I entered the store and a security guard greets me. Not quite a smile, his expression was more like civil, rigid, minimalist politeness. He eyes me up and down. I can feel his X-ray vision entering my purse, my pockets, and scrutinizing my empty hands. He reeks of paranoia, as do all the other store employees who walk down aisles checking in on customers with fake smiles.
Being a paranoid schizo-affective, I am hypersensitive to the paranoid states of others. It's like sensing a kindred spirit, call it Pare-dar. Like a paranoid radar, pare-dar allows me to detect paranoia, fear, and suspicion in others from a distance, without having to interact with them (though a brief interaction allows me to confirm my assertion). During holidays, stores get lots of shop-lifters so they alert their employees to be on the look out.
So I entered the store to find a fog of suspicion inside. My little paranoid antennae went up as well, as I respond to paranoia with paranoia. I grabbed a Diet Coke, a pair of earbuds for my IPOD, dropped these items onto the cashier's area, paid, and ran out the door.
Hence, why I shop online. No paranoid employees asking me how I'm doing while eyeing my purse. No little trail of employees following me down the make-up aisles like spooks from the Cold War era. Just a couple of clicks and a two-day wait, and poof---a package on my doorstep. When you're paranoid, avoiding other people's paranoia is a good way to keep healthy, so from now on I shop online for items like flash drives, books, appliances, and so on.
Just a side note, what's been bugging me lately is that a lot of people don't understand that schizophrenics aren't criminals. There are lots of schizophrenics out there and only some of them are CRIMINALLY insane while the vast majority are just nuts, with no criminal tendencies at all. That's why we have the words "asylum for the criminally insane" versus "psychiatric hospital". In theory, a psychiatric hospital is just that---a hospice (in reality it's like a little behavioral modification unit equipped with Middle Ages era restraints, sadistic employees who secretly detest their wards, and a model of bed rest and group therapy that is as outdated as the stacks of magazines in the group room). The CRIMINALLY insane usually end up in jails or hard-core state facilities with even more Middle Ages era style techniques.
In case you're wondering, I am the plain version of schizophrenic, not the criminal variety. Still, due to my delusions of impending torture by secret agents and my fear of assassins, the county workers (well, some of the poorly trained and unscrupulous ones) deemed me as a threat to self and others (code=5150). Does that mean I am a threat to others? No. What it meas is that there are rigid requirements for forced hospitalization and unfortunately, people are willing to lie on my charts in order to get me into a psych ward. No, I'm not being delusional. This has been my experience, the experience of others I was roomed with in psych wards, and it's even been the case for Elyn R. Saks, author and legal expert, who penned "The Center Cannot Hold."
I am now almost done reading Saks' book. I have postponed finishing it because it was so exciting for me to read about her academic successes that I dreaded not having to read the book anymore. Since I am a college student about to apply to my University's graduate programs, Elyn Saks' story means the world to me. She proves that we can achieve while psychotic. We can achieve while on medications. We can achieve, regardless of how disabled we are, and that is gold to me.
Being a paranoid schizo-affective, I am hypersensitive to the paranoid states of others. It's like sensing a kindred spirit, call it Pare-dar. Like a paranoid radar, pare-dar allows me to detect paranoia, fear, and suspicion in others from a distance, without having to interact with them (though a brief interaction allows me to confirm my assertion). During holidays, stores get lots of shop-lifters so they alert their employees to be on the look out.
So I entered the store to find a fog of suspicion inside. My little paranoid antennae went up as well, as I respond to paranoia with paranoia. I grabbed a Diet Coke, a pair of earbuds for my IPOD, dropped these items onto the cashier's area, paid, and ran out the door.
Hence, why I shop online. No paranoid employees asking me how I'm doing while eyeing my purse. No little trail of employees following me down the make-up aisles like spooks from the Cold War era. Just a couple of clicks and a two-day wait, and poof---a package on my doorstep. When you're paranoid, avoiding other people's paranoia is a good way to keep healthy, so from now on I shop online for items like flash drives, books, appliances, and so on.
Just a side note, what's been bugging me lately is that a lot of people don't understand that schizophrenics aren't criminals. There are lots of schizophrenics out there and only some of them are CRIMINALLY insane while the vast majority are just nuts, with no criminal tendencies at all. That's why we have the words "asylum for the criminally insane" versus "psychiatric hospital". In theory, a psychiatric hospital is just that---a hospice (in reality it's like a little behavioral modification unit equipped with Middle Ages era restraints, sadistic employees who secretly detest their wards, and a model of bed rest and group therapy that is as outdated as the stacks of magazines in the group room). The CRIMINALLY insane usually end up in jails or hard-core state facilities with even more Middle Ages era style techniques.
In case you're wondering, I am the plain version of schizophrenic, not the criminal variety. Still, due to my delusions of impending torture by secret agents and my fear of assassins, the county workers (well, some of the poorly trained and unscrupulous ones) deemed me as a threat to self and others (code=5150). Does that mean I am a threat to others? No. What it meas is that there are rigid requirements for forced hospitalization and unfortunately, people are willing to lie on my charts in order to get me into a psych ward. No, I'm not being delusional. This has been my experience, the experience of others I was roomed with in psych wards, and it's even been the case for Elyn R. Saks, author and legal expert, who penned "The Center Cannot Hold."
I am now almost done reading Saks' book. I have postponed finishing it because it was so exciting for me to read about her academic successes that I dreaded not having to read the book anymore. Since I am a college student about to apply to my University's graduate programs, Elyn Saks' story means the world to me. She proves that we can achieve while psychotic. We can achieve while on medications. We can achieve, regardless of how disabled we are, and that is gold to me.
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