Assured I am Graduating from University

I went back to see an academic adviser. He checked with three different University employees and assured me I had completed all the requirements. I sat there, clutching my Fossil handbag to my heart, and smiled at the adviser. I am done with my B.A.! Done! Belated, botched, and barely sane, but done nonetheless! It has been a difficult decade for me. In and out of school, in and out of the psychiatric hospitals, in and out of minimum wage jobs....until now, when my future actually seems promising.

I can still remember telling my psych ward psychiatrist that I wanted to go back to college and complete my Bachelor's degree.
"No, no, you can't take the stress. Schizophrenia is very serious! Just rest." That image, of myself lying a bed seven days a week, getting up only to eat and paint little pictures, was more stressful than the actual process of going back to college and achieving my B.A. in linguistics!

Now, I have been assured my degree will be granted, I can enter next semester as a graduate student in the field of linguistics, and my life will not be spent becoming a hermit with a little aluminum foil hat. My summer is open before me, free to paint, write, draw, read, watch movies, surf the internet, blog, and enjoy free time, temporarily of course, as I return to college in August.

With my new life as a graduate student, I suddenly feel like life has a purpose. The purpose is to gain knowledge, study, make contributions to the field, and succeed. I could not have done this without my out-patient services. Despite the view (as discussed in the previous blog entry) that out-patient services create government aid-dependent, docile, chronic mental patients, I have found that these out-patient services have been a vital part in my recovery.
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I tried re-reading "The Center Cannot Hold" but I found that the descriptions of hospitals, restraints, stigma, and suffering is very triggering for me. I love the book, but right now I cannot read it because I will end up blogging about how unfair the system is, how depressing and dehumanizing it is, and I am not in the mood for negativity right now.

Instead, I am reading a layman's book on game theory. As you may know, Game Theory was created centuries ago, but was fine-tuned and perfected by John Nash, the famous mathematician, paranoid schizophrenic, and Nobel Prize winner who I idolize. Game Theory is essentially the study of minimizing losses. Pardon me if I butcher the theory, but I only got through Trigonometry and I went insane while taking precalculus, got hospitalized, had my precal book confiscated by hospital staff as contraband, and never finished the class. So, I am not a mathematician and my writing on math will reflect that...but I still have an attraction to Probability, Game Theory, and computer programming that I intend to pursue this summer. So in case you stop by the blog one day and find a random entry on Game Theory, it is because I am trying to be productive with my free time.

It figures that a paranoid schizophrenic was the one who mastered the fine art of making paranoia a field of mathematics. The Prisoner's Dilemma is the most famous example. James and Janet committed a crime and they are being interrogated separately by police. The police need a confession from one or both of the criminals in order to lock them up. They are willing to plea bargain with whichever one confesses. Now James and Janet are paranoid that the other is going to confess. James and Janet do not want to go jail. What do James and Janet do and why?

I always wondered why there are not more paranoid schizophrenics in the field of Game Theory. It seems to be fine-tuned for their paranoid and suspicious nature. For example, while slightly paranoid, I devised an excellent method of home surveillance. My natural paranoid nature was perfect for thinking about all possible entries into the home. My method involved not one, but four cameras, each located at a different part of the home (one attached to the garage, one pointing across the front of the house, one perched hidden in a tree pointing at the front yard, and one guarding the side windows). Then, my plan included two motion-activated spotlights for flooding the premises with light when intruders walked onto the property. In the backyard, more motion-activated spotlights. Motion-activated alarms would be attached to all major windows, so that any attempt to lift the window would trigger an obnoxious alarm. I was very happy with my plan, but unfortunately my mother was not pleased and discouraged me from spending a ton of money to guard our cheap possessions. Still, it was a good application for my natural paranoid tendencies. If only I could somehow build a little moat with alligators to guard our house....

More on the Recovery Model of Schizophrenia

I am reading through various journals to learn about schizophrenia and the long-term outcomes of this illness. I have access to a myriad of journals thanks to being enrolled as a graduate student at my University for this fall. These are legitimate, peer-reviewed articles, so I know I am getting good material.

As a schizo-affective person who has been chronically hospitalized since the age of 19 to the age of 26, I am eager to know what chance I have of living a productive life. Unfortunately, the picture many writers paint is a bleak life of "chronicity."

