19 Chill Gifts For The Stoner Type
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Who Gets To Be The "Good Schizophrenic"?
Isabel Seliger for BuzzFeed News
Every morning, I take a small pink pill; every night, I take one-and-a-half of the same pink pill. This is, my psychiatrist reasons, what has kept me functioning for the last two years without hallucinations or delusions. But for most of 2013, I was a psychotic wreck. I refer to it as My Death Year. My beloved grandfather died, and I was too crazy to attend the funeral; also, the year ended with a serious bout of psychosis called Cotard’s Delusion that led me to believe that I was dead. I spent most of that year spinning in and out of different harrowing beliefs: there were spiders in my brain, my husband had poisoned my tea, there were cameras spying on me in every corner of the flat, and so on.
2013 was also the year that I surrendered my last benchmark of sanity, otherwise known as my full-time job at a fast-paced startup company. For years, holding down an office job had been what I believed sincerely, and perhaps a bit desperately, separated me from others of my ilk, but I stepped away from my 9-to-5 because my job, despite its accommodations and allowances, exacerbated my illness.
In 2006, as a senior at Stanford who had transferred from Yale, I began to exhibit symptoms of schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, which can be described as a marriage of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Schizoaffective disorder is listed under Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders in the DSM-5 and is not one of the five subcategories of schizophrenia itself. However, they both share the 295 designation, of which there are three disorders — schizophrenia, schizophreniform disorder, and schizoaffective disorder — and are therefore considered closely related.
And yet my official diagnosis — the one recorded in my HMO’s vast database of patient information — didn’t change to schizoaffective disorder until I became so desperately ill that I was referred for an electroconvulsive therapy consultation. The disorder had been suspected, but not recorded, in part because schizoaffective disorder has a gloomier prognosis and stigma than bipolar disorder does, and even psychiatrists are susceptible to being swayed by the implications of a different DSM code; also, psychiatry operates by treating symptoms and not a root cause, and so my psychopharmacological treatment was not impacted by the change in my chart.
In Blue Nights, Joan Didion remarks, “I have not yet seen that case in which a ‘diagnosis’ led to a ‘cure,’ or in fact to any outcome other than a confirmed, and therefore an enforced, debility.” Living under the shadow of a new “code” bore no curative function, but it did imply that to be high-functioning would be difficult, and it warned me that to live beyond that code would be a tricky gambit. A therapist had already told me in my mid-twenties that I was her only client who was able to hold down a full-time job. Having a job, among psychiatric researchers, is considered one of the major characteristics of being a high-functioning person.
During my first inpatient experience at a psychiatric hospital, I met two patients who were treated as markedly different from the rest of us — I will call them Pauline and Laura. Pauline was middle-aged and chatty; Laura was the only other Asian woman on the ward, and spoke to no one. We patients rarely spoke of our diagnoses — at the time, I was labeled as having bipolar disorder, with traits of borderline personality disorder — but everyone knew that Pauline and Laura were the two with schizophrenia.
Pauline was friendly and would roll up in her wheelchair speaking disjointed monologues about the psychiatrists’ “mind control experiments” — her ramblings paranoid enough to be considered psychotic, yet realistic enough to be unsettling to a vulnerable mind. In less coherent periods, her stories dissolved into the verbal nonsense known as “word salad,” in which one word was only tenuously related to the one that came before it, and the lot of them as a whole meant nothing at all. These problems with communication caused her to be excluded, by doctors’ decree, from otherwise mandatory group therapy sessions. I treated Pauline as though she had a contagion; after every interaction, I was contaminated by the anxiety that I was just like her even though I hadn’t, at that time, yet experienced psychosis. Perhaps I sensed it thrumming in myself even back then.
And then there was Laura, whom I never interacted with, because I was afraid of her and what madness her existence implied; but I remember her yelling as she was pulled out of the hall bathroom, interrupted in an attempt to vomit up her medications. “They’re poison!” she screamed as two nurses yanked at her arms. “They’re trying to poison me! They’re trying to kill me!”
