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Impressions100-71
100. Subject: time with [Deleted] today I will try to remember all the things he said today. We went to the Cat House and I bought us hamburgers and a beer. He told me he's a sublationist. Said he just got over his period. Said he has two ovaries. Said he'll have to use birth control. Said he's leaving tomorrow for [Deleted] where he will check into [Deleted] for a complete remake. Said they will even change the color of his skin two shades darker. Said he'll be a Latino woman when it's over. Said it could take 6 months. Said the State of [Deleted] is changing his sex as a "mercy" case. Had me take a pix of him naked below the belt - front and back. Said underneath there is the beginning of his sex change but I didn't take that pix nor did I look. Said he'll be in [Deleted] and that it's a big secret. People have been killed. Said the police beat up [Deleted] for squatting at his house. That's all I can remember but if I think of more I will add it. [ Contributed by subject's Mother. ]
99. I'm a one-woman man! [ A "Freudian slip," made by a 40-year-old woman recovering from an extremely severe, paranoid schizophrenic delusional state. And she very quickly recognized she had made such a slip -- a very positive and hopeful development in her case, as she is familiar with the thesis of schizophrenia being the "bearded lady" disease. ]
98. I must speak briefly of things I cannot cope with . [ This is a communication to his mother from a trans-gendered man suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, the "bearded lady" disease. Certain bracketed deletions have been made for privacy reasons. ]
97. A. In a rampage loud enough to be heard by alarmed neighbors, an actor killed his mother with a three-foot sword early Tuesday in their apartment in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, the police said. [ Brooklyn Actor Held in Killing Of His Mother, by Noah Rosenberg, The New York Times, November 24, 2010, p. A 21. ] B. From my material, in which negative instances are conspicuously absent, I am forced to the conclusion that schizophrenic illnesses in the male are intimately related as a sequent to unfortunate prolongation of the attachment of the son and the mother. That schizophrenic disorders are but one of the possible outcomes of persisting immature attitudes subtending the mother and son relationship must be evident. The failure of growth of heterosexual interests with persistence of autoerotic or homoerotic interests in adolescence, is the general formula. The factors that determine a schizophrenic outcome may be clarified by a discussion on the one hand of the situation to which I shall refer as homosexual cravings and acute masturbation conflict--often immediate precursors of grave psychosis--and of the various homoerotic procedures, on the other. [ Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., Personal Psychopathology/Early Formulations, W. W. Norton & Company . Inc. . New York, 1972, 1965, p. 211. ] C. Among those who prove incapable of achieving the biologically ordained heterosexual goal are a great many to whom the mother has continued to be of excessive significance, overshadowing or coloring strongly all pretensions of other women. This handicap is perhaps most vividly illustrated in the case of the woman who has married for spite a man whom she soon comes to loathe, yet with whom the peculiarities of her personality, or economic factors, or other cause, force her to live. When a son is born of such a union, he is generally sacrificed to the mother's unsatisfied erotic tendencies, and he becomes tied to her by the sort of intimacy so remarkably symbolized by Von Stuck in his painting "Die Sphinx." Whether he comes finally to rebel, hates her, and goes through life destroying as much as he can of that which arouses the mother-stereotype, or instead goes on being her child-lover, the result is most unfortunate as to his growth in personality. It is almost certain he will not proceed in erotic development past interest in his own sex.[17] [ Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., Personal Psychopathology/Early Formulations, W. W. Norton & Company . Inc. . New York, 1972, 1965, p. 196. ] D. I don't know where my mother ends and I begin. [ A man suffering from schizophrenia, talking with his analyst. ]
96. -- Subject: recovery is possible, I know it! On November 30, 2010 at 11:04pm +0000, (name and website address deleted for privacy reasons) wrote: Hello, For the past few years I've been experiencing paranoid schizophrenia with voices predominantly calling me gay which I didn't agree with and caused me distress. I've always felt attracted to women but have felt held back. This has made me worry that the voices are right and I am gay. A few days ago I had an experience where I had the sensation I was a woman and accepted that I am bisexual. I felt like I gave birth to a woman in my head and felt like I was two people in one body. I heard her and saw a vision where she had half a face. I now feel fine and happy and confident about the future. I understand from your website that I need to make a choice about whether I want to have a partner who is a man or a woman and that this could lead to full recovery given time. Thank you so much for this website which explains the bisexual conflict in schizophrenia. I believe it can help me and my counsellor understand. Best wishes, [ Name ] Dear [Name], Thanks so much for your very inspiring email!! I am delighted that my website has been of some help to you. You sound as if you are feeling much better now, and I am very glad you are presently working with a counsellor. It appears you are definitely on the road to the recovery of your emotional wellbeing and happiness, and I predict you will have a wonderful life ahead of you since you had the great courage and good sense to seek help when you most needed it. Take the very best of care, and please feel free to contact me again at any time you may feel the need to do so. All best wishes, Mike Mahoney