Estroff, a researcher cited repeatedly in the article, "Culture, Stress, and Recovery from Schizophrenia," [Myers] accuses the Recovery movement of creating a passive mental patient that is only independent on the surface, but is actually being "coerced" financially and medically by recovery staff. This is in contrast to society's stereotype of lunatics running amok, naked and wielding weapons, barely able to contain the urges within them. Instead, according to Estroff, lunatics are little more than clay in the hands of recovery staff, who mold them into shapes and control every facet of their lives.

I do not know who you are, or how you perceive schizophrenics, but trust me, we usually do not run amok in the streets. We are also not likely to meekly hand ourselves over to a life of poverty and constant monitoring with no reason. What could these reasons be? Well, it might be that society is prejudiced against people with a mental illness and they refuse to hire them. It might be because the only way a mentally ill person can get their medication is to give up any semblance of a normal life, deal with being controlled by outside forces (and for a skitz, this is really scary), and accept poverty and unemployment in order to qualify for government medical coverage. The other choice would be to attempt to gain a foothold in the workforce and maintain medical insurance through the employer (and what employer doesn't love the idea of paying 700 dollars for a month's supply of anti-psychotics?). Indeed, the choices in the U.S. are limited (not non-existent, just limited).

Am I painting a bleak picture? I apologize. I really want to get through this graduate program, work full-time, and maintain my illness on my own. I am just nervous that future employers will discriminate against me....but if they do...class action lawsuit! woohoo!

Below is the DOI number for the article I was reading just now. DOI is the identification number for an article that is published in an online academic journal. The journal is called "Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry."


Cult Med Psychiatry (2010) 34:500–528
DOI 10.1007/s11013-010-9186-7

Thanks for reading! If I read anymore good articles and I have a comment, I'll post a new blog entry! :)

On the Border Between Graduate and Not

I am going into a graduate program in the fall, most likely. My student report states that I have met every requirement. Then, smack in the middle, there is this little statement that sent me into conniptions. “9 units of residence GE needed: 29 units of residence GE earned. Needs: 2 units.” WHAT? I saw an academic adviser who told me it was a misprint. He then sent me to the evaluations office. I went to the evaluations office where I was told that I would find out in July if I graduated or not. WHAT? I cannot wait that long! If I need another summer class, I need to know ASAP!

On the plus side, I have a lot of time to do nothing. Having been a full-time student taking over 12 units every semester (including during the summer time), this is the first time I have had the luxury of doing nothing. I have been listening to music I usually do not listen to, such as Nicki Minaj. I like her song, Beautiful Sinner. Some people on youtube say mean things about her and her music, but I like that she has variation to her voice. Sometimes it is soft and quavering, sometimes it is deep and punching. I have also been watching movies, painting, and spending quality time with my 91 year old grandmother. I am still a bundle of raw nerves, but at least I am able to sleep around 11 pm like I like to, rather than having to stay up until 3 am typing out home-work assignments or memorizing vocab in a foreign language. 

Thank you for reading. I plan on writing a couple of blog entries about my thoughts on mental health memoirs soon. So stay tuned! Thanks!

Learning Self-discipline

I had to take two short summer session courses to fulfill GE requirements. They were intensive, three hour classes held five days a week. Imagine a person prone to manic episodes attempting to sit very still for prolonged periods of time. That was me. Sitting still can be difficult for anybody, but sitting still for somebody with schizo-affective disorder can be a painful ordeal in self-discipline. 

I wanted to be sprinting around the science building, not stuck inside a little classroom with 12 other students, listening to the steady, monotonous voice of a professor who expected total discipline from us. Discipline is routine for me: I exert self-discipline when I do not blurt out the fact that I'm nuts when I first meet someone. I exert self-discipline when I speak so that my thoughts are orderly and not tangential tidbits from the schizophrenic parts of my brain. I am quite self-disciplined, but in order to behave like others do I must struggle twice as hard. 

There is a certain etiquette to college, an etiquette that I slowly developed through trial and error. Do not display inappropriate affect. Do not fall asleep. Do not raise your hand to answer every question. Do not bite your lip and refuse to speak when called upon. Do not say anything off topic. Do not say things on the fringe of the topic. For example, if discussing the Bonobo monkey, do not raise your hand and suddenly change the topic to Chimpanzees. While they are in the same family, they are not in the same lecture. Thus, I learned to shut my mouth. And then open my mouth (with a very controlled train of thought). This might be a moot point for you---but for me, it took training. 

