I represent a misrepresented fraction of the fraction of the population that has schiz. I don't have to wear that green hospital gown just yet, or worse, a straitjacket. The only thing I share with the media's schizo is that I have taken antipsychotics intravenously.
But why do we continue to portray the image of the schizo in that kind of light? For quite a while now, I have had to put up with this electronically-transmitted image, this visual neologism, this hallucination brought about by misunderstanding the insane. Show me dopamine - and its normal proportion - and I'll believe you.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
I Don't Know... I'm Afraid.
I don't know, but after months of my own self-experiment of weaning myself out of medication because of the strains of it (financial, physical, emotional), I'm starting to feel the consequences of it. It's called relapse... and I'm afraid.
I don't know if right now, I'm in a fit state to go to school. Hallucinations are my own worst enemy now: paranoia being the second. Perhaps this is what my psychiatrist warned me about when I was under her care, that I might feel okay for the first few months after taking myself out of the treatment, then the relapse will be far worse... worse than what I expected. Tomorrow is school day, and given what I went through at about 4:00 PM today, I don't exactly know when the next schizophrenic/delusional attack would happen.
I don't know, but I saw a bunch of people clad in white walking in my direction on a quiet road, and so I ran. I ran for my life because I heard the cry of somebody being killed somewhere in the woods down below. Then I heard gunshots. Only after a few puffs from a hastily-lit cigarette did I get my wits about me once again after that quick sprint, and realized that it was the relapse I feared. Until some man found me trembling and gave me a sip of water did I realize how unreal my world has turned again, months after I had a taste of what "real" should be.
I don't know: all I know is I'm afraid. The last time, I actually came so close to an impulse to strangle somebody. I'm not a serial killer, nor am I possessed. I do not know, that's all. I don't know what drives me to the urge of running away from people that nobody sees anyway, of these murders that I have always seen the day I stepped into college, and those days when people found me weird because I talk to plants and shrubs. I'm afraid because I do not know...
I don't know what's wrong with me.
I don't know if right now, I'm in a fit state to go to school. Hallucinations are my own worst enemy now: paranoia being the second. Perhaps this is what my psychiatrist warned me about when I was under her care, that I might feel okay for the first few months after taking myself out of the treatment, then the relapse will be far worse... worse than what I expected. Tomorrow is school day, and given what I went through at about 4:00 PM today, I don't exactly know when the next schizophrenic/delusional attack would happen.
I don't know, but I saw a bunch of people clad in white walking in my direction on a quiet road, and so I ran. I ran for my life because I heard the cry of somebody being killed somewhere in the woods down below. Then I heard gunshots. Only after a few puffs from a hastily-lit cigarette did I get my wits about me once again after that quick sprint, and realized that it was the relapse I feared. Until some man found me trembling and gave me a sip of water did I realize how unreal my world has turned again, months after I had a taste of what "real" should be.
I don't know: all I know is I'm afraid. The last time, I actually came so close to an impulse to strangle somebody. I'm not a serial killer, nor am I possessed. I do not know, that's all. I don't know what drives me to the urge of running away from people that nobody sees anyway, of these murders that I have always seen the day I stepped into college, and those days when people found me weird because I talk to plants and shrubs. I'm afraid because I do not know...
I don't know what's wrong with me.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Everybody Has Schizophrenia
I look into the mirror, what do I see?
Is there someone behind me, or is it just me?
Should I walk fast, or should I walk slow
Confusing them all of where I want to go?
Or eat the strange meal laid upon my table
Knowing the queen of diamonds will kill me when she's able?
Perhaps take these long walks to places beyond
When the faculties of reason have yet to see dawn?
That the journey to an all-too-familiar place
Might as well be a journey to outer space?
Perhaps, just perhaps
Maybe, just maybe...
People walk fast when they ought to walk slow
Missing out on the beauty of the places they'll go.
Or the sumptuous feasts laid upon their table
Are taken out of the placemat and watched in front of cable.
Perhaps not too many walk to places beyond
Working through the night and sleeping at dawn.
That the all-too-familiar place
Is just exactly that: outer space.
I look into the mirror, and what do I see?
An image of you, and a reflection of me.
Is there someone behind me, or is it just me?
Should I walk fast, or should I walk slow
Confusing them all of where I want to go?
Or eat the strange meal laid upon my table
Knowing the queen of diamonds will kill me when she's able?
Perhaps take these long walks to places beyond
When the faculties of reason have yet to see dawn?
That the journey to an all-too-familiar place
Might as well be a journey to outer space?
