Schizophrenia Has No Borders or Boundaries




DEAN JOHNSTON'S STORY

Although I didn't drink anything for awhile I eventually started to drink and heavily because I could afford it. You need $11 an hour to become an alcoholic. Originally I drank for the hops which I thought were medication for celibacy. My behaviour became more and more bizarre and I was fired from my job. I went from unemployment insurance to Welfare, brewing my own beer in plastic pails and eating in soup kitchens. I thought I was going to become an alien when I turned 37 because I saw a book written by the ancient seer Nostradamus entitled 3791. I thought that since he could see the future he would realize I was not capable of understanding the book and that all I would need to know could be explained in the title. I turned 37 in 1991 a year after moving to Guelph but I'm still here unfortunately.

 

I experienced many extreme emotions when I was psychotic with positive symptoms. In fact its a wonder I didn't come into contact with the police before I did. I can say that I never harmed anyone but I realize I came very close, although I experienced more fear than anything else. I am by nature a gentle person who has never fought with anyone. Family members I have met in Guelph have usually had some experience of verbal abuse or physical assault from their ill relative before they were treated. I remember I thought I was dying from celibacy and I hated women for a couple years even though I went through adolescence with only feminist friends and was convinced women were the superior sex. Schizophrenia can force you to feel and do things that are not in character for you. Dr. E Fuller Torrey says violence in schizophrenia is predicted by three factors: a previous history of violence, substance abuse, and not on medication.

 

I would destroy my own possesions first like my guitar without having much choice. I shied away from people. I remember sitting on the ledge of a window on the sixth floor wanting to jump but knowing that the aliens would have an open truck loaded with mattresses come by just as I jumped and when I actually saw such a truck weeks later it only confirmed my conclusions.

 

I didn't win the lottery though after I lost my job and the people in my rooming house started mainlining heroin in the living room. I was desperately poor by that point expecting to become homeless and sleep on a hot air vent and I couldn't believe that was necessary in becoming an alien. I was experiencing quite a few blackouts from the drinking I was doing and getting scared of alcohol. I kept waking up in strange places. One fellow in the rooming house had attacked me with a chain such that I needed stitches above my eye. I was too disorganized and too poor to find another place to live.

 

My mind seemed to be falling apart into the left brain, me, and a right brain I hardly knew who was in tremendous pain and very demanding, and a dinosaur or core brain, very powerful and very angry at me. I agreed to go to the Homewood Health Centre in Guelph to be treated for alcoholism. Going into hospital was the easy way to get out of a situation that was very frightening. That was at the end of my three year probationary period.

 

As I sobered up my delusions faded a lot and I realized I had no concrete proof of aliens or my imaginary wife. I also realized I couldn't put my faith in aliens to take care of me. I moved into a basement room in Guelph and started a maintenance dose of antipsychotics. The year was 1990. It took several years to completely believe and understand that I had schizophrenia though. I was sure I had been misdiagnosed, and I would much rather have had bipolar disorder so I could compare myself to various famous people. I wanted to go off medication but the psychiatrists were very firm about that. Medication didn't seem to have any effect so there was no reason not to take it. It kept my psychiatrist happy.




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