No, I still don’t believe schizophrenia is an illness! Many would say I still demonstrate poor insight into my illness for the declaration. That’s okay with me.

I received the diagnosis from a pony-tailed man wearing rodeo work boots with a decorative slab of leather along the base of his lace. He walked with a light stepping swag.  He wouldn’t identify his role to me. I did know I was in the state hospital because I had been set up by the police who I successfully evaded for three days.

Staff denied my request for food before the interview. I was just waking up in the p.m. after my 4:00am arrival the night before. I hadn’t eaten since noon the day before when I’d only walked to mile ten. I was miffed because the paper with the list of police officers on it I had collected for my competency hearing was missing out of my pocket.

***

Three days earlier I had stopped at a gas station to refill. I prepared to dive under my car in the event of gun shots from the passing cars. And then I was in the mart. The police were standing by the merchant as I approached with a coke. Part of me was relieved to see them.

“Oh, did Mommy and Daddy say your brain chemicals are distorted,” mocked a state trooper in a falsetto. He looked like a social-working co-worker of mine back in New Jersey who use to pretend he was a CIA operative.

It was true I had a slight bone to pick with the Seattle PD for leaving law enforcement up to black market forces. I had been contracted to set up services in a notorious section 8 housing project within six months of moving to Seattle. I had received a significant verbal threat from an old friend from back east who said he had the power to harm me. I was on my way to Canada to seek asylum. I had leaked corruption to the press. I now believed these actions would one day be uncovered if they hadn’t already been.

I felt my face turn red from the comment. I was angry that my parents did want me hospitalized just as I had intuited on the road before I decided to head to Canada. My intuition was proving to be correct once again. I could feel myself grimace.

The police were on me and used pain tactics to get me to my knees. They bruised my wrists from handcuffs to prove their control. For the most part, I remained limp and passive.

I knew how to evade hospitalization. I assured the copper of this on my ride to the hospital in the calmest of voice tones. I kept my eye on the mileage. I practiced what to say to the quack doctor in the ER to get released.

The doctor was a reasonable man. I told him I was having memories of being sexually abused. As soon as he said I could go, I left abruptly out the glass doors. I had my life savings in the inseam of my jean. The game wasn’t over.

Outside the hospital at dusk a pack of the local PD floated toward me like rowdy ghosts and the ringleader asked me if I was Tim Dreby.

“Leave me alone!” I shouted. I didn’t identify myself. I braced for another attack, but it never came.

A day later, after testing out what I could and could not get away with, I feared retracing my steps to my car. I also feared taking a flight from the local airport. I knew I could not risk another hospital incident. Instead, I decided to walk from Helena to Butte Montana in one day. I had hiked fifty miles in a day before. But I hadn’t counted on the midnight temperature on the mountain pass. I surrendered to the state troopers who happened to be looking for me with their bright shining light before I made it to Butte.

***

The diagnosis from the pony-tailed man came after I finished this and other parts of my story. I told him I thought my parents were part of the mafia and were pulling the strings behind the scenes.

After I finally got a small portion of cold slop on a plate, I met my roommate.

“I am here to tell you that the Mafia really is after you,” said the Native American man who dressed in a hillbilly hat. “I am just a hillbilly, schizophrenic man in the hospital with a hundred and thirty IQ,” he said during my extensive interview of him. The friend who threatened me knew that I had a hundred thirty IQ.

“Did you know Marylyn Monroe died when Jack Kennedy stuffed cyanide up her ass,” he also said.

“So, I want to ask you a question, and this is important,” said the hillbilly with a pause, “when did the mafia to start following you?”

With a certain Alan Alda vulnerability, I said, “I think I was raised by a mafia family.”

The hillbilly looked uncertain. I wondered if I had said the right thing to the pony-tailed man.

The next day the pony-tailed man testified against me at my competency hearing. I was sentenced to a three-month incarceration.

***

I would be deeply wounded in the hospital. Being confined to a day room for two weeks was very hard. Getting my back reinjured by the cowboy security squad during a misunderstanding also hurt. I was known to be entitled because I tried to hold my workers accountable for not doing their job. As a result, no worker would speak with me. Even my psychiatrist took two months to meet with me. However, the neglect of the chronic unit was the worst. A year of nightmares would ensue.

When I got out of the hospital I took a greyhound and started over with $4,500 in assets. I only had one month of medication. Withdrawing off the medication caused me to lose the job I managed to attain at a daycare. I pounded the pavement daily for three months for any job including Walmart and McDonalds. I did manage to get an offer from a foster care agency, but I was afraid to take it with all I was going through.

My family agreed to intercede if I moved to the Bay Area and I obtained an arranged job at an Italian Delicatessen. Perhaps it seems ironic that this was the only job I could get. I went through a great deal of harassment, gaslighting, and persecution. Finally, when I returned to taking medication ten months later I was able to come out of the emergency state. I stopped being prejudice against the teens who were taunting me at the Deli. I realized that my family was not pulling all the strings.

