdiagnosed me, who have been on Social Security Disability and SSI since 1980. I was admitted to his unit with a decades long dx of schizophrenia, as well as PTSD since 2009 (largely due to in-hospital care-provider abuse of seclusion and restraints), but he immediately secondarily  (though he made it clear that he considered it primary) diagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder, against all the evidence, which he took pains to gather from my family and outside providers. I believe he did this in order to justify treating me with isolation for three weeks, an inhumane Behavioral Treatment Plan, multiple uses of four-point restraints and ordering me forcibly dragged into a horrific supermax seclusion cell, into which I might have to run to avoid being propelled there bodily by the guards (who were actually given carte blanche as the RNs informed me to inflict physical pain in order to subdue me quickly, because the nurses themselves were not permitted to lay hands on a patient!).Once there, I was then stripped naked of all my clothing "for safety's sake.” 

In the Supermax cell, HOCC's invarying protocol demanded that no matter how calmly or how voluntarily I went in, I would be injected with three "punishment drugs,”  drugs which at times were not on my normal list of medications, e.g. Prolixin, which I haven't taken for decades and to which I have a terrible reaction. My Advance Directive, which I gave them on admission, states that i was not to be given any such “typical neuroleptic” like Prolixin/fluphenazine because of this reaction..Also, despite my repeated assurance that I would "take my punishment drugs” voluntarily and without resistance, I was often pushed onto my face, prone, on the mattress, and held down by several guards until I couldn't breathe, and forcibly injected.

Note that although the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid require "imminent danger of causing severe bodily harm to self or others, or even property"  before any patient is put into seclusion of four point rsrtaints,  I was routinely secluded, stripped naked by male guards, and four-point restrained in a spread-eagle maximum exposure position, for being a nuisance and a disruptive presence to the appropriate unit "milieu." Once, when I told the guards these requirements, the "rules" for secluding a patient, they seemed surprised...and even reluctant to continue, though of course they had to follow orders and did so. They were always willing to inflict pain on me to ensure my rapid compliance, even when I verbally assured them I would do so. 

You may be surprised to hear that in point of fact, when I actually was in acute danger of self-harm, due to command hallucinations, and was observed by many nurses slicing my face with a sharp piece of plastic, drawing blood that streamed down my face and left open wounds, this behavior was actually ignored and even savagely mocked! So it was clearly not the case that their secluding me or stripping me had anything whatsoever to do with concerns for my physical safety...

In addition, Dr Balkunas, quite despite his apparent belief in the accuracy of his diagnosis of a personality disorder, never treated me for it, not with anything but antipsychotic drugs. Although he charged Medicare more than $300.00 per session each morning,  he saw me for a one-sentence  “How are you?” drive-by Q and A each morning. He largely ignored my presence on the unit. Worse, whenever I was put in seclusion or four -point restraints I would BEG for my 1-hour face-to-face interview for evaluation of the appropriateness of the intervention, but they routinely denied me that right, saying that they had 24 hours before I needed to see anyone…!

His whole rationale for committing me to the State Hospital was that "antipsychotic drugs take time to work", so I will send you there until  yours do...Mind you, he never changed my meds. so I stayed on the same meds and the same dosages I came in on and that i had never stopped taking,so what was it that he thought “needed to work? Just torture? 

Please help me, I cannot go on this way. NO ONE in Connecticut is charged with assisting me. NO LEGAL Agency has  any interest in me…NONE. Believe me I have tried for years to find some help with this sort of abuse, but there is absolutely no one. Not even the Dept of Protection and Advocacy for the mentally ill or those charged with protecting the elderly!

Sincerely,

Pamela S Wagner

PLEASE NOTE that I have trouble speaking, and while I can take a phone call i am using text to speech software. This is effective but it takes a little time for me to type and allow the iPad to speak my words. PLEASE be patient if you call me in the next day or so...

TELEPHONE: 860...

ALSO you might be interested, Dear Reader, in my Google + review, written shortly after that hospital stay of Dr Michael Balkunas. Either the link or the review itself should appear here.

https://plus.google.com/109362057307724485552/posts/ak5CU7s3qL1

 #Torture

 

Just wanted to link this to my recent blog post in which I fake thank the doctor for his torturing me at New Britain General Hospital this past spring 2014 and then accusing me of lying to him about what was happening there...since he was not on the unit most of the time, he never knew!

