Humanity Getting its Ducks in a Row

When I was a child my grandmother marvelled at how when she was a child she travelled by ox wagon and now we were sending people to the moon. I wondered then how the world could change in such a way that I'd be marvelling when I was her age. If I ever reached it. It was hard to believe that I ever would, she seemed so ancient. I'm not there yet, but that marvelling time has come already for me. 

There wasn't any internet when I was a kid. Distance communication was by phone, letter or telegram. Arriving by noon train stop pick me up stop don't forget stop I love you stop.

Letters were written by hand, music was played with vinyl, radios were a piece of furniture. I spent 90% of my waking leisure hours outside. We didn't even have a TV. When it came and we finally got a set, we were only allowed to watch one evening a week. And then we could have a coke as well. Bread and milk were delivered to the door. Ice cream cost two pennies, the cost of everything stayed the same from year to year and people stayed in the same job.  

On the surface of things, it was a simple life and a good one. But heaven help you if you were a schizophrenic or depressed or a girl with a sexual appetite, or one who didn't know how to say no. There wasn't a place for you. Where you could feel valuable, that is. There was a place alright; society's garbage bin. Not that it was openly acknowledged. Racism, slavery, abuse of women and children were rampant, but nobody spoke about it. The have-nots were hidden from the pleasant surface of society's fabric. Ah, the good old days.

Now nobody writes anything by hand, radios are either streamed or ugly little boomboxy things. Vinyl isn't dead but mostly it's music by download, books by download. TV on your laptop. 

Conversation happens by tweet or text. Impersonal, no risk, no real connection. Fast, though. Ice cream costs anything from R5 to R20 and the price of everything rises every day. Employees are nomads scrabbling to find work in broken economies. The world is at war; so much of mankind a well-oiled killing machine. Polar ice-caps are melting whilst people still debate if humans are destroying the environment. Women get stoned to death for wearing the wrong clothes and wanting to be educated. Child pornography and the slave trade still flourish around the world. 

Sure we've sent men to the moon and found cures for all sorts of diseases but 'experts' can't explain the outbreak of violence amongst seemingly peaceful communities. And we still don't have anywhere close to an understanding of schizophrenia and depression. Children and adults commit suicide and everybody says 'I had no idea they were depressed'. 

Very few say 'if I'd been a better friend, a better parent, a better sibling, I would have noticed because nobody gets to that final moment of despair without there being plenty of signposts along the way.' 

Has the human race really progressed much since my grandmother was a child? The way it expresses itself has changed, that’s obvious. But the percentages of different types of people are probably still the same. What also hasn’t changed is the human capacity to find joy and pleasure within, no matter what’s going on in your life. That’s a good thing. That’s a remarkable thing. 

And we've identified concepts like entitlement and self esteem. We know - or some of us do - that if those two aspects are fragmented it doesn't matter how talented a person is, they'll never make any progress. If they don't get help. And help is available. We know that we can learn to say no. That we're allowed to pay attention to what we need. That what others think of us matters a whole lot less than what we think of ourselves. That if we want others to treat us with respect we have to treat ourselves with respect. We know a lot more. We haven't necessarily learned how to put it into practise, but that will come.

An even bigger difference between when I was a child and now is that the underbelly has been exposed, that's clear. We haven't been able to keep that lovely smooth surface unruffled by the reality of society's inequalities and injustices. It’s uncomfortable to see but uncomfortable isn't necessarily all bad.

The good thing about it is that the have-nots have finally found their voice. And that makes me marvel as much as my grandmother did. Just learning to get our ducks in a row.

Living with Schizophrenia

Elyn Saks was told in her early adult years that her life held no prospect and that to hold down a cashier’s job would be an accomplishment. But she defied the criticisms. Today she is a chaired professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, has an adjunct appointment in the psychiatry department of psychiatry at University of California’s San Diego medical school. She’s also on the faculty of the New Center for Psychoanalysis. 

In 2007 she wrote about her battle with schizophrenia, "The Centre Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness". The MacArthur Foundation gave her a genius grant for it. I read the sample ten odd pages of her memoire. It’s beautifully written, and her story - and what she's achieved despite mammoth obstacles - has inspired me, but something about it gave me chills up and down my spine. In her introduction she writes of her family as a normal, upper middle class Jewish family.

The word ‘normal’ is mine, not hers, but the intimation is hers, as far as I can gather. She paints a picture of parents in love with each other who made time for enjoying each other’s company – Saturdays were for them, Sundays for the kids. She mentions in passing that actually they probably preferred each other’s company more than that of their children. But her comment about it is a throwaway one.

Her family life sounds pretty sane. There was enough money, there was enough love. Normal. She writes of a little bit of sibling rivalry – she was the oldest and very driven – which she mentions as a plus because it helped her survive the damning diagnosis and the reality of her schizophrenia – but nothing massively destructive. 

So why were my alarm bells ringing? Three or four pages in she writes of the early warnings that she had schizophrenia – hallucinations of intruders. Night terrors. And suddenly the ‘normal, loving parents’ image kind of melts away. They criticized and even mocked her. Her mother’s response was “Oh don’t be silly darling”. Her father was more cruel and dismissive.

Later, she put on weight and pinned all her low self esteem onto it, refusing to eat properly. She got thin, looked ill and had no energy. Her parents’ response? Anger. I have to get the book to read more, so I’m not sure if Elyn Saks made any observations about the absence of empathy in her parents and what it did to her, how it may have contributed to her later diagnosis of rank schizophrenia.

The world still largely believes that a faulty brain structure is the cause of schizophrenia and its symptoms. But the whole diagnosis is predicated on two things: an assumption of what’s normal, and an absence of sensitivity to how potently childhood experiences influence and damage us – and what that might do to the structure and functionality of the brain.

Mostly as adults we don’t see the potent emotions that run beneath the surface of our ‘normal’ exterior. We behave as if the surface is all there is. But there’s nothing anybody on earth can do to stop those underlying emotions from impacting incredibly powerfully on children. As adults we just don’t notice it. Children are force-fed the idea that what they’re experiencing is ‘normal’.

Many adults can’t get beyond that force-fed idea. Even when they can’t get their lives together and have blistered self esteem and entitlement, they cling to “I had a happy childhood”. So many parents can’t let themselves acknowledge that their children suffer from the consequences of whatever they, the parents, bury beneath the surface. 

This idea we have of what’s ‘normal’ is more about keep things nice on the surface, but destroying each other in reality. And when a person can’t their life together in the way they feel sure they should be able to, if you go back to their childhood you’ll find the key – violent emotions in the parental environment being spewed out in every neurotic direction but cloaked by “I’m not angry, I’m normal”.

This isn’t about the blame game. Everybody does their best; denial is an unconscious thing, that’s what makes it so lethal. But we need a greater understanding of how sensitive children are to those underlying emotions that parents have learned to suppress and how much it damages them. 

And what impact does that unrecognized emotional deprivation have on brain development and subsequent schizophrenia? Is the brain structure that is cited as being the cause of this terrible affliction actually itself the symptom of a cause that is much more subtle and difficult to diagnose? Unrecognized wounds don't heal.

Elyn Saks has shown immense resourcefulness and courage and, at a time of huge vulnerability, pushed through the damning barriers to entry of a fulfilled life as schizophrenic.  She hasn’t stopped at medication, she’s stayed in therapy and reached out for the emotional support she needs. She’s searched for ideas that would help her hold her course. What a courageous woman. But I wonder if we’ll ever see the book “What My Childhood Really Did To Me”.