mental illness and stigmas: saving the people with schizophrenia

This week I decided to do research on the mental disorder of schizophrenia.  This disease has always interested me, since I first heard about it.  In my nursing mental and behavioral health class, we touched on the subject, but I wanted to do my own research on the topic.  Moreover, I truly wanted to explore how people live with this disease every day and how it affects their human dignity every day. 

Approximately 1% of the world’s population will develop schizophrenia at some point during their lifetime. This severe, disabling neurological disease is chronic and there is no cure. Although it affects both men and women equally, men are usually diagnosed earlier, in their late teens or early twenties. Schizophrenia symptoms are complex and the disorder can be difficult to diagnose, particularly in its early stages. People who have schizophrenia often have terrifying psychotic symptoms such as hearing voices in their heads, or believing that others are controlling their thoughts, reading their minds, or plotting against them. These symptoms often leave them afraid and withdrawn, so people living with schizophrenia can be incomprehensible or scary to other people because their speech patterns and behavior are disorganized and bizarre.

The initial signs indicating schizophrenia often appear as behavioral changes that may be confusing or shocking. A sudden onset of symptoms is referred to as being an “acute phase” of the disorder. Psychosis is a common symptom of schizophrenia where the patient is mentally impaired by hallucinations, delusions, and the inability to discern what is real and what is not real. Less obvious symptoms may precede, occur along with, or follow severe psychotic symptoms. Some people have a single episode of psychosis, but others have them many times throughout their lives, yet they lead fairly normal lives between episodes. However, a person who has chronic schizophrenia usually does not recover completely normal functioning, and they often require long-term medical treatment, usually requiring medication, in order to control their symptoms.

There are treatments for schizophrenia that can relieve many of the symptoms, but very few patients recover completely and most continue to suffer symptoms of some sort throughout their lives. Suicide is a danger for people diagnosed with schizophrenia; approximately 10% of all patients commit suicide, especially younger males. Medications can other treatments can control symptoms when used regularly and as prescribed, but there are persistent consequences of schizophrenia that can be very troubling - lost opportunities, medication side effects, social stigmas, and residual symptoms that never go away completely.

Overall, people with schizophrenia do not live successful lives, healthy well-beings, or strong relationships.  Nothing is easy for them and they are constantly stigmatized in society.  They are looked down upon and are feared because they are not considered “normal”.  Based on these findings, the dignity of these human beings is greatly affected.  They become so hopeless and so depressed due to their own diagnosis and what people say that they kill themselves.  We need to step up and stop this stigmatization.  We can save lives, and save people’s dignity who have schizophrenia or any other mental illness. 

3/22 ~ Medicine and Dignity

This week we read provocative medical topics.  Topics, which I have discussed in my Biomedical Ethics, but not delving into the depths of human dignity and medicine as much as this class is making me do.  For me I chose the article by Gawande, A called “Letting Go;” it was about keeping people alive on life-sustaining medicine, and the people who chose to die without those measures.

The article centered around one particular person, a young woman with end-stage lung cancer.  She just had her first child, and was told she was going to die.  They did everything to keep her alive, but no treatment worked. She only got sicker and sicker, until she got pneumonia and slowly slipped into and out of death, before she finally took her last breath.  Her parents and sister wanted to keep her alive, but her husband let her go.  There was nothing more that could be done.  They all knew that, but they did not want to believe it.  I believe this article is directly related to human dignity.  The family and doctors respected the woman’s wish to try everything, but at the end they let her go.  In addition, they did not stop her from being a mother or a wife; they never stopped her from being human.  They let her live her life, a painful life, but her spirit was able to retain its dignity to the last breathe and beyond.

For me this article brought up some tough memories.  My uncle/godfather had terminal brain cancer.  It was a tumor that he was born with, but no one knew he had.  Near the last couple weeks of his life, he was not the same person.  After all his extensive brain surgery he lost everything that made him human, he was in a vegetative state.  He could neither look you in the eyes, smile, or laugh.  I was too young to know what was going on, but I knew it was something bad.  My aunt made the final decision to “pull the plug” on his life-sustaining measures.  To me I thought she killed my uncle, I thought, “Why couldn’t we wait, He could pull out of this eventually.”  Knowing what I know now, I understand that my aunt made a really rough decision, and it was the right one.  Medicine would have not brought my uncle back to himself.  His brain was so damaged by chemo, radiation and surgical resection, that all his human traits were gone.  He was nothing, but a shell.  A shell is not a life and I believe holds no dignity.  ‘Letting go’ was the best decision, and also it makes me wonder how my aunt feels everyday knowing what she had to do to give my uncle his life back before he drift away.

