As far as I’m concerned, the word “schizophrenia” will always be wrapped inside Damien Saez’s voice screaming “Moi jveux du nucléaire, du sexe et du sang, des bombes dans le RER, même si je ne suis qu’un enfant. God bless America.” (I, I want nuclear, sex and blood, bombs in the subway, even if I’m just a child. God bless America.) The word had been dropped like a bullet in my face by my psychiatrist, almost blaming me. Truth is, it was a stray bullet originally aimed at the baby psychologist who didn’t do his job well and only partially gave me the results of the tests. When the psychiatrist asked me what he told me, I reported that “he said I’m on edge and I have issue connecting to other people. I don’t see the point of the test if it was for this…”, the psychiatrist got pissed.
“He should have told you that the tests clearly show that you are psychotic! Very probably schizophrenic!”
The word sprang, dropped just like that. We switched from obviousness, my too big sensibility and my inability to connect to other humans, to “schizophrenia”. I swallowed my dark humor and didn’t say a word for the remaining of the session. The word was too big. The psychiatrist tried to rewind.
“You know… well.. You can totaly live fine this way. Bill Gates must have been psychotic.”
A fat lot of good that does me. Then he got pissed at my silence, blaming for not having any reaction. Which is stupid, schizophrenics rarely react at the T time of the crisis. Always in delayed way. Survival principle. I went home, put the nearest CD on, and Saez started singing the same song on repeat for a whole hour while the word was looking for its way.
God bless America
We must admit how huge this word is.
“Schizophrenia”. It is huge of all the things we ask it to carry that eventually have nothing to do with it.
The crazy killers of the cinema
The confusion with the multiple personality disorder
These people who throw their head in the walls, driven by insanity
These people who never come back from madness
The drugging until you drool yourself without realizing it
Schizophrenia is every extremes in the same time, every extremes in one sole word. Especially extreme violence or extreme madness. Not many other options.
There are debates to know whether you should say “be schizophrenic” “have schizophrenia” “suffer from schizophrenia”. Shrinks are so happy do discuss this, as if it was the real problem. No need to say concerned people’s opinion is rarely asked. Personally, I would have preferred the psychiatrist taking the time to explain, rather than throwing the word at my face because he was mad (haha) at the psychologist for not doing his job properly. He could have used any phrasing, it would have been better. Even if I’m obsessed by the weight of the words, here the phrasing doesn’t change anything to the problem.
God bless America
For example, my father refuses to admit that I’m schizophrenic. He will tell that I had a psychotic episode/breakdown, admit that I still have regular hallucinations. But “I’m too coherent to be schizophrenic”. How many times me or others have heard this one? There’s nothing you can do about it, to my father, who worked in a psych hospital during his early career, schizophrenics are people so crazy and violent you have to be ten to hold them. He was even asked how much he weighted to be hired because of that! So obviously, I don’t fit in the character’s skin. Yet, if I forced myself to talk about everything, he might ready to listen. My father could be able to hear the whole list of symptoms, but would still refuse the word.
The word scares. Whatever you say.
We know it, when we spit the word, we take a risk. The opinion of our relatives on us can change in a second. The fact that they know us for years can have very little importance when facing the weight of the word.
The word scares.
How many refuse to be diagnosed because of that? As if not bearing the word with you could prevent anything. As if not naming the thing could prevent it. Here it is, all of us were so much surrounded by stories of crazy killers, or people trapped in their madness until death do them apart, who would willingly join such a crowd? Who could peacefully swallow such a word? I know I couldn’t. I let Saez scream for a whole hour and I swept the word under the carpet. I ran away.
When they tell you you’re schizophrenic, you can feel it in their voice, see it in their eyes, it’s almost like a death penalty. In fact, some were really told they better have had cancer, they would have better survival chances. And how many books describe it as “the worst mental illness nature has ever created”? How many times along my personal research did I see schizophrenia as the non-return point? “Bordelines had better chance before, now their prognosis is as bad as schizophrenics’s”. Saying “I’m schizophrenic”, in a way, is like saying “I’m doomed to death, to madness, to violence, to the dead end”, and that’s what you hear in the word when it is thrown to your face. And one should accept it, make it theirs, write it in their flesh? Who would like such a thing? Even schizophrenics are not crazy enough to willingly accept such a contract.
God bless America
For a long time, I took side roads. As much as I could, I didn’t talk about it at all. In a strange way, this part of my life became taboo at home, even though I was living at my parents’ place when the diagnosis was made. I had stopped my studies, no longer able to properly function. Exception made for the meds and my appointment with the different therapists, we didn’t discuss these things for real. Even me wouldn’t. Almost ten years will be necessary for me to start speaking about the voices and hallucinations again.
