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An opportunity to tell stories

SkyView7Senior Contributor18 Apr 2019, 12:53 pm AEST

An opportunity to tell stories

I see a lot of victims here who share the grief of those who have been cast aside by a society which seems unable to accomodate diversity, but I don't count myself among this group. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1983 when I was 27, so I'm an old timer now who has been blessed with an opportunity to reflect on his condition over the course of many years. I was granted a disability pension in 1984 and it was my inclination to put it to use by sifting through the factors which may have led to my diagnosis.

I won't apologise for my own contribution to the list of likely suspects, of which there are many. I'm a proud schizophrenic. I've wrestled with some stubborn puzzles over the years many of which have been solved to my own satisfaction. I'm not just a schizophrenic, I'm a telepath, and among the host of others I observe in my mental ecology I also speak to the dead.

I'm not in denial about the nature of my psychiatric situation. I've been around long enough to know that society has an interest in characterising my experiences in a certain way. I know that society is threatened by those who deviate from group norms and will take steps to minimise any damage which their behaviour may incur. But I've also wrestled with the evidence of the senses, and the conclusions I've drawn have been won from years spent in an intense battle with deception. I'm not a fool, and I won't allow others to invalidate my experiences just because they don't fit into society's little boxes.

Having spent most of my life in solitude, and having had little opportunity to relate to others in possession of physical attributes, I've arrived at a point in my journey where I'm compelled to express myself. I've written at length about my experiences, but my manuscripts have been rejected often enough to discourage me from pursuing this avenue of expression, so I'm looking for alternatives.

I'm wondering, just how inclusive is the management of this forum? Is there room for an old sceptic who doubts that society could ever accurately characterise schizophrenia?

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In response to: An opportunity to tell stories

SkyView7Senior Contributor24 May 2019, 1:34 pm AEST

Re: An opportunity to tell stories

Hi @Former-Member

Thanks so much for reading these little snippets from my unusual experience, it means a lot to me to know that they are appreciated.

There's no need to thank me for sharing them when I'm driven to get them out of my system, so to see them being read is very theraputic for me.

For many years I kept it all bottled up inside while I read other people's stories until at last I figured out how to make my story work. I think I learned more from reading than I did from writing.

In response to: Re: An opportunity to tell stories

Unknown userMember24 May 2019, 1:44 pm AEST

Re: An opportunity to tell stories

Indeed .. @SkyView7 .. reading them is my pleasure.

I'm glad to hear that knowing you are being heard is therapeutic to you. I agree very much on that. I feel I had no voice for many years. These forums have provided a safe place where I can now be heard. And although my writing ability is nowhere near what yours is, I do find writing to be a very therapeutic outlet.

Sherry 🎶🎵

In response to: Re: An opportunity to tell stories

SkyView7Senior Contributor24 May 2019, 3:20 pm AEST

Re: An opportunity to tell stories

Your writing is a delight to read @Former-Member. Your story is very moving. I was filled with compassion for you. I'm glad you found a way to open up and relate to others, and relieve yourself of the burden of secrecy.

In response to: Re: An opportunity to tell stories

Unknown userMember24 May 2019, 3:35 pm AEST

Re: An opportunity to tell stories

Thank you @SkyView7 , thats very kind of you. I had noticed you'd pressed the 'support button' on my opening post to my support thread. 💜

In response to: Re: An opportunity to tell stories

SkyView7Senior Contributor26 May 2019, 10:47 am AEST

Re: An opportunity to tell stories

Human numbers passed the seven and a half billion mark in about April of 2017, and their growth showed no signs of slowing to more manageable rates. According to the United Nations 2017 Population Prospects Revision humans will number in the vicinity of 11.2 billion by the end of the 21st century, and human numbers are expected to continue to grow in spite of dwindling fertility rates. While it may not be fashionable to talk about it yet, a growth crisis is on the horizon, and the sooner we start talking about it the better will be our chances of survival.

While celebrated naturalists and environmentalists such as David Attenborough and Al Gore recognise the seriousness of growing human numbers they wither when it comes to locating families in an ecological context perhaps because they are themselves husbands and fathers.

While it may be a bitter realisation for anyone who looks at this problem it nevertheless remans the case that in a growth crisis there are only two alternatives: either you lower the birth rate or you raise the death rate, and the logic of these alternatives is as simple as it is unavoidable.

There has been talk of establishing a human colony on another world but this is not really a viable alternative. It may be possible to send as many as several thousand emigrants to another world but this won't make any difference to the billions left behind here on Earth.

While this may sound like a very gloomy prospect the good news is that adapting to a culture of growth control won't require any change in our sexual behaviour. Sex is without doubt the most compelling motive we have for achieving social cohesion, and love is itself the foundation on which our definition of reality has been built. And if the Gulf of Mexico and the Antilles islands are anything to go by then it would appear that love is universal.

You may be thinking that time is short but it's not. We make time with our dreaming and with the love we share with another. If I've learned anything from my experience of dreaming then it is that reality is not inflexible, and that there is an abundance of time. I've not loved another for a long time but I know that time exists between a man and a woman. Just as the two ends of time are located within the body so too do they exist between a man and a woman, and between couples who identify with other combinations of gender. I doubt that men will be offended by the suggestion that they are relatively primitive compared with a woman, and that a woman is a more civilized being. Males and females hail from opposite ends of time and all of life endeavours to bring them together.

That a man and a woman join the two ends of time is a proposition about which there can be no doubt which may partially explain why love and sex are so persistently incomprehensible. Our bodies reach out to another so that they can achieve a temporal unity.

In terms of our problem with the growth crisis, love and sex may be unavoidable but contraception is a choice. If you plan on having a baby then this will be a very sensitive issue for you, and I dare mention it to you here because the ecological significance of the view that the body consists of a map of time is that it provides us with a belief about the body which doesn't ultimately lead to reproduction. We need to get people talking about growth control and for this endeavour to succeed we need to develop a dramatically different narrative about the nature and purpose of the body.

We don't need to be having so many children when we could be doing something else with our bodies. We could be explorers of a new dimension, and further our interest in the galaxy by exploring the universe within us.

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