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The following is the bulk of the first chapter of my book about being raised in a crazy fundamentalist cult and living with mental illness. I have written about my experiences a number of times both on this board and other places before and it I have always gotten a very positive response. At the urging of numerous members of D&D as well as others I have begun writing my book. The following excerpt is envisioned as half of a two chapter explanation of how I have found that schizophrenia operates in my experiences. This section is meant to establish a (hopefully not overly) complicated metaphor to help the readers gain a mental framework around which to roughly understand a schizophrenic mind. It is my intention to write the narrative portion of the book "as is", with no further elaboration on what is happening "under the hood" of my mind. I want the narrative to simply reflect the events of my life and how I thought about them and reasoned through them at the time. I desire the reader to understand that what is happening in my mind it isn't supposed to make sense, because I am mentally ill. This frees me from the burdens of attempting to justify or explain my actions in a manner understandable to the reader, because that would be literally impossible. In this chapter I am hoping for feedback in specific areas. Namely: 1.) How well is the operating system metaphor established in the mind of the reader? 2.) Is the piece itself too boring, convoluted, verbose, or abstract? 3.) How effective is the metaphor itself at communicating with the reader? 4.) Does this piece draw the reader in despite its abstract and somehwat technical nature? 5.) Have I arranged the metaphor in a manner with a natural progression of development? 6.) Have I avoided sounding like a stereotypical gibberishy schizophrenic ala this example?(Because oh sweet Jesus the first few versions of this were incomprehensible to anyone who isn't me) That is to say, does this piece make a goddamn bit of sense? schizophrenia (n.) : 1912, from Modern Latin, literally "a splitting of the mind," from German Schizophrenie, coined in 1910 by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939), from Greek skhizein "to split" (see schizo-) + phren (genitive phrenos) "diaphragm, heart, mind," of unknown origin. Schizophrenia has long been associated with the idea of a "split mind". As a diagnosed Schizophrenic I would agree that one could describe it that way. My mind is "split" in the sense that there are two separate realities in my mind. Each reality is complete. Each reality can provide a full explanation for the events in the world I perceive as well as having an internally consistent logic. Each reality also has behavioral implications that are a "logical" result of the internal rules being used. The problem is that is where the similarities end. Each reality embraces a worldview radically different from each other. They are in no way compatible with each other and can and do often come into conflict. My experience has been that much of the erratic behavior I have exhibited over the years as a person with schizophrenia has at its root a conflict between these two realities. Please follow with me gentle reader as I try to elaborate. These realities have been with me since childhood and if there ever was a time when my mind was different I cannot remember it. But before I get too far into the narrative portion here I want to try and clarify a good bit more accurately how having these two realities interposed seamlessly on top each other plays out. The realities have both evolved greatly over the years, often independently, so it is not possible to firmly define each by specific beliefs, but rather the underlying method of thinking inherent in the beliefs each reality possesses. It would be more proper to explain the difference between each reality as each being a separate operating system in a computer. Both are designed to do roughly the same thing but they each achieve this through different internal methods. Computer programming languages are all identical in that they are ultimately a way of doing more work in binary, faster. Binary is the base language of all computing. It is the base particle, the smallest unit that cannot be divided into smaller parts, the Higgs-Boson of the computing world. Humans use computers to solve problems. This task is accomplished by arranging the the work into the form of a problem that can be solved in binary. Humans could in theory enter every single 0 and 1 themselves, but that is extremely time consuming, and this is where programming languages enter the scene. Every single programming language in existence is designed to do one thing, allow a human coder a method of shortening the amount of keystrokes (or work) needed to do a task(perform useful work). The programming language exists as a translator then, permitting the human to speak to the computer and be understood, have his instructions translated into binary, have the desired work performed, and to get an answer in return that is also translated from binary into a more readily understood language. Bringing the focus of our discussion back to how my mind functions, let us compare my mind to a desktop computer. In order to make this metaphor work, it is necessary to temporarily separate the concepts of "physical brain" and "mind". A CPU is where the work of a computer is done, and that work is done all in zeros and ones.