Psychosis

It never ceases to amaze me how powerful the human mind can be. I am on Psychiatry right now, so every day I see patients who are depressed, whiny, and just generally miserable to be around. But every now and again, I meet someone whose brain chemistry is so awry as to be psychotic. This is where the real fun and interest begins.

I couldn't care less for the borderline teenagers who cut their wrists because their boyfriend broke up with them and now their whole world is going to end, blah blah blah... Sure, it's a personal travesty and you feel really broken up about it - but, long story short, you need to get over yourself and move on.

What I find truly fascinating are the people who are manic or psychotic. I don't know what it is, but listening to people tell about their delusions, hallucinations, obsessions, and trying to piece together their disordered mind just has my interest from the get go. I am just amazed that someone can be fine one week, and suddenly have schizophrenia or a psychotic break and completely lose touch with reality. I am hooked! Better than the best fiction novel ever written.

You can spot them from a mile away. They are in the room, completely oblivious to everything going on around them - responding to internal stimuli - talking to themselves, gesturing to themselves, trying as hard as they can to convince themselves (or to whomever they believe they are speaking) that all is well and nothing has changed.

For instance, yesterday, I met a young man, about 40 years old, who has a past history of schizophrenia, was treated and medicated, and was doing quite well a couple of weeks ago. However, for whatever reason, about 2 weeks ago, he decided he did not need his medications - a very common thing for people with mental illness, unfortunately. So, he stopped taking his meds and all of a sudden, he becomes paranoid, and has some very strange fixed delusions. No matter what you tell him, he will not budge on these beliefs, despite the fact that what he believes is nigh-impossible.

Off to the inpatient psych ward for you.

I also met a woman in her early 20s, who has been hospitalized more times than I have brain cells in her short lifetime, who was brought in by her case-worker from her out-patient psychiatrists office in a full-blown manic episode. Her thinking was so out in left field, I could not follow the conversation she was having with herself. She was so circumstantial and loosely-associating it was scary that she could understand what she was doing. Her speech was about 5 million miles a minute, and she apparently had not slept in 2 weeks more than an hour a night. She was very dishevelled and hypersexual, which is typical of mania. Very impulsive and possibly dangerous to herself and/or anyone else she is around.

Again, off to the psych ward with you.

Amazing how the little neurotransmitters in the brain can cause such havoc if they are not balanced properly... just fascinating, and yet sad for these people.