Radioland Visits Broadmoor

I am a regular listener to This American Life on the public radio here in the US. Their last show, titled Pro Se after the legal term for representing oneself in court, really caught my attention. The first long story in it is about a man, here given the pseudonym Tony, who faked mental illness to avoid prison for committing grievous bodily harm. He ended up in one of the highest security units at Broadmoor and has been there for twelve years.

The story goes into detail about the difficulty of shaking a psychiatric diagnosis, especially within the context of a psychiatric hospital. There was a well known study done about the 'stickiness' of psychiatric diagnoses back in the 70's; I can't remember who just now but there is a copy of it somewhere in my research folder and I will find it. The story also includes something new to me - perhaps I've been under a rock and this isn't news to anyone else - which is the Scientologists' campaign against psychiatry. Now that I know about it, I wonder whether that might be behind some of the comments I've seen.

Anyhow, I can't write a proper post about this just now because I am off to my parents' today and I won't have the necessary books with me to write what I want to about it. The reason I have gone ahead and put this up is that This American Life will let you download their shows for free for one week so I thought I'd give anyone interested the chance to do so. If you're reading this after Saturday, you can always listen to any of their shows for free by streaming.




"Brian says Tony's story demonstrates that no two psychiatrists can agree on anything and they basically just make it up as they go along. I think his story demonstrates that it is a huge mistake to screw with psychiatrists and you should be careful not to tell people you're crazy, because you might turn out to be way too convincing about it."

Tony's story is told by Jon Ronson.

Lenten Listening

For all those of you who want a little comparative religion scholarly talk or some interesting Lenten listening, here is a link that will take you to an interview with Bart Ehrman on the radio show Fresh Air. It's a very interesting discussion about the differences among the four gospels and the ways they are used in church liturgy. Ehrman recently wrote Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them).

I had just translated the Latin text to the Tenebrae we're singing at church this year before I heard this and it made me think twice about the two statements of Jesus in it, the first one being Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti (My God, why have you abandoned me?) and the second one being Pater in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum (Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.) I didn't realize, poor biblical scholar that I am, that these came from two different gospels but it's one of the first things mentioned in the interview.


The whole text of the Tenebrae

Tenebrae factae sunt dum crucifixissent Jesu Judaei. Et circa horam nonam, exclamavit Jesus voce magnam: Deus meus, ut quid me dereliquisti. Et inclinato capite, emisset spiritum. Exclamans Jesus voce magna, ait: Pater in manus tuas, commendo spiritum meum. Et inclinato capite, emisset spiritum.

Darkness had fallen when they crucified Jesus of Judea; and about the ninth hour, Jesus called out in a loud voice: ‘My God, why have you abandoned me?’
And bowing his head, he breathed out his spirit.
Crying out, Jesus in a loud voice said: ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’
And, bowing his head, he breathed out his spirit.

Time for My Pills

Yesterday I did something I probably should not have done.

In the late afternoon all the anxiety that had been building came to the point of being unbearable. So, I took a klonopin. Half an hour later, no difference. I thought, well, take another and I did. Still nothing. So I took another.

Finally, everything began to ebb away and I could at least sit still and stop picking on myself. I finished up a few things and headed off to bed where I fell blissfully asleep.

I was more than a little hungover today, bumping into things and walking from one end of the apartment to another for reasons I couldn't remember. I made myself walk to church because I though that it wouldn't be a good idea to drive. I dropped my music at least six or seven times this morning; I'm glad none of it went sailing down from the choir loft onto unsuspecting parishoners' heads. I've been fatigued and wobbly all day but quite relaxed. I sang much better this morning than I usually do - less worried about accidentally squeaking on the high notes, I suppose.

Then, too, I've had the less fun side effects. They don't always pop up when I take klonopin but they did this time. I kept getting tearful over all manner of things in the afternoon. I felt leaden and a little depressed for a few hours. I don't know why that will sometimes happen with klonopin and sometimes not. Most times not, really, now that I've been taking it a while.

When I was first out of the hospital I took 2.5 mgs a day, spread out. I could hardly walk but for the first time in years I wasn't eaten up by anxiety and self-loathing. Since then I've weaned off to the point of taking a half milligram every now and again. I take it in bursts, usually. I took one every day for the first week and a half of school to stop myself building up place-associated anxiety. Now that school is familiar again and not full of fearful recent impressions, I've stopped taking it.

When I took three of them yesterday (ssh. . .don't tell my psychiatrist I did that) I reasoned to myself that I used to take more than that on a daily basis and that therefore it was unlikely to have too much of an effect. I was so wrong. My tolerance did slip away; very, very far away. I will not be doing that again in a hurry. I suppose I might if I really enjoyed the 'stoned' feeling of it, but then, if I did enjoy such feelings I would probably have continued to take seroquel or geodon!

Was it worth it? I don't know. I did run through most of my first response anti-anxiety activities: bath, mint or other herbal tea, walk, pleasant errand, and the usual cure-all of distraction by dvd or NPR. However, I was too distracted to be distracted and I let the kettle boil over. I also tried the phone a friend option but it being Saturday night, I hadn't much luck with that.

It was worth it in that I didn't get to the point of a full blown, banging on the walls, decorating my legs with insults in ink kind of panic attack. It was too much hangover/side effect-wise.

Now I just wish I could figure out where that one came from.

I heard it on NPR

and it's worth worrying about.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97713906