Schizoaffective

by Jay Paul Strange things keep happening to me, and they are not my imagination. The other day, I ordered breakfast at a diner, then stepped out for a cigarette. In the early morning darkness, I struck up a conversation with a man who happened to be standing outside the diner. He had a skateboard. After joshing me about being high on cocaine the previous night, we exchanged pleasantries about our family and work situations. At that point it got strange, but in a pleasant manner. He asked me if I were eating at the restaurant. When I answered in the positive, he said he would pay for me. He never asked my name, and I never asked his. He followed me into the restaurant. I ignored him. After I finished eating, the waitress informed me, "that guy paid for your meal." I say this only to illustrate that my life is often odd, filled with off-the-wall occurrences and coincidences. Perhaps what happened to my earrings was not a coincidence. Perhaps there was a message hidden in both ...

  by Jay Paul To all my fellow schizophrenics— Fuck it! Fuck it, all— you are fine as is— some idiots made you this way— they are the nutty ones, not you. My advice is this— if you have been made schizophrenic, think schizophrenic all the way, think the way bequeathed to you by idiots you cannot control, but who tried to control you, and succeeded, but only for a time— until you seized the glory they accidentally handed you— Sanity is the side effect of schizophrenia, carpe diem , sisters and brothers,             carpe diem— the day has always been OURS

The term "dementia praecox" was first used in 1887 by Emile Kraepelin. It isolated a type of "madness" that exhibited hallucinations and delusions and later became known as schizophrenia. Since the English poet and visual artist William Blake lived from 1757-1827, he could not have been so diagnosed. However, according to his biographers Peter Ackroyd and Leo Damrosch, Blake exhibited symptoms consistent with what we now call schizophrenia. He had what he called visions, heard voices, and had command hallucinations. Some others thought him "mad." In his lifetime, Blake received almost no recognition. His reputation began to be built decades after his death, and he is now considered one of the greatest of the English poets. His reputation largely rests on his "illuminated books"—engraved books that combine Blake's stunning and dramatic visual art with his poetry. You can see pictures of his longest illuminated book,  Jerusalem , at this link ....

  by Jay Paul Last week on this blog I distinguished between psychiatric hallucinations and visions. The former entail a confusion between what the hallucinator sees or hears and what is commonly taken to be reality. For instance, I once hallucinated that I could converse with people who were reading my thoughts through the intermediary of a medical device I believed was put in my head during a diagnostic test. I believed I was really  communicating with people. I was not. I was making it all up. A vision, on the other hand, does recognize the bounds between what is considered conventionally real and the actions in the vision. A visionary can end the vision at any time by focusing elsewhere;  hallucinators cannot get away from their pictures or sounds because they believe them to be reality. To do so would, in the hallucinator's mind, be the same as trying to get away from gravity. On the other hand, visionaries know that their visions take place in an alternate reality f...

Can we include a number of central biblical figures, including Christ, among the severely mentally ill? Three psychiatrists in their article “ The Role of Psychotic Disorders in Religious History Considered ”   argue that Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and St. Paul all exhibited what we would now call psychosis. As just one example, Moses reported seeing and hearing God in the form of a burning bush. These psychiatrists have a point. If someone told a psychiatrist today that they saw and heard God in a burning bush, he or she would be on their way to a diagnosis. For a couple years, these psychiatrists had me convinced. I thought there was some sort of link between schizophrenia and religion. I still do, but I doubt these figures in the Bible had what we now call psychosis. Rather, I think they had visions, and there’s a difference. I know because I have had both psychosis and visions. Based on my personal experience, they are very different. Today, I believe that when Moses saw and h...