This whole topic of letting go and life-sustaining measures connects to the theorist Peter Singer’s thoughts and ideas.  According to Singer, he holds that the right to life is intrinsically tied to a being's capacity to hold preferences, which in turn is intrinsically tied to a being's capacity to feel pain and pleasure.  Therefore, if a person cannot feel pain or pleasure then the person cannot possibly be alive or human.  For instance, Singer would agree with the idea of “Letting go” to what happened to the young woman in the article and my uncle.  However, since my uncle was born with this disease.  Singer would have easily decided to put my uncle out his misery early in life.  Additionally, the young woman knew of her tough road of her incurable disease, but still fought hard.  Singer would have told her to give up. 

We must make our own decisions; we cannot base them on previous experiences or theorists’ ideas.  We must place trust in our own hearts and minds to know what is right for us.  We cannot choose for others what we find best for us.  It does not work that way.  I chose my own path of life sustaining measures or “letting go,” and I will respect anyone’s wishes for what they want.  This is human dignity to me.

A Quiet Time

The experiential learning that we did in class gave me an hour of my life back.  I was able to take back control of the things that were taken away from me.  I could listen to my heartbeat and watch the rise and fall of my chest during each inhalation and exhalation I took.  It was only me.  There was no one to make me feel bad about myself; there was no one to make me feel less.  With this hour of solitude I knew I needed more than that one time in class, I needed to make this hour for myself everyday if I were to truly take back control. 

The dove grasping an olive branch in its mouth is a sign of peace.  I am looking for this sign that things will turn out alright, but I need to start making my own peace and serentiy.  This is something you cannot go out and find, you need to make it happen.

Moreover, I have been going through some really rough times with my roommates to the point where I end up crying myself to sleep and stay at Carlow until night.  I do not feel appreciated, I feel rejected physically and wounded emotionally.  It is a toxic place to live, but it is the only place I have right now during school.  To find an hour of solitude is almost impossible in this place.  Thus, I looked for other means to find my peace, but it was hard.  However, I do find peace the peace I so desperately need while I exercise in the gym or sit on the bus.  It is not the hour that I strive for or the perfect environment of serenity, but for now it works for me. I need a mental and physical escape, and this experiential learning gave me to first step to taking back what rightfully belongs to me. 

Sacredness of Creation: Living a Core Value of Carlow University

“We reverence each person and all of creation and the diversity they embody.” This is the Sacredness of Creation Core Value of Carlow University. The above definition was taken from the university's website.

I chose this specific core value to practice for seven days and blog about because it is something that I never really understood and took the time to live out.  The first thing I did was to break down the core value, so I could better comprehend and perform it more effectively.  Therefore, my interpretation of the value is we the Carlow community (students, staff, etc.) will respect and admire each human being, and all that make up the person inside and out; hence, valuing the human of any form or background without prejudice or disregard. 

To me, the college experience was going to be life changing and educating.  I never thought or delved too deep into Carlow’s mission statement, core values or sisters of mercy.   I am definitely not the person or student I was when I arrived at Carlow in August of 2008, and I will probably not be the same person when I graduate.  I never thought a college would concentrate so much on the human spirit.  I feel that everything that Carlow wants us to take from this experience is to find ourselves, through empowering others and embracing service to make a better world that is just and merciful. 

 I have spent the last week focusing on this core value, and thinking about how exactly the idea of Sacredness of Creation related to me. I found that, this value made me question myself each day.  For instance, did I say the right thing to make sure I reverenced someone’s dignity and humanity?  It made me check myself multiple times; to make sure I was following the core value.  It made me more aware of what I was thinking, saying, and doing.  I was taking a more active rather than passive role in helping others, and giving compliments to people I never meant.  I was making people smile and it made me feel wonderful.  I made sure that everything that was coming out of my mouth and off my hands was considerate and full of empowerment for the people around me.  Everyone is special, everyone is different, yet we all have a similar beating heart and a soul.  I feel like a better person because I was able to focus on others rather than myself.  I forget that there is this greater world out, and that we need to make a gesture in it to show that we are here and that we care. 

I felt that this value directly related to human dignity.  For myself, it fit my personal definition of human dignity almost perfectly and the class’s definition quite well.  Respect and interpersonal relationships are evident throughout the “Sacredness of Creation” core value, and they are major points for understanding human dignity.  People around the world should try to strive to live this value each day.  So many people could benefit from its single sentence definition.  Things could really change for all of us.  This world needs appreciation and understanding for each other, and without it, I do not believe we are humans at all.  We would be shells without emotion.  This core is the emotion and passion that is needed to make human dignity and to make the world a better place. 

Restoring Dignity

An example of dignity withheld or exemplification of humanity in my lifetime is this story of the Chilean miners in 2010.  On August 5, 2010, a cave-in occurred at the San José copper-gold mine in the Atacama Desert near Copiapó, Chile. The accident left 33 men trapped 700 meters (2,300 ft) below ground.  The miners survived underground for a record 69 days.  All 33 were rescued and brought to the surface on October 13, 2010. 