Pamela Spiro Wagner

 reviewed:

Dr. Michael E. Balkunas, MD

100 Grand St, New Britain, CT 06052

Michael E. Balkunas, MD, chief psychiatrist of the W-1 unit of the Hospital of Central Connecticut in New Britain, deliberately misdiagnosed me, who had been admitted with a decades long dx of schizophrenia and PTSD since 2009, with the secondary diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, against all the evidence, which he took pains to gather from my family and outside providers. I believe he did this in order to justify treating me with an inhumane Behavioral Treatment Plan, four-point restraints and the use of a horrific seclusion cell, into which I might run to avoid being dragged there bodily by the security guards. I was then stripped of all my clothing "for safety's sake." Once there, procedure demanded that no matter how calm, how voluntarily I went in, I would be injected with three "punishment drugs" which at times were not even on my normal list of medications, e.g. Prolixin, which I haven't taken for decades and to which I have a terrible reaction. Despite my insistence that I would "take the punishment drugs" voluntarily, I was often pushed onto my face, prone, on the mattress, and held down until I couldn't breathe, and forcibly injected.

Note that I was never secluded or four-pooint restrained for "imminent danger of causing severe bodily harm to self or others, or even property" as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid require, but for being a nuisance and a disruptive presence to the appropriate unit "milieu." Once, when I told the guards the "rules" for secluding a patient, they seemed surprised...and even reluctant to continue, though of course they had to follow orders and did so. They were always willing to inflict pain on me to ensure my rapid compliance, even when I verbally assured them I would do so.

Also, Dr Balkunas, quite despite his apparent belief in the accuracy of his diagnosis of a personality disorder, never treated me for it, not with anything but antipsychotic drugs. In fact his whole rationale for committing me to the State Hospital was that "antipsychotic drugs take time to work", so we will send you there until they do...Mind you, he never changed my meds. I stayed on the same meds and the same dosages, of the very same ones I came in on, the entire time I spent there...

Dr Michael Balkunas and the entire W-1 unit staff of Hospital of Central Connecticut (New Britain General Hospital) need to be re-educated, or better yet, lose lose their jobs and their licenses to practice.

Read more

1

1

Pamela Spiro Wagner

5:50 AM

 

 

Here is the link to the blog post http://pamelaspirowagner.com/2014/10/23/thank-you-michael-edward-balkunas-md-for-everything/

Avatar Therapy Cures "Hearing Voices" Symptom in Schizophrenia: Does it Work?

Novel 'Avatar Therapy' May Silence Voices in Schizophrenia

Deborah Brauser

July 03, 2014 - From Medscape (see link below)

LONDON ― A novel treatment may help patients with schizophrenia confront and even silence the internal persecutory voices they hear, new research suggests.

Avatar therapy allows patients to choose a digital face (or "avatar") that best resembles what they picture their phantom voice to look like. Then, after discussing ahead of time the things the voice often says to the patient, a therapist sits in a separate room and "talks" through the animated avatar shown on a computer monitor in a disguised and filtered voice as it interacts with the patient.

In addition, the therapist can also talk by microphone in a normal voice to coach the patient throughout each session.

In a pilot study of 26 patients with treatment-resistant psychosis who reported auditory hallucinations, those who received 6 half-hour sessions of avatar therapy reported a significant reduction in the frequency and volume of the internal voices ― and 3 reported that the voices had disappeared altogether.

"Opening up a dialogue between a patient and the voice they've been hearing is powerful. This is a way to talk to it instead of only hearing 1-way conversations," lead author and creator of the therapy program Julian Leff, MD, FRCPsych, emeritus professor at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, told meeting attendees.

"As the therapist, I'm sharing the patient's experience and can actually hear what the patient hears. But it's important to remind them that this is something that they created and that they are in a safe space," Dr. Leff told Medscape Medical Newsafter his presentation.

Two presentations were given here at the International Congress of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) 2014 the day after the study results were released in the print edition of Psychosis.

Regaining Control

According to the investigators, 1 in 4 people who hear phantom voices fail to respond to antipsychotic medication.

Dr. Leff explained that this program started a little more than 3 years ago, after he had retired "and could start thinking clearly again." He had been interested in the phenomenon of phantom voices for more than 40 years.

"Our mind craves meaningful input. That's its nourishment. And if it's deprived of nourishment, it pushes out something into the outside world," he said. "The aim of our therapy is to give the patient's ego back its mastery over lost provinces of his mental life."

