Shaken but not stirred
Last night I experienced a schizophrenic having a psychotic episode.
Meet my cousin Michael.
As a schizophrenic, Michael has difficulty distinguishing truth from his delusions. He is also withdrawn and he has difficulty communicating with people because he doesn't make eye contact and he processes conversations at a slower rate than normal people. This means that some of the time Michael believes that everyone is out to get him and the rest of the time Michael is really weird.
Mike is 32 and has finally got a job as a draftsman (he doesn't interview really well, for obvious reasons, and he lost his last full time job about 3 years ago). His first day of work was yesterday. Unfortunately, schizophrenics are most likely to have an episode in situations of extreme stress.... Like your first day of work.
He comes to salsa with me on occasion and last night he started getting weirder and weirder and on the way home he was driving all over the road and swerving into oncoming traffic. I finally got him to stop in the middle of a parking lot and he went crazy; he started shouting and swearing at me. It turns out, he'd decided that the people in salsa were whispering about him.
It was very scary but I stood my ground and eventually made him calm down. I was all by myself in the dark and I didn't have a phone and this mad idiot wouldn't stop telling me to fuck off at the top of his voice.
The funny thing is, my first reaction was to get extremely angry, his driving could have killed us and then he was screaming rubbish at me! But I didn't lose my temper and this was a good thing because he seemed to deflate when I stared at him silently or kept my voice low. It took tremendous effort to deal with a person who was acting so irrationally. I'm fine now, and he didn't hurt me at all.
What I'm really proud of is that I stood up to him (despite dark parking lot, no phone, small car and big 32 year old man shouting that he hates me). Schizophrenics take great offence very easily but Michael often goes one step further and begins to bully back when he feels bullied. I'm the only person in the family who hadn't yet witnessed this behavior. He's pushed his own mother down the stairs and threatened my mum with a bread knife. The rest of the family won't go near him as a result. They exclude him from family gatherings if they can help it.
The only problem is, he might go and do the same thing at work today. Not very good for job prospects.
Meet my cousin Michael.
As a schizophrenic, Michael has difficulty distinguishing truth from his delusions. He is also withdrawn and he has difficulty communicating with people because he doesn't make eye contact and he processes conversations at a slower rate than normal people. This means that some of the time Michael believes that everyone is out to get him and the rest of the time Michael is really weird.
Mike is 32 and has finally got a job as a draftsman (he doesn't interview really well, for obvious reasons, and he lost his last full time job about 3 years ago). His first day of work was yesterday. Unfortunately, schizophrenics are most likely to have an episode in situations of extreme stress.... Like your first day of work.
He comes to salsa with me on occasion and last night he started getting weirder and weirder and on the way home he was driving all over the road and swerving into oncoming traffic. I finally got him to stop in the middle of a parking lot and he went crazy; he started shouting and swearing at me. It turns out, he'd decided that the people in salsa were whispering about him.
It was very scary but I stood my ground and eventually made him calm down. I was all by myself in the dark and I didn't have a phone and this mad idiot wouldn't stop telling me to fuck off at the top of his voice.
The funny thing is, my first reaction was to get extremely angry, his driving could have killed us and then he was screaming rubbish at me! But I didn't lose my temper and this was a good thing because he seemed to deflate when I stared at him silently or kept my voice low. It took tremendous effort to deal with a person who was acting so irrationally. I'm fine now, and he didn't hurt me at all.
What I'm really proud of is that I stood up to him (despite dark parking lot, no phone, small car and big 32 year old man shouting that he hates me). Schizophrenics take great offence very easily but Michael often goes one step further and begins to bully back when he feels bullied. I'm the only person in the family who hadn't yet witnessed this behavior. He's pushed his own mother down the stairs and threatened my mum with a bread knife. The rest of the family won't go near him as a result. They exclude him from family gatherings if they can help it.
The only problem is, he might go and do the same thing at work today. Not very good for job prospects.
posted by Kait at 3:51 pm
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