Lara McKenzie - Virtual Insanity

Its February 2018 and I am very sick.

They are injecting me now. I watch the mental health nurse prepare the Zyprexa (Olanzapine) solution which comes in a bright yellow powder form. She delicately inserts the needle into the saline solution and then inserts it into the yellow powder vile releasing the fluid. Then she swirls the vile around and around making sure all the powder of the drug becomes liquid. I watch her extract 300mg of Zyprexa into the syringe. She asks me to lie on my side as she uses her hand to identify the spot she wants to inject into. Sharp scratch, she says to me, as she inserts the needle into my side and injects the liquid drug. After she has finished, she asks me to wait in reception. I must be monitored for two hours after each injection; Zyprexa can affect ones blood pressure. So, I sit with a cup of tea, and wait. My injection is every fortnight.

I was first diagnosed with Schizophrenia in 2012 at the age of 36, and its known as a late-onset diagnosis. It would not be my last diagnosis, and in both Australia and the UK they have kept changing my diagnosis over the years. Finally, in 2017, I was diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder.

Zyprexa has made me put on a lot of weight. Spending most of my adult life at 54kg, I am now 86kg. I have a bulging stomach that makes me feel like I am nine months pregnant. I cannot wear high heels anymore as I feel so unbalanced and shaky. Finding a job and keeping a job seems to me to be becoming impossible.

When Im sick with my symptoms its hard. I find this to be a debilitating illness. My medications do not cure me. They do not stop my anxiety, depression or Schizophrenia. But they greatly lessen the symptoms, but sometimes they continue. The auditory hallucinations that is. Sometimes daily. Nasty voices swimming from the front of my head calling me a delusional cunt, a schizophrenic whore, there will never be any justice, Jewish whore, drink bitch, we control you bitch, ignore (which is said all day long) and, spastic bitch. I also have what I call good voices, ones that tell I am loved. To keep going and to never give up.

In my current delusions and paranoia, I keep telling myself that the voices are coming from a brain machine interface (brain chip) that I believe was installed in my forehead at a Hospital in England by intelligence agencies. I tell my Psychiatrists these deluded thoughts. They calmly talk to me and tell me that its a delusion and I have Schizoaffective Disorder. They ask me to use CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) on myself and these delusions.

The psychiatrists will not give me an x-ray and show the x-ray results to me to prove that the brain chip isnt there; although intelligence agencies would probably make the doctors give me x-ray results that are not mine. I feel many in the world have lied to me and I do not know why the doctors protect them. But I know thats a delusion too. I guess I want an x-ray, so I have the evidence to prove to myself there is nothing there, that no brain chip is there. To CBT myself. Its so frustrating having a delusion about a brain chip.

As defined in Wikipedia, The word schizophreniawhich translates roughly as splitting of the mind and comes from the Greek roots schizein (to split) and phren (mind)was coined by Eugen Bleuler in 1908 and was intended to describe the separation of function between personality, thinking, memory, and perception.

The more I research and reflect on my mental health disorder the more I realise, along with the research thats been done, that its caused by genetics and environmental factors. Some of the research has shown that it occurs at conception and is a form of spontaneous genetic mutation that further occurs in foetal development. In one study conducted by Doctor Mary-Claire King of the University of Washington in Seattle in 2013, Schizophrenia was found to have genetic spontaneous mutations found in people whose fathers were 33-45 at the time of conception. But my father was 29 when he conceived me, so I dont fit that profile. What is more interesting, however, is that the study identified fifty-four genes with spontaneous mutations causing damage to the function of the protein they encode in the prefrontal cortex. Moreover, fifty of these genes are active during foetal development. Suffice to say, the study supports the theory that in part, Schizophrenia results from disruptions in genetic development during the foetal development in the womb and these genetic mutations cause Schizophrenia. These genetic mutations are not the single cause alone. Environmental factors play a significant role.

I have a permanent, enduring and lifelong brain disorder called Schizoaffective Disorder. It is said to been seen in about 0.5% to 0.8% of the population (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition). I have a higher risk profile for developing dementia in later life, which is something I dont want; lying in a bed not knowing who the hell anybody is. Basically, Schizoaffective Disorder means you can have bi-polar or depressive disorder along with Schizophrenia. Ive been diagnosed as Schizoaffective, depressive type. I also suffer from substance abuse (namely tobacco and alcohol) or alcoholism although I go to Alcoholics Anonymous to manage my addictions, even though I have gone in and out of AA like a yoyo. Some days it is pure hell to live with this brain disorder. As some of the studies show, this occurred at conception; I was destined for this mental illness. I had no choice. Its not my fault. I was born with it.

My mental health has cost me a lot. The most significant and painful thing being the loss of my children. In one of my friends emails to me she said she understands why everyone hates me. The mental health stigma really does exist. I have not seen my children in four years. I have not Skyped with them in two years. I have not seen a photo of them both in nearly two years. I miss my children dearly.