The researchers used the "off-shelf programs" Facegen for the creation of the avatar faces and Annosoft LIP-SYNC for animating the lips and mouth. They also used a novel real-time voice-morphing program for the voice matching and to let the voice of a therapist to be changed.

In fact, Dr. Leff reported that one option the program provided changed his voice into that of a woman.

After a patient chose a face/avatar from among several options, the investigators could change that face. For example, 1 patient spoke of hearing an angel talk to him but also talked about wanting to live in a world of angels. So the researchers made the avatar very stern and grim so that the patient would be more willing to confront it.

Another patient chose a "red devil" avatar and a low, booming voice to represent the aggressiveness that he had been hearing for 16 years.

For the study, 26 participants between the ages of 14 and 74 years (mean age, 37.7 years; 63% men) were selected and randomly assigned to receive either avatar therapy or treatment as usual with antipsychotic medication.

The length of time for hearing voices ranged from 3.5 years to more than 30 years, and all of the patients had very low self-esteem. Those who heard more than 1 voice were told to choose the one that was most dominant.

Pocket Therapist

During the sessions, the therapist sat in a separate room and played dual roles. He coached the participants on how to confront and talk with the avatars in his own voice, and he also voiced the avatars. All of the sessions were recorded and given to the participants on an MP3 recorder to play back if needed, to remind the patients how to confront and talk to the auditory hallucination if it reappeared. 

"We told them: It's like having a therapist in your pocket. Use it," said Dr. Leff.

All of the avatars started out appearing very stern; they talked loudly and said horrible things to match what the patients had been reportedly experiencing. But after patients learned to talk back to the faces in more confident tones, the avatars began to "soften up" and discuss issues rationally and even offer advice.

Most of the participants who received avatar therapy went on after the study to be able to start new jobs. In addition, most reported that the voices went down to whispers, and 3 patients reported that the voices stopped completely.

The patient who confronted the red devil avatar reported that the voice had disappeared after 2 sessions. At the 3-month follow-up, he reported that the voice had returned, although at night only; he was told to go to bed earlier (to fight possible fatigue) and to use the MP3 player immediately beforehand. On all subsequent follow-ups, he reported that the voice was completely gone, and he has since gone on to work abroad.

Another patient who reported past experiences of abuse asked that his avatar be created wearing sunglasses because he could not bear to look at its eyes. During his sessions, Dr. Leff told him through the avatar that what had happened to the patient was not his fault. And at the end of 5 sessions, the phantom voice disappeared altogether.

Although 1 female patient reported that her phantom voice had not gone away, it had gotten much quieter. "When we asked her why, she said, 'The voice now knows that if it talks to me, I'll talk back,' " said Dr. Leff.

"These people are giving a face to an incredibly destructive force in their mind. Giving them control to create the avatar lets them control the situation and even make friends with it," he added.

"The moment that a patient says something and the avatar responds differently than before, everything changes."

In addition, there was a significant reduction in depression scores on the Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia and in suicidal ideation for the avatar participants at the 3-month follow-up assessment.

A bigger study with a proposed sample size of 140 is currently under way and is "about a quarter of the way complete," Dr. Leff reports. Of these patients, 70 will receive avatar therapy, and 70 will receive supportive counseling.

"In order for others to master this therapy, it is necessary to construct a treatment manual and this has now been completed, in preparation for the replication study," write the investigators.

"One of its main aims is to determine whether clinicians working in a standard setting can be trained to achieve results comparable to those that emerged from the pilot study," they add.

"Fascinating" New Therapy

"I think this is really exciting. It's a fascinating, new form of therapy," session moderator Sridevi Kalidindi, FRCPsych, consultant psychiatrist and clinical lead in rehabilitation at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom, told Medscape Medical News.

Dr. Kalidindi, who is also chair of the Rehabilitation Faculty for the Royal College of Psychiatrists, was not involved with this research."I think it is a novel way of approaching these very challenging symptoms that people have. From the early results that have been presented, it provides hope for people that they may actually be able to improve from all of these symptoms. And we may be able to reduce their distress in quite a different way from anything we've ever done before."

She added that she will be watching this ongoing program "with great interest."

"I was very enthused to learn that more research is going on with this particularly complex group," said Dr. Kalidindi.

"This could be something for people who have perhaps not benefitted from other types of intervention. Overall, it's fantastic."

