I should be included in the census.
I should be included in the census.
复制标题
我应该被纳入人口普查。
DOI:
10.1093/schbul/sbq170
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发表时间:
2012
影响因子:
6.6
通讯作者:
Johnson,Amy
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Johnson,Amy
It is a curse, this schizophrenia, because it has me asking questions, it has me off balance, it has me questioning the very basics of the basics every 15 minutes, over and over, and over again. I can never get anywhere; never make any progress past the basic questions. It looks like I am wasting time on purpose, like I’m avoiding growing up or avoiding responsibility. I would love to be able to work like a regular person. I love to be busy. I love to feel useful. I would love to have a dinner celebration in my name, a party to tout all my accomplishments, to celebrate me, and my person. I don’t ever get to have this. I don’t get celebrated or applauded because I have nothing to show for all my daily hard work. It is horrible to feel this unappreciated, this uncelebrated. I am diagnosed a ‘‘paranoid schizophrenic.’’I am ‘‘paranoid’’because I do not trust what’s real. Everything is a threat because everything is new; I can’t seem to remember that whatever object or person is before me was ‘‘safe’’the last 200 times. Instead, I have to go through this whole procedure, this whole reality checking procedure. It’s like I have Alzheimer’s or something. I am not stupid, but I can’t seem to remember stuff from 24 hours ago. You asked me before why I had such a hard time making decisions. You asked me to talk about the internal processes that make it so hard for me to make a decision. Because I question reality always, I cannot move forward. Some things must be trusted and must be taken for granted; in order to keep moving forward, I have to trust that the electricity will work when I flip the switch. If I didn’t trust that the lights would go on, I’d be agonizing over,‘‘Am I going to get electrocuted? How do I know it’s safe?’’and ‘‘What if the lights don’t go on? Then what am I going to do?’’and ‘‘Maybe I should call the light company just to be sure,’’and on and on and on. But, if I simply trust that things will work out, I can flip the switch, go into the room, sit down, and write. See how trust is so connected to learning, to growing, and to getting things done? This is the catch-22, the double bind. Schizophrenia happens to 1% of the population. We speak our own language. We speak a language you do not understand. We are defenseless and rendered helpless because we, me, and the world can’t understand each other. The more I try to speak, the less you understand me. This is why we stop trying to communicate. It’s like quicksand. It’s an inevitable and slow death. Not being able to communicate my basic feelings, not identifying with another human being, and feeling completely alone in my experience are killing me. I sit at home alone, and I physically hurt from just loneliness. I curl up in the fetal position and hold my head. I stare at the wall and barely breathe. That’s my loneliness. My loneliness is dead silence. It is pitch black. It stretches on and on endlessly. I am not trying to be poetic. I am not trying to dream up a new and dramatic way to express loneliness. My true experience is exactly as I have described. I am not embellishing; I’m not adding to the facts. My emotions, the facts, I tell with objectivism. You think I am being dramatic, building fluff when there isn’t any. I think I am telling a normal experience because I talk calmly and normally about my emotions. I watch you get angry and snap at me as I talk, and I have no idea what’s made you so mad. You stomp off and never speak to me again. I am left feeling like a heel, like yesterday’s garbage. I felt like you spit on me and I have no idea what I could have possibly done to warrant such indignities. I am helpless to correct the ‘‘wrong’’me, but I am human and need other’s acceptance. I need people to accept me enough to want to build a …