Stern The schizophrenic psychosis decoded

Confessions and insights of someone affected
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-3-7597-2614-8
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 436 Seiten

In the present book, the path of suffering of a person affected by a schizophrenia over a time period of almost three decades is described. By means of stirring and detailed reports, the profound symptoms and phenomena of the disorder of a psychosis from the schizophrenic group are authentically brought closer to the reader. Thereby, not only a detailed account of the acute phase and its prehistory is given, but also therapeutic efforts made over a time period of almost 25 years after the onset of this sickness are illuminated. After manifold experiences made over many years and accompanying healing work, the author finally succeeded in decoding possible causes and spiritual operating principles of this disorder in the framework of a holistic approach on the basis of intensive introspection and inspired insights and to walk eventually the path of healing. This book is aimed at each one who is interested to get a first-hand account of the diverse symptoms and phenomena of this mysterious disorder combined with an innovative interpretation, which is completely unique owed to the outstanding distinct power of observation and logical thinking of the author.

The author was affected and is a layman in psychology. After the outbreak of his psychosis, he earned two academic degrees and a PhD. After being occupied with the symptoms and phenomena of his disorder over a time period of almost 25 years, the author finally succeeded in understanding the operating principles of his special manifestation of a psychosis from the schizophrenic group and to walk eventually the path of healing.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stern, Peter

