9780983104704
The Demons of Schizophrenia
Author: Kenneth Bain, Marjorie Wallace (Foreword by), J. M. Samuel (Foreword by) and Patricia Rhymer Todman (Foreword by)
Publisher: Panorama Partners Ltd
Publication Date: 19 October, 2010
ISBN: 9780983104704
Pages:
Subjects: Medical, Family and relationships
Available as: , E-Book - Kindle, 978-0-9831047-0-4
Description:
THIS book is about Liv­ing with Schizophre­nia and the dai­ly hell which that in­volves. It is largely a Car­er''s Sto­ry: one which sets out to show the ex­tent of parental and sib­ling ig­no­rance of men­tal ill­ness; the ini­tial dis­be­lief and re­luc­tance to face up to its emer­gence in one''s ge­net­ical­ly ''sane'' fam­ily; the aw­ful do­mes­tic dis­rup­tion and dishar­mo­ny which are brought about; the con­flict­ing and con­fus­ing ad­vice met­ed out to be­lea­guered par­ents; and both the his­toric, and of­ten still to­day, so­cial stig­ma which caus­es many fam­ilies to be ashamed to ac­knowl­edge it and thus to seek to con­ceal it from pub­lic view. For them, so­cial aware­ness of mad­ness in a fam­ily is the ul­ti­mate degra­da­tion. And the small­er the so­ci­ety, the deep­er that per­cep­tion will be.The book is al­so, es­sen­tial­ly, about the suf­fer­er, the vic­tim, vi­olat­ed cru­el­ly by forces ap­par­ent­ly be­yond con­trol and not yet ful­ly un­der­stood by ei­ther sci­ence or medicine. It is the car­er''s fate to be im­mersed in and to suf­fer from the suf­fer­er''s suf­fer­ing. The suf­fer­er, how­ev­er, is be­yond in­sight in­to the tur­moil with­in, or its dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects with­out.The Amer­ican com­pos­er Charles Ives (1874-1954) wrote a piece for or­ches­tra enig­mat­ical­ly en­ti­tled The Unan­swered Ques­tion. The mu­sic sug­gests that he didn''t at­tempt to. Should I? In­deed not. But I know some oth­er unan­swered ques­tions. Like, for ex­am­ple, the re­la­tion­ship with or con­nec­tion be­tween, dreams and hal­lu­ci­na­tions. San­ity, if you like, and mad­ness; as viewed from the ad­ja­cent ed­ifices of parental de­tach­ment and to­tal in­volve­ment. A hope­less con­tra­dic­tion. The 18th cen­tu­ry En­glish po­et John Dry­den wrote:Ge­nius and mad­ness are near al­liedAnd thin par­ti­tions do their bounds di­vide.I don''t have any pre­ten­tions to ge­nius, you will be glad to know. But when I dream-as I did the oth­er night-ques­tions arise: why did the dream­ing oc­cur, what does it mean and what should I, the dream­er, con­clude from it?In the dream, I was in Bangkok at the head­quar­ters of Thai Broad­cast­ing, seek­ing out Chris Ven­ning, a for­mer Fi­ji Broad­cast­ing Com­mis­sion chief an­nounc­er and BBC ra­dio play pro­duc­er. Yes, they said, he is here, but is cur­rent­ly un­avail­able. Can you come back to­mor­row?''No. Nev­er mind. I''m fly­ing out tonight.''But I didn''t. My flight was de­layed once, then again and fi­nal­ly can­celled. I spent an un­com­fort­able night in the de­par­tures lounge, while oth­er pas­sen­gers ar­rived and de­part­ed. By first light, my head ached; and my wal­let, pass­port and tick­ets had gone. There was white pow­der in my shirt pock­et. Two po­lice­men ap­proached, men­ace in ev­ery step. I jerked my­self awake, tor­tured but re­lieved, the night­mare over…The trou­ble is that I have nev­er been to Bangkok, apart from tran­sit­ting its air­port. I have not spo­ken to Chris Ven­ning for 20 years; have no rea­son to seek to do so; and think it high­ly un­like­ly that, hav­ing re­tired from the BBC, he would now be work­ing for Thai Ra­dio.Why then, those dreams? Were they demons in dis­guise seek­ing to im­prison me? I don''t know. But you could sur­mise that they wished to get their re­venge: on some­one bent on ex­pos­ing them in this book for what they are-de­stroy­ers of men­tal sta­bil­ity and san­ity.Can such ven­omous, malev­olent, psy­chot­ic in­flu­ences re­al­ly ex­ist? I am afraid so. If you think oth­er­wise, I hope that you will read on to find out, as we did, that they do.Easy to Re­mem­berSo Hard to For­get-Pop­ular Bal­lad.Ken­neth BainCritique by Marjorie Wallace, CEO SANE, London:A har­row­ing and com­pelling­ly read­able in­sight in­to the dai­ly prob­lems fac­ing car­ers with men­tal­ly ill chil­dren. The sheer un­pre­dictabil­ity of the ill­ness with its mood-​swings and laps­es in­to in­co­her­ent rage and vi­olence ren­ders nor­mal life im­pos­si­ble as much for the fam­ily as for the suf­fer­er.Ex­treme­ly mov­ing and beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten, Ken­neth Bain''s book ought to be re­quired read­ing for all men­tal health pro­fes­sion­als-psy­chi­atrists, gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­ers, com­mu­ni­ty psy­chi­atric nurs­es and so­cial work­ers alike.
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