Jacob Glidewell - Different Shade of Normal: A Journal of Schizophrenic Thoughts

Different Shade of Normal

Different Shade of Normal: A Journal of Schizophrenic Thoughts

2010 Jacob Glidewell

Published by Aspire Productions at Smashwords

All rights reserved

ISBN 0-9722379-1-8

This book is filled with factual but general medical information. It is not intended as a guide to diagnose or treat medical or psychological problems without regard for the individual patients unique medical history and needs. If medical, psychological, or other expert assistance is required, the reader should seek the services of a personal physician or certified counselor.

For my wife and my inspiration,

who holds my laughing head above the water

Introduction

The Preliminaries

Pressure Points

Differentiating Green and Red

The ABCs of Me

The Wilderness of Lunacy

One Morning with Emma

Riding with Sam

Thoughts on the Color of Time

On Becoming Edmund

The Fear of Fear Itself

Dond Estl Dos?

Ticks and Tocks of Frankensteins Monster

Infinity +20

Dont drink that water , a voice says. Its poisoned . I look at the tall glass of water the waiter has just handed me. A lemon wedge floats on top bumping against the ice cubes. Im thirsty, but I hesitate.

That water is poisoned. Look at the bubbles. Water shouldnt bubble. Its poisoned. If you drink that, youll die right here. Then what will happen to your wife and kids? Order a soda. They cant poison soda .

Excuse me, I say just as the waiter starts to walk off. Im sorry, but I need to order a different drink. The voice laughs in my mind, and I cringe.

Im schizophrenic, which is to say that I suffer from schizophrenia, also known as split-mind disease, even though this label has caused a lot of confusion with multiple personality disorder, which is not the same thing. The symptoms are common, yet you wont find two schizophrenics who are alike. This illness affects us all differently because we all think differently.

As far as I can tell, Im a schizophrenic with paranoid tendencies and extreme social anxiety. Author Sylvia Plath described the mental chaos as existing within the eye of the tornadostill and practically void while everything else is ripped, ridded, and devastated all around you. This I can agree with.

Schizophrenia hits a person in three areas or categories of symptoms: positive, negative, and cognitive.

Positive symptoms (so called because they add to the experience of the person, not because they are positive within themselves) are the hallucinations and delusionsthe things people think they see, hear, smell, and sense as well as the situations in which they believe themselves to be trapped. For example a hallucination might consist of a person seeing a pack of dogs wandering outside their window, whereas a delusion might consist of a perception of a conspiracy against that person by another person or body of people, like a corporation or the government.

Negative symptoms (so called because they subtract from the experience of the person) can consist of social withdrawal, affective flattening, poverty of speech including made-up words or word salad, inability to properly dress or care for ones own personal hygiene, and other social awkwardness.

Cognitive symptoms happen within the brain and can affect learning, fine motor skills and thinking processes.

A journal of my thoughts is contained within these pages, sometimes coherent and concrete, other times not so much. On deciding to keep this journal of thought I promised myself that I would edit only for grammar and spelling as well as clarityat least as far as I can help, though one or two entries might not read too coherently. The rest will be 100% honest thought. Everything recorded here is true, even though a lot of it never actually happened. No lies, no exaggeration. Theres no need for that kind of thing anymore. My mind is interesting enough as it is.

I cant blame my parents for my schizophrenia other than the possibility that my illness is hereditary. A grandfather, uncles, and cousins also had and have this junk to some extent, and so do I. Its as simple as that. But it is old-fashioned thinking to blame the parents for this disease. What happened to me is not my parents fault any more than its my fault.

But when I examine my past, my childhood, I do find that I was alone more often than not. I played well by myself. Theres nothing wrong with that except that I had trouble playing with others if I wasnt in control of the story. My best childhood friend helped me get beyond all that because I liked his ideas and we played well off of each other, but even then I led the games more than I followed.

Other than playing with him and his little brother, Patrick, I did had few friends.

My mother taught me to act it up, to joke and laugh and be included, but in all honesty, I would rather have stayed in the back of the room and sat quietly, either reading a book or drawing in a sketchpad.

Around that time I started writing stories.

I look at old family photos and I notice that Im either not in them or Im off to one side. I remember a picture taken of my father, his friend from work, that mans ten-year-old son, and me on a skeet-shooting trip. The three of them were grouped together with Dad and his friend standing side by side, the friends son standing in front of them in the middle, and then standing three or four paces to the right of everyone is me. It looks like I accidentally wondered into the frame of someone elses family picture.

Dont think that I felt envious of that kid or anything. In fact I thought he might have been partially retarded. He laughed silently with his mouth wide open and eyes squeezed shut, like a donkey with a hernia. And when he peed he had to drop his pants around his ankles. He couldnt pull it out through the zipper opening like anyone else.

I also remember that I wasnt particularly happy on that trip. But still, that was only one of many photos and videos.

My mother still watches some old family movies made with one of those giant, shoulder-carried cameras. She has one of what she calls the March Birthdaysher father, Daddy Joe, and two of my cousins all share birthdays with me in March, and she would throw one big group party for all of us.

In the video my cousins are opening their presents, as is Daddy Joe when hes not filming. And there, every so often, over in the distance, you can see Jacob (me) quietly opening his gifts. I wasnt left out, but I wasnt as involved as the rest. And that never bothered me. I wasnt depressed about it or anything.

I tended to play in my room alone with my toys. Sometimes itd be with the stuffed animals, other times itd be with the action figures. My games had elaborate setups, plots, dialogue, the works. I once played a game about a werewolf that scared me half-to-death. I had to quit in the middle of it and go find other people.

I had a poster of a black panther on my wall around that time. It leapt out at you from the jungle behind it. It terrified me after a few days of owning it, as it seemed to watch me while I played and its head turned to follow me as I walked around.

One time I was leaving my room because it had scared me again, and as I went to turn off the light, I saw its head had turned in the mirror to watch me.

I nearly fell down the stairs I ran so fast. But Ive always been a bit jumpy.

Remember, Im not blaming my parents or family members for any of this stuff. Im just explaining some of the background before I dive into the meatier parts.