Schizophrenia, the Pink Elephant and Imagination

If someone says to you “don’t think about a pink elephant”, it’s naturally difficult not to have an image of one spring into your head (unless, of course, you've never seen an elephant).

The same idea applies certainly when it comes to my experience of what some may term 'hearing voices' and maybe to the experience of others too.

However, in place of someone telling me not to think of a pink elephant (in order to conjure up the image of one), you’ll find worry there.

The worry can be about many things, but they all gravitate about the same point, which is that I am really a bad person who wants to do horrible things.

Where it gets tricky is that this worry isn’t voiced internally – so, for example, I’m not consciously going around with the thought in my head: “I don’t want to hurt him (or her)!”

The unfortunate effect of this lack of internally voiced worry is that it is me who seems to be directly generating the 'voices'. 

It seems as though my mind jumps straight in with, for example, the thought of “punch him/her!” (or the equivalent visualisation of such) in response to a situation. It does this with no apparent stimulation other than what one would naturally assume (and I have done) must be the desire to punch random men and women.

When it came along, the idea of hearing voices really appealed to me simply because it instantly absolved me of all the guilt that I had charged myself with over the years. 

I welcomed it with open arms because the content of the 'voices' didn't sit at all well with my character. By defining them as voices meant that I could separate these bad, foreign feeling thoughts from my own good thoughts.

Interestingly, although for a long time I felt as though I had no imagination, now I see that my imagination was always there, I just didn’t recognise it as what it actually was, which, as it turns out is these voices in my head.

It’s only since happening upon the idea of the pink elephant, that I have been able to reach this conclusion. The pink elephant - or rather, the general worry - stimulates my imagination into thinking of horrible things; just like how it’s difficult to stop yourself thinking of a pink elephant when you are told not to think of one.

Unfortunately the horrible things are easily misconstrued as negative due to their content - whereas in reality this is not the case at all.

I now no longer berate myself for hearing these voices. Instead I give myself a big pat on the back when they spring into my mind because they show that I am a very caring person (after all the sole reason for their existence is my desire not to think them). 

I then give myself a second pat on the back in congratulations for having an imagination which can come up with such a creative - albeit terrible - idea; and also picture it so vividly that, at one point, it proved so paralysing to my existence.

I now no longer think of myself a ‘voice hearer’ but instead I think that perhaps the description: 'voice imaginer' is more apt.

Because I had suppressed it out of fear for so many years, I am still in the process of re-engaging with my imagination. I have found that mindfulness meditation has helped, and continue to help me enormously along this path (I often take time to sit back and mindfully listen to and watch my imagination).

Since seeing the voices this way I have noticed a huge difference. It's as though, now that I have owned them using the idea of the pink elephant, they have literally given up their bombardment of my mind.

All schizophrenics go to hell

For as long as I can remember I’ve always been very creative; but also sensitive to the world around me (as many others are I'd imagine). This was okay when I was young because I was a child then and it’s a fact that children are nuts.

However at some point I found the world around me was too much to cope with and as a result I imagined and created a reality for myself where I was in a kind of coma and the world and everybody in it was a figment of my imagination.

At the time this helped a lot, although I was only living a half-life I suppose.

This coping mechanism probably had something to do with my imaginative capabilities, but unfortunately I got so messed up in trying to marry up my nature with a world that is fundamentally unnatural, that in the end I literally shut down everything, leaving just a shell with nothing inside.

Eventually I was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

Recently, though, I was introduced to the idea of auditory hallucinations, and because the things in my head do feel external to what I would consider ‘my’ thinking, it seemed to fit that this was what I was experiencing.

There was now a line between the true me and the evil 'voices'.

Of late, I’m starting to wonder if these voices are nothing more sinister than my own imagination. Have I been making a distinction with them simply because they can be pretty nasty and distressing and go against what I would consider to be my personal values?

I’ve also been noting with interest that, often, when I am thinking of something to write, I will just sit back and wait for a voice to pipe up with an idea - of course I don’t always jump on the first thing to be thrown up, since all manner of things appear before me.