***

Nineteen years later, I make a daily choice to continue medication to prevent the catastrophic loss associated with an emergency state. Maybe I haven’t made it clear: I still object to the word “schizophrenia” and the idea that what I go through daily is an illness. In fact, the latest reports define schizophrenia as more of a syndrome or neurodevelopmental condition than a disease. They even suggest that it is something that affects people across diagnostic divides something that I have argued for years (Vinograndoy, 2019, p.1.)

I do accept that some of my perceptive abilities are different than others. I do accept that they can lead me into an emergency state if I am not careful. However, I believe the word “illness,” was behind the treatment, I received at the State Hospital. There, I was trained to be controlled by the industry. No one would let me talk about my experiences. I was forced to suppress them even when aspects of them were one hundred percent accurate. I was not encouraged to learn from others. The hospital only prepared me for poverty and to be abused in a local board and care.

I continue to perceive that many people who believe that schizophrenia is an illness internalize treatment that can communicate such negative forecasts.

Turns out the outcome of my journey didn’t coincide with the “sick,” mainstream delusions associated with schizophrenia. I’d read those delusions in school where the twin studies proved the genetic component and there was a noted progressive decline that would get worse and worse and result in brain damage. Turns out twin studies weren’t so reliable, and abuse results in brain damage, not the syndrome which is more an expression of neuro-diversity.

Even if the latest research and I are wrong, and the illness causes brain damage, how was I able to endure some harsh conditions in the community, resume working and eventually passing licensure exams in spite of my learning disabilities? For six months I had to bike twenty miles a day, take the rails for an hour each way to a wealthy suburb, and work in the belly of the beast to prove to my mafia family that this was not my destiny.

***

Now I am a licensed psychotherapist on an outpatient psychiatric unit.

Eleven years ago, I heard about the hearing voices network in Europe, and started to run professional groups in which I disclosed my lived experience with “schizophrenia.” I learned to use my experiences to facilitate storytelling and reflections in group therapy. I have found doing this in a group transforms what was once terrorizing, maddening, and unspeakable into something that can provide insight and inspiration to help others.

Furthermore, there are many details, coincidences, and evidence that I was in fact being monitored in ways many might not think possible. There are also many extremely oppressed people who share experiences of being monitored to which I relate. Such experiences include voices, disassociation, viewing bizarre television scenes, having an apartment ransacked, secret service badges, receiving job related mail that was broken open, being tailed by police officers, and oh so much more.

I may not have all the answers to all the questions I have, but, finally, I know I am not alone. Knowing this is such a relief!

Vinograndov, Sophia, M.D., “Cognitive Training for Neural System Dysfunction for Psychosis Disorders,” Psychiatric Times, Vol 36 Issue 3, March 29, 2019.

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Some might point out that my experiences in therapy couldn’t have been so bad if I chose to go into therapy as a profession. Others might say it was my own damn fault I got hooked on the practice! Still others might point out that I have been privileged with the best help that money could buy and have been able to use it to avoid disability.

Despite what others might say, I am not sure whether to be grateful for the therapy I got. In my therapeutic journey, therapy makes me mad. I don’t think I have experienced a warranted sense of safety with the relationships in which I have been.

This and the next thee posts will span this journey through psychotherapy over the past thirty years. I will evaluate my experience with seven therapeutic relationships. There have been several generations of theoretical trends and changes to consider. There is also an assortment of distinctive conditions to treat even though I am still just a person.

Many argue that without having a therapist who really believes in you, it is hard to have a sense of safety! Ultimately, I share these experiences so that the reader can learn to navigate and advocate for the care they need. I will stop short of drawing conclusions. I am not here to turn off anyone’s light bulb! Just remember, the light bulb has to be ready to change.

Still, I think the conduct of modern-day healers need to be re-evaluated repeatedly regardless of degrees, the quality of training, or the amount of money they make. I persist with therapy because I am still unhappy and because I want to offer quality experiences to the people I serve. I persist because I believe other people who have experienced catastrophic trauma can learn to be healers. Stay tuned and learn more about the reason I have come to promote peer support as a legitimate form of therapy.

Early Intervention:  

I saw my first therapist starting at age thirteen. The first memorable thing we did together was write down what a popular kid looked like and what a nerd looked like. Then he asked me which one I was?

When I explained that my parents wouldn’t buy me popular clothing, he said, “that doesn’t sound right!”

He was right, they were paying him top dollar for these sessions.

When mom lied and said that my claims were inaccurate, I did get to go shopping as a result. Still, I didn’t take advantage of my Mom and wear designer clothing. That was not my style. But I did dress better, and it helped. I started to try to fit in and the bullying decreased.

I was also referred for psychometric testing. I did not have any idea why this was necessary. Indeed, at times in my journey, it has been a significant source of concern as to why this was suggested. I was simply coaxed into it saying that it might be helpful.