This is why I am grateful I have the habit of being 30 minutes early to all my classes. I usually end up conversing with another student before class, which makes the class less inhospitable and spooky. Getting along with just one other person can make the most dreadful class tolerable! Truly, I think I got through my college ordeal thanks to random professors and students who smiled at me. :)

P.S. I have completed all the requirements for my B.A. I am now just awaiting for the eval office to process my application for graduation. Soon, I will be "Skizzie Lizzie, college graduate." Then, in August, "Skizzie Lizzie, Graduate Student." I have been daydreaming today about applying to a PhD program in 2013, just before I will be slated for my last year in the master's program. I probably will not get accepted into the programs of my choice, but you never know. It is still a blast daydreaming about one day, seven years in the future, being "Dr. Skizzie Lizzie." (I'm cracking up right now, just thinking about it). 

P.P.S. I vow that if I fail miserably, like a total epic failure, I will be honest about it. This blog is like my confession booth, and you are listening through that little mesh screen, waiting for me to quit rambling so you can shoo me out the door with the sign of the cross. ;)

200 mg of Zoloft later....

Re-reading that last post makes me glad I no longer have to live a life of psychological turmoil. In case you haven't guessed, I saw my psychiatrist and she refilled my anti-depressant for me. I had no idea, but apparently I was going through a psychotropic withdrawal phase caused by going off meds cold turkey. My doctor said it is not good to go off abruptly because it can cause emotional symptoms in the patient that are similar to withdrawal symptoms.

Now, I feel very happy and I want to share that happiness with you. Puppies, kittens, tomatoes with goat cheese, these things make me feel happy and I hope they make you happy as well. Good movies, an inspiring essay or speech, dancing with nobody watching, getting to a checkpoint on call of duty, exchanging a nice greeting with a stranger, listening to a new song that totally rocks your body, finding a video on youtube that makes you laugh...these things are pleasant for me and I encourage people to try to find something pleasant every day, even if that means putting down your work or homework just for a minute to achieve this.

I have one assignment left for summer session. ONE assignment! Then, so long as I get a minimum of a C in both classes, I get my Bachelor's degree from an accredited State University! Then two months of being broke and bored....then back to class in the fall, this time as a Graduate Student (notice the capitalization there).

My shrink recommended keeping my mind active this summer because I have a fear that I will get very lazy and not be able to survive my first semester. So I have decided to re-read my mental health memoirs, read some Kurt Vonnegut books, and then blog about my favorite parts here on this blog. So stay tuned! More to come! I'm feeling good! Have a great day! Thanks for reading!
~Electra

How I learned to Love My Psychic Carnage

 *content warning: drug use, the cinema of Takashi Miike, bra size. *

The woman with the blonde hair and the red dress stands facing the camera. Her head is cocked as she reads her lines off a placard which the camera captures and zooms in until the characters fill the screen. This is a bizarre world of Yakuza murder, animal-headed men, and absurdity so profound it causes a mild headache. 

This is Gozu, a film by master director, Takashi Miike.

This movie is one of my top, all-time favorite movies because it reminds me of my life. I watched Gozu around the time I was an unmedicated pothead dating a drug dealing, gun-toting alcoholic who would later be caught by undercover narcotics agents and wind up spending all his illicit drug profits on a good attorney. I think I was 19 at the time. On the surface, I was a rather boring wallflower; a cashier at a bottom-feeding pharmacy, a skinny, flat-chested teenager with a predilection for marijuana. Beneath it, I was a fan of Miike movies, not because his movies shocked me, but because they reminded me of my psychic carnage, the invisible wounds of a damaged life.

Why am I writing this? Simply because my psychiatrist will not authorize a refill of my anti-depressants and you, the poor, ensnared reader, are the one thing keeping me afloat in this lagoon of angst.

Also, I want to show off. I am no longer that skinny, flat-chested marijuana smoking, drug-dealer dating screw up. Now I’m an overweight, 34G cup sober nutcase, 4 days away from a bachelor’s degree from an accredited University. I even got accepted into a graduate program. But some things never change. That nugget of damaged nerves still thrives in the nether regions of my wounded soul. I have learned to love that damage…it is what keeps me humble and always eager to improve, as if to change my personality would somehow enable me to erase the fractures of my past.

