Ynt: schizophrenia: Psychosomatic

[Guest guest]

Hi Nil,

I am not a doctor of any sort and I do not have a treatment model. I do have a "success story" and hopefully it might inspire others to have faith. My posts in the archives only discuss some of my experiences, and some of the books I"ve read that have helped. I know you were a person who was on-list when taht discussion was going around on schizophrenia, so I guess you heard it all if you were reading that thread. It wasn't more than about a month ago.

Based on my own experience, which is primarily with one person, my husband, I can only encourage you to not give up hope. To keep trying things until something works. Different things have worked for different people. I believe diet is an important factor for many.

I guess the reason it is so frustrating to talk about -- to try to talk about it -- is because I have this "sense" of things he went through and how I responded and things I said and did that helped. But it is all so context specific. It is not a treatment plan.

I did not actively "use" any of the ideas in the dianetics book, but I have read other books on psychology that used similar principles: working with Trance for instance as explained in Wolinsky's book "Trances People Live" has some similarities to some of the things mentioned in the dianetics book. The idea that something that is traumatic to the individual in childhood ( whether or not it would be traumatic to another child -- the trauma as experienced by the sensitive succeptible child ), creates what Wolinsky calls a hypnotic trance state that have post hypnotic suggestions built into them. The childhood trauma could be something so simple as that the mother was emotionally unavailable for some reason, unexpected family move, the birth of a sibling. Later in life, in times of stress, trauma from earlier in life can be triggered. The post hypnotic suggestors are embedded in the experience as images, words, triggers, experiences. Later in life, when stressors trigger the trance state from an earlier time in life -- normally preverbal as the preverbal infant does not have the tool of language with which to process it's experiences, a psychotic episode may ensue, the dynamics of which entail the meshing of infantile modes of sensing and making sense with adult modes of reasoning, to craete the bazaar types of reasoning found in the schizophrenic.

Basically, the way I treated him was that I did NOT try to convince him or get him to admit that he was crazy. Some delusions were more frustrating to deal with than others, because their meanings seemed illusive to me. But I responded to his delusions as if I would respond to any other person's reasoning: considered it as he spoke, and tried to find the kernel of truth within it that I could weave my own "more reasonable"meanings to.

Sometimes it seemed when he was florid that he was incredibly psychic.

On time, he had been working in a warehouse, and had been feeling intimidated by a large gay truck driver who would stand too close in his space and who my husband felt had a "crush" on him. I had gone to lunch with a friend at the university who had been beaten and sodomized by an uncle at the age of 13. That evening when my husband and I came home from work, he sat on the couch and did not move. His aura was a thick, dark, dirty brick red ( a color I came to identify with his paranoid states and which I later learned IS indicative of repressed anger ). His face looked stern. His nostrels flaring. His knuckles going white. When I asked him what was bothering him, he said he felt like he was being sodomized. As he sat there he felt that it was happening -- as if he was experiencing it, and as he spoke I saw the ethereal overly of the face of the man I had gone to lunch with, in my husband's face. I immediately thought to myself, realizing how "psychic" he had been, that his spirit/mind-field, being with me all day long while I was at work, had picked up something from the expereince of the man I had lunch with ( call it an engram if you will; I believe he picked up an engram of sexual abuse from that man through my meetting with him ), and also he mentioned he had continued to feel troubled and intimidated by the gay truck driver. Another engram -- a double whammy. I told him: 1) about the friend I had lunch with and how he had been sodomized as a child, and 2) I said maybe the truck driver was fantasizing abouthim. Whether my conjectures were correct or not, the fact that I touched with my words on possibility of some actual spiritual/mind-field influences that he may actually be experiencing, that fact of having made a meaningful connection was not lost on him. He sat quietly for a time, and slowly he began to calm down, his aura slowly returning to a more normal state, and he functioned much better the rst of the evening.

Once, he had been so paranoid about the CIA, and had been accusing people of being CIA agents. According to him, I was working for the CIA : he wanted to see the files from the CIA on me that told about my assignment and how much I was being paid. I was feeling intimidated, and emotional worn thin. I had had enough. He was sitting on the bed in our bedroom with his back against the wall brooding, in a dark thick brick red aura, having confronted me yet again about the CIA, the snipers in the bushes, the hidden surveilance devices in our home, and how they were trying to undermine his progress on his theory of the universe. I was in the other room when it occured to me instead of arguing against his delusion about me being a CIA agent, that I might use it to my advantage. Afterall, if I WERE working for the CIA, in the imaginal realm in which his delusion existed, by working for the CIA, I suddenly had all this "back up" ( remember the snipers in the bushes are all going to be on MY side if I am working for them ... and the surveilance devices ). I summoned a theatrical attitude, walked into the room trying to be very serious so he would not immediatly think I was messing with his head ;-) and said to him "You know what the CIA REALLY WANTS from you ???" I left a short pause because I did not want to say "you're right I work for the CIA"(I don't, afterall); I didn't want him to say it but by telling him that I knew what the CIA wanted from him, gave him the opportunity to wonder if I were finally admitting his accusations were correct. "You want to know what the CIA REally Wants from you???" I said it a second time after a pause. Then, I said, very assertively and with an air of confidence and knowing: "THE CIA WANTS YOU TO BE MORE CREATIVE. The CIA wants you to stop brooding and go work on your theory of the Universe. The CIA wants you to be MORE creative." That was really a wrench in his works. His aura relaxed a lot, and he looked at me thoughtfully but did not say a word. He said not another word about the CIA to me for about 6 months. NOT ONE Word. Six months later we were driving in the car and he said to me that he ahd figured out the CIA paranoia -- that it had not been that the CIA had been surveiling him, but rather the feeling of being watched was becuase he was being watched over by God. ( something I had said to him some time before the day I told him waht the CIA wanted from him ).

Like I said. I don't have a "treatment plan" -- only 14 years of experience of the kind of reasoning skills that have worked.

The whole point being, that the reason talk therapy does not normally work with schizophrenics is that the reasoning they use requires a different kind of cognitive interaction than simply telling somebody they are having a delusion or arguing the unreality of the delusion.

I wish I could have something more useful to say to you.

The bottom line is, I don't have a treatment plan for schizophrenia. Only 14 years of experience ( of course the past 7 years do not count I suppose, as he has not had any voices, paranoias or delusions during that time.)

On the internet I spent some years on a mental health discussion list and made friends with a woman who had severe bipolar disorder combined with schizo-affective. She was on 5 medications and nothing seemed to work. She had a very big delusion whcih I treated for her as a "big dream" and analyzed her delusion for her as therapist might analyze a dream, allowing for meanings that reached into alternate realms and across time, as her delusion involved a "past life" experience. She was thrilled and told me taht she had never felt so much relief from that delusion.

I don't know what else to say other than, Look for Alternatives to the normal treatment would be my suggestion. Perhaps Doc has a treatment plan that he can help you with if you call him. There are a few rare books on Cognitive therapy being used successfully in treating schizophrenia,but the congitive therapists who are skilled enough to have any reasonable success rate with that method are few and far between -- at least relatively so.

My best advice to you is to leave no stone unturned in your search for some improvement in that matter. Don't be afraid to try something new if your instinct tells you it may be of some use.

Peace, Love and Poetic License,

Cathie

In a message dated 3/26/03 9:05:03 AM Mountain Standard Time, ng2113 writes:

 

 

Cathie,

 

Are there any other posts in the list at which you explained your treatment model in more detail. I have CFS and my brother has Schizophrenia. I would be interested to know more about this subject.

Thanks.

Nil