International Congress of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) 2014. Presented in 2 oral sessions on June 26, 2014.

Psychosis. 2014;6:166-176. Full text

Original Article From MEDSCAPE:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/827797?nlid=60566_2051&src=wnl_edit_medn_psyc&uac=63563AN&spon=12

Daniel Mackler's Amazing Movie About Recovery from Schizophrenia

If this video embeds as it is supposed to, it is am amazing hour and fifteen minute movie narrated by Daniel Mackler. I believe it is legally allowed to be embedded since I got it from Mackler's Youtube site (with the embed button). Please watch it. You won't be able to stop...All about recovery from schizophrenia without medications, not to mention the harm that medications do in terms of impeding recovery... The film features, among others, Joanne Greenberg of I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN fame, and Catherine Penney, RN who also recovered from severe schizophrenia largely without psychiatric drugs, with the help of Daniel Dormand MD.

Major Delusion: Grey Crinkled Paper

This was originally written on 7/14/2004, just before I was hospitalized I believe.

MANIFESTO or Grey Crinkled Paper #2

First, personal business: the voices are back, music especially, but also the old password voice running along, like a TV show's "audio crawler." This is very distracting, even the music, yet at times, as commentary, it seems much more truthful than what is said by those whose voices are "real" or at least non-hallucinatory. I know I saw some show with my friend Joe that illustrated what these voices are like, within other contexts and in other times, but we’ve both forgotten which show it was (perhaps Star Trek Voyager?). As I wrote in my entry on "Voices," the movie, LULU ON THE BRIDGE, gives a brief but helpful example of the more muted, confused babbling form they sometimes take, as when, for example, Harvey Keitel is walking along that wall at night...

In any event, the password voice is my one-word short-hand for the way the voices sometimes sound to me: 1) monotone 2) stage-whispered 3) secretive yet as if imparting a truth others should not hear.


That said, let me explain what they talk about:

Grey Crinkled Paper, first of all, which must be spelled grEy not grAy, though the reason for this particular spelling is unknown to me. How it came to be part of my life was, as I belive I wrote in the first Grey Crinkled Paper entry, at age 16 or 17 when my body inflated like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloon and my hands turned blue, which was the most important thing about the experience before the vision, revelation -- what have you, something that cannot be truly verbalized -- came to me in the words: Grey Crinkled Paper. It was what I understood to be a kind of holy trinity, very much like Father, Son, Holy Ghost, or Newtonís 3 laws of thermodynamics, or Einsteinís three: 1) the special theory of relativity, 2) the general theory and 3) the (never discovered) unified field theory.

Now, there are complications to this, because once I can get the problem of GCP solved at least in this world, I will be freed from the Supermetal Canister into which I was placed as punishment for some higher dimensional crime. Meanwhile, onto the walls of this canister are projected in All-Sensurround the reality of this 3-D earth-world, while electrodes, implanted in my skull, impart knowledge of cosmic history as well as of a personal life, consisting of "memories" as well as their significance.

(The other way to free myself, apart from solving the problem of Grey Crinkled Paper, would be to surgically remove these electrodes, which would be painful, but which would prove my worthiness to be welcomed back to those higher dimensions...)

To continue from previous paragraph:

which means that people here are actually no more than the equivalent of movie projections, only apparently real. When I am liberated, all of them will, along with the world and the rest of the canister’s projections, end, pfft!--with no more suffering than Humphrey Bogart "feels" when Casablanca finishes for the umpteenth time.

The Canister is made of Supermetal which has always been explained to me as Titanium/Uranium. Whether this is a feasible earthly metal alloy or simply the English equivalent for something there we have no concept for I don’t know.

Involved with this are the Five People. They 1) are not in themselves stable as persons, that is in their appearances; they will take on a body when convenient and leave it when it is no longer useful, without the real person ever being aware of it, 2) these bodies are disguises, ever-fluid and changeable at will. For example, there was one security guard when I lived in supervised housing at the old nurses' dorm at the hospital that I knew was one of the Five People, and he knew I knew, which led him to torment me openly: bugging my room, video-monitoring me, giving me non-verbal messages whenever I passed him. I recognized him, and his face stayed the same that entire year, but as soon as I moved out, he left that body and now I no longer know where he is or in which body he is hiding.