(Binary) My physical brain in this analogy then would be the CPU of our imaginary computer, where the actual processing work is done. My "Mind" is the operating system then that takes information, converts it into a form the brain can process, interprets those results, and then displays those results on the screen. The screen sitting atop the desk of our fictional computer is me, my outside, what I can display to the world. It is how I am perceived by the outside world, it is where I display the results of the work performed in my inside world. It is my face and body, but it is also my life decisions and behavior. The screen is also my personality, my sense of humor, my tendency to brood, my love of strategy games, and the way I talk. It is the sum total of what you outside worlders can see. So the display screen in this example is every piece of Prester John that you dear reader can perceive with your five senses. It is the primary method you have of seeing the results of the internal processing the computers CPU is doing. In our analogy here I am simultaneously running two separate operating systems, each written in a different computer language. It is as if I am running Windows7 ,(which is written in C++) and at the same time I am running MacOS (which is written in Objective-C). Both Operating systems receive and act on the same input. There are very broad area's of overlap where either operating system is equally capable of performing a given task. For example, both MacOS and Windows7 have simple calculator apps that can do arithmetic in more or less the exact same manner. Entering "2 + 2" into either calculator app will get you the correct answer of "4" every-time, no matter which app you happen to be using. Input (or commands) from the keyboard or mouse are received and processed by both Operating Systems. If you press the "A" key on my keyboard for example, both Windows 7 and MacOS will receive the keystroke "A". They will then both process that information and react to it according to the dictates of their own internal design, within the context of the task each perceives itself to be engaged in at that time. For simple inputs like in our example here the answer generated by both operating systems will be identical. Let me give a simple example of this. If you reader were to walk up to me and say "Hello", both of my realities would receive that same message, break down into a form the brain can process, and then interpret and display the results. In this simple example both my realities come to the exact same result, which is for me to smile slightly, make eye contact, and say "Hello" back. Pretend for a moment that You are using this computer (interacting or working with me in some manner) and have a text document open. Each operating system is running its own separate instance but acting on the same input. Their basic display format matches perfectly, so there is no visible overlap. That is to say, to you the user, it looks like any other computer you have used before. When you type "Hello World" on the keyboard both operating systems receive that input equally, and both take that input, break it down into binary, do the computing, generate their results. convert that information from binary to the programming language. The programming language then allows the Operating system to interpret the results and display those results on the screen. In this example both operating systems achieve the result "Hello World". There is perfect agreement between them. The same input results in the same result for both, and a person looking at the screen would not even be aware that there were actually two identical results overlaid instead of a single result. As far as they can see, the screen is displaying its results in the exact same manner as every other screen they have encountered. Outwardly there is no visible difference. Taking this a bit further, for the average computer user the distinction between displaying two overlaid identical results and displaying one single result is really abstract. Even if explained to them, they are unlikely to care about the distinction and can only relate to the distinction in so far as how it effects what the screen displays. Truthfully a good majority of the time the distinction really is entirely academic because there is perfect agreement between the results of both operating systems and the visible display on the screen is functioning as expected. And this is the basic essence of how my mind truly works. Let us return to our open text document that is displaying the words "Hello World". The user (you) decides you want to make an alteration and change "Hello World" to "HELLO WORLD", which to you is a really minor adjustment. Using the mouse you bring the pointer to "Hello World", left click, and drag to the right. Both programming languages receive identical input and so far are responding in identical ways, the display of the text "Hello World" has changed to ***highlighted hello world***. So far so good. Now you right click the mouse, and this is where things start to break down. The Windows Operating System recognizes the right click input and displays a context menu, the Mac Operating system cannot distinguish between right click and left click, for the Mac Operating system there is only *click*. So the MacOS receives *click* and de-highlights the text, changing its display from ***highlighted "Hello World"*** to its previous display "Hello World". There is no longer perfect agreement, and the same input has been processed by both Operating Systems, but now the different languages have achieved different results, which are both displayed equally. Now back to what our unfortunate user is seeing in the display, which is non-identical results being displayed equally, which appears very strange to you. The section of the screen you are working with is displaying a visually confusing result. You, our dear user can however still see the context menu from Windows 7 well enough to interact with it, so you try to finish your task. So you select from the context menu an option to turn "Hello World" into "HELLO WORLD". It is a task you have performed many times before with many different computers and you regard it as a really simple, minor thing. You are not aware that there are two separate operating systems running, and you have no way of knowing that one of them cannot recognize the distinction between **Left Click** and **Right Click** it only knows **click** . The MacOS does not perceive the difference because it cannot, so it is reacting to the same input but achieving a different result from what Windows achieved. You the user think you are using Windows7 because that is what you are accustomed to and it is what you were told to expect from this computer. And in the language of MacOS lies how it interfaces with Binary. The language of MacOS is its understanding of the world, its way of interacting with binary, its way of computing results and displaying them. MacOS is capable of doing many of the exact same tasks as Windows7 and shares many simple things common. And in the mouse lies the crux of our analogy. Windows recognizes **Left Click** as distinct from *Right Click*, MacOS does not. MacOS can only recognize the input **click** and it interprets both **Left Click** and **Right Click** as simply **click**. The Display now changes again, from a somewhat larger blobby area to a new and unexpected result. "Hello World" has now become ***"Hello World" displayed in both Capital and Lower-case letters smudged together**** Now that looks pretty strange. You dear user got sort of the result you were looking for, and sort of not. Once you've looked at the monitor a bit you can see where although technically the result you wanted is there, it is in a smudged form and unusable to you. You are baffled by this odd turn of events, (this is after all the first time you've seen a computer do this particular malfunction). So you elect to close the document and open a new one. You move the mouse to the upper right and click on the close button, then move the mouse again to open a new document. Both operating systems interpret the same input and close the document, then open a new blank document. The same results have been achieved and so the same results are displayed. Everything seems to be back to normal. So you type "Hello World" and it is displayed correctly. You again highlight the words, everything normal so far, then you right click. Blammo, same weird rear end bug again. Sighing you hit backspace and start deleting "Hello World", and as you press backspace the weird glitch goes away. You then enter "HELLO WORLD" manually. You get the result you wanted, finally. So you make a note to yourself that you can't change text case by highlighting and right clicking because it causes some weird glitch. Its annoying, but you have an easy workaround and you just regard it as some odd quirk. This is a quirky computer, oh well, its a really minor detail anyways. You shrug it off and think of it as one of the things that makes your Desktop "Unique". But mostly you just forget about it. And then one day you are using your computer like normal and you do something in a slightly different way than before. You've been working on a major project for weeks, and you are just double checking some things and correcting any small errors you find. You have a document open and you use a keyboard shortcut to close it and save your work. Not a big thing, just a little time saver you heard about from a co-worker It just so happens that tiny difference is interpreted very differently by two separate operating systems, causing a major difference in results this time. Your computer gets that weird glitch again, except this time it covers a larger portion of the screen than before, and in a twisting motion it starts to spread to more of the screen. Its the most bizarre goddamn thing you've ever seen. You use the mouse to close the document by clicking on the x in the upper right corner. The project doesn't close though this time. It stays open It seems that everything you try just makes it worse, the display gets stranger. You can still kind of make out your document though A spiraling mass of interwoven gibberish geometrical shapes spreads across the screen, animated and moving constantly. You can just make out the contours of the document though as gibberishy words start to appear on the document. Nonsensical phrases, disconnected words, almost pure gibberish. The document dims, what is being displayed on the screen is so mixed and odd that it defies description. And then your computer shuts down. And then it refuses to restart. You miss your deadline, the project is hosed and you look like an rear end in a top hat. And it would have all been fine if the computer had just done some simple little thing in the way you expected it to. You dear reader, are now furious at your computer, and justifiably so. Even worse, you find it almost impossible to even describe to other people what the hell the computer did when it crashed. It was just so bizarre. Your attempts to explain yourself to your co-workers leave them scratching their head, and you soon stop. This is to become a pattern. Seemingly without reason or rhyme your computer just up and does something bizarre. Sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ways. Sometimes the computer develops a small glitch that never ends, so you learn to live with it. Sometimes your computer just up and shuts down and won't reboot for weeks at a time. Even more bizarre, sometimes after these long shutdowns, when the restart finally happens all the user settings have been rearranged and now whenever you open a document you have a purple background color instead of white. It defies all your attempts to fix it. The background color of all your documents is now purple, and that is that. Finally you decide it is not a big deal after all and just live with it. You try over and over to figure out what the hell is wrong with your computer. It never makes sense. Over time your frustration with your computer grows because all the odd workarounds you have to use and goofy quirks you have to avoid slows down your productivity. You have to work twice as long and know twice as much about your computer as your peers in order to get even sub-standard quality out of your work. Worse, certain tasks, sometimes even incredibly simple and mundane tasks, are