Another visit to see the Shrink

These shrink visit articles are intended to point out the flaws in psychiatric assessment, and to enable professionals to correct their methods of assessment.

I saw my psychiatrist recently.  He asked me how I was keeping, and I told him about the nightmares I keep experiencing just before I wake up.  I also told him that I was still hearing voices, but that most of the time the voices were positive, friendly and supportive.  He said that the nightmares were due to hypnogogic hallucinations, and were perfectly normal.  Then he said that my medication (Risperdal) could be causing the nightmares.  I guessed that this was the case, as I had spoken to many people from mental health Internet chat rooms, and who have taken it and said the same thing about Risperdal, that it causes nightmares.

After telling my psychiatrist that I was still hearing voices, he made an adjustment to my medication, and instead of taking three in the morning and three at night, to take my evening dose much earlier (at 8.00pm instead of 10.30pm), and to take two in the morning and four at night.  I can see why he told me to take the Risperdal earlier in the evening (if it is causing me nightmares), but I can't see why he decreased my morning dose, and increased my evening dose, after telling him that I was still hearing voices and knowing that the medication gives me nightmares.

He never bothered to ask me whether my voices are worse in the day or worse at night, but they are actually worse in the day for me.  It would make sense to increase my evening dose if my voices were worse in the evening for me, but they are actually worse in the day, and so, decreasing my morning dose to two tablets instead of three, doesn't make sense either.

Contrary to the psychiatrist's advice, I am now taking four in the morning, and two at night.  This works a lot better for me in terms of hearing voices, and I get a much sounder sleep at night.  Ideally, I would like to come off of Risperdal completely, and to try some other kind of anti-psychotic drug because I have also gained weight on it.  But I have got used to taking Risperdal, and will give it a chance on my new dosage before I ask for it to be replaced by another psychiatric drug.

 

Reality Testing and Reality Assumption

 There are many reasons why I am critical of the term and label "psychotic". Firstly, because it is a term, or similar term, sometimes referred to in an argument to invalidate or suppress another persons point of view or perspective.  The term or label of "psychotic", could therefore be being used simply to deny and suppress the other persons valid point of view or perspective, personally, interpersonally, socially, politically, and so on.

The label of "psychotic" is therefore a perspective controlling machine, and like a machine, it often operates mechanically, and without it's own true or unique perspective or consciousness.

I am also in some ways critical of the meaning of the term and label "psychotic", which means, "out of touch with and not corresponding to reality".

There are many different philosophical, political, and theological interpretations of reality, but where psychiatric social and mental health is concerned, anything which differs from the professional medical psychiatric and social or mental health perspective, can therefore be deemed to be out of touch with and not corresponding to reality, and therefore "psychotic".

In fact, this mentalist labelling of "psychotic", is in itself exclusive, and is in itself out of touch with other interpretations of reality - which are just as corresponding to reality - and just as realistic.  Thus, the absence of the knowledge of the mentalism of the term, process, and label "psychosis", could itself be said to be "psychotic" in some ways.  It is "psychotic" in the sense that it is trying to suppress another point of view or perspective, as in this way, it is out of touch with and not corresponding to another person's living reality.

The other main reason why I am critical of the term "psychotic", is that whilst I accept that a person can be hallucinating and having delusions of people, things, and forces which are unreal and untrue, on some deeper level of social interpretation their ideas might fit reality in a different way, and their ideas might make a lot of sense, in context to the person's past and present social and life-experiences, and in context to the voices social and cultural meaning.

Reality testing, can also often make assumptions about another person's grasp of reality, in order to feel superior and to feel more in touch with reality.  The main assumption this makes, is to assume that just because in some part of the person's brain, the person is hallucinating voices or whatever, then to assume that whole person's brain and consciousness must be out of touch with reality and therefore hallucinating.