I have had for some time now a vague suspicion that the part-time social worker in this building may be one of the Five People, if not the very same one but the same one or anther it scarcely matters... 3) what I know of these Five People is little except that they used to be controlled by my father and were utilized to monitor me, and therefore theoretically they could be used to eliminate me at any time. However, my being the messenger of Grey Crinkled Paper might attentuate this power, making it impossible for someone-- whoever is behind them, whoever is controlling and sending them --to actually kill me.

Who or what these Five People are, why they are, where they come from, these non-human beings (emphatically not aliens) is not very clear to me right now beyond this. One thing I understand is that like most things in this context, they too must have some connection to the higher dimensions and Grey Crinkled Paper.

Grey Crinkled Paper BTW is a concept and is neither grey-colored nor paper-y nor crinkled. No single word of it can be taken separately to signify anything without the other two.

However, Grey Crinkled Paper doesn’t mean anything either, not even to me. It is only a message of supreme importance. It just is the vehicle, the memo given to the messenger who happens to be me, and until it is understood by all, can be understood by none and cannot be utilized as it should be to achieve world peace. The problem is that in order for anyone to get the true meaning, it must be translated 22 times by 22 native speakers of 22 different languages or dialects, two of which *must* be Arabic and Farsi (I don’t actually know if this last is a written or spoken language, moreover, I didn’t know what the word meant at all when I was first given the information and assignment at age 16).

This part is critical: The translation of Grey Crinkled Paper must be sequential in time and space and must be done without reference to or help from the original transfer-er of the message (ie me). You can think of the translation process like this: it's as if someone were to say the quay of Normandy and another person heard it as key of Norman Dee and then translated this into his or her native language. Such a misunderstanding is inevitable and it is not a error but is the entire point. Like the telephone game that kids play in which a phrase, whispered from child to child, comes out transformed at the end, so too will GCP be transformed. While the child's game’s message may be nonsense, in the 22-link chain of the Grey Crinkled Paper translation, the end result will make a sense that everyone will instantly understand and appreciate. In short it will reveal the true meaning of the phrase rather than obscuring it.

Can you understand this? The one necessary part of this process is the final translator in the chain, who must be a non-native speaker of English, who therefore would have no inherent drive to make "sense" of what he or she hears. She would only innocently convert what she is given into the English words she knows, which would turn out to be the final message, the Truth.

This is all so far focused in the Middle East, but not all the languages or dialects (so far as I can determine) need to come from that area. I know only that Farsi and Arabic *must* be among them.

Why the movie THE MATRIX is so important is related to all the above: this film takes Reality (ie GCP), which it has sucked out of my head, and converts it to a Concept, a falsification by definition, which is the first insult. But then it proceeds to distort this into fiction, to make it comical and falsely profound. Finally, it garners huge profits and a wide fan base for its makers, which is a triple or quadruple whammy against me, not to mention the sort of sacrilegious mockery no one would dare perpetrate against Catholicism or Islam or Judaism. The movie is indeed amazing, I agree, especially insofar as it gets certain things right, like the character of Morpheus, played, as you may recall, by Lawrence Fishbourne. But the inaccuracies soon multiply and it begins to infuriate me even as it mesmerizes me to see anything like it made public. What amazes me still is that the movie was made at all, and apparently without fear of the disavowal and disrespect I know I’d have been treated to had I propounded the very same Truths.

Thatís all I have to write about these subjects for now. But these are only partial thoughts and not the whole matter by any means.

Schizophrenia Symptoms: Voices

For me it usually starts with music.

Not the kind you know is only an echo of some recently heard song playing inside your head, something you understand is actually your thoughts repeating the song to yourself, though it may start out that way. No, this music, once it becomes audible, is quite distinct from that; for one thing, I hear the music coming from outside, not inside, my head, as if an invisible radio is playing from within the walls or floor or some place well-hidden. There might even be a DJís commentary in the background, mumbled, indistinct, but adding to the impression that I am listening to an actual radio.

Except that the music is never right; the words or tune are always sinisterly distorted, repetitive and ominous-sounding, so that even the most harmless or delightful of songs soon turns to misery-making.

But it does not end there. Rarely if ever does it harmlessly fizzle, sputtering away into nothing. Instead, it invariably escalates. Occasional bursts of melody become constant and nerve-wracking as songs change and deform and come back to haunt me, or certain phrases may be repeated endlessly, over and over and over, to the point that I want to scream and have to turn on a real stereo as loud as possible just to drown them out.

