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I just read a book written by a Norwegian psychologist. Many people may find it hard to believe, but earlier she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and she suffered for years. The symptoms started at an early point of her life. She was a young teenager, bullied by her classmates and with only one good friend to trust and spend time with, except from her caring mother and sister. At that point her life started to take a drastic turn. It didn`t seem drastic at first. It started off slowly with depressing essays at school and thoughts of herself being “grey”. At some point she became very confused about her own identity. “Am I a real person or just a fictional character from a book?,” she asked herself. Her confusion grew and her life became more and more chaotic. She frequently wrote in her diary and began describing herself as she instead of I. “She felt sad” etc. It didn`t take long before she replaced “she” with “x” and she was drawn further into a serious mental illness than she or any others could imagine at that time. She attended high school and experienced getting more recognition and accept from her fellow students than ever before. It felt good at first, but it reminded her so much of how sad she was during her years with lonelyness and bullying that she gave in to isolation. Despite of the fact that she was drifting further and further away mentally she did very well at school and her grades remained great. She started to work with her homework all day long. When not doing her homework she went to work. Her life consisted of school, homework, working at the Cinema selling chocolate and a lot of inner confusion and chaos. She also did several drawings. She drew fire red dragons. She admired them. She thought of them as the opposite of herself. She considered herself nothing but grey and empty. She considered them the symbol of life, strenght, light and power. She started to see gigantic rats, and angry wolfs at school and soon she saw them everywhere. One day when writing in her diary she experienced that her last line didn`t end like she planned on it to end. “Who did finish this line?,” she asked. “It`s me,” ” The Captain replied. That was the first time “he” made himself known to her and she was going to hear his voice for years to come.
The next ten years consisted of living in different mental hospitals and institutions. Her first time in a mental institution she was only 17 years old. “The Captain” gave orders like all captains do and the orders were of the scrict kind. One time he told her to cut herself and draw a sircle around herself with the blood. If she didn`t do what he told her to her family would die he said. Afraid of losing her family, she did what she was told. She started to cut herself frequently. She used everything sharp. The caretakers had to watch her carefully and the result at some point was her living in a empty room without lighting. They served her food on paperplates and she started to eat her plates after finishing her food. When behaving “badly” they often moved her to the isolateroom. One time she stayed there for 10 long weeks. While there she stayed bound at the chair much of the time. None of the caretakers were allowed to talk with her and she really felt the need of human connection. It was the worst time of her life. Her family weren`t allowed to visit her and she felt lonely and depressed. She made several suicide attempts during her years with schizophrenia and cutting herself became a part of her.
Despite of the fact that she was very lost and very ill she had a dream and she kept that dream with her for years. She wanted to become a psychologist. She was told by one of the caretakers that she had to get used to the thought of never getting well. Her best chance in life was to swallow her pills and learn herself how to live with her mental illness she was told. But despite of several attempts that failed (she tried several kinds of work and education) she was stubborn enough to reach her goal. It took her years to come there and help from her mother, sister and understanding caretakers with a lot of patience was necessary. Now she`s completely symptomfree. She doesn`t hear “The Captain” anymore and she doesn`t see giantsized purple rats and growling wolves roaming around in the streets. She`s now able to enter the psychologist role with a greater understanding and accept, because of the fact that she knows what it was like to be a patient.
During the book she also explains her symptoms as a way to express herself. She came to understand what the different hallucinations may express and says that this is the main reason she managed to overcome her schizophrenia. She doesn`t believe that she will ever experience getting ill again, considering she broke the “codes” and learned to recognise her feelings better.
I`m fascinated by her story and because of that I wanted to share it with you. I think it`s very inspirational. She suffered from a severe mental illness and I admire her for never giving up on her dream. Most people doesn`t think something like this is ever possible, but this woman is a living proof of the opposite. She fought and won. That is amazing!
Too many illnesses have the take the pills and live with the symptoms attitude, unfortunately :negative: .
I believe there`s a lot of know-it-alls among psychiatrists, psychologists and others within healthcare. They`ve read the books and they know all the names (diagnosis etc) I believe too many of them have the tendency to focus on what they`ve read in their books and make the conclusion: “That`s the way it is because my books, and the statistics tells me so. It`s so wrong to take away a persons hope. Especially when hope`s the only thing the person`s got left and the only thing that keeps him/her going.
There`s still many people who doesn`t believe that she`s really over her illness. It`s probably difficult for a lot of people to believe it`s possible when they`ve been “fed” with the opposite for so long…
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