Schizophrenic writings: Story of my Psychiatry postings
Once a patient appeared in the Psychiatry OPD. She was childish though old enough and somewhat sweet for a psychiatric patient. She was humble and respected the doctor tremendously. “She is not much different from a baby” I said to my self.
“Look at the power of the mind, look what it can make out of people. I have seen people barking all night in sanitariums, I have seen people so poignant that they have forgotten to smile. Their face show no curves of smiles and are wrinkle free and with it expression less. Look at what brain can do, look at the courage of the brain, being at most one and half a kg dares to control whole the 70 kg man. Does it fear that the ill man can splash it up in anger? how can mind convert a person to a baby and then another man and then vegetative. Is it the mind that is the soul we talk about. We often blame heart, but innocent as much, heart has nothing to do but only suffers the pain the mind imposes on it. Poor heart is blamed for everything. We even relate mood to heart, but is it the heart?” erratic but meaningful thoughts ran down my mind.
Back to the patient, there she was smiling and lulling , playful and juvenile. What was the trauma so intense that got onto her, we did not know. We just kept watching trying to match one of the 1st Rank symptoms. She felt blessed on visiting a doctor and was obedient. She had brought a copy with her, a note book , a diary, a record of her daily thoughts. I was pretty curious what was there, to find her thoughts out. Probably Psychiatry OPDs were the most interesting of all, I hummed.
Sir took the diary from her and turned the pages. There we stood stunned. I had never thought nor imagined what she had been thinking and imagining. Probably we were at different state of mind. Here is a sample page. Believe me every page had the same thing, the whole dairy. 🙁
What did those brackets up there mean? I wondered if she could recall what she had written. Such a culprit mind. Every day I kept thinking, looking things from every angle and analyzing. This photo was stuck to my mind. Browsed the internet and found a lot of such writings. ” Stereotypical Writings” ,this one was also seen in the horror movie ” The Shining” the famous creation based on novel by Stephen King.
” All work and no play makes jack a dull boy”” All work and no play makes jack a dull boy” ” All work and no play makes jack a dull boy”” All work and no play makes jack a dull boy”….
If you have seen the movie , certainly you’ll remember this one.
In the In-patient Ward,
There was a women who had faced a gore violence, the gangsters had chopped off hands of a person while see was there stunned and shocked observing from a window above. She lost the touch with the reality. The Impact!! , She says, she dreams of cows who gives her advice.. she is hindu and religious and her every dream includes story of punishment for sin. Lucky that she has caring husband and children who takes her home every weekend. It was like a hostel, when we were small, parents would come to take us home, we were so happy but the ones whose didn’t had an utter disappointment in their innocent faces. Similar expression was seen on the face of a girl, who was abandoned by her husband and family and on few other faces.
At the same time,
Another guy was there, who was enjoying life like the king. He was full of glory, his walk was majestic and talks were royal. Forgetting our world, I must say, he was the crown prince of Nepal, was under protection of UN, a secret mission. He had divine powers… too divine to explain it here. But one thing was sure he was enjoying “ The Delusion of Grandiosity”
In contrast,
A guy lay down all day long inside a blanket, melancholic and silent, must have had a sad story or just the culprit mind. Looking at him, he was regretting life each and every moment. He was patient of Major depression.
“I prefer Mania to Depression” I thought. If you think for a while, you’ll realize what I mean. To be ill and be happy is better thing :/, probably better than having an insight, because its the insight that kills when it fails to keep strong.
The next morning,
A young boy came into our vision, he didn’t come he was brought. He complained, “doctor I can see microbes flowing in my blood vessels.” We were scared and silent. Sir acted maturely and asked “whom did you come with”. He said “my brother ! he is outside” , just to realize later that there was no one called brother , there was no one outside. Was it his hallucination, his projection.
They say, Eyes see what the mind knows, but what do eyes see when the mind is ill?