A natural hierarchy arose in the hospital, guided by both our own sense of functionality and the functionality perceived by the doctors, nurses, and social workers that treated us. Depressives, who constituted most of the ward’s population, were at the top of the chain, whether or not they were receiving ECT (electroconvulsive therapy). Because we were in the Yale Psychiatric Institute (now known as the Yale Psychiatric Hospital), many of those hospitalized with depression were Yalies, and therefore considered bright people who’d simply wound up in a bad situation. In the middle were those with anorexia and bipolar disorder — two disorders not necessarily linked by nature, but lumped together from a lack of other diagnoses on the ward. I was considered to be in this group, and perhaps even as highly ranked as the depressives because of my status as a student at Yale. The ones with schizophrenia, on the other hand, landed at the rock bottom — excluded from group therapy, seen as lunatic and raving, and incapable of fitting into the requirements of normalcy.
I’ve seen the psychiatric hierarchy elsewhere — a hierarchy of who can be seen as high-functioning and “gifted,” and who can be seen as not being capable of either. A much-liked meme on Facebook circulated months ago, in which a chart listed so-called advantages to various mental illnesses. Depression bestowed sensitivity and empathy; ADHD allowed people to hold large amounts of information at once; anxiety created useful caution. I knew before reading it that schizophrenia wouldn’t make an appearance. As with most marginalized groups, there are those who are considered more socially appropriate than others. Being seen as inevitable failures by the dominant culture causes a desire to distance yourself from other, similarly marginalized people who are seen as even less capable of success.
The book Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, by Jenny Lawson, was recommended to me over and over again as a hilarious book that embraced those with mental illness. Lawson, the beloved blogger behind The Bloggess, has been diagnosed with a variety of conditions, including depression and avoidant personality disorder. Yet she explains early on in Furiously Happy that she is on antipsychotics — not because she is psychotic, but because it decreases the length of her depressive episodes. “There is nothing better than hearing that there is a drug that will fix a terrible problem,” she writes, “unless you also hear that the drug is for treating schizophrenia (or possibly that it kills fairies every time you take it).” That line, for me, drew a line in the sand: My psychiatric condition, and the medications I take for it, make me as bad as a fairy killer; but if I were taking Haldol as a “side dish” for depression, I’d remain on the proper side of crazy.
Lawson, I’d like to believe, is trying to be honest rather than mean-spirited. No one wants to be crazy, least of all truly crazy — as in, psychotic. According to stereotype, schizophrenics are seen as some of the most dysfunctional members of society: We are homeless, we are inscrutable, and we are murderers. We are mass shooters like James Holmes, Jiverly Wong, Maj. Nidal Hasan, and Jared Loughner. Less headline-grabbing are people such as Elyn Saks, a recipient of the MacArthur “genius” grant who is a University of Southern California law professor, advocate, and author of a critically acclaimed memoir about life with schizophrenia. In a 2008 paper, Saks recalls, “When I was examined for readmission to Yale Law School, the psychiatrist suggested I might spend a year working at a low-level job, perhaps in fast food, which would allow me to consolidate my gains so that I could do better when I was readmitted.” The criteria for being able to return to a top-ranking law school, it seems, is being able to have a job, thus proving that you’ve returned to productivity — yet having schizophrenia is seen as canceling out the abilities that allowed someone like Saks to get into law school in the first place.
But Saks is exceptional. My desire to put myself on par with a genius grant winner says something about my ambition; it also says something about my desire to separate myself from the reality of those who are not living well with schizophrenia, and who would struggle to work in any capacity. While fighting with my insurance company over disability benefits, I tearfully tried to explain that I can’t work at McDonald’s, but I can run a business based on freelance work; place me in a high-stress environment with no ability to control my environment or my schedule, and I will rapidly begin to decompensate vis-à-vis demonic hallucinations. Being able to work for myself, while still challenging, allows greater freedom in my schedule and exerts less pressure on my mind. Like Saks, I am high-functioning, but I’m a high-functioning person with an unpredictable and low-functioning illness. I think of this while contemplating Susan, a woman described in Andrew Solomon’s book Far From the Tree, who is described as responding well to antipsychotic medication: “Intermittently, I have little things trigger here and there, but they only last a day or two. ... Some people get stressed and their back goes out. I get stressed and my mind goes out. But then it comes back.” I may not be the “appropriate” type of crazy. Sometimes, my mind does go out, leaving me frightened of poison in my tea or corpses in the parking lot. But then it comes back.