From personal experience, I know that is possible to be both hallucinating voices, and agreeing or colluding with some of the delusions of those voices, and yet to still to be in touch with reality, and still be in touch with the knowledge and awareness that the voices and their content are not real.  This complex configuration is very difficult for psychiatrists to grasp and understand, partly because medical psychiatry - and which is a very linear thinking - fails to grasp or understand dialectical thinking, and which can operate differently, and somewhat paradoxically, on many different levels.

In order to understand madness, it helps if you have experienced it, or experienced something similar to it.  There is indeed a point which the delusions of hearing voices, can take over completely, as in the throes of a mental breakdown, but otherwise it is quite possible to experience both delusion and reality at the same time.

This dialectical thinking is in some ways much better than the exclusive reality perspective, because it can grasp reality and have a firm grip on real people and things, and yet it still has the creativity and imagination to receive other interpersonal, social, and cultural meanings of things. The voice hearer can therefore sometimes be an interpersonal, social, and cultural filter, which takes interpersonal, social, and cultural meanings, and places them together in different patterns, in order to have a much wider dialogue and understanding of society and reality.

Hearing Voices and the Human Holy Spirit

The voices that I hear sometimes tell me that they are the human holy spirit.  These voices know some of my thoughts, are a part of my brain and being, and yet are separate from my consciousness in origin, and to do with my outer social and life experiences; and so, like thought itself, they have a rather paradoxical and complex quality.  In origin, I believe that thoughts are not biological, but are created from objective social and life awareness, and which is like a spirit to me.  This, to me, is what spirituality is all about, but this awareness of reality and consciousness may falsely be diagnosed as psychotic.  My voices are also like messengers, and they tell me things about mental health that otherwise I would not be aware of.

The fact that the voices sometimes appear to know my thoughts, is because they can sometimes guess or predict what I am going to do, say, or think, and so they are not psychic as such, nor necessarily a part of my direct thinking, but are to do with how others have related or not related towards me.  The failure to predict behaviours, thoughts, and emotions accurately, and have this model imposed upon people, may in fact be a factor in what actually causes negative hearing voices, and this is to do with the way that others have treated us and related towards us.  This may also be to do with bad parenting, and how our parents or parent have falsely predicted that we are bad children; but it is also to do with the way that some social and mental health professionals treat us and relate towards us.

It also appears to me when I hear them, that the voices can be heard by others, but the voices tell me that only I can hear them (as opposed to anyone else in the house), and that therefore I have a special kind of hearing and am in a way psychic.  This shifts the context from mental health professionals, and so on, being able to predict or being psychic, to myself being able to predict or being psychic.  It's also interesting that predicting behaviours is different from psychic predicting, but the fact that the context has shifted to myself, actually empowers me, and gives me some magical or psychological status and prestige.

I think that the medical model only looks at what goes on inside our heads and brains, but a more social model looks at our social, human, and life experiences.  Thus, there is both a medical and a social component to my experiences of hearing voices.

The voices also sometimes tell me that they work through a process of white noise.  The white noise, and which is like a hissing sound (which could be interpreted as stress - or the foundation, or background, of sound) is what opens up my awareness, then the voices repeat a vowel sound, and I hear a word in the sound and respond to it with another word or sentence, and then the voices know what to say back to me.  Whether this is true or not, it tells me a bit about hearing voices and some of the psychological and linguistic awareness that goes along with it.

I think that people who don't hear voices might be experiencing a form of thought-denial, as I think that voices are an extra and intrinsic function of the human mind and brain.  Maybe people who don't hear voices are blocking the awareness off, and are thus in denial about it.  There are none so deaf as those who will not hear.

Maybe hearing voices served some purpose in evolution, and that this purpose has shifted from the religious to a social way of thinking.  I do not believe in a monotheistic God, but I believe that my voices are like angles or the holy spirit, because they seem to nurture and protect me, but for me they are also human beings.  For me, they are the holy spirit, but because they also come from myself and my social experiences and awareness of others, I also call them the human holy spirit.  Thus, what the voices call themselves, and what I call the voices, meets, blends, or merges, and forms a circle of unification of self with awareness of others.