simply not possible on your computer. It won't perform them no matter how many new ways you invent to try to work around the inevitably fatal glitches. Everything you try just results in an error, sometimes in very dramatic and unexpected ways. As time wears on you even become gun-shy about even attempting certain tasks, because in the past it has caused errors that cascaded into all other sorts of work you were in the middle of, ruining it all. When you have to tell your boss or co-workers that you can't do certain tasks "Because my computer just won't do that no matter how hard I try" they understandably become very skeptical very quickly. Eventually you become regarded as an office pariah, unreliable and full of bullshit excuses about how its not your fault. You get accused of laziness despite the fact that you arrive hours before and leave hours after your co-workers every day. As the years drag on it just becomes so goddamn frustrating. My life's story dear readers is mostly this. A pattern of odd behavior with many peaks and valleys that seemingly makes no sense. And that is good, because it really does make no sense, and I am not even going to bother trying to make sense of it. The story of my life has several major components, but is mostly about the what happened when the same input resulted in two different results, which is most of the time. In big and small ways, in weird and wild ways, and in ways that can only be called.....odd. Another big thread in my life has been the story of how I tried to learn to use that quirky desktop to do work. In some ways I am just like our frustrated user, slamming my fist into the desk as I helplessly watch the drat computer glitch out YET AGAIN. And the final thread of my life is the story of me watching what happens when the screen goes crazy and the computer crashes. From the inside.
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May 14, 2014 17:31
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I've been meaning to get to this all week and keep forgetting. Your experiences are pretty interesting and I think there's a solid core here, but you've committed a pretty common rookie mistake: you've written too much and it just kinda comes out dry and boring. Strip your prose right down and you'd have a much better read. Some questions to ask yourself 1) if I am using a longer word, would a shorter one do? 2) if I am writing a long and/or complicated sentence, is there a way to write it more simply? 3) if I am writing an extended analogy or metaphor, how accessible is it? How relevant is it? See this line? quote:As the years drag on it just becomes so goddamn frustrating. I know telling you to rip out the computer stuff is a big ask, but it really doesn't work. It's a huge amount of setup to explain well, I'm not sure what the hell it's meant to explain. Big extended analogies are really hard to write, and are best written about something everybody knows the basics of so you don't have to spend forever explaining what the difference between a CPU and a motherboard is. Think "making a sandwich" or "driving to work": simple poo poo that everybody has experienced already. Creative nonfiction has a different set of rules to creative fiction, but ruling over both of them is "keep it simple". To answer your questions 1) the writing itself is ok, but I get the feeling most readers are going to glaze out before they get there 2) yes, absolutely. This is your biggest problem right now. 3) See 1 4) nope 5) yes, but see 1 6) mostly. I could feel is veering towards there at points, but it never got that bad. Overall it's not terrible or incomprehensible, it's just too verbose and convoluted, which results in it being boring. Less computer stuff, more personal colour. Looking forward to seeing how this ends up. Good luck! SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 15:07 on May 19, 2014 |
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May 18, 2014 05:56
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Hi Prester John - I am so thrilled that you are embarking on writing this. I saw your posts in D&D and I'm definitely going to read everything you put out here. I also want to make sure you know that FriedChicken's warning about not posting it publicly for publication/copyright is not an issue. What you post here will be very different from what you end up submitting to agents. That's the drafting process! So write write write, post post post, and don't think about publication until much later. Now, for critique: you're going to get people in here saying you should fix this sentence or that, use this kind of language or that, but these are all micro edits, when right now you are on a macro level! Think of this project in terms of stories. To begin, pick out a few stories that really seem important: something that happened at crazy god school, the day you arrived at Haven, when you finally accepted that you were schizophrenic, etc. Pick one and write about it. Tell us what happened, who the major characters are, how you felt at the time, how it affected you. The stories are what the people come to hear, and then you are sticking them together with delicious icing--your editorial commentary on your own life, the way you can look at these separate incidents and tie them together in themes, what interesting insights your struggles have given you. Bake the base cake first, by telling stories, and the rest will rise to lightly coat the surface You don't need to work on lengthy explanations of how your mind works. We will understand (as much as we can while not living in your brain) by the way you choose to tell your stories. The important thing is to keep writing! You have an amazing story to tell here, and I have no doubt that it will come together. These things take a lot of time and effort, so please remember that it doesn't need to be perfect or even good so long as you're working on it. You'll have a lot of experienced people to help along the way.