Because I am capable of achievement, I find myself uncomfortable around visibly psychotic people, or people with schizophrenia who are expected to never rise above a certain level on the Global Assessment of Functioning. My tendency to avoid the Paulines and Lauras of the world remains with me, and has in fact strengthened, even after my diagnosis shifted to more closely match theirs. I’m uncomfortable because I don’t want to be lumped in with the screaming man on the bus, or the woman who speaks in loose associations at the mental health clinic. I’m uncomfortable because I know that these, in many ways, are my people in ways that those who have never experienced psychosis can’t understand, and to shun them is to shun a large part of myself. In my mind, there is a line between myself and those like Pauline and Laura; to others, that line is thin, or is so negligible as to not be a line at all.
Esmé Weijun Wang is an essayist and the author of The Border of Paradise: A Novel, to be published by Unnamed Press in April 2016. Her work has appeared in Salon, Catapult, The Believer, The New Inquiry, and Jezebel. She writes at esmewang.com and tweets at @esmewang.
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John Kasich Can't Stop Eating
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17 Things To Know Before You Start Therapy
Just in case you’re imagining yourself sprawled on a chaise lounge as your therapist asks, “And how does that make you feel?”
But even once you've decided on a therapist (find out how to do that here), not knowing what to expect can be intimidating.
So to help you feel as mentally prepared as possible, BuzzFeed Health talked to Stephanie Smith, Ph.D., clinical psychologist in Colorado, and Ryan Howes, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and professor at Fuller Graduate School of Psychology. Here's what they want you to know about starting therapy:
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Hilary Duff's '90s Glamour Shot Is The Most Relatable Picture Ever
1993 Hilary is all of us.
Let's face it — Glamour Shots in the '90s were THE THING. Everyone did it and chances are they probably looked extremely cheesy like this fake one of RiRi that NEVER gets old:
Well, even celebs were victims of Glamour Shots back in the day, and Hilary Duff took to Twitter to share her G-Shot straight from 1993:
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This Video Perfectly Sums Up How Garbage It Is To Date In L.A.
“I live in Venice.” *Runs away*
For anyone living and *trying* to date in L.A., you know it's essentially purgatory:
Going to bars can feel like a total crapshoot.
Especially when EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. you meet is in "the industry."
OK, and like maybe you are too...but YOU'RE DIFFERENT, OK?!
You'll definitely come across a couple actors who have "SAG-AFTRA" in their Tinder bio along with a couple of headshots.
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Do You Actually Prefer Dogs Or Cats?
Time to face the music.
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13 Times Doug Funnie's Anxiety Issues Were Too Real
We are all Doug.
When he thought he was going to be inducted into the Bluffington Hall of Losers for failing a test.
Nickelodeon
When he drew an unflattering picture of Mrs. Wingo in class, and then felt so bad about it that he imagined it came to his house that night to weep at his doorstep.
Nickelodeon
When he panicked so much over sixth grade graduation that he crawled through the school vents during the ceremony trying to find the principal for advice.
Nickelodeon
When Roger framed him for stealing Assistant Principal Bone's yodeling trophy, and he worried the theft would go down on his permanent record forever.
Nickelodeon
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This Dude Is Turning Fear Into Fascination With Snake Foot Massages
Can you make it through this video without saying: “F*ck that shit”?
This is Kiwi photographer, free diver and all round fucking champion smokin' hot bloke Matt Draper.
Instagram: @mattdraperphotography
Matt lives and works in "God's Own Paradise" aka Byron Bay, NSW, Australia – where he spends his days surfing, swimming and chilling with the locals.
Instagram: @mattdraperphotography
This week Matt's (amazing) Instagram profile exploded after he posted a batshit insanely brilliant video...
Instagram: @mattdraperphotography
Can you get through this video without going "HOLY FUCKING SHIT"?!!!! 🐍 😝
Instagram: @mattdraperphotography
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23 Ways To Cover Your Life In Lipstick
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14 Reasons Kids Today Don't Stand A Chance
Whitney Houston once said, “I believe that children are our future.” That scares me.
Kids then: On their way to a Britney concert in a limo.
Getty Images
Kids today: This girl is literally feeding yogurt to a poster.
caydencemeliormagna.tumblr.com
Kids then: What a lovely group of friends.