95. [ November 23, 2010 ] Hi Michael, I would like to thank you for all your research. You have helped me tremendously understand my boyfriend of 6 yrs who is suffering from the symptoms you describe on your website. He refuses to label himself as gay although he has had numerous same sex experiences in his past (and possibly intermittently during our "breaks"). He says that it is only a mind thing and that he gets a kick out of pushing boundaries. Every few months he questions how he feels about me and tries to break off the relationship but then breaks down apologizing and crying and begging for me to come back...He enjoys very much buying lingerie for me and on occasion he has shaved his legs for no reason....I have tried to let him know that if he is gay that I understand and I will be alright with letting him go but he insists that he is not. He says that he is so obsessed with women to the point that he says he almost wants to be one. Recently he has admitted to not wanting to grow up and has acknowledged he has psychological problems and asked me what I wanted to do as far as the relationship goes. I have decided that this is not a healthy situation for me to be in and must move on. I am wondering if you can recommend an analyst in the [deleted] area that is aware of your research. I think this may help him and he seems open to receiving it. Much Gratitude, [ Name ] Dear [Name], Many thanks for your most intelligent email. It certainly does appear that your "significant other" has serious sexual identity problems that need to be addressed forthwith. I would strongly suggest he find an experienced, Freudian-oriented psycho-analyst in your area and go to him (or her). Expensive, but how do you put a monetary figure on happiness and good mental health?? Best of luck with this project, and you are certainly correct in surmising that it does not make much sense being in an ongoing, girlfriend-boyfriend type of relationship with him until he can figure out which sex he really wants to be a member of. Please keep in touch if you wish, and lastly, have a wonderful Holiday season!! Warm regards, Mike Mahoney
94. Hell N Tie I have undertaken the greatest BSG experience ever - speaking for myself . I ran a hot tub of bathwater with my usual bubble bath ( chamomile / vanilla ; as usual ; added a half cup of Sea Salt and a cup and a half of Epsom Salt with menthol eucaliptus . I also added some menthol aloe vera skin stuff to ease skin roughness. I stepped into the bathtub , the water turned black almost instantly . Within the time it took to sit down ( in hot water ) it had turned green . Ordinarily a bubble bath is relaxing but not a mindblowing , orgasmic experience . Multiples for 45 minutes - had to drain the tub , rolled out , and napped on the bath towel the rest of a very pleasant evening . I have since taken six of these cylon baths - once with my girlfruiend , and two others I have foot and sponge washed ... it is wonderful . People have expressed concern over toxic side effects , however , we are already considered nuts in the first place , so , mental health complaints are nothing new for us . I will not snake oil the reswults of my experience as I know others have reported episodes of violent acting out , not extreme erotic relaxation . Also , I have been able to determine that I am Hell N. Tie ; and that I am a model twelve , but my friiends all insist I have to be a six ( who I emulate , thx trish ) . My first sister , a One , is very loving and supportive . We tanked together because I had rollover minutes . Twelve falls and becomes one ; One had a bad experience later with a four but is feeling better now . Another four jumped in a tub with an initiated three ; , she was feeling fine , but four went screaming mad . I hope to conclude a major test with a possible lifemate tonight , if with any luck I get to bathe him . We will go in the cylon tub and smoke . , then , hot shower with no soap ... after that , he leads. [ A communication to his mother from a man afflicted with paranoid schizophrenia, the "bearded lady" disease. ]
93. SEOUL, South Korea -- An evangelical activist from Arizona, imprisoned by North Korea last year after he illegally entered the country on Christmas Day, appeared Wednesday on South Korean television and spoke for the first time about his treatment by his captors. [ Activist Tells of Torture in North Korea Prison, by Mark McDonald, The New York Times, October 28, 2010, p. A8. ]
92. A. Baltimore (AP) -- A man who became distraught as he was being briefed on his mother's condition by a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital here pulled a gun and shot the doctor on Thursday, then killed his mother and himself in her room at the medical center, the police said. [ Doctor Wounded in Hospital Shooting, The New York Times, September 17, 2010. ] B. From my material, in which negative instances are conspicuously absent, I am forced to the conclusion that schizophrenic illnesses in the male [and in the female/JMM] are intimately related as a sequent to unfortunate prolongation of the attachment of the son [or daughter/JMM] and the mother. That schizophrenic disorders are but one of the possible outcomes of persisting immature attitudes subtending the mother and son [or daughter/JMM] relationship must be evident. The failure of growth of heterosexual interests with persistence of autoerotic or homosexual interests in adolescence, is the general formula. The factors that determine a schizophrenic outcome may be clarified by a discussion on the one hand of the situations to which I shall refer as homosexual cravings and acute masturbation conflict--often immediate precursors of grave psychosis--and of the various homoerotic and autoerotic procedures, on the other. [ Personal Psychopathology/ Early Formulations, by Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., W. W. Norton & Company. Inc. New York (copyright 1972, 1965, by the William Alanson White Psychiatric Foundation, First Edition), p. 211. ]
91. I went to Mental Health at 10:00 am to have an update with my case manager. I needed to take my Estradiol shot last night, but I had been out late; so I waited until this morning. I brought my needle and medicine to the clinic with me; I asked to see a nurse. [NOTE: This person has not yet undergone transgender surgery/JMM.]
