Schizophrenia Quotes

“I feel completely broken due to the cruel and dark side of life. Life has been incredibly harsh, leaving me utterly shattered. I have been deeply affected and devastated by this cruel and unforgiving reality.”
― Jonathan Harnisch

“THE FIVE WAYS OF HIGH INTENSITY SELF-DECEPTION

So, since we postulate psychosis as a continuum of self-deception experiences, it is appropriate to distinguish the main channels that the effort of self-deception, when carried out in a superlative way, would use to materialize

a) Memory impairment
This would be the case of one who remembers more easily successes than their failures at one end of low-intensity self-deception, or who changes his entire biography adopting a false identity at the other end, and through different gradations of self-deception.

b) The alteration of the information from the 5 senses.
This would be the case of hallucinations.

c) Alteration of reasoning and logic.
Even being true, the information coming from the memory and the five senses, it is possible to process it so that it reaches conclusions that are away from the premises and thus achieve self-deception. An attenuated example of this would be known "bias" and a stronger then this would be the total distortion of logic and language.

d) Mysticism.
While respecting the information that comes from the five senses, memory, and without destroying logic or reasoning, self-deception could be carried out in superlative dimensions if you follow the path of mysticism. Here, the mechanism operates like believing in stories that, because they are mystical, take place beyond the perceptible and, therefore, do not contradict the information provided by the five senses.

e) Mixed.
The fifth way, which will be the most common, will be a mixture of all –or some– of the above, in different proportions. In the famous Schreber case, for example, a mystical-type story is seen, along with certain "bizarre" content in its composition”
― Martín Ross, THE SHIELD FEATS THEORY: a different hypothesis concerning the etiology of delusions and other disorders.

“The schizophrenic position is one where a self’s embedment in the solace of the quotidian is breached, and consciousness is confronted with both the complexities of thought processes and the raw materials of unconscious function.”
― Christopher Bollas, When the Sun Bursts: The Enigma of Schizophrenia

“I have no more fight left, the will to keep going has been extinguished and I am ready to throw in the towel. Nothing matters anymore, my heart is hollow and I see no hope for a better tomorrow. There’s nothing that can lighten this heavy burden of despair – it is all too much, and it feels as if there is no end in sight.”
― Jonathan Harnisch

“With schizophrenia, we know that we are dealing with a range of disorders of varying severity which arise from a mosaic of one or more factors – genetic, biochemical, neurological – interacting in complex ways with the person's environment and personality.”
― Anne Deveson, Tell Me I'm Here: One Family's Experience of Schizophrenia

“As long as schizophrenia is treated like some evil and frightening nemesis, not as just an illness, we shall continue to spurn those who are afflicted, and to abandon their families.”
― Anne Deveson, Tell Me I'm Here: One Family's Experience of Schizophrenia

“Yet he would always know what was happening, no matter how crazy he appeared. He would register fear and humiliation – his or others' – and love and anger. He remembered it all.”
― Anne Deveson, Tell Me I'm Here: One Family's Experience of Schizophrenia

“Mosher said, 'Treat people as normal, like them, be warm and friendly, and they will have much more chance of getting better than if you treat them as sick and keep as far away from them as possible'.”
― Anne Deveson, Tell Me I'm Here: One Family's Experience of Schizophrenia

“The party was good, and Jonathan made immense efforts to belong. I don't think I had realised till them how difficult such occasions were for him. You could see him straining to find the right phrase and, when he found it, he would blurt it out as if he were an actor who was not yet familiar with his lines. People with schizophrenia have to make herculean efforts to stay our side of the line.”
― Anne Deveson, Tell Me I'm Here: One Family's Experience of Schizophrenia

“People with schizophrenia will often use metaphor and symbols to describe their inner states, but because they have lost their sense of boundary, they are unable to distinguish their inner from their outer worlds, and metahpor becomes reality.”
― Anne Deveson , Tell Me I'm Here: One Family's Experience of Schizophrenia

“. This theory, based on Latin-American constructs, classify delusional beliefs in terms of “self-deceptions of feats” (grandiosity, erotomania, possession) and “self-deceptions of shield feats” (persecution, jealousy, somatoform).
The shield feats would be ego-defensive behaviors that are created to make precedent a cushion on the impact on pride and social prestige that make a possible future that
causes much fear for their shameful character. One of the most important shield feats is the shield feat of “awareness” where the anticipation of a future defeat or shameful fact
operate as a credit to support the blow.”
― Martín Ross, THE SHIELD FEATS THEORY: a different hypothesis concerning the etiology of delusions and other disorders.

