Saturday, June 6, 2009

Wondering About Just © Megan Snider

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle, you see the blue center-light pop, and everybody goes ahh..."
--Kerouac On the Road (You have to buy this one, kids-- no click to read)

A couple things happened the other day which is bringing Schizophrenia to my attention. It seems to sort of keep looking back up at me from the sidewalk. I'm not going to do an in-depth blog about Schizophrenia without having a lot of ammunition, so you'll have to wait for that one.

I read a man's post on the Internet talking about how he was a teacher and during school he would wonder if he were real and if the students could see him. I'm not sure if the experience terrified him or not. I can't recall the text. Anyway, he mentioned that he was diagnosed as a high-functioning schizophrenic, which is basically what happened with me. But, I still carry confusion with me about the diagnosis. It was rejected by family, horrified my friends and startled me a little bit because I've always been terrified of becoming schizophrenic. Confusion compounds the fact that my counselor disagrees with this diagnosis yet the therapist keeps pushing Haldol at me. Haldol was primarily developed to treat schizophrenia and is still diagnosed for that purpose along with the treatment of psychosis and delirium. It is used for people who have frequent relapses in their mental health.

"You don't have it bad--otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here talking to me."

What, I have a touch of it? Well, sir, you're a touch of an #$@#^%.

Whatever I have doesn't feel great. I don't feel like being on a Metlife commercial or anything.

"For the ifs in life-- like what if you were diagnosed as schizophrenic..."

That's the first thing.

The second thing is something that came to my attention yesterday and today. Yesterday my mother was asking me to look at some writing to determine if someone was really schizophrenic or just pretending. Today I read some of Kerouac's writing and the preposition placement and usage surprised me as well as the fusion and inner combustion of some of the words. Apparently his writing is coined as "Spontaneous Prose". Ok, I can buy that, I suppose. He wrote thirty guidelines to apply to his prose. I'm not going to reproduce them here and frankly, I'm a little scared to reprint some of them here. Ha ha? I like numbers 19 and 29.

19. Accept loss forever
29. You're a Genius all the time

Hm. Sounds a little like my philosophy, too. You're either great or nothing. Anyway, back to the blog. I'm familiar with the "word salad" effect in schizophrenia and everyone knows all the telltale signs, of course. But the placement of words is interesting. Kerouac, might I point out, did not learn English until he was six and spoke French. I know, it must have been horrible for him...French...Oh no...(LOL.)

Sometimes, especially as I've gotten older, I have to reread things quite a bit. I "
mis-see" (I will have another blog about this, too. It has a name-- seriously...) things or I see another word. Sometimes the words knock together in my head and I have to get them to sit down in their seats and settle down so I can take roll call and make a sentence out of the present ones and nonsense out of the tardies. Kerouac made me do that several times. Look at some of the entries from the list:


Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy

Submissive to everything, open, listening

Be in love with your life


Something that you feel will find its own form

Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

The unspeakable visions of the individual

No time for poetry but exactly what is

Visionary tics shivering in the chest

In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you

Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself

Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea

Accept loss forever

Believe in the holy contour of life

Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind

Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better

Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning

No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it

Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form

In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness

Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better

You're a Genius all the time

Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven


I don't have a problem with the wording. I actually like it. But, I am getting a headache again. The "Visionary tics shivering in the chest" remark makes me wonder if he was prescribed Haldol, too. Ha ha.

I'll come back to this post later.


© Megan Snider

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