I was doing all I could not to mention it to anyone. Except that a moment came when I was in a relationship and we lived together and so slept together. I could no longer hide it. I settle for “I’m psychotic”, to which he answered “don’t worry, we are all a bit psychotic!”. Minimizing, even though I had not been able to spit the word itself, privileging a smaller one. He minimized what I had already minimized.
Later, when I had to tell it to my PhD advisor, I did even better “there is a diagnosis of schizophrenia”. Not even an I in this sentence !If you think the debate “be schizophrenic” vs “have schizophrenia” is about respect, you’re getting it wrong. It’s matter of self-definition, to know what proximity with the word you can accept.
For a long time, I let the word float around me, exceptionally placing it in the same sentence than “I” with pain. I live my life half in English and half in French. In English, you chose between “be” and “have”, but in French, you choose between “be” or “suffer”… Suffer was an unbearable choice, but be was way too close… In English, I chose “I have schizophrenia”. It was a bearable distance. “I have” implied a “I have not” that could be reached one day. Back in French, I had to find a solution. The closest was “I am schizophrenic”. It was hard at first, but the detour through English made the proximity between I and schizophrenia more bearable. As if I proved myself there was no danger when putting the two words in the same sentence, that the two words were not going to jump to each other throat in a death fight. A cohabitation was possible.
Eventually, saying “I am schizophrenic” was a victory. It means defeating the curse. It means finally digest the way too big word. It took me almost ten years to come to peace with the word… and this part of me.
God bless America
I can’t stand to see people correcting concerned ones in a way or another. “No, you’re not schizophrenic, you have schizophrenia, you are not your disease”. Shut up. Shut the fuck up.
1)Personally I never considered myself as sick, even when I was at my lowest. And people don’t need to be told they are not their disease. They need society to stop reducing them to their disease. They need to hear that they will survive, that it doesn’t condemn them. That there is a world outside/beside the disease. And this, how many people will tell them? The fingers of one hand are enough to count them.
2)You don’t have to tell people how they should define themselves. The phrasing chosen by someone says a lot about their relation with schizophrenia and themselves. Mind your own damn business, even if you think you have good intentions. It’s an extremely violent thing to do.
3) If you feel like talking about “schizophrenics” instead of “schizophrenic persons” is disrespectful, maybe you should wonder how it is disrespectful. Because I don’t see people complaining when we say a “cashier” instead of “staff working at the checkout”, when you could totally argue that this person shouldn’t be reduced to their work. And you can do that with any description (relation, job, age, etc), rarely will you scream “haaaaan this is not respectful, it reduces the person to this condition!”. Schizophrenia is part of the rare exceptions. Here is the sinews of war: is it the phrasing that reduces the person to their schizophrenia, or is it the fact that the society made this word so huge to bear that once it is said you can no longer see the person behind?
You want to respect schizophrenics?
Respect them. Respect the words they use to define themselves. Respect their relation with schizophrenia. Make the effort to forget about the crazy killers, the straitjackets, the dead ends, the death penalties. Wonder what it REALLY is. Because the truth is: you don’t know. You only know the cursed word.
You don’t know the fear, the visceral angst when we see ourselves driving away and there is nothing we do to ground ourselves. We’re so afraid we can’t even say how much we’re scared because no one can hear such a fear.
You don’t know the loneliness, the cold that grows up and because no one will ever understand whatever you try to twist the words the way you need it, even if you learn every languages on Earth, some stuffs will always be impossible to say.
You don’t know the exhaustion, the continuous efforts because we have to constantly sort out the many information our brain captures. Because we must always wonder if a thing is real, how much it exists. And if it doesn’t exist, collapse of exhaustion, because it still hurts.
You don’t know the anger of never being able to tell who you are, never be able to defend yourself or you could be punished twice for it.
You don’t know Damien Saez’s voice when the word was thrown at your face and it is way too big for you and you are completely alone to swallow it.
All of this and so many other things, you don’t know. You only know the cursed word, and you don’t even really know what the curse it.
God bless America
The curse is loneliness and fear. It’s all these people who think you’re fucked when one third of schizophrenics heal and one third lives with it very well. Two third of chance to live a beautiful life. That’s huge. Yes, I will say this in all my articles if needed. Because there’s not enough therapist to properly do their job and tell it to people. Even though we need other word to keep the curse at bay so badly…
Maybe that’s why I was stuck with Saez’s song, it gave me other words. Today, almost ten years later, I can’t hear this song without thinking about it. Even though it has nothing to do with the lyrics.
In the end, the real question is here: has the curse that the word schizophrenia bears anything to do with the actual schizophrenia we are living?
May you be strong, whatever words you chose. Feel free to share them with us.
As far as I’m concerned, I’m considering introducing myself as “Interpreter of the Impossible and Enhancer of Chaos”. I think it sounds great and quite badass!