Perhaps, just perhaps
Maybe, just maybe...
People walk fast when they ought to walk slow
Missing out on the beauty of the places they'll go.
Or the sumptuous feasts laid upon their table
Are taken out of the placemat and watched in front of cable.
Perhaps not too many walk to places beyond
Working through the night and sleeping at dawn.
That the all-too-familiar place
Is just exactly that: outer space.
I look into the mirror, and what do I see?
An image of you, and a reflection of me.
- August 24, 2007
5:15 PM
UP Baguio Main Library
Friday, August 17, 2007
They Have It Worse
People talk about leading difficult lives, and every so often I've been asked if I lead one. I figure: not really. When it comes to being "sick," I'm still pretty much in control. I don't know how much longer I can hold it out, but I'm still hanging on.
When I was first diagnosed with having paranoid schizophrenia, I felt like my world crashed down on me: I'm another statistic among so many people who, like me, buckled under pressure. I'm another victim of a glitch in the balance of neurochemicals. While I'm not driven to the kind of stereotypical insanity that sends people into straitjackets and cells in asylums, I still pitied myself. For someone who deals with reality, I deal with an unreal world of hallucinations, delusions and paranoia.
I got around my self-pity after the antidepressant therapy: for all I knew, it was just another pill, among the dozen combinations and types of drugs I tried to combat the ill effects of disassociation. Somehow, I've come to the realization that sanity is arbitrary: it is a quality we assign to people whom we consider "normal." People whose perception of the world is not clouded by a veneer of "abnormal" thought, people with just enough dopamine.
But that's just it: we who are disassociated from the general view and perception of reality are often stigmatized by people who consider themselves "normal." I've tried explaining to people that I'm not a cause for alarm, that I don't have (so far) a manifested dual personality, and that I'm still in control. I have a neurochemical imbalance: that's just it. I don't qualify for the stereotypical notions surrounding the psychotic.
I don't believe in a coherent, organized notion of a God, but if anything, I think I was put here for a good reason. I don't know what that divine reason is: my hallucinations have yet to bring a Host into my mouth or a divine revelation. But I think that if I can sort of "sell" myself into the intellectual life, it's that I see further perched on the shoulders of one of the biggest things that happened to me in my 22 years. They have it worse: those who see things the "normal" way.
When I was first diagnosed with having paranoid schizophrenia, I felt like my world crashed down on me: I'm another statistic among so many people who, like me, buckled under pressure. I'm another victim of a glitch in the balance of neurochemicals. While I'm not driven to the kind of stereotypical insanity that sends people into straitjackets and cells in asylums, I still pitied myself. For someone who deals with reality, I deal with an unreal world of hallucinations, delusions and paranoia.
I got around my self-pity after the antidepressant therapy: for all I knew, it was just another pill, among the dozen combinations and types of drugs I tried to combat the ill effects of disassociation. Somehow, I've come to the realization that sanity is arbitrary: it is a quality we assign to people whom we consider "normal." People whose perception of the world is not clouded by a veneer of "abnormal" thought, people with just enough dopamine.
But that's just it: we who are disassociated from the general view and perception of reality are often stigmatized by people who consider themselves "normal." I've tried explaining to people that I'm not a cause for alarm, that I don't have (so far) a manifested dual personality, and that I'm still in control. I have a neurochemical imbalance: that's just it. I don't qualify for the stereotypical notions surrounding the psychotic.
I don't believe in a coherent, organized notion of a God, but if anything, I think I was put here for a good reason. I don't know what that divine reason is: my hallucinations have yet to bring a Host into my mouth or a divine revelation. But I think that if I can sort of "sell" myself into the intellectual life, it's that I see further perched on the shoulders of one of the biggest things that happened to me in my 22 years. They have it worse: those who see things the "normal" way.
- August 17, 2007
UP Baguio Main Library
Medium: Blue ink on UP examination booklet
Friday, August 10, 2007
The Memories of Kenji Shiyo, 1943
I never knew that as a paranoid schizophrenic that I had a calling to tell of the stories of the hallucinations I encounter. I don't know how true these stories are, or if their stories are themselves hallucinations. I don't know if these hallucinations are the ghosts of the dead, and perhaps they are talking to me so that I may tell their stories.
I stood atop one of the septic tanks near the new CSS complex at my school, staring at the monolith-like monument commemorating the fallen Japanese soldiers during the Japanese offensive in the Philippines in World War II. It was there that I saw a street-sweeper dutifully clearing the garden of fallen leaves brought about by the monsoons over the past few days.
