theme song: broken people

[mellowtigger]

If I had to choose only one song as my life's theme song, I think that this one would be it. I encountered it many years ago and even emailed with the writer for a while. Apparently it's a song that's going to earn him some impressive accolades soon (Grammy nomination?). I like both this one and "Sunday Afternoon". Just follow this link (work safe), and the song "Broken" (by Chris Wilson) will automatically play (the Pause button at bottom of page).
http://www.stear.us/about.htm

I've been chatting online recently with someone in Toronto who has a Schizophrenia diagnosis. I've found it enjoyable to talk at length with another "broken" person, as it were. There are similarities of experience that I with my Autism diagnosis can merely mention and yet he understands them without lengthy explanations, even though he's not autistic himself. Our diagnoses share similar descriptions: problems with behavior, emotions, and socializing, and even shared comorbidities of depression and anxiety. Yet very different in other areas. Schizophrenics, for instance, experience hallucinations, and their overload moments seem to me like they occur infrequently (in comparison). Autistics, on the other hand, have perpetual sensory/stress issues that may lead to overload much more often. Autistics have comorbid digestive issues (mine are included in my official paperwork, even).

That's as much as I've learned in just two weeks of instant messaging. It's curious that the two of us would be getting along so well. It's not what I expected, since I have read from researchers studying us at the epigenetic level that "...the pattern of symptoms found in paranoid schizophrenia... appear as diametric opposites to those of autism..." But so far we seem to be communicating rather well.  It leaves me wondering if we would still get along as well if we met in person, where individual idiosyncrasies can be more obvious and distracting (and possibly endearing as well, it goes both ways).

I created a new metaphor, one probably inaccurate (or at least grossly overgeneralized) but at least helpful for an introductory definition: Autistics live in a world of Unreal people, having to work to recognize who is Real; and schizophrenics live in a world of Real people, having to work to recognize who is Unreal.

Meaning, autistics have trouble (lacking motivation and/or skill) in establishing meaningful intimate relations with other people, while schizophrenics have trouble distinguishing their own perception (shadow people and events) from the shared world that other people can also perceive.

Cheers to broken minds and the stories they live.

Comments

[nudewoody.livejournal.com]

Funny, I was diagnosed as schizophrenic when I was 13 and but on some pretty nasty drugs, based on the fantasy world I withdrew into (which seemed pretty damned real to me at the time) to try to protect myself from the abuse I suffered at the hands of the real world.

[mellowtigger]

To outsiders, some of the asocial behavior appears similar between these two diagnoses. In fact, when I was a child, it's just as well that I wasn't diagnosed back then. There was a man named Bruno Bettelheim who popularized the theory of the "refrigerator mother" as the cause of autism. He had seen people withdraw in the same way because of mistreatment during World War II concentration camps. He assumed (wrongly) that autism resulted from emotionally abusive parenting, specifically from the mother.

I don't yet know as much about schizophrenia, but apparently childhood environment is an influencing factor. Sorry that you got a rough start in life. :( Judging from your writings though, it seems that you've grown to evaluate the world critically (in the good sense).

[nudewoody.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I have no regrets about my past experiences. If I did, I would have to regret the man I am today.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

That's a great song - made me cry.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure about the real/unreal distinction, although maybe it's a useful operating model? but I think the idea of what is real is pretty slippery no matter where you sit.