TheBanyanTree: The Schizophrenia Diaries 1/12/04

[Monique Young]

I'm chatting with him as I write this. On MSN messenger. I have to say that
because sometimes people think chatting means . . . chatting. Instead, it's
words on a screen, without inflection other than the smiley faces or the
frown faces, or the other emoticons that we use in an attempt to make
ourselves more clearly understood.

It's words.

He's having what he says is an intense "psychic" attack, which doesn't mean
he's a psychic, it means his psyche is being pummeled by unknown forces. He
doesn't know what to do, he wants to cut, but he doesn't want to cut, where
does he go from here? What next? He's agitated, restless, driving back to
his apartment a bit earlier he saw someone, a big guy, and when he looked
again he wasn't there. 

We laughed about something the other day, hearing or not hearing something,
and I said, "Sweetie, you're schizophrenic, you wouldn't know anyway!" It is
good he can laugh, because when he's bad it helps him to remember that it
isn't real.

I tell him I can take him to the ER if necessary, and he accepts that as a
viable option, but would prefer not to, and wants to try to get through it.
Hospitals are uncomfortable enough, and he has no health insurance. But if
it is needed, I do not hesitate, no matter what he says. He's fairly
rational though, so I do not press the issue. I can tell that he is rational
enough to make that decision for himself.

____________________________________________________________________

It's later, and he didn't cut. He didn't smash things, though he had the
urge to. He made himself something to eat, and he ate, and eventually he
returned to his balance. By himself. With the help of a clonazapan, but that
hadn't seemed to help much at first. 

It's not always that seemingly easy. I say seemingly because I'm sure it's
much worse than it seems. When he's psychotic he's also scared, and I can't
imagine what that is like.

We chat some more, and he mentioned dinner, and I mentioned mine, which I'd
had while he was here. He is unbelieving. "That wasn't tonight," he says,
and I say, "Yes, that was this evening, just a bit before you left here."

He does not remember that as being today, it's as if he's now a whole day
ahead, as if Monday night and most of Tuesday has been wiped off the
calendar altogether. He wrote, "I hate being psychotic!" 

It's not funny but it was funny, I can't help it, sometimes these things
just come out of nowhere, a serious remark that hits me as unbearably funny,
probably because of the relief I feel that he's okay, and when I tell him
this he agrees that it does have potential for being quite amusing. 

He goes to bed, and he's doing well. He has gotten through this incident
alone, with only me through chat, and he has done it well.

"I hate being psychotic."

Ya gotta love it, right? 


Monique