Then the jumbled, vague DJ commentary turns nasty, as recognizably human voices start calling me the worst names they can think of whatever would be the most hurtful, harmful and insulting. Usually some variation on ìFatso!î or Satan’s spawn! This is not necessarily done at full volume. Very often, I have the sense that what is spoken is done so secretly, the way, on the old gameshow Password, the correct words were whispered to the TV audience, supposedly so the participants couldn’t hear.

For me at any rate, this secret exchange of information always gave me the sense that I alone was being given the answers, which is in fact what I believe they wanted each viewer to feel. But this is often how the voices sound now: as if they are passing along secrets or letting me know something no one else is privy to, even if it is only to insult or deride me. The Password quality of these exchanges is so powerful that I know, or feel I know, that what they tell me must be the truth, a truth given only to me.

While I have heard loud voices and once heard Japanese being spoken in the walls, a Japanese curiously enough that I could completely understand, though I speak not a word of the language, much more often do the voices take on this secretive quality. They may go on and on, but will do so as if careful not to be overheard. Which only adds to my disquiet, as I sense what is in fact true: that no one hears what I hear.

But my understanding is that often they don’t hear it not because it isn’t real, but because the speakers deliberately pitch their voices in such a fashion as to prevent anyone but me hearing them. So naturally people will deny the reality of what I hear. It is meant for me alone; they aren’t supposed to hear it! But I do hear it, I hear something, and after the first few years, when the messages were relatively benign, all I’ve heard has been nasty, abusive or downright dangerous.

There is a part, early on, in the movie LULU ON THE BRIDGE with Mira Sorvino and Harvey Keitel, where Keitel’s character is walking alone at night past a wall where it seems he, or the audience, can hear people mumbling and chattering invisibly. This struck a chord in me, because it wasn’t the movie-loud screaming that many people associate with hearing voices, but rather what is more common for me: the experience of hearing conversations or commentary as if from a room away or from behind some barrier, the apparent distance from the source of the sounds making it seem all the more possible that what I hear is real rather than imaginary.

But what struck me as I watched it, was how similar this was to my experience of hearing real sounds from unreal sources. In my case it is not just memories or fantasy or imagination, or at least it doesn’t feel that way. It feels, it sounds, completely real and reasonable, which is part of the dangerousness of it, because if the sounds are real, if the content of what is said seems reasonable, then shouldn’t I reasonably trust them to tell me the truth and instruct me how to act? If the little dancing red man from the BioHazMat sign seems completely real and credible, both as a being and as an authority, why then should I not obey his dictates or listen when he tells me I must immolate myself and here’s how.

The problem lies in the brain, as Iíve been told innumerable times and as I believe to the best of my ability, but how can I distinguish real human voices or the actual radio from ones that don’t truly exist? It is a conundrum that escapes my solving it every time, because I have no touchstone, no yardstick to measure a human voice or radio DJ against that would reliably tell me which ones are hallucinatory and which are not. The big question becomes, how can you distinguish between the real and the not so real when your brain, which is supposed to do the discriminating, is the one simultaneously creating the confusion?

Personal History

TITLE: Nurtured Nature
DATE: 01/05/2004 08:37:28 PM
and 12/25/08 at 12:18AM

A bit of personal history: when I was in fifth grade, in England, I was spending an afternoon alone in the flat with no one but my father around. For some reason I don’t recall, I remember him appearing at the playroom door, his normally ruddy face apoplectically florid with rage. I must have done something wrong, but what I cannot for the life of me remember. All I know is that he soon had me by one arm, and was swinging with his free hand to swat my behind, and I was swerving to avoid the blows. We lumbered around in circles like some misshapen two-headed elephant. I was screaming and crying, more in fear and rage than pain, since he couldn’t get enough leverage to really hurt me. Then it hit me like sticking my finger in an electrical socket that he wanted to get a rise out of me. That was his single purpose. He would only be satisfied when he heard me scream loud enough. I realized I didn’t need to give him what he wanted, and I ceased at once both my protests and my seeking to avoid his paddling. I simply relaxed in his grasp, and the surprise at my lack of resistance made him almost supportive as he sought to keep me upright even as he continued to try to spank me. But now as I gave no satisfying howls, it was so dispiriting to him, he stopped hitting me. He let me go, leaving us breathless the two of us. But he wasn’t through with me, not yet. He still wanted to get to me. Only if he hurt me, could his own rage and impotence be relieved. That’s what I saw so terribly clearly. He thundered across the room to our precious tin and cardboard dollhouse and began systematically dismantling it and throwing the pieces in the waste basket. I felt immediately that I had no choice but to join him. Not only that, I felt I had to laugh uproariously, even while we trashed my favorite plaything that I had lavished both hours of my time and all my pocket money on.