Miike is a genius. Why have you not watched any of his movies? Pardon the illogical leaps from topic to topic, but I am a skitz and my train of thought has a lot of stop-overs.

On the Grid or Off the Grid: I Feel Ultra Paranoid

Being a paranoid schizo-affective can be cumbersome. I once spent 6 months off the grid. By this I mean, no bank account, no mail delivered to the address I resided at, no job, no income, no internet, no car, nothing. The only thing I had in my name was a Hollywood Video account. I spent my days watching movies curled up on the floor of a relative's house. I barely stepped outside. I had no friends. My sleep cycle had reversed itself due to mania so that I slept during the day and was awake from around 7 pm to 4 am.

I am better now, on medication, sleeping regular hours. I am back on the grid. From time to time I have phobias about being back on the grid. I fear having my identity released with all my private information. I fear having my clean record hacked into and/or being framed for crimes I did not commit. I fear being cyber-stalked or real life stalked (I recently had to block a former abusive person from sending me sexual and psychological harassing messages via my facebook account, so this is not me being uber paranoid).

Being part of normal society freaks me out. I really do not understand how people can do this. It is a very vulnerable thing to be: on the grid. In case you are reading this and wondering why I suddenly got very paranoid, it is just part of my cycling. I deal with it through therapy, writing, even blogging. I question my paranoid thoughts. I discuss my paranoid thoughts with trusted relatives and mental health professionals. I steer clear of former associations with shady people.

I am in the healing process still and this means I am will occasionally be a little hyper paranoid from time to time. Most of my skitzy brethren do not even go on the internet for fear that their every move is monitored by shady persons. This is a genuine moment, though, on what it can be like to be a paranoid schizophrenic.

If you excuse me, I have to go call for a refill for my meds. Haha, guess I did not need to tell you that, as my paranoia makes it pretty evident that I ran out this weekend. Darn pharmacy should really be open on the weekends!

Thanks for reading! I promise to write less paranoid gibberish next time! :) Smiley face.

Happy Pride Month/Comment on BBC Gaming Article

June is Pride Month. This would mean a lot more to me if women actually slept with me, but I can still love them from afar. Not that men aren't fun to sleep with, but I think my next boyfriend will be a woman.

Part of the problem of being a closet bisexual is that it is hard to get people to take me seriously. Some people seem to think bisexuals straddle some imaginary land of sexual choice, but we do not. It is not a choice. I do not choose who I am attracted to. I am not always attracted to just any guy, and likewise, I am not always attracted to any female. Contrary to what previous exes have thought, I can not be thrown into a bed with a random person and have a free-for-all. Emotions, intellect, and physical attraction all come into play, not just whether one is "straight" or "gay" or "half way on the continuum." This is why it is particularly bothersome when a guy tells me we should have a threesome, or that he knows this bi chick who would totally lay me. Thanks, no. My body does not work that way. For now, I will just keep myself busy with summer classes until my first semester of graduate school begins this fall. Hopefully, I can actually attend a meeting for the LGBT club on campus, not just sign up for the club and then not show up.

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I read this article on BBC and it made me depressed. I used to love Killzone when I was 22, back when PS2 was all I could afford. I never played online though, not after a bad experience at a male coworker's house. His roommate let me take the controller. He didn't tell me it was on "reverse controller" settings and I made a total ass out of myself in front of his online buddies. Thankfully, he was wearing the headset, not me, and the hateful comments were only alluded to when the roommate ripped the controller out of my hand while shouting obscenities at me.

Anyways, my XBOX 360 is not connected to the internet. It never will be. Especially after I read this article. Such hateful people game online! Notice in the article one sexual harasser states it is his first amendment right to tell a woman he hopes she gets raped. On youtube that would be flaming and you could get flagged and reprimanded. Online gaming communities, on the other hand, don't do shit. Note: if you violate somebody's constitutional right to "equality regardless of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and/or disability" you are no longer protected under the first amendment. Indeed, threatening sexual assault is a crime, regardless if you are 100 miles away. Let us not forget that California law (among other states) says sexual harassment is a criminal act not protected under the constitution.

Anyways, I still love violent video games but I'll be damned if I will be playing online any time in the next 50 years.

Here is the link to the BBC article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18280000