“Schizophrenia may affect how we perceive reality, but it cannot diminish the power of our imagination and the strength of our spirit.”
― Dr. Rameez Shaikh

“I have no more fight left, the will to keep going has been extinguished and I am ready to throw in the towel. Nothing matters anymore, my heart is hollow and I see no hope for a better tomorrow. There's nothing that can lighten this heavy burden of despair - it is all too much, and it feels as if there is no end in sight.”
― Jonathan Harnisch

“I am not alone. Existing in this melancholic world causes numerous individuals to feel remorseful and even harbor resentment. Contemplating the world fills me with melancholy. I sense a profound disconnection from the world. Feeling completely drained by my internal and external despair and indifference. I find myself filled with regret and eagerly await the conclusion. I believe my overwhelming anxiety has transformed into anhedonia and depression. Feelings of emptiness and not fitting in are common to all people. Feeling like an outsider hinders connection with others. Once quite the extrovert. I have always experienced a deep sense of disconnection, but at this stage of my life, numerous things have gone awry, making it almost unbearable.”
― Jonathan Harnisch

“We do not set limits when someone is sick, and we 'do' things for sick people instead of encouraging them also to take responsibility for themselves.”
― Anne Deveson, Tell Me I'm Here: One Family's Experience of Schizophrenia

“If we keep telling people they need help, they will stay helpless. It must also have been profoundly demoralising for him to have conversation always focused on fixing up his illness.”
― Anne Deveson, Tell Me I'm Here: One Family's Experience of Schizophrenia

“David, a young man in his mid- twenties, looked at me warily. I had asked him how he knew that something crucial in him had changed. He was silent for a while, and then said, “When the sun burst.”
For David this was a defining moment. He knew he had seen the sun burst. It was impossible that they had not seen this; it could only be that they were lying to him. Why would they do that? It must be because they were in cahoots with the forces that burst the sun. So he had to shut himself up, remain still. He did this for ten years, until his next schizophrenic “episode.”
What does David teach us? Let’s pursue one line of thought. Life is normal until the apocalypse. Even if the signs of catastrophe seem mild—a feeling of being out of place, but it passes, the impression of hearing voices, the sense that something has entered the body—the schizophrenic will never forget those first experiences. Some process seems to be altering the self without any conscious choice involved in the mutation. After these shocks, everything changes. The world is not the same; people are no longer safe. But the rest of humanity seems oblivious. In schizophrenia, unlike other psychotic distresses, there are usually a number of these apocalyptic moments in which the person’s world view is changed.”
― Christopher Bollas, When the Sun Bursts: The Enigma of Schizophrenia

“Even though we shall never know what infants think, we can assume that their first experiences of the world are sensory. These will be made up in utero, for example, of the sound of the mother’s heart and internal organs, the infiltration of light, the senses of movement and taste, and later the sense of smell. What is important is the heterogeneity of the primitive sensorium in its apprehension of lived experience. I believe that many schizophrenics return to this early sensorial world, to somatoform experience and representation. Before wording or conceptual thinking, somatoforms express the self ’s nascent experience through the body’s lexicon. One difficulty we face in understanding schizophrenics is the extent to which we have lost touch with such early forms of experience and representation.”
― Christopher Bollas, When the Sun Bursts: The Enigma of Schizophrenia

“Living with schizophrenia requires immense courage and resilience, as we navigate a world that may not always understand or accept us. But let us remember that our experiences and perspectives are valid, and that our journey has the potential to inspire and empower others.”
― Dr. Rameez Shaikh

“Never tickle your vanity with a vanity press...always go indie and never pay to get published.”
― Donald Harry Roberts, Into The Madness

“Depression in children, adolescents, and young adults is increasing as well. From 2006 to 2917, rates of depression the US increased by 68 percent in children ages twelve to seventeen. In people ages eighteen to twenty-five, there was an increase of 49 percent. For adults over the age of twenty-five, the rate of depression supposedly stayed stable.”
― Christopher M. Palmer, Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health—and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More

“Thus did African American men at Ionia [Hospital] develop schizophrenia, not because of changes in their clinical presentations, but because of changes in the connections between their clinical presentations and larger, national conversations about race, violence, and insanity. And thus did the men develop schizophrenia not because of symptoms, but because of civil rights.”
― Jonathan M. Metzl, The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease

