Well, I've finally started it. I've been thinking and talking about this book for three years now, and I'm finally beginning to write it. Today is a very appropriate day to begin a work such as this. This is the tenth World Day of the Sick to be celebrated on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. It is appropriate because I am writing about sickness, specifically mental illness. More specifically, my mental illness: schizoaffective disorder.
I have waited this long before beginning to working on this book because I've been working on some other books that I wanted to finish before beginning this one (these other books have nothing to do with mental illness, but deal primarily with theology). Unfortunately, I have not had the cognitive faculties to work on these other books for over a year and a half now, so I've given up on these other books for the time being. I'm not going to worry too much about being overly cohesive in this book for two reasons: first, as I already said, my cognitive faculties are not fully functioning right now; and second, a lack of cohesiveness will reflect the way my mental illness affects my thinking sometimes.
A number of people have encouraged me in undertaking this task, especially my mental health nurse, and a good friend of mine that also works in the mental health field. I have been told that there are very few books written about mental illness by people that actually have a mental illness. This is one of reasons I am writing this book.
There are many other reasons as well. I want to help other people, and I want to help myself. Writing is a process that not only allows you to communicate to other, but also allow you to better understand what you are writing about. I have come to way better understanding of theology by writing about it. Way more than if I just read about it. By writing about my mental illness I hope to understand it better; define what it is and how it affects me; and learn to live with it better.
I also want others to better understand mental illness. I want to help those working in the mental health field to better understand what it's like to have a mental illness. The more they understand mental illness the better they can help us who have one.
As well, in giving people close to me a better understanding of how my mental illness has affected me, I hope they will be more sympathetic and tolerant of the strange things I have done. I have done many, many strange thing, some of which I will describe in this book. Repeatedly, people will ask me about different things and I simply say, "I don't know," or try to change the topic. The reason I do this is because I am embarrassed to talk about some of the stuff I've done. If I did talk about it, I would have to take the time to explain my illness and how it affected me in these matters. Once this book is complete, instead of saying, "I don't know," or trying to change the topic, I can simply say, "Read my book."
The most important reason for writing this book is to let others like me know that they are not alone. From reading about, and watching videos on, mental illness the most helpful information to me are the insights where I say to myself, "This happens to me! I'm not alone!" I hope others will have experiences like this when they read this book, and know that they're not alone.
Living now with feelings,
Gives my life some meaning,
Leaves in me a hope of things to come,
Now I see I'm not the only one.
Occasionally throughout this book I will insert some song lyrics. Music is a very important way that I express myself, and I will quote some of the songs I have written.
I would like to keep this book really generic, but that would be impossible. First of all, each person is unique and it would be unrealistic to think I could give a generic description of my mental illness. Plus, religion has played a very big part in my acceptance of my suffering, and a description of my mental illness would be very incomplete without describing a little of my faith journey. Nonetheless, I will try to limit my description of my faith journey to details pertinent to my mentally illness.
I will try to be historically accurate, but I know from experience that history is subject to error. The experience I'm talking about is listening to others describe shared experiences inaccurately. I'm sure my version of history is correct, but I'm humble enough to recognise that I'm just as susceptible to historical error as everyone else (actually, I really do think my version of history is the right one).
Additionally, as the word mental in the term mental illness implies, this illness affects the mind. One of the affects it has had on my mind is that large portions of my memory are blank just before, during, and shortly after my hospitalisations. I'm sure the ECTs (electroconvulsive therapy) didn't help this much either. I do remember some things from this time period, and others have filled me in a bit, so I'll try to be as historically accurate as I can be concerning these blank and fuzzy areas in my memory.
There are some historically facts, however, that I do not wish to bring up. This may be because they are too sensitive to me, but mostly because I don't want to hurt others. Some of what I write may be upsetting to some, but I'll try to keep this to a minimum. In these cases I may just give a general description with a few choice details left out.
Please don't interpret what I write as blaming others for my problems. Everyone in my life has done the best they could to help me. It's true that everyone in my life failed to help me until my first hospitalisation, but I know that they failed me due to their ignorance.
It is important to take into consideration the date and location of my early history. I was born on the second anniversary of the British release of the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, in a small town on the Canadian prairies. I began grade school in the mid 70's and finished high school at the end of the 80's. Since this time, public awareness of mental illness has improved a great deal, and I hope that children such as myself do not have to wait thirty years before receiving the help they need.
I was twenty-nine and a half years old before I received the help I needed. My wife and my mother took me to the hospital, where I was admitted and taken to the lock down ward. At first I was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder, but this diagnosis was later changed to schizoaffective disorder.
Schizoaffective disorder is basically schizophrenia and clinical depression or bipolar disorder together (in my case it's clinical depression). Clinical depression can produce profound feelings of sadness, loneliness, hopelessness, and worthlessness. It can also be responsible for fatigue and loss of energy (it was nice to find out that I was clinically depressed and not lazy). Between 10% to 15% of people with clinical depression commit suicide.
Schizophrenia produces unusual or bizarre thinking and behaviour. Including in this thinking and behaviour are paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, and withdrawal from reality and society. Roughly half the people with schizophrenia attempt to commit suicide, of which around a quarter will succeed.
Copyright © 2004, R. J. Grigaitis