I was alone, or at least I thought so. As usual, I am never alone in circumstances usually associated with peace and solitude. I looked over my shoulder and saw a figure quite out-of-place from the fashion milieu of the 21st century: a short man dressed in the dark greenish khaki uniform of a footsoldier in the Japanese Imperial Army, which I deduced from the gilded chrysanthemum pinned on his lapel, and the armband emblazoned with the Japanese rising sun with rays. He held in his hand what looked to be a rifle from the era: with all its cracks, dents and the broken splintered stock, it has seen better days. His mud-stained boots, ragged pants and blood-soaked shirt. The bullet-holes that pierced and riddled his shirt made me think if I was really seeing a ghost, a specter of a fallen servant of a fallen empire.
"Komenasai," he said. From what little I know of Japanese, I took this as a courteous greeting from a stranger. "My name is Kenji Shiyo. I am a footsoldier for the Emperor's Army. I have a story to tell you."
"Are you a ghost?" I asked. Where other people would probably be bewildered at the sight of a dead soldier, I'm not: it has become a way of life for me to see what other people consider "ghosts."
"No," he replied haltingly. "I am a soldier. Please, hear my story."
Like with a snap of the fingers, I felt myself teleported to what seemed to be a distant land, but upon closer inspection of my world, I was standing in the same exact spot... in 1943, ovwer 60 years back in time. My school became a barren, tree-covered hill, a fortified Japanese bunker, where bombs were buried and wars were fought. The clicking and firing of Garand rifles pierced through the air, firing at squads of Filipinos and Americans firing through the forest brush, from what is now the local headquarters of the Lion's Club and Ibay's Silver Shop. The road that cut through Home Sweet Home and the Pine Trees of the World park became a narrow trail dented by deep imprints of combat boots.
"I used to be a farmer in a town not too far from Osaka," he said, and I looked back to see the bloody figure of Mr. Kenji. "Then this happened. These are my memories, friend."
"Your memories? What about your farm? What about your life before the war?"
"There are no memories before war. War changes everything... it changes the mind. These are the memories I had because I lived through war."
I looked up to see low-flying Japanese planes rain down bullets on the forest below, the whirring of propellers and machine guns filling the air like the cawing and flapping of the wings of mechanical vultures. Bombs started dropping down from the planes. From the top of the hill, the deathly arcs of mortar shells rained down on the forest as Allied infantrymen dived into hastily-dug foxholes for cover.
It was no party at the Japanese side, either. Sure shots from crack snipers from down below shot heads out of mortar teams and soldiers. Bullets pierced through the air to demolish weary Japanese infantry throwing grenades down the forest in the hope of killing an enemy, the deadly weapons exploding before it can leave their hands. A Japanese soldier's gun jammed, and before he can let his bolt go, three shots pierced through his chest, hurtling the rifle in midair, breaking its stock. The gun exploded, killing a soldier in the process. In the back of my mind, I knew that the soldier who jammed his rifle was Kenji Shiyo.
In some instances in my young life, I somehow agreed with war, that it was the grand solution. I believed that to solve the crises that plague and permeate society, we must go to war. But I never had to go through one, that I can only imagine - and hallucinate - about war. I didn't have to take up a gun to shoot somebody in the name of my beliefs and what I am entitled to. I didn't have to get shot by someone whom I consider an enemy because he carries different ideals and interests. Television and imagination is a poor reflection for the realities of the battlefield.
I do not know what sense there was in World War II, or for any war for that matter. I do not know what sense there is in dying for your country because your gun jammed. I'm not a pacifist, but there must be very good reasons for anything that takes place in war. Kenji Shiyo died for no good reason, other than his gun jammed: it did not jam in the name of the Emperor.
I've gone to the streets in the name of peace even if I don't have the faintest idea of war. Yet in the same way, I preached war, that there's no other venue to overthrow oppressors. But I didn't have to take a lock, stock and barrel to aim it at another person. I didn't have to figure out a good way to die in war because it isn't my choice. Most of all, I didn't have to die with war as my final, lasting memory, like that of Kenji Shiyo.
Somehow, I think that no matter how irrational mental illnesses are, they have a place. Although it sometimes bothers me that an irrational, "non-existent" hallucination can give me a rational lesson in how to exist.
I stood atop one of the septic tanks near the new CSS complex at my school, staring at the monolith-like monument commemorating the fallen Japanese soldiers during the Japanese offensive in the Philippines in World War II. It was there that I saw a street-sweeper dutifully clearing the garden of fallen leaves brought about by the monsoons over the past few days.