90. STYLE CREDO My style is completely schizophrenic. I can be feminine, sexy, over the top, masculine, androgynous. I see fashion as a way to play with your personality, to flirt with a part of yourself. It's like when you go on a date with someone. You're excited, you dress up, and you look phenomenal. When you get dressed, you should always be dating someone -- even if it's just yourself. [ Anna Dello Russo, fashion director at large for Vogue Japan, (PULSE, Karin Nelson, The New York Times, Sunday, September 19, 2010) ]
89. We have to think of different options that can take a hearty, meaty, great contact sport but minimize the risk to young people. // He loved to hit people... He loved to go into practice and hit really hard. He loved to intimidate. It's kind of sad. We all love football. We all love watching. We all love these great hits. // It gives me some peace in my heart to think this is a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. [Her son's incipient brain tissue injury (C.T.E.) from football-related head trauma.] [ The Reverend Kathy Brearley, wife of Reverend Tom Thomas, parents of University of Pennsylvania football player Owen Thomas, who suicided by hanging in April, 2010. ( Story by Alan Schwarz, The New York Times, September 14, 2010, pp. A1-B12.) ]
88. I made a test today. I went downstairs at 6:10 to prepare breakfast and heard no bang. Someone forgot to get up. // I found under my carpet in my room sand. I found it before too some months ago. I was shaking the carpet outside and vacuming [sic] and cleaning the floor in my room. I found sand also in 3 different rooms when I was shaking carpets. I keep thinking about all those things. It is hard to think about something else. // I found today a blouse where a belt to it was put in a different way that I put it two days ago. I tie the belt in front. It was put in such a way to tie it backwards. I can't go on living like this. My parents abuse me. They want me to have memory problems and drive me crazy. Please help me. I am in big depression. // I noticed today some stains on my jacket. I had it on for the last three days. I don't know if this is because of this or if my parents stained it. // I keep on losing lots of hair every day. // I feel very lonely and tired because of the things at home. I am dreaming to move out and feel safe about my clothes and the food I eat. // When I was coming back home today from the course I saw a man who looked like you, had more gray hair than you I do [sic]. I thought that it must be you, that you came here to see me. The man was dressed in high fashion with taste. He was attractive for his age and girls would be crazy after him. // Today I found a stone on the second floor balcony. I found it a few weeks ago. So what do you have to say about that? The theory that someone threw it isn't good any more. // Today I found that my new white shoes which I have had for two weeks are badly damaged. There is a long black line on the stripe. It is hardly possible that I damaged them like that out of simply walking in them. My father damaged it. I am 100% sure. Will this ever end? // I can smell very often in my room the paint from the bookcase I painted a year ago. How is that possible? I have no doubt my parents come to my room and paint it with paint I left last year. This is true my parents want to drive me crazy. // I am beginning to lose hope if I will ever move out of the house and have a peaceful mind that no one bangs, stains my clothes or paints over my bookcase. // In the room which is next to mine which I painted last year (well) I do a good job, I noticed today that in many places there is almost no paint. It looks like the paint has been wiped big parts of it. I don't have delusions and paranoia. I am 100% that my parents did that. The paint didn't fall off the wall after one year. I am sure that my parents want to drive me crazy or make me feel bad. They don't appreciate my work and want to ruin that. I saw that also outside the house on the wall which I painted there is almost no paint (rain could do that, but I doubt it) I don't have persecutory feelings. I can take photos for you if you wish. Please do something for me I am totally drained I can't read or concentrate on looking for a job. I often have crying attacks. // Do you remember how I told you that of my neighbors a few years were stalking for a few months me by driving next to my house making a huge noise with the tires of their car they started again. I am driven to insanity by this. The problems with my emotionally crazy parents are the same. Hurt technique is a daily bread. // I saw today that the paint on the ceiling of the hall is wiped out. I painted it last year I have no delusions. My crazy father did that. I am going to finally burst out today and tell him about that... I am getting bald. Will you finally help me? // Today my mother told me that I am beset by a satan and also she made me feel a sense of guilt that I threw away shoes which I wore 5 years ago. It makes me feel bad. I have no one in my family to talk with. Hurt technique is something dear to them. I hate myself. // I still smell the paint from the bookcase. My father paints it no doubt about it. He is still a tyrant for my mother who then tyrannizes me. I don't want to be pulled into such bullying. // I didn't want to stalk you with the calls. I felt so bad when I saw the window damaged in three new places ( the hinges and the plastic