|
In
The following Newsletter is written by Shawn Blair
who was diagnosed as having schizophrenia. I am very
pleased to be able to have this on my website. This
is a man with a great deal of courage who speaks
openly about his experience and I believe it should
serve to help the reader understand that there is
hope. That people with schizophrenia do recover and
that the mistaken observations and declarations of
the professional world that doesn’t hold out hope
for individuals with this condition and the terrible
stigma that people face who have this unfortunate
condition. The stigma is not only a product of
ignorance and fear of the lay public, but it also is
a product of the ignorance and the inability of the
mental health professions to make the effort
required to understand this incredible problem and
to treat it and the individuals who have it, in a
way that it deserves to be treated.
Schizophrenia could have destroyed me, but thanks to
mental training I am recovering from my
schizophrenia. I don’t just want recovery from my
illness, I want to feel better than I have ever felt
before and to do something really special with my
life.
My illness has taken a multitude of forms over its
course. I used to excel at school, but I abruptly
and dramatically lost my aptitude at age 12 or so.
In the area of reading, my eyes began to jump around
to unrelated words as I was out of focus, and when I
did read in the usual manner, I did not understand
what I was reading. School was a problem from that
perspective, but it was also a problem because
school involved contact with others. When people
were around I became very anxious about nothing I
could put my finger on. Being anxious stifled me but
I was also blank in mind and disorganized in speech,
and together those symptoms put me into a state of
virtual paralysis. It was overwhelming, and I sought
refuge in long walks to nowhere, through forests and
city streets. I was always vigilant of people who
closed the distance between me and them, and walked
the other way or around when they did. Those were
obvious signs of trouble, but I had no idea what it
all meant for a long while. I eventually realized I
might have schizophrenia with the aid of a TV
program I saw about it in 1996 or 1997 at about the
age 18. However, I waited an entire year before I
decided to take action, and get diagnosed. It was as
expected, but the process happened quicker for me
than I think it happens for most others. I saw a
counselor, and my psychiatrist all within one day.
It was the very end of the work-day for the
psychiatrist who gave me my first set of
anti-psychotics. My treatment was as it is for most
with schizophrenia, because psychiatry is a one size
fits all alchemical science I had no specific
diagnosis as having any particular subtype of
schizophrenia, was over-medicated and I found this
unsatisfactory. For the first 7-8 months of my
treatment, in my best interest, I searched for the
roots of my illness, in hopes of discovering what
unconventional medication for schizophrenia I should
ask the doctor to prescribe me. As time continued to
tick, and my illness seemed to become more
pronounced in my eyes, I grew disillusioned. I found
a tentative article about a potential alternative
remedy for people to better disorganized
schizophrenics. I thought that I might have that
subtype of schizophrenia, though it was far fetched,
and a stretch of the truth.
The idea stated in the article was that it might be
a good idea to utilize melatonin, a hormone, for
disorganized schizophrenia The dosage that was not
specified in the article. With that, while I
teetered between thinking I was a disorganized
schizophrenic and a schizophrenic without any
certain subtype designation, I started using
melatonin in large quantities. It was at first
exhilarating, but evolved into a nightmare of
sleepless nights, and a sense that I was completely
lost. That lasted a month, but when I stopped it
wasn’t over yet. Due to my desperate twisting of the
truth, and thereafter execution of what that meant
to me, I had become much more disorganized than
before, not knowing what I was saying, not having a
point to make, and saying whatever it was I was
saying in a disorganized way. Also, I could hear but
could not really comprehend what people were saying.
I had terribly limited control of what I said, and
did, and in large part due to that, I experienced
painful humiliation. In the midst of that I decided
to make an outstanding recovery for all to see. I
was utterly lost in a frightening reality had no
conception of myself, my thoughts, my feelings, or
my reality, I only knew I had to get better or live
an existence of agony, I searched the internet for
means to make ones mind more effective. I found some
techniques, and continue to use them now. For years
since the beginning of my usage of mental training
(and even today to a lesser degree) I experienced
wild fluctuations in my ability to perceive,
interact with, and control reality, that both
severely depressed me, and made me extremely
anxious.
My self esteem was based almost entirely on how well
I was functioning, and I was either happy and proud
of myself when my mind was functioning well, or
feeling hopeless and self critical when it wasn't
functioning well. It wasn’t easy and it sometimes
seemed there was no way out, but I was fortunate to
persevere. Now, I am blessed with a mind that seems
to work pretty well for me. Though everyone who
knows me agrees that I have been the benefactor of a
miraculous transformation, no one knows just how
truly rare, and great this change has been for me,
and in comparison to other like stories if there are
any . I believe that my IQ fluctuated greatly over
the course of my illness. It has returned to near
its previous capacity and I am truly grateful for
it, yet want to continue to increase my
intelligence, function, and control of reality to
make something of myself. Lately I haven't been
training, but have somehow been continuing to
experience some kind of transformation. I attribute
this to my work with various websites and would like
to give you the URL's of those websites. They
provide the tools of my mental training that I have
used to achieve the results I have achieved. Ready
your pencils.....Here they are....Winwenger.com (for
imagestreaming), brain.com (for thinkfast),
elixa.com (for biofeedback machines) . I think this
year will be a banner year for me, as I plan to move
out of my moms house, get my GED, and go to college.
I don't know if I will successfully make those
things happen within the timetable I want to make
them happen within but I am hoping I will be able to
make them happen soon.
Written by Shawn Blair
Back to Top
|
