Personal Narrative: Schizophrenia

Elyn Saks’ memoir, The Center Cannot Hold, tells an eye-opening story of her lifetime journey filled with achievements despite suffering from schizophrenia. Although it took a while for Saks to fully accept her diagnosis, she never sold herself short of what she was able to accomplish. Saks shows the reader that determination, perseverance, and knowledge can bring refugee to anyone suffering from a mental illness. There is no doubt that Saks led a remarkable battle against her illness while continuing to pursue her passions, but her message stands clear that anyone who suffers an inner demon has the ability to overcome it if they find a life through which they can accept it, learn to cope with it, and find happiness in it.

I am Simone Alexander. I have severe schizophrenia, but I take my medications regularly. I have been through a lot. Even in my condition, I still try to help out my community during the rough time I have been through. I care a lot about Hollywood, California, because I was raised here. I am such a high spirited, generous, and kind woman. I have been going through a 5 year hardship relationship with my on and off again boyfriend Lucas also known as Paw-Paw. Last night was horrific. The unthinkable was spoken. I was traumatized.

a muzzle brake, and five magazines. Also, two shorty double barrels with the quickloader”. The quickloader is a machine that attaches on the side of your hamstrings. It has two compartments in each loader, and in the compartments goes shells. You simply stick the inside latch of the double shotgun against it, and it ejects the shells into the chamber of the double barrel for a quick reload.

In the world today, there are many illnesses and disorders that affect people each and every day. One illness in particular that is very big in the US and all around the world is Schizophrenia. It is also the most researched topic. A person who is diagnosed with Schizophrenia lives a very different lifestyle than someone who is not. Many people would consider a person with schizophrenia to be “crazy.” Sadly enough, people with this illness do posses symptoms that might come off as crazy or insane. There are many different causes that come along with schizophrenia. A person who is diagnosed may not know it at first but they do later realize that they have some interesting thoughts, depending on the type of symptoms they posses while having this illness. Although the symptoms may be very brutal and causes cannot be controlled, there still is hope and treatments for individuals who have schizophrenia.

Insanity, then, is inordinate or irregular, or impaired action of the mind, of the instincts, sentiments, intellectual, or perceptive powers, depending upon and produced by an organic change in the brain.

If you were to see me walking down the street you would never guess that I was in foster care. I dress and act like your everyday 17 year old, and in a way I am. Except I was placed in foster care when I was 15 years old. Scratch that I put myself in foster care when I was 15 years old. I bet you’re asking “why”? “Why would you do such a thing”? Well my mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia also known as disorganized schizophrenia. Just in case you don't know disorganized schizophrenia is characterized by incoherent and illogical thoughts and behaviors, so when you are 15 that's not a good situation to be in. My mother couldn't keep a job therefore she could not support us.

Throughout the many years, there have been many negative public perceptions of Schizophrenia, which is known by majority of the public as an indication of mental illness. This disorder is most of the time perceived by the public as caused by psychological factors. People with this mental illness are considered to be unpredictable and threatening (Angermeyer & Matschinger, 2003, p. 526). Most patients have a behavioural dysfunction. Victims, families and society carry a substantial burden due to this illness (Wood & Freedman, 2003).

I woke up in my bed at the Stephens Adult Psychiatric Unit in Joplin, Missouri. I had dreamt of being back home the previous night, so it was crushing to wake up and realize where I was. It was my 2nd day there, but it felt like much longer. Most psychiatric units have a similar structure. During the week, there are group activities that preoccupy you enough to make the day somewhat bearable. The weekends are worse, because there is nothing. You can either sleep or watch television in the day room with the other patients. The lack of activity constantly reminds you that you’re trapped. That all of your belongings have been taken away. That you are not allowed to go outside at all during the duration of your stay. That you are virtually entirely isolated from the outside world. The only thing I had to look forward to during those days was the hour of visitation with my parents twice a day. You’d think a psychiatric unit would be the one place on

It is difficult for anyone to deal with strange thinking and bizarre and unpredictable behavior. Imagine what it must be for families of people with mental illness. It is bewildering, frightening and exhausting. Even when the person is stabilized on medication, the apathy and lack of motivation can be frustrating. A mother mentions how her daughter, when asked to put her clothes in the closet, looked at the freshly pressed blouses for over an hour before making a move to hang them up. What was a matter of routine for this young woman in the past, now seemed to take an inordinate amount of time. Even though the parent knew it was not so, she had to fight the feeling that her daughter was deliberately not doing this one, small task.

