A day from a year since … then.

Welcoming Ruaridh (pronounced Rory) to the family! Officially an uncle to three. We’re not getting any younger as far as our age is concerned, so the best solution? – live life to the fullest. Sounds cliche but I’ve been trying to live by that line. I guess experiences do change our perspective of our life and help set our priorities.

I’ll share a recent experience which contributed to my strive for the better regardless of the boundaries that lie ahead.

A guest speaker with Schizophrenia came in and gave a talk yesterday. A Schizophrenic usually suffers from hallucinations (seeing things that others don’t) and delusions (thinking that he’s Jesus). There are a lot more symptoms to it but I will not list the rest of it. This elderly man who’s into his 60’s suffers from Delusion of Reference where the person believes that random events, objects, occurrences, behaviors of others etc. were significantly related to him. For example, when he listens to the radio or when he watches the TV he will feel that everything that they are saying or showing were as if being directed to him personally. Also, he believes that everyone (strangers on the street) are talking about him although that’s not true. Upon knowing about his sickness sometime after, he seeks medical help.

Back in 1970s, medical aid wasn’t as high-tech as it is now. And what shocked me was, there wasn’t really a medical aid to those suffering from mental illness. Due to the lack of knowledge and understanding of various mental diseases, doctors back then prescribe “pills” and told the patients to take them and not ask questions. What the patients did not know were these “pills” were either a sedative that increases calmness and sleepiness or a more shocking truth, a pill that kills. That’s right, patients back then were given pills that did little or no help; more harm than good. There was a self-report from his wife, who was also Schizophrenic, saying that there was one time where this one pill caused warts to grow on her body which goes up to a centimetre thick, bleeding at some parts.

However, this man was given sedatives everyday for months. All he did was get up, eat, sleep (due to pills) for every single day. I believe sedatives were useful back then because if one is asleep, he/she will not experience hallucinations or delusions. But really, can you really live like this for the rest of your life? Not to him. He decided to stay off the pills and mentally fight his disabling illness. He goes on having social interaction which helps remind that you’re not the only one: He meets up with other people suffering from similar disease and have activities together. As the years past, R&D introduced new effective pills which eased his struggle with the disease without medication. Today, he hold important posts at quite a number of organizations and is proud to say he has contributed to society like any other would.

I believe impossible is non-existent.