removed in two places I could see in place under the frame of the window that is very damaged ) I had to call you yesterday. My parents drove me to a nervous breakdown twice and they aren't going to do it for the third time. I told my mother about it and the paint removed from the wall and she said I am ill and have a problem. Will I ever have a normal life? I have big emotional scars and I feel that I will ruin any relationship or friendship. // Today my mother addressed me "daddy" it is the way she speaks to my father. My parents give me every day an emotional shock. I have had too many that I can handle. // I don't have imagined transgressions. Today on the rail of the balcony I found that part of the rail is painted white. It is fresh paint. I didn't see it before. I can assure you that I remember well what rail looks like on my balcony. I open window almost every day. I don't have paranoid schizophrenia. I would be happy if you were willing to change that. (I had paranoia before but not now) What do you need to hear from me to believe me? I don't want to deal with these things anymore. I lose my energy and time on this. I would be happy to be with you and have a peace of mind. // My parents scratched a piece of wall which I painted in my hall. I can't handle with this anymore. I am drained. They do these nasty things to make me feel bad. They destroy my work. Please take me to you and help me. Can you do that? // My mother finds it funny when I feel irritated by her behavior. She was behaving in a crazy way in the kitchen today making persistent noise while preparing things, later she bullied me with a question to which I shouldn't have answered. She is totally destructive on me being at the same time ingratiating. I feel depressed because of her. I don't know a week when I am not depressed because of my mother. At night I heard a bang in the house which woke me up and in the morning I heard several bangs against the metal roof outside. I just can't live like that. // I was working in the garden. It is a mess. My parents don't care what it looks like. They throw there a pile of tiles which my father removes from the balcony. They do things which irritate me. My mother behaves in a crazy way. She abused me emotionally today. I will get a heart attack if I don't move out of the house. [ The writer's name has been deleted for privacy reasons. ]
87. I thought you said you would have been home by now . I know you would know to use email ; my phone is out of minutes so it is of no use until it is recharged . I by no means have been having a good time ; especially the 17 days i spent in the psych ward - with an obstructed uterus . the emergency room doc smoked an invisible cigarette and just dropped it out of his mouth when i insisted on going to ob-gyn . took a week up at [ deleted ] to convince them to do the blood work . i finally did get my 'drainage' - as i menstruated with no hole , it built up , and i could have died , however, i was raped the night after being released . he perforated me and i bled for about a week . when i went to tmc about that , they sewed up the hole in my butt so when i menses it comes out my ass . [ A communication to his mother from a paranoid schizophrenic,
86. I am currently seeking psychiatric help for a borderline/narcissistic type issue. Although I am not yet diagnosed I am beginning to believe that sexual/gender identity issues may play a huge role in my narcissistic detachment from the world and my emotional dysregulation. I have not yet had any full-blown psychotic episodes but have experienced stress-related micro-episodes of detachment from reality. I currently live a schizoid and/or avoidant style life and recognise myself as incredibly emotionally stunted and immature underneath my mask of relative normality. I consciously identify as heterosexual but have found issues and writing regarding sexual/gender identity issues to be almost compulsive interest and feel that they resonate with me. Has the possibility of a link between narcissism and these issues been considered? Amongst the writings that are compiled on your website I keep seeing things such as: "*thus leaving their children with the terrible unconscious choice of either becoming homosexual or else schizophrenic - the schizophrenia invariably occurring as the direct result of the repression and denial by these castrated children of their inevitable homosexuality."* *Is this to say that the child has literally NO choice between homosexuality and psychosis? Despite feeling that the writing on your website resonates with me and that I feel it may well be a large factor in my own issues, I am still sexually attracted to women. Despite also being aware of repressed homosexual tendencies. I remember reading elsewhere on the website something along the lines of "homosexuality being between narcissism and heterosexuality" - forgive me if I've misquoted; and that after accepting the repressed homosexual psychic content the person may choose to be homosexual or to emotionally mature into heterosexuality. Is it possible that this could be elaborated on? Thank you. Anonymous