In the early 1900’s, Eugen Bleuler coined the term “schizophrenia.” Schizophrenia is from the Greek roots “schizo” meaning split and “phrene” meaning mind. This specific mental illness is commonly characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and very unresponsive emotional behavior. Delusions are most commonly those of grandeur, persecution, and reference. Delusions of grandeur are characterized by the belief that you have special powers you do not possess. The belief everyone is after you is what makes up delusions of persecution. Lastly, the belief that everyone is talking about you and everything pertains to you is what delusions of reference are characterized by. In addition, the patient often suffers from

It’s a struggle to get out of bed sometimes, I often just sit there struggling to comprehend the sequence of events which have taken place over the past year. I mean, I’m used to this now, its normal to me, but the fact that this has happened and that I am now ‘disabled’ as people would put it is hard to get my head around. And every time I look down I’m reminded of the pain and the struggle I faced, it’s a physical scar which links me to my grueling past, a physical and emotional journey.

The book, Crazy, is an interesting, and informative non-fiction book, about the struggles that mental health patients and their family members encounter. Pete Earley starts off the story by talking about his son Mike, who started to act strangely in his senior year of college. (Earley page 9). It turned out that Mike would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and was prescribed medications. Mike thought he was fine, therefore would frequently stop taking his medications. Mike refused treatment from a hospital that he was admitted to. Because he was not a danger to himself, a danger to others, or gravely disabled; the doctor could not force him into treatment. Because, Mike stops taking his medications, his symptoms got worse. Pete discussed

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that plagues about 1 out of every 100 Americans. Despite this fact, most of the general public remains ignorant to the basic pathology of the disease and the mechanisms of identifying and treating it. It is considered by some to be a “scary” mental illness and is often ignored, when compared to the other equally serious and caustic ones like Generalized Anxiety Disorder (also referred to as GAD), ADHD, and Chronic Depression. This is illustrated by the mainstream media which is quick to romanticize the main character. They are written to have overt symptoms of the aforementioned diseases above and they do so without providing an ounce of fact to soften the blow or mitigate the damage that their works, being a topic of mass interest is presenting half-truths and paper tigers to an often young, uninformed, and highly impressionable global audience. This and much more causes the stigmatization of mental illness in general, especially those deemed “scary” and unpleasant” by the masses.

I am a 27-year-old living in New York and I was recently accepted for a job in an insane asylum for psychiatric patients as a security job at the night shift. At first, the job scared me, but I took little worry as all the patients were tied up and locked away while I sat and watched some cameras and got paid for it in a locked room until 6:00am. When I first arrived, I was given a small book on what to do and told what some of the equipment was and once that was all done I threw on my uniform and walked to the security room. The room was 2 halls down past the prisoner cells. As I was walking down I looked through one of the cell windows and a person jumped at the window smashing his head on the door screaming in a jumpsuit.

I have schizophrenia and I live with schizophrenia. This is my story. I remember being a teenager and loving every bit of life from school work, my family, my dogs and my friends. I was always known for my positive attitude and energy and being the life of the group. This all started to change around the age of 13 or 14 for me. The voices began one late afternoon on my way home from school. At first I thought it was just my imagination until I realized there was no off button for them. The voices continued to appear from this day on and I gradually lost myself within them. I started to shelter myself from my family and friends and believed I was slowly losing my sanity. I was scared to share my experience with anyone so I kept to myself withdrawn from the world I once loved.