III. Christmas 1979

After getting high that night after Rocky Horror, I was manic for well over two weeks over the christmas break. I'm not sure if this was not also a schizopherenic experience or not. When I was put into St. Joeseph's, the doctor diagnoised me as Paranoid Schizophrenic Manic Depressive. He put me on Thorazine but it was nothing personal, he put all his pateints on Thorazine. For the next six years I was misdiagnoised as a Schizophrenic, then in 1986 a doctor decided correctly that I am bi-polar and put me on Lithium. I got much better after that. I mean you'd get better too if you had Diabetes and they gave you Insulin instead of Sugar. I never was on proper meds until 1986. But none of that really mattered because I never quit doing drugs and alcohol until about that time, and even after that I still drank. In 1992 I got serious about my recovery from drugs and alcohol and outside issues. But my story is kinda like one of those fantasy novels where the heros are lost in a labyrinth. It has taken me a long time to get it all sorted out correctly.
As I said I do not know how similar the schizophrenic experiance is to Mania. If I were to make a guess, I would say that Mania subsides after awhile. It can be arrested and controlled with the proper medication. Schizophrenia can also be treated with medication but that does not necessary halt the schizophrenic experience. I have met many schizophrenics and they always seem to be in an altered psychological state regardless of medical treatment. I am not saying this is true for all schizophrenics. I really don't know.
If I had been born an american indian say in the 19th century, I would've been groomed for a position as shaman once I had my experience with mental illness. From what I have read, when a child was found to be not quite right in the head (suffering from some sort of mental illness) the tribes shaman would take them to the desert and put them in a small shelter. He would bring the child food and water and tell him to let the great spirit come to him and relay to him his dream. This dream would give the child direction in life and then when he grew up he would become the Shaman of the tribe after the old Shaman passed on.
I find this all very interesting because in our society the opposite is true. We have no use for the Mentally Ill. We are afraid of them and we don't want them around. We just would like them to go away, perhaps like the Nazis wanted the Jews to go away. The American Indians not only gave their mentally ill a JOB, they revered and honored them. Meanwhile, we shuffle the mentally ill into state hospitals and outpatient clinics (well, not anymore, most of the funding to help the mentally ill has been cut) and the greatest crime of all is, we let them live and take care of them but we give them ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do. This is Pshychologically DAMNING in itself. I believe a great deal of my illness was caused by neglect when I was in my teens. I also believe that a lot of the mentally ill people should be given the opportunity to do something other than have their illness constantly reinforced by merely only participating in the treatment of a clinic or worse being locked up in a state hospital. Almost every mentally ill person I have ever met smokes. Now they can't even do that once they are put in a hospital. How would you like being locked up and given nothing to do. The mentally ill should not be neglected, it only makes their problems worse.