One by one, from the strongest to the weakest, the men surfaced and were able to breathe in a new air of freedom. The youngest miner, 19 surfaced and into the open arms of his wife and months old baby; the oldest, 63 surfaced, and dropped to his knees in prayer, while holding the Chilean flag. As the rescue capsule, the Phoenix, painted in the colors of the Chilean flag, dutifully, made its descent and ascent, repeatedly, into the deep, dark and narrow opening, and not without the prayers from all their families and all their new fans from around the world.  There are continued concerns for the health and psychosocial well-being of the miners.  Soon, the reality of their rescue and the resumption of normal life will set in as the stress of their own surface problems remind them that they are now home. 

The greatest thing to come from this momentous event is that it brings us all too again understanding and the underlying purpose of humanity.  In addition, of how faith and hope can still be the light that shines forth redeeming the imperishable will of the human spirit.  That determination and the goodwill of others, even in our darkest hours, will always remain the redeeming quality of humankind’s ability to unite and be an unyielding resource for all humanity.  Our society will move forward as a united force.  I saw the world work together to save the lives of 33 men: drillers from Pittsburgh, NASA, and other international outlets came.  It was a changing day in history.  Society will remember this day by making great strides to continue the human spirit, and to continue the exemplification of human dignity to people who are unable to restore dignity themselves. 

Week Six: Human Dignity Violation

This week’s assignment was to research a violation of human dignity that has occurred in my lifetime.  Well, the only one I could think of is the one that occurred in my own backyard.  [I will be changing the names to protect the people mentioned] On April 5, 2008, Jane Doe, a sixth grader at Pleasant Hills Middle school, was killed in a two-vehicle collision.  The young man accused of killing her pleaded guilty to homicide by vehicle and aggravated assault while driving under the influence.  The young man, who was 17 at the time, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.05 when the crash occurred, had marijuana in his system and was driving 79 mph in a 35 mph speed zone.

I knew the girl and her family, and the boy who killed her.  I sat in front of this boy for most of life in school.  I would talk to him; everyone knew he did drugs and alcohol.  However, no one did anything.  Everyone stood around and watched it happen.  I watched it happen.  I did nothing.  I think back every day, could I have done something to change the course of events.  Could I have said, “Stop drinking or stop making stupid choices, or something to that degree?”  I feel like this violation could have been prevented.   If the boy was given the time and attention, he needed then he would not have gone down the road he did. This boy grew up in a bad family, where alcohol, drugs, and violence were prevalent.  His human dignity was almost non-apparent.  He lost himself, and we did nothing but stand around.  The community felt like we caused this to happen, we all felt out dignity go down.  We felt ashamed of ourselves.  For me, I felt the world on my shoulders. 

For my society to keep going on after this is hard and painful tragedy.  Due to the fact, that we lost someone young and special, and it damaged the lives of the people of whom she touched.  The community was wounded deeply, but slowly was healing.  The society started to change its way of thinking.  By creating more law enforcement on the roads to watch for speeding and drunk driving, educating the schools with drunk driving seminars, and creating overall awareness for people who have friends who drink and do drugs.  I have seen the community become safer to walk and drive in.  I feel safer in my community, but why did this act against human dignity need to happen.  Why did someone have to die? Why could not anyone do anything about it?  Why did we not speak up and help the boy to save the girl?  I feel that these violations will no matter what, and we must learn from these.  This is incredible hard to say, but from the ashes of our death; we will rise stronger and smarter.  The only thing we can do is move forward, learn from our mistakes, and keeping going, keep living.

Valentine's Day

Happy valentine's day!  Hope you day is filled with respect and love because everyone deserves a little joy in their lives, to lift their spirits and to let their souls sing.  Enjoy the freedom of loving and receving love. 

Moreover, a little discussion about dignity and relationship. This blog has nothing directly involved with my week's assignment, but dseigned of my own free will.  We all have a relationship with everything. Obviously the relationship we have with the people and objects in our immediate vicinity is more intimate than the rest of the world. For most of us the most common relationship is possession. In our minds we think we own and possess things like cars and houses. This thinking easily spreads into jobs and tasks and even other people. For example, "I want you", and "You are mine alone", is the essence of many romantic film scripts and song lyrics.  It is not possible to possess anything. Care for..yes. Use...yes. But possess...no. You can't take it with you when you go. And yet it's the idea of possession which lies at the heart of all fear, war and conflict. Can you see it? Fear of loss, fear of not acquiring what we have already decided is ours in our minds. Therefore, be a trustee. Everything comes to us in trust, for us to use and then to set it free. The consciousness of trustee sets us free of the tension of grasping and guarding. To see ourselves as trustees of everything that we receive, including our bodies, encourages our innate capacity to 'care for with dignity'. It is a much more relaxing way of relating to the things which we are privileged to receive in life.