I was alone, or at least I thought so. As usual, I am never alone in circumstances usually associated with peace and solitude. I looked over my shoulder and saw a figure quite out-of-place from the fashion milieu of the 21st century: a short man dressed in the dark greenish khaki uniform of a footsoldier in the Japanese Imperial Army, which I deduced from the gilded chrysanthemum pinned on his lapel, and the armband emblazoned with the Japanese rising sun with rays. He held in his hand what looked to be a rifle from the era: with all its cracks, dents and the broken splintered stock, it has seen better days. His mud-stained boots, ragged pants and blood-soaked shirt. The bullet-holes that pierced and riddled his shirt made me think if I was really seeing a ghost, a specter of a fallen servant of a fallen empire.
"Komenasai," he said. From what little I know of Japanese, I took this as a courteous greeting from a stranger. "My name is Kenji Shiyo. I am a footsoldier for the Emperor's Army. I have a story to tell you."
"Are you a ghost?" I asked. Where other people would probably be bewildered at the sight of a dead soldier, I'm not: it has become a way of life for me to see what other people consider "ghosts."
"No," he replied haltingly. "I am a soldier. Please, hear my story."
Like with a snap of the fingers, I felt myself teleported to what seemed to be a distant land, but upon closer inspection of my world, I was standing in the same exact spot... in 1943, ovwer 60 years back in time. My school became a barren, tree-covered hill, a fortified Japanese bunker, where bombs were buried and wars were fought. The clicking and firing of Garand rifles pierced through the air, firing at squads of Filipinos and Americans firing through the forest brush, from what is now the local headquarters of the Lion's Club and Ibay's Silver Shop. The road that cut through Home Sweet Home and the Pine Trees of the World park became a narrow trail dented by deep imprints of combat boots.
"I used to be a farmer in a town not too far from Osaka," he said, and I looked back to see the bloody figure of Mr. Kenji. "Then this happened. These are my memories, friend."
"Your memories? What about your farm? What about your life before the war?"
"There are no memories before war. War changes everything... it changes the mind. These are the memories I had because I lived through war."
I looked up to see low-flying Japanese planes rain down bullets on the forest below, the whirring of propellers and machine guns filling the air like the cawing and flapping of the wings of mechanical vultures. Bombs started dropping down from the planes. From the top of the hill, the deathly arcs of mortar shells rained down on the forest as Allied infantrymen dived into hastily-dug foxholes for cover.
It was no party at the Japanese side, either. Sure shots from crack snipers from down below shot heads out of mortar teams and soldiers. Bullets pierced through the air to demolish weary Japanese infantry throwing grenades down the forest in the hope of killing an enemy, the deadly weapons exploding before it can leave their hands. A Japanese soldier's gun jammed, and before he can let his bolt go, three shots pierced through his chest, hurtling the rifle in midair, breaking its stock. The gun exploded, killing a soldier in the process. In the back of my mind, I knew that the soldier who jammed his rifle was Kenji Shiyo.
* * *
In some instances in my young life, I somehow agreed with war, that it was the grand solution. I believed that to solve the crises that plague and permeate society, we must go to war. But I never had to go through one, that I can only imagine - and hallucinate - about war. I didn't have to take up a gun to shoot somebody in the name of my beliefs and what I am entitled to. I didn't have to get shot by someone whom I consider an enemy because he carries different ideals and interests. Television and imagination is a poor reflection for the realities of the battlefield.
I do not know what sense there was in World War II, or for any war for that matter. I do not know what sense there is in dying for your country because your gun jammed. I'm not a pacifist, but there must be very good reasons for anything that takes place in war. Kenji Shiyo died for no good reason, other than his gun jammed: it did not jam in the name of the Emperor.
I've gone to the streets in the name of peace even if I don't have the faintest idea of war. Yet in the same way, I preached war, that there's no other venue to overthrow oppressors. But I didn't have to take a lock, stock and barrel to aim it at another person. I didn't have to figure out a good way to die in war because it isn't my choice. Most of all, I didn't have to die with war as my final, lasting memory, like that of Kenji Shiyo.
Somehow, I think that no matter how irrational mental illnesses are, they have a place. Although it sometimes bothers me that an irrational, "non-existent" hallucination can give me a rational lesson in how to exist.
- August 10, 2007
CSS Complex, UP Baguio
Medium: black ballpen
Paper: UP examination booklet
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