Well, this did the trick. Seeing as he couldn’t hurt me, he couldn’t provoke me to tears or outrage, but only encouraged me to laugh merrily, he abruptly stopped what he was doing. He glared at me with murderous rage in his red eyes, and then, clearly fearful of what he might just be capable of if he didn’t leave me right then and there, he pounded out of the room and left me to my triumph. I fully admit I cheered, and jeered. I felt more victorious than if I had beaten my brother to a pulp! (See how gentle and generous I was?) I had won, and he could do NOTHING against me; he could not hurt me, no matter how hard he tried, not physically, not emotionally. He had tried and failed, and therefore I was the winner, and I gloated in my victory over the tyrant of 839A Finchley Road.

Did I pay a price for this? And why did I automatically resort to such behavior, rather than submitting to a "mere" spanking? Was I programmed by my genes to respond this way? It certainly felt innate, not learned, not conditioned. No one had ever taught me to react this way to abuse before. I just happened upon it, and understood that it was the only way to successfully beat him at his own game.

I wrote in 2004: I suspect that something innate in me leads me to see the world in black and white, in terms of absolute good and evil instead of shades of grey. I have never not been prone to such a division of labor, even when I myself am partitioned off into the all-bad category, as I usually am. Why do some people see the gradations in things, in events and people, and others, like me, see only the stark contrasts, and find it so difficult to accommodate to the idea of in-betweens and relativeness? Have I merely learned to be this way, or is it, as it feels, a natural native response that I must constantly keep in check?

I saw no other option that day but to destroy my dollhouse with my father. I could have sobbed or objected, or simply mutely watched as he went about his murderous business. But no, I felt obliged to join in, to destroy my own things myself, and to actually feel cheerful doing so, albeit somewhat hysterically so. And to this day I often choose to hurt myself if I perceive that someone else wants to hurt me. I’ll do it first, I reason, so I can control it and it won’t hurt so much. No one can hurt me as much as I hurt myself, I know that. NO ONE would dream of burning me with multiple cigarettes over large patches of skin. No one would slash my wrists or cut at my face just to get back at me. Yet, with or without the help of accompanying command hallucinations, I do so, and do so frequently. Or at least have done so many many times, each time without even considering other options, or simply waiting for the feeling to pass. It never occurs to me to think about what the scars will look like, not even on my face. I just lash out, and obey both the voices and my own self-poisoning hatred.

I write in 2008: I don't know why I said that I see in B & W except that I was told in some hospital that I saw in B & W and I was unable to think about it for myself at the time. In fact, I see the shades of gray (actually in millions of colors, but I won't quibble) quite well...It is others who wish to put me into either the B or W camps who have trouble with gradations. I don't think that it suggests a tendency to B & W thinking, the fact that one, say, has deliberately, that is to say, usually under orders -- burned one's face or arms. It merely suggests self-hatred among other things. But you can hate yourself and still see the rest of the world in shades of grey, I assure you.

It occurs to me that I say: "No one would dream of doing X and Y to me" but of course, that is just the world's expression I am using. As I use it, I mean to imply the very opposite: The problem is precisely that they might indeed do it to me, which is why I must do it to myself first...

How does all this fit into my having developed schizophrenia? The fact that I learned to destroy my own dollhouse and laugh while I did so seems significant insofar as it is not how most children would have reacted. I forgot how to feel, or how I was allowed to feel about the world that happened around me, and how I was allowed to react to it. They were making all these Rules for me at any and every minute that kept me on my toes...The Rules were the bane of my existence. I couldn't open or pass through a strange door unless a Rule had been made and then been broken on my behalf. This is still difficult. The Rules govern a great deal, though I am not supposed to talk about them anymore or give them any credence, according to Dr O. She believes I am cured, and if I do not talk to her about the voices or the Rules, she will continue to believe so, and will eventually allow me to get off the pills. Which is what I am stumping for. So that is why I will not tell anyone about them.