85. Exhaustion was the toughest enemy of all in this struggle of epic marches. Prussia's best commander, the elderly [Field Marshal Gebhart von] Blücher, was under such strain that at one point he started hallucinating about [his] giving birth to an elephant. But the imperial military machine could cope even with this, and with victory in the air Blücher himself recovered sufficiently to be carried on toward Paris in full view of his troops, wearing a lady's green silk hat to shade his eyes. [ Mark Mazower, New York Times Book Review, June 20, 2010, p. 17, in a review of the book: Russia Against Napoleon - The True Story of the Campaigns of "War and Peace." By Dominic Lieven. Illustrated. 618 pp. Viking. ]
84. The notion of the Oedipus complex is therefore not at all difficult to maintain if one works with this type of material. As another manifestation of that, one finds more open revolt against the certainly prescribed role in life -- that is, the sexual role -- in the hysteric than in any other group. In other words, the hysteric woman can be a man in a homosexual relation with an abandon which is scarcely conceivable in any other type of human organization, and the hysterically predisposed man can act the woman with incomparable thoroughness and lack of cynicism. [ Clinical Studies in Psychiatry, by Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., Edited by Helen Swick Perry, Mary Ladd Gawel, and Martha Gibbon, with a Foreword by Dexter M. Bullard, M.D., W. W. Norton & Company. Inc. New York, 1973, pp. 115-16. ]
83. Subject: Re: CONFLICT AND "SEXUAL" IDENTITY CAUSING SCHIZOPHRENIA? Well...I'll tell you what? Being as I AM A Schizophrenic? I think I would know in a way more personal way than you..And I do NOT suffer from some deep seated perverted homosexual desires.. "What joy for the nation whose God is the Lord, whose people he has chosen as his inheritance."(--Psalm 33:12--) Subject: Re: cONFLICT AND "SEXUAL" IDENTIY CAUSING SCHIZOPHRENIA?? YOU ARE OUT OF YOUR COTTON-PICKING MIND!!! "Therefore, put on every piece of God's armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm".-(-Ephesians 6:13-) [ Note: The name of the woman who wrote the above two
82. It has long been known and often pointed out that at the age of puberty boys and girls show clear signs, even in normal cases, of the existence of an affection for people of their own sex. A romantic and sentimental friendship with one of her school friends, accompanied by vows, kisses, promises of eternal correspondence, and all the sensibility of jealousy, is the common precursor of a girl's first serious passion for a man. Thenceforward, in favorable circumstances, the homosexual current of feeling often runs completely dry. But if a girl is not happy in her love for a man, the current is often set flowing again by the libido in later years and is increased up to a greater or lesser degree of intensity. If this much can be established without difficulty of healthy persons, and if we take into account what has already been said [p.50] about the fuller development in neurotics of the normal germ of perversion, we shall expect to find in these latter too a fairly strong homosexual disposition. It must, indeed, be so; for I have never yet come through a single psycho-analysis of a man or a woman without having to take into account a very considerable current of homosexuality. When, in a hysterical woman or girl, the sexual libido which is directed towards men has been energetically suppressed, it will regularly be found that the libido which is directed towards women has become vicariously reinforced and even to some extent conscious. [likewise in men and boys - jmm] [ Sigmund Freud, Vol. VII, The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (A Case of Hysteria), The Hogarth Press, London, 1953, p. 60. ]
81. Another child wished so intensely to be a boy that for periods of time she delusionally believed she was one. She also resented her brother's luck in belonging to the envied sex. So she went about correcting it; whenever she encountered the words boy or man in her reading, she read girl and lady; if the printed page read girl or woman, she read it boy or man. Similarly, she read all he's for she's and the other way around. [ SURVIVING -- and Other Essays, by Bruno Bettelheim, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1979, p. 159. ]
80. (First email) To: Venusemail@aol.com Hey, I've been half-heartedly researching schizophrenia for about 3 hours, I just read your memoirs and it all sounds so similar to how my boyfriend described it. He was diagnosed with it a few days ago, he also suffers from paranoia and OCD but they aren't very strong cases. I'm scared... I hate saying that because I'm a pretty strong person, but I am scared, scared of what he might do, scared of losing him. Not breaking up with him, although I obviously don't really want that to happen, but I'm scared that he might kill himself or the schizophrenia will drive him to do something awful. He's tried to kill himself quite a few times before we got together, he hurts himself occasionally... We live far apart and he gets depression and he says he can't help hurting himself which I guess I understand now he's been diagnosed with schizophrenia. I don't know why I'm writing this to you, but I'm not sure who else to tell. I'm fourteen... And I don't know what to do. I'm sorry if I've wasted your time. Yours Faithfully, (This email was sent to "Venus," author of the link on this website: A Personal Account of a Journey Through Madness.) -------------------------------------------------------------- To: venusemail@aol.com Hello, Thank you for the reply (This email was sent to "Venus," author of the link on this website: A Personal Account of a Journey Through Madness.)
79. On other occasions, the therapist experiences a resolution of the symbiosis, or at least a step in this resolution process, not in this quiet and subjectively inscrutable way, but rather with a sudden sense of OUTRAGE. The very word OUTrage is significant, and the feeling it designates is qualitatively different from annoyance, anger, or even rage. He feels outrage at this or that chronic regressive symptom in the patient, or outrage at the latter's whole regressive symptomatology, and always outrage at the unreasonableness of the demands which the patient has been making upon him these many months or years. He see the enormity of these demands which the patient has been placing, through his illness, upon him and other persons, and sees clearly the folly of acquiescing further in these regressive demands. He is suddenly and vigorously determined to give no more of his long-time dedication, now seen as misplaced dedication, to the gratification of these demands, which he formerly saw as infant needs which it would be unthinkable to brush aside. [ Harold F. Searles, M.D., Collected Papers on Schizophrenia and Related Subjects, International Universities Press, New York, 1965, pp. 544-46. ]
78. Without going further into all the details of the course of his [Daniel Paul Schreber's] illness, attention is drawn to the way in which from the early more acute psychosis which influenced all psychic processes and which could be called hallucinatory insanity, the paranoid form of the illness became more and more marked, crystallized out so to speak, into its present picture. [ Dr. G. Weber, Superintendent of the Sonnenstein Asylum, in Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, by Daniel Paul Shreber, WM Dawson & Sons Ltd., London, 1955, pp. 271-2 * Translated, Edited, with Introduction, Notes and Discussion by Ida Macalpine, M.D., and Richard A. Hunter, M.D., M.R.C.P., D.P.M. ]
77. The division of mental diseases into neuroses and psychoses has resulted in new names such as ambulatory or latent schizophrenia, or prepsychosis for the multitude of patients who appear to fall between the two stools. [ Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, by Daniel Paul Schreber, WM Dawson & Sons Ltd., London, 1955, p. 15. * Translated, Edited, with Introduction, Notes and Discussion by Ida Macalpine, M.D. and Richard A. Hunter, M.D., M.R.C.P., D.P.M. ]
76.
Hello Michael,
75. [A] We should be inclined to say that what was characteristically paranoiac about the illness was the fact that the patient, as a means of warding off a homosexual wishful phantasy, reacted precisely with delusions of persecution of this kind. [ Notes on a Case of Paranoia, in The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XII (1911-1913), London, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1958, pp. 59-60. ]
[B] Since then I have wholeheartedly inscribed the cultivation of femininity on my banner, and I will continue to do so as far as consideration of my environment allows, whatever other people who are ignorant of the supernatural reasons may think of me. I would like to meet the man who, faced with the choice of either becoming a demented human being in male habitus or a spirited woman, would not prefer the latter. Such and only such, is the issue for me. [ Daniel Paul Schreber, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, WM. Dawson & Sons Ltd., London, 1955, p. 149. ]
[C] And if tormented and in anguish man is mute, God granted me to tell me of what I suffer. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832: The above words from a poem by Goethe were used by Daniel Paul Schreber as the epigraph for his Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. ]
74. [A] It would seem that the schizophrenic patient is often of the third generation of abnormal persons of whom we can gain some information. The preceding two generations of mothers appear to have been obsessive, schizoid women who did not adjust well to men. There is some evidence that they were, in a sense, immature and that within the obsessive character structure could be found hysterical difficulties. [ Lewis B. Hill, M.D., Psychotherapeutic Intervention in Schizophrenia, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1955, pp. 134-135. ]
[B] We must recognize that the sexual affections are still the greatest constructive forces of the personality if properly conditioned and adjusted, but also that they may become the most insidiously, irresistibly destructive if perverted or unconditionally repressed. [ Edward J. Kempf, M.D., Psychopathology, C. V. Mosby Company, St. Louis, MO, 1920. ]
[C] The mother's attitude was so subtly ingratiating and yet domineering that she would almost have to be destroyed as a mother if the patient were to free herself from its terrible influence and win her own womanhood and independence. [Likewise for a son - his own manhood and independence/jmm] [ Edward J. Kempf, M.D., Psychopathology, C. V. Mosby Company, St. Louis, 1920. ]
[D] I am indebted to Dr. Will Elgin, of the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, for another repeated observation which, because it is characteristic, needs reporting. For many years Dr. Elgin, in the process of admitting patients, observed the enactment of a scene which assumed diagnostic significance. His office arrangement permitted relatives a choice of three seats, one opposite his desk, one at the end of it quite near him, and one several feet away. He observed that when the mother and father of the patient appeared together to arrange admission, there occurred something of significance. If mother sat in one of the two chairs at his desk, and father sat off in a corner, it usually followed that mother took over the discussion, did the talking, made the arrangements, and even read the fine print on the contract. Father, meanwhile, looked unhappy and was silent save for an occasional abortive effort to modify certain of the mother's statememts. When this was the course of the admission interview, he came to know that the odds were that the patient [male or female/jmm] would be schizophrenic. There is an interesting addendum. In a later interview father, appearing alone, was often very aggressive in his criticism and his demands and accusations. However, it could often be demonstrated that his belligerence was that of a very unwilling agent of his wife. [ Lewis B. Hill, M.D., Psychotherapeutic Intervention in Schizophrenia, University of Chicago Press, 1955, pp. 106-107. ]
[E] Sexual identity guarantees our psychic unity. [ Julia Kristeva, Psycho-Analyst ]
[F] I had to pay heavily for this bit of good luck. People did not want to believe my facts and thought my theories unsavory. Resistance was unrelenting. [ Sigmund Freud ]
73. [A] In any case, the appearance within awareness of the homoerotic interest stirs such violent self-reproach that a dissociation or a vigorous defensive process results. If the self is able to dissociate the abhorrent system, the personality continues to be in grave danger of panic with succeeding schizophrenia, unless the sexual tensions are being drained off by some collateral procedure such as frequent masturbation or more or less definitely auto-sexual intercourse with women [with men in the case of females/jmm]. Moreover, under cover of the dissociation, experience in any case continues to be integrated into the dissociated system and its partition in the personality to grow. [ Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., Personal Psychopathology, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 1972, 1965, p. 212. ]
[B] Among those who prove incapable of achieving the biologically ordained heterosexual goal are a great many to whom the mother has continued to be of excessive significance, overshadowing or coloring strongly all pretensions of other women. This handicap is perhaps most vividly illustrated in the case of the woman who has married for spite a man whom she soon comes to loathe, yet with whom the peculiarities of her personality, or economic factors, or other cause, force her to live. When a son is born of such a union, he is generally sacrificed to the mother's unsatisfied erotic tendencies, and he becomes tied to her by the sort of intimacy so remarkably symbolized by Von Stuck in his painting, Die Sphinx. Whether he comes finally to rebel, hates her, and goes through life destroying as much as he can of that which arouses the mother stereotype, or instead goes on being her child-lover, the result is most unfortunate as to his growth in personality. It is almost certain that he will not proceed in erotic development past interest in his own sex. [ Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., ibid, p. 169. ]