“The world can be divided into good and evil. I am on the side of justice. If I am on the side of good, then someone has to be on the side of evil. Without someone to play the villain, I can't exist. Then, who is going to protect the world?”
― The Queen of Hatred

“Then came the discovery that adrenochrome, which is a product of the decomposition of adrenalin, can produce many of the symptoms observed in mescalin intoxication. But adrenochrome probably occurs spontaneously in the human body. In other words, each one of us may be capable of manufacturing a chemical, minute doses of which are known to cause profound changes in consciousness. Certain of these changes are similar to those which occur in that most characteristc plague of the twentieth century, schizophrenia. Is the mental disorder due to a chemical disorder?”
― Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception

“Critics of the DSM and ICD have argued that disorders are arbitrary labels used to describe typical human experiences that are deemed abnormal. An example of this concept is that different countries have varied expectations and views of what is considered to be normal. A person who claims to talk to spirits might be considered schizophrenic in one culture while being deemed a holy person in another.”
― Stefan Hofmann

“Das unangenehmste aller Symptome bei Schizophrenie ist der Selbstmordtrieb. Ich führe das deswegen an, um einmal deutlich zu sagen, daß die jetzige Gesellschaftsordnung in dieser Richtung vom Psychiater eine große und ganz unangebrachte Grausamkeit verlangt. Man zwingt Leute, denen aus guten Gründen das Leben verleidet ist, weiter zu leben; das ist schon schlimm genug. Aber ganz schlimm ist es, wenn man diesen Kranken mit allen Mitteln das Leben noch unerträglicher macht, indem man sie einer peinlichen Bewachung unterwirft. Der größte Teil unserer ärgsten Zwangsmaßregeln wäre unnötig, wem wir nicht verpflichtet wären, den Kranken ein Leben zu erhalten, das für sie und andere nur negativen Wert hat. Und wenn es noch etwas nützte! Ich bin aber mit Savage überzeugt, daß bei der Schizophrenie gerade durch die Bewachung der Selbstmordtrieb geweckt, gesteigert und unterhalten wird. Nur ausnahmsweise würde sich einer unserer Kranken das Leben nehmen, wenn wir ihn gewähren ließen. Und wenn es auch ein paar mehr sein sollten, die zugrunde gehen — ist es recht, wegen dieses Resultates hunderte von Kranken zu quälen und ihre Krankheit zu verschlimmern? Vorläufig stehen wir Psychiater unter der traurigen Pflicht, grausamen Anschauungen unserer Gesellschaft zu folgen; aber wir haben auch die Pflicht, unser möglichstes zu tun, daß diese Anschauungen sich bald ändern.”
― Eugen Bleuler, Dementia Praecox oder Gruppen der Schizophrenien

“In the deepest shadows of despair, where akathisia whispers its darkest tales, we discover not the end but the beginning of our most profound resilience. Although isolated and battered by storms, it is here, in this pit of suffering, that we discover an unwavering strength to overcome the seemingly impossible. Even amidst the relentless disruption of our nightmares, hope survives, a beacon calling us to rise. We are the evidence that even in the face of Akathisia's cruel grip, the human spirit remains indomitable, forever pushing forward towards renewal and growth.”
― Jonathan Harnisch

“In the deepest shadows of despair, where Akathisia whispers its darkest tales, we discover not the end but the beginning of our most profound resilience. Although isolated and battered by storms, it is here, in this pit of suffering, that we discover an unwavering strength to overcome the seemingly impossible. Even amidst the relentless disruption of our nightmares, hope survives, a beacon calling us to rise. We are the evidence that even in the face of Akathisia cruel grip, the human spirit remains indomitable, forever pushing forward towards renewal and growth.”
― Jonathan Harnisch

“Amidst the depths of despair, where Akathisia's whispers echo, we find not the conclusion but the start of our deepest strength. Despite being alone and facing challenges, it is in this place of intense struggle that we find a resilient determination to conquer what appears insurmountable. Even in the midst of constant turmoil in our worst dreams, there is a glimmer of hope that urges us to keep going. We demonstrate that despite the challenges of Akathisia, the human spirit perseveres, always striving for progress and development.”
― Jonathan Harnisch

“I have no more fight left, the will to keep going has been extinguished and I am ready to throw in the towel. I'm on the verge of giving up. Everything feels meaningless now, my heart is empty and I can't see any light for the future. This unbearable weight of despair seems never-ending, casting a shadow of hopelessness over everything.”
― Jonathan Harnisch