I came out of it with one or two pieces of feedback: that I was particularly good at describing and defining things; and I was smart.

I have learned over the years that psychometric testing does not get shared with the recipient accept to highlight a strength or two. I wouldn’t really know if it affected my treatment. In treatment, I was always encouraged to drink and break the rules. I never listened. My father and my shrink shared the theory that my problem was that my superego was too big.

Lesson Number One–Don’t Side with Society Over the Sufferer:

While it’s arguable that these early tactics helped me stop fighting back against the herd in a self-defeating manner, it’s also arguable that I also stopped celebrating myself. The story just wasn’t over with this intervention. I learned to blame myself for getting teased endlessly. My rage was turned inwards. Blaming myself has become quite a thing over the years.

Now with my master’s degree and twenty-five years of experience, I understand neurodevelopmental disorders enough to understand why this tactic was not advisable. I could recite all the disorders back in college, but it took me till age thirty to realize that neurodiversity needs to be celebrated, not punished.

I’d always played with kids who were older or younger. I’d been left back a year in kindergarten and nearly didn’t even get in because I cut paper in a unique manner. It is hard for me to understand why the info from the psychometric testing didn’t pick up the very clear signs of neurodevelopmental disorders. I would later confirm ADD, Dyslexia. Beyond that, I have surmised that I am on the spectrum. Against-the-grain behavior is not simply a choice. However, the road to ending the blaming the victim mentality would be a long one.

Lesson Number Two–Don’t Ignore Problems:

A year later I stopped sleeping for a year. The best I could do was maybe three hours a night. I’d sleep on the floor or in the closet because I had more success sprawled out in strange positions. I was unhappy about a move to a new house and wanted to paint my room black. I could not explain why this mattered to me so direly. The new house was a significant shift in values for my Mom who was coming out of her depression and starting to challenge the way Dad did things.

Why had I had to suffer all those experiences of ascetic deprivations only to end up living in a new house like everyone else? Money was never talked about and I couldn’t understand that my mother had just come into some. Plus, we were evicting the welfare family, my summertime friends, out of our summer home, “The Lodge” and selling it. Plus, our dog died. Plus, my Dad Quit his job. Oddly, the horrific fighting had halted. But I did not trust the move.

Because I was unlike other teens who were lazy and slept in, my therapist did not consider this to be a depression. My struggle went unacknowledged except by my mother who I woke up every night in tears. I fixed this at the end of my ninth grade year during an Outward Bound course during which we hiked late into each night. This got me back to sleeping after a tough year.

Lesson Number Three–Don’t Engage in Dual Relationships that May Interpreted as Exploitative:

When my parents divorced the next year, the advice my therapist had given them after years of working with them was to “Shit or get of the pot.”

When I finally found these things out, I felt as though I had intuitively predicted the fallout.

Now, as a professional, I have learned that working with three members of the same family individually and adding on couples, group, and family counseling is a bit of a set up. This may make you money, but it may cause conflict and fallout for the trusting relationships.

Unfortunately, this was only one aspect of the way dual relationships didn’t work on my behalf. Meanwhile I had a yard business. One might say the business was impaired by my fear of asking for payment. My father had always gone into rages when I asked to be paid for work that I did. He approved of me working hard for him all summer in return for a modest donation into my bank account at the end.

Meanwhile, my father convinced me to buy a used three-cycle lawnmower engine that didn’t work. Perhaps he wanted to teach me a lesson about business. Or maybe he just didn’t want the wear and tear afflicting his own cheap-ass lawn mower. It was totally his idea. I didn’t understand why a three-cycle motor was important. But I was dutiful and invested in a used three-cycle mower.

When the therapist heard of my angst about the lawn mower that kept breaking down, he said he had a lawnmower for me. He sold it to me for about eighty dollars, almost the same price I paid for the used three-cycle lawnmower. I of course was afraid to tell him no.

Not only couldn’t I get my customers to pay me, I didn’t invest wisely in a good lawnmower. I tired of not getting paid. My therapist’s lawnmower was not much to my liking. I told myself another hundred dollars I could have bought a brand new three cycle engine. I threw in the towel and got a job at McDonald’s my junior year. It was a year I was exceptionally busy, starving, and working on homework into the wee hours of the night.

Then, I had to pay out of pocket for many missed appointments with the therapist that year. My Mom insisted that I make my appointment whether they helped or not. Perhaps it seems like I should have respected this, but she was out late partying every night. I was working hard and had lost all respect for her over this.

When I was put in a hospital, my therapist called and had the staff wish me well from him. Staff were all impressed with his follow through. “He seems to really care about you,” they said. I didn’t know how to feel about that. I still didn’t consider all the ways I felt exploited in the relationship.

The post In Psychotherapy We Trust: Part One– Decline appeared first on Redefining "Psychosis".