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May 18, 2014 17:35
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I'm still working on this. Whenever I can I write, I try to just keep my hand moving, as it were. Sometimes the things that come out surprise me. I've got a small collection of pieces now, more vignettes of moments than a cohesive narrative so far, but I think some of it is good. The biggest hurdle lately has been bringing myself to share these bits, to me they feel really personal. This next piece has taken a bit over two weeks for me to work up the courage to share. I used to be so strong. This morning I was supposed to go in for a job interview. Weeks of searching and filling out applications had finally paid off, I got an interview. I am homeless, living in a shelter, getting a job, any sort of job, even part time, is my ticket out of my situation. Once I have an income, even a small one, I qualify for so many more programs, I can get so much more assistance, I can get out of this shelter, into my own apartment, and finalyl feel a shred of self respect again. But I didn't make it to my interview. Last night I went to bed excited, like a kid on Christmas Eve, eager for the morning to come. Thats how badly I wanted this interview, how badly I wanted this job. How badly I want to be able to feel like I can look myself in the mirror again. But I didn't make it to my interview. I fell asleep, finally. It took an hour or two to calm down enough, but I finally fell into blissful sleep. I knew at the other end of this sleep was something I wanted dearly. A big step forwards for me. It was hard to calm my mind enough to fall asleep, but with a few breathing exercises, and a bit of meditation I learned from a buddhist, I was able to fall asleep. And then I woke up. It was three in the morning. I had been having a nightmare, I was covered in sweat, my soaked sheets were wrapped tightly around my legs. I was too hot, my joints ached. I was breathing heavily. My gut was twisted in knots. I felt like I might have to puke. Despair washed over me as realization dawned. I was having another anxiety attack, yet another one of my episodes. Like a cold wave I felt a mixture of dread spread from the center of my body outwards. I coughed and my legs spasmed. The thought of going to my interview in the morning was swept away as a memory, a vivid flash, of a failure from my childhood hit me like a physical blow. for a moment I raised my spasming arms as if to protect my head from a punch as the voice of my Mother screamed at me, scolding me, calling me a failure. I was a mess, again. I was going to fail, again. The little version of my Mother that lived inside my haed and screamed at me had been right all along, again. There was no way I was going to make it to my interview. I knew that quickly. Not like this. My interview was at 10:00 and I knew from past experience that I wasn't going to be able to get another wink of sleep tonight. I knew the anxiety would only grow worse and that the clock would only drag slowly forwards, its maddening tempo only reinforcing the hatred I had for myself that even now was making me choke. It was too goddamned hot. I was on the top bunk of one bed amongst almost two hundred in a barracks shelter for the homeless. Even though it was usually freezing at night (This was on purpose to reduce bugs) I was too goddamned hot. The sounds of muted snoring from the 40 other men in my area were suddenly too much, it was infuriating. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to hit myself. Joints aching, I got up and started the tedious climb out of the top bunk. Feeling with my toe I found the one clear spot of ladder between my towel and my hispanic bunkmates ten gallon hats. My bare feet hit the cool concrete floor, and almost as soon as I had reached for my shower bag my arm spasmed, locking itself in place. Bitterly I stared at it until the muscles relaxed, I grabbed my shower bag and, legs occasionally locking up, made my way into the shower. This time of night the large restroom was empty, and thanks to the long privacy curtain I would have the shower area to myself. I went over to the one "good" shower, the only one that had a proper shower head instead of a tiny high pressure spigot that usually spit the water out so hard it hurt. I cranked the water all the way up and stepped back a moment to let it warm. Without warning a memory of my religious leader striking me with a paddle when I was nine. "You have a spirit of rebellion" I heard his voice saying, "We are going to instill the fear of the Lord into you". The memory rocked me forwards almost as if I had been physically struck, I caught myself on the concrete divider between shower stalls and, stomach twisted in knots, panted and winced as the invisible blows fell again, one after another. The water finally warm enough, I stripped down, laying my clothes ove a concrete divider on the other side of the shower area. As soon as the water