But there are all sorts of rules, like: if anything becomes too precious, give it away. Or answers to all sorts of questions like, if a cholera epidemic comes, should I offer my blood? (My blood is immune to cholera, They tell me); smaller or precise questions too, but larger ones like: what doors can I pass through, yes, but also what large spaces can I cross, where may I speak and how loudly can I say my name (if at all); how much water may I use; how much space is my body allowed to take up; Can I use a paper towel? Can I use a paper napkin? Must I re-use every yogurt container again... Other Rules: Do not throw away any reuseable food container. Do not look at other people unless they look at you first. But look at other people as soon as they look at you.

You know, this is so good: Get the eyes right, in other words. That is hard, but it is essential if you want to be normal. Believe me. It took me forever to learn to look at people. I still can't always do it, and some people I still have trouble with regularly or I just fudge it. But I can in general not look down now when I'm with people, so you see how far I've come. So some of the Rules are "right on" Rules...Just some of them aren't and I'm hard pressed to know which are good and which are harmful...And if they are not helpful as a lot then they really do me no good as a lot and I'm back where I started, just with Voices and Rules (no news, no news).

Winter Stress

This is an up-to-date entry, which I will add from time to time, just to keep this blog " interesting" So it is not just a rehashing of the old Wagblog but an ongoing "live"blog as well.

That said, I am -- unbeknownst to almost everyone in my life but one on-line friend and my father, who may discount it -- under a lot of stress right now. I have to visit an elderly friend two to three times a week and make sure he is not alone too much and then see my best friend, Joe, in the hospital, where he lives on a ventilator, paralyzed with Lou Gehrig's disease. I enjoy these visits but they are also time consuming and they take me away from my apartment, which is where I like to hole up and be by myself, doing artwork or writing. Now I have a lot less time for that, which is a source of stress too. But the biggest stress is having gained about 10 pounds.

Having finally lost a lot of Zyprexa-induced poundage, I have a horror of getting fat again, so weight gain is a very "fraught" issue for me, especially because the voices go haywire when I am very upset and start in on me. "Lardass! Fatso! Pig!" they'll scream, and They tell me I'll always be fat and never lose the weight...and then if I don't lose it fast, They start, well, getting dangerous to me. Their orders can be very specific, and I do not want to go into most of them here, only to say that once there was a man in the BioHazard sign, a red, dancing man who told me to immolate myself in a very very detailed, specific way. That time I had to have ECT just to end that cycle. I still don't know if ECT worked or if it just killed the brain cells enough that I forgot about him...But to this day the biohazard sign still gives me the heebie jeebies...

As to the weight gain, I feel guilty, so I feel I can't speak of it out loud. I feel that it is my fault, so who am I to moan and groan? It's my bed, so I must lie in it, right? A better person would not be in this mess...So grin and bear it but let no one know that it matters, especially because they will always say something to me anyway. I don't know why everyone always feels they have a right to mention the fact that I have gained weight! I would NEVER say such a thing to them or to ANY other person. IN fact I never comment on any other person's body...Yet it seems that everyone has a proprietary interest in mine, and feels that they have the right and duty to comment on it, even to the point of commenting on what I must weigh. So you can imagine how painful it is for me to be seen in public...

They comment though, those people who hate me, I can understand why they do, they have no reason to remain civil. They are supposed to keep me in line. My doc told me, I am supposed to remember this, but I keep forgetting it, that They are me, but I do not think so, I think They are They, frankly...No, They are me, they are me, they are me. I make the Rules. But I still feel guilty and fat and wrong wrong wrong wrong...

The problem is that I had to bake cookies twice, actually 6 times for 2 parties this Christmas. I made 3 different kinds for each party, and so I had 6 different baking sessions. Now I usually eat very healthily, and I do not ordinarily enjoy cookies, but homemade and mine, I do. So I have been eating quite a few, hence the added pounds. But that is whence the guilt as well. It is MY fault and so I have no leg to stand on but my own two crooked ones, and they must do. Now I dread going to my own family Christmas party with the final batch of cookies. Though the platter will bring much cheer, I must be seen to carry them inside. I dread this so much that I feel sick... In fact, I have been physically ill for the past three days as if my body were trying to give me an excuse not to go. Alas, I must. I promised to bring along four "orphans" as well: three other middle-agers and one elderly without family to the party of the one with a family still. I do not begrudge them their Christmas, only wish I did not have to attend it myself. I'm sorry, I'm simply that awful!