Getty Images
Kids today: She got "married" to a Harry Styles cardboard cutout in a basement.
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21 Male Celebrities In 2006 Compared With Now
Like fine wine.
Leonardo DiCaprio then:
He was an Academy Award–nominated actor and environmentalist who dated young models.
Evan Agostini / Getty Images
Now:
He is an Academy Award winning actor and environmentalist who dates young models.
Yuriko Nakao / Getty Images
Oscar Isaac then:
Starred in a religious movie.
Frazer Harrison / Getty Images
Now:
Starred in a religious space movie.
Frederic J. Brown / AFP / Getty Images
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19 Really Funny Harry Potter Posts That You Maybe Haven't Seen Yet
The Potter fandom keeps on pumping out hilarious Tumblr posts!
This short rap.
This very important life advice.
This relatable book title.
This scene from an American wizarding school.
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If Disney Villains Were Rubber Bands
Can they bounce back from this?
As Jafar:
Pedro Fequiere / BuzzFeed / Disney / Flickr Creative Commons / Via Flickr: yuan2003
As Ursula:
Pedro Fequiere / BuzzFeed / Disney / Flickr Creative Commons / Via Flickr: yuan2003
As Maleficent:
Pedro Fequiere / BuzzFeed / Disney / Flickr Creative Commons / Via Flickr: yuan2003
As Scar:
Pedro Fequiere / BuzzFeed / Disney / Flickr Creative Commons / Via Flickr: yuan2003
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13 Shows To Watch With The Gryffindor In Your Life
Indulge in tales of daring and courage.
Amplionus / Thinkstock
Friday Night Lights
Honestly one of the most emotionally fulfilling Gryffindor sagas out there. It's about the courage of daily life, and the nerve required in finding your best self. Give your heart over to this show for a while.
The entire series is available for streaming on Netflix.
NBC
Daredevil
It makes all kinds of sense for a lot of superhero stories to fall into Gryffindor territory – but even within that arena Matt Murdock distinguishes himself as extra Gryffindory. Rest assured, Godric himself would give this self-torturing brand of heroism the nod.
The entire series is available to stream on Netflix.
Netflix
Jessica Jones
Jessica does heroism differently than a lot of superhero stories. She embraces her own flaws in a much more head-on way than a lot of brooding heroes; she stares right in the face of her own shortcomings and works to resist self-flagellation. She also runs from her own desire to help – until she stops running, turns around, and dives right in. It's a much more raw fight for justice than your average modern vigilante tale.
The first season (and the only season so far) is available to stream on Netflix.
Netflix
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This One Question Quiz Will Tell You A Dumb Joke Based On Your Mood
Have a laugh, you’ve earned it!
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Finally, The First Pics Of Anne Hathaway's Son Are Here
THESE ARE REAL!
Without further ado, here he is: baby Jonathan!
Wavebreakmedia Ltd / Getty Images
So cute.
Sergiyn / Getty Images
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19 Times Tumblr Got Real With France
France, on vous aime, but why is your language si compliquée?
On getting petty with potatoes:
On "pain":
This pun:
This accurate translation:
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Guys Tried Having Emotions For The First Time And It Was Wow
“I’ve been hungry before… Is that an emotion?”
Our team is dedicated to making people push their boundaries and do what they have never done before. We started with women pooping for the first time, and now we've moved on... to having men feel emotions for the first time. WOW.
After Party / Via youtu.be
First, we asked them if they had ever experienced emotions.
LOL, JK, we know that emotions are only for girls. Girly girls.
Buzzfeed Video
LOL, men ARE hungry all the time.
Sometimes hunger can CAUSE emotions, like denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Buzzfeed Video
Some guys felt like emotions were an evolutionary vestige.
Yes, probably. And we also use them now.
Buzzfeed Video
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17 Times Little Kids Tried Their Best And Failed
Childhood is a lot of trial and error.
This kid who gave a valiant effort at avoiding homework.
reddit.com / Via imgur.com
This kid who doesn't seem to notice his mother is a mannequin.
LiL Tee.
reddit.com / Via i.imgur.com
This little girl who just wants to be a unicorn.
reddit.com / Via imgur.com
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