Monday 30 July 2001

Pic of the day: You are what you read?

Not crazy after all those years

I was all set to write a whiny entry about how bad it is to grow up. But then I won a resounding triumphant victory in Master of Magic on "impossible" level, and that totally ruined my whiny mood. (Quite apart from rendering any talk about "growing up" somewhat theoretical. Ahem.) Perhaps later.

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In the latest issue of the Norwegian magazine Illustrert Vitenskap there was this article about schizophrenia. I remember from my younger years that I worried whenever I read about schizophrenia, because it sounded a bit like me. Then again, I did have a hair of hypochondria. Well, a bit more than that when I was a kid, but it had improved a bit by the time I got to my brother's psychology textbooks. Not that hypochondria is particularly associated with schizophrenia, but it might explain why I thought I recognized some of the symptoms. (Of course if I actually had schizophrenia, I would not have recognized the symptoms...)

It's been a couple decades and some, but I still recognize some of the symptoms. As well I should. They are rather vague. (I understand that this is a problem with the disease ... you don't know for sure until it is rather late.) "Lack of initiative, lack of energy, apathy. The person loses interest in their social life and their environs." OK, apathy may be too strong a word (as long as there are good computer games around) but otherwise that's me to a hair. And I'm not even clinically depressed. Millions of people are, and I sincerely doubt they all suffer from schizophrenia.

I'll skip the megalomania (seeing as I expect the world to be interested in my little life or lack thereof, I guess that's a prudent course) and jump to the thing that scared me when I was young. The notion that the patient was dying inside, while keeping up a semblance of normalcy. Evidently they thought that everyone else felt the same way, that everyone else was just play-acting. And then one day they stop playing.

I don't know ... I felt I was dying inside then, and I still am. Should we not be? There must always something die so that something else can live. As christians we should die from sin to live before God. And an old proverb says that to part is to die a little. Certainly to grow up is to die a little, and more than a little. But my experience is that there is usually something new rushing in to fill the void, whenever something wilts and dies and falls away.

And is not play-acting the human condition? It is not like we all invent ourselves from the start. We walk in our parents' shoes, our teachers', our heroes'. Becoming real, becoming oneself, takes time. Some never quite reach it. Some reach it by identifying with a role: To be a parent, a boss, a veterinary, a gambler. Others are lucky enough to change their outer life to a semblance of the inner. They believe in something and live it. But it rarely comes easy.

And there's the voices in our heads. Who hasn't at some time or other found that they were talking to themselves? Debating some point in their own mind, with both (or all) sides taking turns arguing their points? I guess the difference is that some people hear these thoughts as actual voices. (Incidentally, in some cases sensitive microphones have been able to pick up the voices, much to the surprise of the patients. It turns out that some of the voice people actually whisper the statements very very softly under their breath without noticing. So they actually do hear the voices. Most of us don't go that far, but still make tiny contractions of the vocal cords, indicating the words we are thinking. I do this while writing, for instance.

***

I don't deny that schizophrenia is a very serious problem, and tough for those who suffer from it. The article has a wealth of new thoughts about the reasons. Patients tend to have a very high level of dopamine receptors, for instance. Many have a retrovirus that are usually dormant. And most were born smaller than usual (premature births not included). Things have certainly come a long way since I was young, when the most cited reason was "cold mothers". (Emotionally cold, not physically.)

Blame it on the women. What mother can't in retrospect agree that she may have been a bit cold? Especially when the experts say she must have been. I've heard mothers cause homosexuality too, if they're not humble enough. Yeah, right. No mother is always warm and humble and perfect in every way. And no child grows up to be perfectly sane either. As my father used to say: "He is most sane who is least insane."

Most of us are lucky enough to have whole and healthy brains and can stand up against most of the insanity inside us and around us. We can deal. But some people have less to resist with, or a higher pressure, or both of the above. But so far, thank the Light, I'm not one of them. If it ever happens, you are likely to be the first to know ...