Inside the Mental by Kay Parley

Author:Kay Parley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Regina Press
Published: 2016-02-25T22:31:52+00:00

I’ve decided to get my old pseudonym out of mothballs and dust if off. I haven’t used it since I entered writing contests with it. It may be fun to write an article entitled “Living with Schizophrenia,” but I’m not sure I’d want it published under my own name, because I question whether I have schizophrenia. They always said I didn’t have what Dad had, manic-depressive psychosis, but my nursing friends are certain I did not have schizophrenia. When I see patients with schizophrenia, I don’t see much resemblance to myself, yet I can match them mile for mile with delusions and hallucinations. As Dr. Osmond says, my world was “very fluid.” A fluid world is the current criterion for diagnosing schizophrenia. Who am I to disagree with the experts? I rather like the idea that I had schizophrenia and got over it, because mdp frightens me. It is cyclic, and I don’t like to think it will keep coming back and hitting me, as if I was tied to a mill wheel and destined to slap the water every time it comes around. But there is something Dr. Osmond does not know. I did have a second breakdown. I had a dilly of a second breakdown, all alone in Toronto in 1954. If I have mdp, I should be due for another one in six years, or soon thereafter. If it happens, I suppose I will have to face it. Meanwhile, my article is to be entitled “Living with Schizophrenia.” Makes me wonder how much psychiatric literature we can really trust.

I admire Dr. Osmond so much. He is so bubbly and interesting and intelligent and kind, and so concerned with treating the mentally ill like deserving human beings. He calls schizophrenia an “affront” and he is right. It is such a destructive thing. At the same time, I know he recognizes the creative side. I guess what I am asking is “What is ‘well’?” What if a new magic cure takes away the visions and the voices? Will it constitute some kind of loss for mankind? To see the majority of our patients on the long-term wards, it’s a wonder I even dare ask.

All of the patients in my group are on Largactil (chlorpromazine hydrochloride). Some are on a holding dose of 50 mg. four times a day and the others are on 25 mg. four times a day. The effect is to make them just a little dopey and slow. I often wondered about that. My friend Linda stole some Largactil from her ward and deliberately took it for four days to see what kind of effect it had. She was convinced that it was stupefying patients without having any beneficial effect at all, and she begged me to try the experiment. I think she thought that because I have had a breakdown, I would be able to tell her if I felt I could have got well under the influence of Largactil. Reluctantly, I let her persuade me, but I never finished the four days.

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