May 24th is Schizophrenia Awareness Day. In honour of it, we’ve gone purple for the day! Here’s a song, written and performed by Coda Francis, about his experience with schizophrenia.
I hear sirens in my head,
As I’m wide awake, laying on my bed.
The air is thick with the smell of fear and hate.
Clean the carpet from the hypothetical blood stains.
Abilify is a second-generation antipsychotic. It works by regulating dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine levels in the brain.
Editor’s note: this is a continuation of Fuck. Schizoaffective?
It’s been two months since my diagnosis. Two months to process the psychosis, the diagnosis. Two months to adjust to new medication.
It is my pleasure to introduce the newest series, “Tales of the Mental Hospital” to QueerMentalHealth.org. Spending time in a hospital can be an unpleasant and scary experience for many of us. Taking a more lighthearted look at our experiences can be healing for many of those who have had to stay in a mental hospital for some time. Chandler came up with the idea to write about his experiences, and after discussing it together we decided it would be a great idea to make it into a series here. We encourage anyone to add their stories to the series as well!
During my formerly frequent stays to various psychiatric facilities in MO & FL, I’ve met quite a few characters. They’ve ranged from scary violent psychos, to hilariously deranged schizophrenics, to the just plain bizarre. That statement also includes some of the people who worked there. Sometimes, the staff is just on the wrong side of the desk.Needless to say, each separate hospitalization was a truly unique experience. With all the E/N depression threads I’ve seen pop up, I think now is a good time to share some of the hilarity that an inpatient psych hospital can offer. That’s right, the hospital can be fun.
Risperdal is a second-generation antipsychotic. It works by reducing dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine levels in the brain.
Generic Name: Risperidone
In the early 1950’s, a well known Canadian psychiatrist named Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron developed the concept of “psychic driving.” The idea was that mental illnesses could be cured by reprogramming new narratives into subjects. He recruited from the local community to participate in his studies. Most of his volunteer subjects suffered from relatively minor psychiatric complaints, such as neurosis or depression.
While part of my identity is “Out of the Closet”, as the thrift stores I frequent so gaily proclaim, the mental health side of my identity is still partially in the closet, a monster in the closet that emerges and slides back in as I hide blog posts, switch back and forth my internet expressions, erase tweets, and deep down know that the internet knows everything forever. Spokeo owns me and it owns you.
The last few weeks have been chaotic for me. I’ve been in a mixed episode, and starting last week, I’ve been hearing voices. Whispers, chatter, and someone calling my name. All either alone, or only with my partner nearby, and she’s confirmed that they aren’t things that she’s heard. I’ve also been feeling like the crows that wake me up in the morning are mocking me. I’ve known for months that something like this was inevitable, but it’s still jarring to experience a psychotic episode for your first time.
I grew up a white, middle-class, cisgendered, femme bisexual. These are the labels and privilege that I am willing to claim. When I reached 33 and went on SSDI, I went on food stamps. The transformation from Daddy’s Girl who just had to get another temp job to actual psychotic starving schizophrenic who had to take anti-anxiety medication to take out the trash was a process but has landed here. With me, today. Taking a handful of pills so that I can be brave enough to go use my EBT.
One of the hardest things about existing in a community is that eventually you will have to meet new people. The elephant will enter the room. “What do you do?” “No, what do you do for work?” I am on SSDI, Social Security Disability Income. That means I don’t work in the technical sense. I sit around in my underwear drinking iced coffee and working on my novel while the government sees fit to direct deposit funds every month. I go to the grocery store and use food stamps to buy spinach and chicken.