Leseproben

1 Introduction
Schizophrenias and psychoses in general still belong to the least understood, most mysterious and at the same time most profound psychic disorders, which can affect human beings. Many persons affected are strongly handicapped in everyday life. Some persons affected can fully recover after a single acute phase of their sickness. However, the most part of sick persons is affected by this disorder in some way over their entire life time, whereby more than a third may have to endure also more severe symptoms or a number of relapses and disease boosts over their lifetime. This disease is indeed empirically well studied, but its causes are still unknown. Many scientists tap in the dark. The modern medicine and psychology seem to come against borders as far as this clinical picture is concerned and don’t know further. Today a great deal of hope is set on medication, but without treating the true causes of this disease. Thereby, the main goal is nothing more than calming of symptoms and sitting out of its impacts. There exist many experience reports of persons affected, who have reported more or less detailed about their sickness and its impacts on their own life. However, many of those reports deal mostly with the initial phase of this disorder, maybe its prehistory, its acute phase and the following first years of treatment. Clearly, without any doubt, especially an acute phase poses high demands on environment, relatives and friends such that their information needs and professional support may overwhelm. For the most part, those reports usually end at that point of time at which someone affected recovers out of his or her not seldom delusional and individually constructed reality into the bosom of the modern world view by means of medication. Thereby, the primal goal of treatment is reached, namely to stabilise a patient such that he can handle his daily life to hold the impacts on his direct environment as small as pos - sible. In many cases, it is hardly known about issues which may let the story become actually interesting. Moreover, one don’t learn about the true causes or reasons of this sickness. Most text books about this topic are written by psychologists or physicians, who cannot really look into their patients and who are influenced by modern world view in science and research, but who neglect the spiritual and mental aspects of this sickness, because they contradict common views in science. I have now been affected for almost twenty-five years by this psychic disorder and have considered revealing my disorder of psychosis and, according to indications of physicians, paranoid-hallucinatory schizophrenia, to the broad public for roundabout five years, because I think that I have gained many insights over the past years which may have re- volutionary character or could shed new light onto this disease and the soul of human beings in general. During the past five years, I have been concerned with the goal to document and collect meticulously my perceptions, inspirations, impressions and inner insights and to interpret them in the light of my steadily growing knowledge. I suffered a psychosis at the age of 23. Already a year before, first manic episodes were beginning to loom, which were confusing my mind and which shifted me in ever greater tension. While my childhood up to the age of 12 was principally unburdened, my successive youth was marked by loneliness and mental depression. Generally, I had the impression that a deep melancholy were hanging over me. From the current perspective, I suffered a trauma at the age of 12 since I wasn’t able to handle all those demands, which were carried over to me from outside, adequately. My parents fathered me still very late in their life, after my younger brother had died 1.5 years before my birth at the age of four by some unfortunate misery. My parents were autonomous and owned a DIY store in the building materials trade and I was traded as successor of this parental business. This trauma was almost unnoticeable. It was nothing more than a deep despair, which alienated my Self from my own life. It began with a slight dissociation at dinner. The fact that this was actually a trauma became clear to me no earlier than many years later. Since the maturation of a personality is a process in which one cannot simply jump over certain steps of development, I was impeded in my further development. Also, I couldn’t adequately meet all those demands at later puberty. At the age of 16, I suffered once again a deep dissociation, which paralysed me over weeks and which led me into a physical depression. During the following years, I tried to grow around my psychic prob - lems and to function somehow while I was still massively challenged at school and at home. I can claim for me that I was emotionally like armoured over many years and didn’t receive or couldn’t allow love at all. During this time, I didn’t receive any helping hand from my family or out of my circle of friends and didn’t make the whole thing a subject of discussion, since I was ashamed for my physical and mental weakness. At school, I dragged myself from one to the next day. Finally, I was living in a school boarding house for the last two years before high school graduation. There, I was offered a short period of rest. However, the emo - tional deficits were almost that high that I eventually heavily decomposed during the following study and suffered a psychosis. A psychosis means a deep interference into the spiritual structure of a human being. It seems as if a predetermined breaking point were broken. Afterwards, nothing seems to be like before. According to the severity of this disorder, the development can be mild. However, the longer the disease symptoms had been overlooked in the preliminary stage the more unfavourable is the long-term prognosis. After my study, which I had completed very successfully, I began a PhD. Since I had never received special recognition from my family and nothing was always good enough, I tried to prove myself also here. I was able to earn once more a very good degree, but sled in its aftermath once more into a deep phase of exhaustion, a burnout. Therefore, my most important advice to someone affected after a suffered psychosis is to exercise caution and patience. Life cannot progress further in the same way as before. Unfortunately, I wasn’t such insightful and empathic with myself. I always tried to bring myself to my limits and, after they were crossed only for a short moment, I collapsed and decomposed thereby a little bit, whereby this happened at the beginning hardly noticeable to myself, but constantly and regularly in alternation. When I had stabilised myself afterwards, there were times in which I worked myself again into a spiral of overstraining such that I was overstraining me too much once again. The whole process resembled a steady fight, in which I didn’t like to accept any rules. In general, if one doesn’t overstrain oneself too much, a stabilisation may succeed, maybe also without any medication. From my point of view, the following advice to the closer environment is salient: Since the future perspectives are such limited, family members may react with any lack of understanding or may even exert pressure on the patient in question. Clearly, parents like to have sons or daughters who stand fully in professional life and can handle their matters autonomously. Parents want to have their freedom at some time of their life and want to know their children in the best conditions. To accept that many things won’t work any more, is painful, maybe not so much for someone affected but rather for his family, which might have set many expectations into him, maybe too high ones. By this means, a sick person maybe in the worst case urged to demand too much from himself, to want to give too much and to respect too little his now narrower limits. Each disease has its own history. Particularly characteristic for a paranoid schizophrenia is the symptom of paranoia, which can occur in different characteristics. Also, functional disorganisations in thought processes can occur like difficulties in concentration, for example. Many a time, persons affected can suffer under acoustic and visual hallucinations. How manifold this picture is, everything is simplifying subsumed under the notion of schizophrenia. Symptoms like paranoia or hallucinations lead usually to a profound loss of connection to reality. Someone affected lives in his or her own world. Often, at the beginning, symptoms are per - ceived as completely positive by persons affected. Therefore, a wish for insight into the disease among severely affected persons is often less pronounced. A possible loss of manic irritability, during which not seldom trivial ideas are inflated to seemingly overwhelming insights into the fabric of the world, is simply felt as too painful. Mostly, the close environment of persons affected is also affected like relatives or friends, who could be strongly affected by the implications of this disorder and who not seldom reach their energetic limits as well. Occasionally, even a forced admission into a clinic happens. There, medication is usually state of the art, which can stop an acute phase at short notice. In only a few days, manias can disappear, a paranoia is gone and the extent of hallucinations is strongly damped. Once back in the here and now, persons affected cannot believe what had happened in them before and what this sickness had done with them, and embrace a temporary stabilisation typically with great gratitude. I speak of temporary since the rupture of the predetermined breaking point, which is so characteristic for a psychosis, leaves traces...