A SHORT PERSONAL PSYCH/BIO

My name is Peter and I live in Houselink's Davenport building. I've been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, therefore I don't know how much of the content of this psych/bio is real or just delusional.

To gain any understanding of this mental disability, it is necessary to have some kind of personality profile of someone who actually has this illness. I'd like to share mine with you.

All the psychiatrists I've had tell me that the onset of schizophrenia starts out very early in the teenage years, so that is where I'll begin. The paranoid delusions I have and which persists every waking moment of my life to this very day started in high school. Maybe it was my fault, but due to my circumstances I didn't exactly go out to try and make any friends in school. Something that only contributes to a paranoid view of your surroundings.

I don't know how much you know about the 60's and early 70's, but that was when I grew up. At that point in Canadian history (and perhaps to varying degrees today), there was quite a lot of veiled racism towards visible minorities, despite the peace and flower power movement that was in vogue at the time. It is my experience that there is good and bad in all groups of people no matter where you go in this world, so I am not trying to single out all Canadians as bigots, which I realize would also be pretty prejudiced on my part.

When I was born, it had only been a little more than a decade since the end of the second world war, and there was a pretty negative attitude towards people of Asian descent which lingered on into the late 60's and early 70's – my years in high school. By and far, most of the kids were very nice to me, but somehow, I still felt alienated from them. Probably a sign that my illness was taking hold. There was a general opinion that if you confronted someone who was Asian, he would always run. A slur that was used was that someone was Yellow if he backed away from a fight – a direct reference to the Chinese. I guess to try and change that, I overcompensated. It made me feel strong to not need or depend on anyone else, so I became a loner and stuck to myself – a common behaviour among paranoid schizophrenics.

The focus of my paranoid delusions center around a slight/insult, real or imagined, where I snubbed two girls in the school. The friends of one of the girls in particular did not hold back in showing their contempt and dislike for me. Right up to the present day, I feel they are constantly trying to turn as many people against me as possible. I think you probably realize how isolating and threatening that would be.

My first of approximately seven suicide attempts over the years began in the summer of 1976. In 1977, I was given a series of electric shock treatments (psychiatrists try to make it sound harmless by giving it the politically correct label "electro-convulsive therapy." To their credit, though, they did give me a muscle relaxing anaesthetic ... very thoughtful of them) for severe depression, which, I might add, was a direct result of the Stellazine they were giving me for my schizophrenia. This drug, like so many other anti-psychotics I was given over the years, had many unbearable side effects. One of the worst was restlessness, a condition where you would feel like sitting down, but as soon as you did, you would have the uncontrollable urge to get up again. It sounds absolutely comical, but only someone who has experienced this side effect for themselves knows how mentally excruciating it is. Psychiatrists would think twice before so casually taking out their prescription pads if they had to live with the medications they prescribe for a week or two.

I have been stabilized for almost 20 years now, living a full rewarding life and enjoying myself despite my paranoid/delusional complex, thanks in large part due to the excellent rent-geared-to- income housing provided by Houselink.
Something I urge anyone with a mental illness who is reading this bio to do is to look into the drug-free orthomolecular/naturopathic approach. It is something I am trying for the first time and I hope it works for me. Respiradal, which is the drug I am on now, is way above any anti-psychotic I have ever taken in terms of side effects. In spite of this, I feel from previous experience that the only good drug is no drug at all.

To end this ... just kidding ... I would like to make a comment about 999 Queen St. The name patients used for the former mental health facility now known as CAMH(Queen St. site). Isn't it ironic that in Revelations, the Biblical "mark of the beast" is 666? Some people may think this quite amusing, but I just think it is a sad commentary on the long, dark history of that institution.

To all the consumer/survivors out there ... I hopeyou arrive in better circumstances at the end of your troubled journey. If not in this lifetime, then certainly in another lifetime!