Thoughts on the Prognosis of Schizophrenia

Background

In 2018 I began to suffer from delusions, paranoia, and other invasive thoughts. No professional could determine whether I had a mental illness, a serious substance abuse issue, or both. I eventually checked into a rehab and got back some clarity, but it wasn’t long before I started thinking extraterrestrials had sent me to liberate the people of Latin America.

I met with a doctor every week for a month and did some tests. Based on the results and my family history, he diagnosed me with Schizoaffective Disorder. I was put on some antipsychotic mediation and within days of release I began to grapple with the meaning of this diagnosis.

“The Center Cannot Hold”

By the Spring of 2020 I was completely convinced that I was statistically destined to be a homeless drug addict who would die in my 40’s. I read every article about Schizoaffective Disorder and Schizophrenia almost every night for years. (I was later diagnosed with Disorganized Schizophrenia as well).

My teachers, friends, and family were concerned with how my life was going to turn out. I was assuming they had read the same articles as I had and that I was a textbook case. It may well have just been my inability to function and behave normally. Who knows?

One day, a recommended TedTalk popped up on YouTube called “A Tale of Mental Illness|Elyn Saks”. It was about a successful law professor that has achieved so much despite being diagnosed with Schizophrenia. I quickly wrote her an email asking if there was really a place for me in the world of higher education.

I never heard back from her, but a year later I decided to read her memoir, “The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness”. The books details numerous hospitalizations , psychoanalysis, therapy, and relapses in symptoms. All the while navigating through the world of academia.

The part that I related to you was the idea we get that taking medication signifies a lack of control or willpower. I have also heard people tell me the analogy about how, “If you had a broken leg you would use a crutch, right?”. I took it as someone telling me that I had a broken brain. It was criticizing the very organ that is representative of who I am. It seemed to imply some natural moral decrepitude and inability to be liked and to function.

It seemed like society was more concerned with me being a threat to others than to myself. I was miserable and apathetic on antipsychotic medication. Before, the world was so vivid sometimes and other times it was bleak. Now, it was guaranteed to be a barren plain of existence all of the time.

I could live with the unpredictable nature of my conscious experience and living without medication was something for me to prove. Elyn Saks eventually decided that taking medication was best for her. Others may decide against it. One of the most important things to recognize is the mechanisms behind our choices and to consider what the alternatives are.

“The Center Cannot Hold” by Elyn Saks offers great insight on what is possible with the proper management of Schizophrenia. She says that she is an exception and recognizes that not everyone has access to the proper resources. Doctors appointments and therapy session are usually scheduled weeks to months apart. People have little to no medical coverage. The mental illness is criminalized and underfunded. Yet even under ideal circumstances, people may choose to avoid the medical system altogether anyway.

Conclusion

There are different variables at play between mood and thought disorders. To me, a mood disorder seems a lot more manageable with medication. A thought disorder implies that one thinks in a way that is so bizarre that it will lead to erratic or dangerous behavior. It is marked as the gravest of mental illnesses.

I have a lot of friends and family have been diagnosed with Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective disorder. Most of them generally are like me. We just find things to obsessively research and talk to others about. Our rooms might be messier than most and our jobs aren’t the most glamorous, but we aren’t homeless murderers. We are valuable.

One of the things that interested me most was exploring how other cultures of past and present would view the people we would label as Schizophrenic. In the best case they would be viewed as spiritual healers and in the worst they would be sent to prison for no apparent reason. I naturally chose to focus on how to use my unconventional insight in helpful ways.

The most absolute most intriguing thing to me was how these “Schizophrenics” view themselves. For example, in Western cultures we are more likely to suffer religions delusions where elsewhere one might feel overwhelming shame. The common factor in it all is that they found their thoughts to be so out of the ordinary that it became troublesome to them.

We must remember that during psychotic episodes our thoughts are going 100 miles per hour and the things we are saying doesn’t normally make sense. However, aside from things like that, if we become able to accept our thoughts without judgement then they can become far less troublesome.

A good friend of mine once told me, “I know you think your troubles make you less than human, but they make you more human than anyone”. We are extreme examples of problems that everyone suffers from at one time or another. Perhaps it is more of a gift than a curse.

I’m not saying not to take your medication, but at the very least that there is far more work to be done and potential to be unlocked than that.

Here’s where to buy a copy of “The Center Cannot Hold” by Elyn Saks: