Straddling a Fault Line - Nothing to fear but fear itself? For a schizophrenic, that's plenty

[BridgeTheGap]

I could have told Moira Blum, the girl in my dorm who believed in astral projection and traveled to other planets on weekends, but she would have just congratulated me. I thought of telling Candy Weiland, who always said “Hey” to me, the girl who let me know on day one of college: “This here Kentucky—it’s God’s country.” She was the size of a jockey and swore she’d own a horse farm some day. “My granpappy’s got some land and a passel of horses,” she’d say, twirling her mane of hair into a bun. But how do you explain to anyone that something wispy and curling is crawling beneath your skin?

Or that I could not understand my clock anymore. Little arrows pointed to numbers, but I had no idea what they meant. To get to class I had to go down the stairs, and the stairs were revolving the way they do in spy flicks after the hero gets poisoned. I groped for the floor with my foot and clung to the handrail. Everywhere I went a ruckus throbbed in my head. Shadowy images of helpless victims in guillotines snapped in my mind. And my spring term papers were due.

After a phone call home, after my mother groaned, “Oh God, where have we gone wrong?” I shuffled to the university health clinic. I had no specific fears or expectations about the outcome, only the same fierce anxiety that had settled in me back in the fall.

The psychiatrist summed up my entire future within minutes. After tapping her finger down the page of symptoms, she began to write. “You’ll have to take pills the rest of your life,” she said, without looking up, “and you’ll spend a lot of time here.” What did she mean by here? Kentucky?

“Um, what’s the matter with me?”

Read more: http://www.utne.com/Politics/Straddling-A-Fault-Line-Schizophrenia.aspx#ixzz1EuGnQPrT

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Something to consider:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20504323


RESULTS: 18,411 women were classified as having a low level of psychotic-like symptoms, 14 395 as middle and 817 as having a high level. The risk of high level symptoms was 53% (95% CI, 30-69%) lower among women who ate fish 3-4 times per week compared to women who never ate fish. The risk was also lower for women with a high intake of omega-3 and omega-6 PUFA compared to women with a lower intake of these fatty acids. The effect was most pronounced for omega-6 PUFAs. The RR comparing the highest to the lowest quartile of omega-6 PUFAs intake was 0.78 (95% CI, 0.64-0.97). The associations were J-shaped with the strongest reduced risk for an intermediate intake of fish or PUFA. For fatty fish (herring/mackerel, salmon-type fish), the strongest inverse association was found for an intermediate intake (RR: 0.81, 95% CI, 0.66-0.98), whereas a high intake of fatty fish was associated with an increased risk of psychotic-like symptoms (RR: 1.90, 95% CI, 1.34-2.70). Women in the highest compared with the lowest quartile of vitamin D consumption experienced a 37% (95% CI, 22-50%) lower risk of psychotic-like symptoms.

CONCLUSION: Our findings raise a possibility that adult women with a high intake of fish, omega-3 or omega-6 PUFA and vitamin D have a lower rate of psychotic-like symptoms.

[flamingdem]

4. That's so interesting

I wish that info was spread far and wide for those who suffer.

[RagAss]

6. I also believe that these symptoms are related to low levels of Vitamin D.

Here is some interesting informantion from the Vitamin D Council..

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/mentalIllness.shtml

[flamin lib]

2. I'd like to rec this more than once. nt

[pnwmom]

3. I didn't realize that as many as half of schizophrenics could recover,

given the proper circumstances and support. Thanks for posting this.

[bettyellen]

5. tks for posting this