hit my hair I could smell salt, the first drops stung my eyes as it rolled down my face and onto the floor. For a moment I breathed deeply, trying t relax, and then I remembered, I had an interview in the morning, and there was no way I was going to make it. My legs buckled, I hit the ground harder than I wanted to, my back scraping against the bare birck of the shower area and getting scratched up. I had thought I had finally left these attacks behind me, that I could finally get at least a part time job, but I could see now that just the stress of having an interview the next day was too much. I buried my head between my knees. A grown man, naked in the shower, my testicles resting uncomfrtably on the bare floor, half curled up in the fetal position in the middle of the night, all because I had a job interview. Suddenly I remembered all the pills I had in my locker, it would be so easy to just swallow a few handfuls of them and fall asleep, just let the frustration finally be ov "NO!" I half shouted and punched the divider in front me. The pain from my knuckles shook me out of it for a moment, and I was hit by embarassment. Too much noise in the middle of the night, I didn't want staff to investigate, I didn't want anyone to see me like this. It was too humiliating. At least the sound of the shower hitting the back of my head would help cover up my sobs. I buried my head between my knees again. Hot tears got lost in the steady stream from the shower as I tried to muffle the sounds of my internal agony. I used to be so strong.
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Jul 21, 2014 13:50
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You need the other side present in your story to a degree. It will help you write 'more and more easily' while broadening the reader's ability to navigate the story. Simply state how someone else might see or feel or may react (respond) to the setting or event of a given story(paragraph), next to your 'I' writing this will provide a juxtaposition of perspective and give your reader more viewpoints to engage with your writing from. I became bored reading your story. I hate your lamentation "I used to be so strong". It is bad for your writing and it is too openly pleading of pity from my view as a reader. Take my comments with a grain of salt, I have not written any popular works as yet myself. Best Regards, RG
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Jul 25, 2014 16:33
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A great new section, Prester John. I'm glad you are continuing to work on this, and I know it's difficult to organize your thoughts and write about such intensely private things. This is a good episode to include, since your audience will want to understand what is holding you back. I got a real sense of your panic here, and you had a good balance between physical description and editorial observations on it. You're definitely trusting us more to understand how your mind works by the actions you take and how you talk about the episode. Expand on either side of this story now. Set us up more with what the job was going to be and how you came by the interview. What was your life generally like at the time? (this can be covered in a separate chapter but we should know they context of Haven by the time we get here) What was the fallout from you missing the interview? You mention your mother's voice (with a mommie dearest capital M), so here's a reminder that you definitely need to have a chapter or two devoted to your relationship with her, especially considering how crazy that story is. I am very much looking forward to hearing it when you're ready. RichardGamingo posted:You need the other side present in your story to a degree. It will help you write 'more and more easily' while broadening the reader's ability to navigate the story. Simply state how someone else might see or feel or may react (respond) to the setting or event of a given story(paragraph), next to your 'I' writing this will provide a juxtaposition of perspective and give your reader more viewpoints to engage with your writing from. I became bored reading your story. I hate your lamentation "I used to be so strong". It is bad for your writing and it is too openly pleading of pity from my view as a reader. However, this brings up a point that will be useful as you, Prester, as you continue with this project. Even in a nonfiction book, a schizophrenic is an Unreliable Narrator (tm). So it will be important to give your audience some grounding as to what is really happening when schizophrenic you is telling his version of events. This can be the people you're interacting with (either in behavior, things they say, or future you commenting upon how they must have felt/thought), or your future self directly commenting with the clarity of hindsight. Whatever you do, keep writing!
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Jul 27, 2014 15:11
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