At the conclusion of my last SharePost, submitted on 4 January, 2009, I cited a quotation by Morag Coate and asked that visitors read the quote and give us their reaction to it in the form of a comment to the SharePost.
The quotation reads as follows -
" To one who is mad, the world is still real, but it has a new meaning; people are real too, close and powerful and perhaps dangerous, but among them all, the individual is alone. This is the essential feature when we penetrate insanity. Not that the world is less with us, but that another world pervades it too, and we, seeing and experiencing life on a different plane, are cut off from communication with the sane around us: the sane and blinkered folk who do not see and must not know or would never believe the vast, vital, urgent and perhaps cataclysmic truths of which we, alone among them, are aware."
----- Morag Coate
My reactions to this quotation are several, which I set out below, point by point. Remember, I am not a provider (psychiatrist, psychiatric nurse practitioner, or a licensed clinical social worker). I write from my own experience and am not rendering any form of therapy or advice.
I believe the author is describing some of the symptoms of paranoid delusions. His description is consistent with my own experience. I believed Satan, three of his demons, and a whole of "orphaned voices" were talking to me and about me. Such paranoid delusions are common among individuals with schizophrenia, but can occur with other diagnoses as well. In contrast with the author, I felt alone only in the very early stages of my illness. This was, I believe, in large part to the "unconditional acceptance" extended to me by my first psychiatrist, as well as his empathy for my plight. While my psychiatrist never endorsed any of my delusions, I always felt that he understood what was happening to me. In my experience, feeling alone was not the essential feature of my illness.
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