This essay I am writing is an attempt to write about a terrible topic in my life without self-pity, attention-getting and sorry feelings. This essay is here because I happened upon an essay about Schizophrenia and I would like to create an objective description of what its like. I refer to it that way because there seemed to be a method to the madness which I will get into. Now in three paragraphs I will talk about the following aspects of the disease: strategies of the illness, interesting things I noticed about the illness, and the methods I used to slay the illness.
Alright you maybe asking why I refer to the illness as the Phoenix of Despair. Alright the answer to this because that’s where its actions seemed to be guided toward. A phoenix seeks rebirth and despair is extreme sorrow. So the illness is a thing that seeks rebirth through extreme sorrow. Now I can get into the tactics. Now most of the tactics take advantage of the weakened senses. The first tactic is to create a false paradigm. This is accomplished through manipulating the senses. Voices, for instance, is the manipulation of hearing. Now this tactic is hard to beat because you begin with the assumption that your brain is reliable. The second tactic is to change your interpretation of patterns. Paranoia is an example of this tactic but my main problem was when all basic events confirmed the false reality my insanity sent me. The third more subtle is emotional manipulation. When your emotions are played with to accomplish your journey into despair. Note to that these tactics can be used simultaneously. Now to get into interesting things about the illness.
Now to answer some questions about the illness. Some of my best ideas came when I was sick. The illness for me produced fantasies in which I was trying to find the right path and my ideas flourished. Unfortunately it dramatically reduces your ability o find energy to write them down. In addition some of the ideas do not really work in the real world that do get on paper. Now Schizophrenia is not a multiple personality disorder though the voices do develop personalities. These personalities tend to represent unconscious yearnings within yourself at least that’s how I think it works. Finally I learned that even if you take the skeptic route the insanity will find unconscious yearnings to defeat your defenses. Now for ways I found to defend against it.
There are many ways to defend against it. However one important way is to take medicine. Medicine helps alleviate but not cure the illness that’s where my other defenses kick in. Realizing the voices are not real is a very important defense. A final defense is to ignore the voices. All three defenses are hard and long to develop as well as not being perfect but they work.
In conclusion mental illness is a very precarious disease. The only way to win against it is to use the defective brain to interpret the defective brain. A difficult task but who says mental illness is easy. I still got a long journey to go on but I hope I can cage the Phoenix of Despair.