[C] Sexual asceticism was the greatest good, and both organized and informal opportunities for its achievement were provided. Once one had turned from the lure of the flesh, one could live quietly in a considerable measure of sanctified intimacy with a group of kindred souls. Or one could take to a dignified paranoid state and go about a slow "psychical castration." If schizophrenic phenomena appeared, this did not necessarily disable one: quite a few opportunities for utilizing this eccentricity were provided in the business of evangelism. Moreover, one might, if needs be, found an eccentric religion and often secure the necessary disciples. [ Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., ibid, p. 225. ]
[D] ...in them [schizophrenics] the early childhood tie to the parent has never been outgrown. [ Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., Personal Psychopathology, ibid, p. 262. ]
[E] These sudden reintegrations of tendencies opposed to homosexual activity in turn set up the situation of homosexual cravings, with consequences similar to those above indicated. That the outcome in these individuals who have had earlier experience is somewhat less ominous than is the case in its absence is not only theoretically to be expected, but actually the case in the paranoid developments. [ Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., ibid, p. 214. ]
[F] In the case, however, of another boy, one for example who has been seriously warped by the continued or augmented importance of a more or less primitive attachment to his mother, and who therefore is not susceptible to any marked heterosexual drives because of attachment to the mother - with rationalizations generally contributed by her in the shape, perhaps, of advice to keep away from "bad girls," examples of misfortune resulting from dealings with crafty females, and the like - the outcome is quite otherwise. [Likewise in the case of a daughter/jmm] [ Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., ibid, p. 199. ]
[G] From my material, in which negative instances are conspicuously absent, I am forced to the conclusion that schizophrenic illnesses in the male [or female/jmm] are intimately related as a sequel to unfortunate prolongation of the attachment of the son [or daughter/jmm] and the mother. That schizophrenic disorders are but one of the possible outcomes of the persisting immature attitudes subtending the mother and son [or daughter/jmm] relationship must be evident. The failure of growth of heterosexual interests, with persistence of autoerotic or homosexual interests in adolescence, is the general formula. The factors that determine a schizophrenic outcome may be clarified by a discussion on the one hand of the situations to which I shall refer as homosexual cravings and acute masturbation conflict - often immediate precursors of grave psychosis - and of the various homo-erotic and auto-erotic procedures, on the other. [See further, New Quotation/Comment # 757 - this website/jmm.] [ Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., ibid, p. 211. ]
72. [A] How fatal it has been that all the women have ruled the men right out of their masculinity, independence, courage, will and at last, brains even. [ Walker Evans, photographer (and homosexual), reflecting on a visit to a reunion of his mother's relatives, in the biography Walker Evans, by James R. Mellow. ]
[B] An auto-erotically motivated bisexuality might then be said to be universal among the young of these several species and certainly, as by Stekel, to characterize civilized man. [ Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., Personal Psychopathology, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 1972, 1965, p. 235. ]
[C] The weaker the ego, the more likely it is that the lust will be experienced as a function not of the self but of the introject - as something alienly lustful and further contradictory of the person's own sexual identity, such that the boy may sense a lustful female within him, or the girl, a lustful male. [ Harold F. Searles, M.D., Collected Papers on Schizophrenia and Related Subjects, International Universities Press, New York, 1965, p. 435. ]
[D] It may be that he [or she] apprehends the hostility of the woman [or man] and finds himself [herself] utterly impotent. [ Harry Stack Sullivan, M.D., Personal Psychopathology, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. New York, 1972, 1965, p. 192. ]
[E] In schizophrenia, on the other hand, attempts to solve the bisexual problem and still remain in contact with reality fail. Therefore, in its deepest nature, schizophrenia arises from a bisexual conflict, and this conflict eventually leads to a state where the heterosexual factor is relinquished. [ The Importance of the Non-Psychotic Part of the Personality in Schizophrenia, Maurits Katan, M.D., International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, No. 35, p. 121. ]
[F] More than thirty years of intensive investigation of these problems permits me to make the general statement that in man every case of emotional neurosis or psychosis is the result of more or less conflict and confusion involving bisexual differentiation... Dementing schizophrenia is essentially a regression to the cloacal level of hermaphrodism. [ Edward J. Kempf, M.D., Bisexual Factors in Curable Schizophrenia, (presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, May 18, 1948), Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 44, 1949. ]
71. These observations illuminate one meaning of the futility of the dependence-independence struggle of the schizophrenic [male or female]. It is his belief, based upon his observations, that if he should improve and become well in the normal sense, his mother would become psychotic. He is aware that, so long as he stays in the hospital and is treated as an infant, mother is somehow secure in that he does not belong to someone else or really get away from her. Were he to become fantastically well, as required in fantasies and expectations, he is aware he would actually be a paranoid psychotic himself. It seems that these patients prefer to carry the illness, which, as they see it, legitimately emanates from, and, were they to drop it, would return to their mothers. [ Psychotherapeutic Intervention in Schizophrenia, Lewis B. Hill, M.D., The University of Chicago Press (Chicago and London), 1955, 1973, pp. 127-128. ] |
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