The interesting thing is that these ideas feel as though they are coming from the same place as do the voices which plague me especially at darker times.

That’s why I’ve started to wonder if the so called hallucinations aren’t a symptom of a problem with me, but are in fact the imagination which I never learned to cope with and so shut away and abandoned along with everything else.

I suppose it now follows that my new challenge is to re-engage with my imagination.

I can see that the thoughts which - thanks to my religious upbringing (also known as child abuse) - I would have perceived as sins and so tried to suppress, are not evil and do not make me hell worthy.

I am now atheist, as it happens, and so free of the fear of this kind of thought transgression anyway. Unfortunately I am the person I am today because of my experiences, so it is going to be difficult to change – not impossible, but definitely difficult.

At least now I am not afraid to be around people whilst hearing voices and seeing images telling me that I want to rape/punch/kiss/kick/etc them. It is still difficult to be around people because I’m not always on the ball like I am now and tiredness (among other things) plays a major factor in hampering my ability to cope.

The content of the ideas may be troubling but I believe it stems from the fact that my brain is not only a primeval one and not suited to the modern world, but also an extra sensitive and creative one too.

Galleries, minds and exploration

I like walking around an art gallery. Some people struggle with them but the white walls don't bother me - I don't find them stark or harsh. It feels like I am walking around the artists mind and seeing their imagination at play.

There is no pressure to rush (except of course when closing time comes around) and it is strangely quiet like a church.

There's something wonderful about people walking around musing on and being stimulated by the ideas of others. I think it's because these people are keen not to accept things as they are, but instead to explore.

Only a dream

You see an idea with your mind’s eye and you can't help but to want to create it. Dreams are the result of the neurones in your brain randomly firing, but aren’t ideas similar?

You could say that ideas are more substantial because when you talk about them to someone else, the idea can go into and stimulate the brain of that person in a way that doesn't normally happen when a dream is merely described.

There's magic in making those electrical signals into something physical that is outside of your body though because doing so enables other people to see and interact with them.

No one likes hearing about other people's dreams because they have only happened in the mind of the individual, but it’s different with a painting of a dream.

Either way I think that paintings of dreams are good because there is no need to look any deeper into them - they can just be enjoyed for what they are in a way that ideas cannot be. 

Creativity

http://sommer-sommer.com/braintest/

It turns out I am substantially right-brained. My being an artist you wouldn’t be blamed for imagining that I might be slightly thrown in discovering that I am not so much inclined toward creativity. But I have known for a long time that I do not have a good imagination.

Little things like the large amount of time it takes me to compose a witty text message - or any text for that matter - are good hints of this deficit. I have to really concentrate in order to fabricate anything; am I trying to be someone else? Should I have to strain to come up with a reply to a post on Facebook?

Or is it my illness that prevents me from processing things because I have fled my head as a way of dealing with (by which I mean avoiding) the distress of being in there?

I don’t know.

Should you embrace who you are? I realise that – for one reason or another – I am not very creative. I need to write things down in order to process them properly which, as you can imagine, isn’t very convenient for me; but it is simply how it must be at the moment.

I enjoy making art; I want to jog people out of the stupor of their everyday lives and help them see beyond their horizons. This is probably a very naïve way of looking at things but it is the way that they appear to me.

I see people who don’t have the mental capacity or even the natural inclination to realise that they have been blinkered. It saddens me but I do not blame them. It has crossed my mind that I may be able to observe things from a different vantage because my antipsychotic medication numbs my feeling and makes me more cold and logical; in which case were I not being medicated I would probably be as short-sighted as them!

That isn’t a bad thing but it is in a way. It seems to me that there is so much that is wrong with our world that could be solved if people were to simply wake up.

Or perhaps it is me who needs to wake up. What if we can’t run the world on renewable, clean energy? What if the government isn’t corrupted by the oil companies? Is it true that world hunger really cannot be solved? Is it a lie that advanced technology is being held back so that more money can be made? Do we even need money? Is the prescription of medication not just another money-making scheme?