The Following is true as it relates to both a social and mental health system that unduly causes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (Alternating images that vacillate within one’s mind). The main character unable to brandish any type of respect is condemned and condoned by a hostile society. Disconcerting in appearance, the main character secures a janitorial position that embarks on pure drudgery. The scene is a college hockey arena under the auspices of Franciscan Monks. Job duties include and encompass cleaning personnel offices, handicapped bathrooms, public restrooms and locker rooms, a three thousand seating capacity arena, a concourse, press and penalty boxes, the friar’s room in addition to stocking items used during hockey events.
Due to a disconcerting appearance and inability to conform to societal norms, the main character obsessively adheres to a stringent diet. Eventually, the main character is encumbered by mental illness that leads to a rift in coping mechanisms. Two important concepts prevail. “If not inherent, trying to conform to societal norms more often than not leads to psycho-pathology and the uneasy combination of rising dopamine and lowered serotonin leads to an unbalanced state”. This is particularly true with starvation. Satisfy hunger and dopamine and serotonin levels commensurate each other procuring a bio-balanced state.
Eventually, through the impending mental illness, the main character exhibits bizarre syllogisms reminiscent of hebephrenic or disorganized schizophrenia. This is characterized by incoherent speech. Here are two examples: His approach to life is that of being in the process of auditioning for both a country time and minute maid commercials all awhile engaging in Bing Crosby smoking techniques and is Overwhelmingly exhuberant in having his name mentioned that it can be contrasted to Lucille Carmichael bellowing out in an overzealous fashion, “Mr. Mooney”. Often due to erroneous assessments and mis-diagnosis, a patient experiencing a potentially fatal condition referred to as Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome with its lingering dementia will be diagnosed as hebephrenic or disorganized schizophrenia as both conditions are exemplified by “Those that assume bizarre rigid postures with the inability to differentiate”.
Next, hospitalization was imminent in a psychiatric unit surrounded by urban sprawl and neglect. Anti-manic drugs, atypical anti-psychotic agents as well as anti-depressants and minor tranquilizers were dispensed. During hospitalization, the main character in a proverbial daze was led to believe that all television news stations were interconnected and that the corresponding news personnel were the same people in different guise. Unfortunately, mental illness is often assimilated with mental retardation. To the casual observer, one activity during the day had a disoriented lady who would be led to believe that National Lampoon’s Animal House and the zoo as one in the same brandish hand puppets and play romper room music. Thus, this reinforces the erroneous notion that mental illness and retardation are one in the same. The least they could have done was bring in Rocco the clown in order to play pin the tail on the donkey. In order to combat the nonsense, the main character would blatantly sing numerous brief melodies in retaliation. In the hospital, psychiatric patients would resort to incessant smoking. Psychiatric drugs inhibit and block brain receptor impulses. Thus, they are antagonistic drugs. Nicotine on the other hand mimics acetylcholine an excitatory neuro transmitter that increases alertness.
Once out of the hospital, the main character was entrenched by akathisia. Akathisia is a relentless quivering which often precedes a life threatening aberration, “Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome”. Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome is a dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system in which communication between nerve cells and neural response are halted. Rigidity, hyperthermia, hyperexia and pathological weeping, (a happy drunk state) ensues. Thus, picture someone embalmed walking around. Next, seizures with voice rapidity were numerous and the main character would end up in an emergency room and have audacious nurses without a doctor’s consent call the patient, “motor mouth” and ardently try to administer haloperidol (haldol) a potent tranquilizer that all too often abruptly leads to extra-pyrimidal syndrome. Extra-pyrimidal syndrome is characterized by severe stiffnesw of back, spasms of neck and shoulder muscles, rolling back of the eyes, convulsions and persistent drooling. The emergency room would than transport the main character to the community mental health center where negligent and inept staff would deem psychiatric hospitalization necessary in an intensive treatment unit under the same drug regimen responsible for originally precipitating the abhorrent anomalies or endemas. As mentioned previously, it is the system that engenders Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (alternating images that vacillate within one’s mind). One anti-manic drug depakote that was dispensed led to feelings of ill health, discontent and facial swelling. Facial swelling is indicative of liver impairment. This is why blood samples are drawn every two weeks in combination with a liver profile or daunting problems will develop. On one occasion, the main character expressed his concerns about his dwindling health to an ornery, facetious, rambunctious doctor that brazenly insulted the main character referring him as a hypochondriac. Too add insult to injury, the evasive, incorrigible doctor further insulted the main character.
The film as it relates to the main character will in brief duration encompass a narrator that depicts Peter Breggin a former renowned psychiatrist and author. In both “Psychiatric Drugs Cure or Quackery” and “Toxic Psyciatry”, Breggin alleges, “that psychiatric drugs have unleashed widespread permanent disability”. He also asserts, “that drugs used to treat bipolar disorder shields one from the highs and promotes despondency”. Breggin further states, “that psychiatric drugs cause psychosis by making it exceedingly difficult to enter REM sleep, the dream state or deep sleep critical for psychological functioning”. Finally, original psychotic episodes under these drugs are further potentiated.
Once the main character left the community mental health clinic and sought help from a private doctor, his faith and fate were further shattered. The doctor asked peculiar and ridiculous questions. One that reverberates is Do you believe that you possess special powers? He also increased the Risperidone dosage that insidiously led to Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome and almost proved fatal.
Over the next couple of months, the main character entered a residual catatonic state plagued by sleep deprivation, akathisia (relentless quivering) and involuntary tremors that became coarse, flapping and spasmodic usually experienced by someone in a hepatic coma. Initiative had to be taken in order to abate the situation. Seeking help from a previous psychiatrist of German ancestry, motor skills and neuron transmission hastened and the main character was encumbered by Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome and its accompanying and lingering dementia. The doctor rambunctious in his approach stated, “You mean the treatment I give does this to you?” Impatient, incorrigible, inept and incompetent the doctor increased Risperdal by twice the recommended dosage. Rapidly, the main character’s autonomic nervous system hastened and ceased to function, prognosis was grim and no hope could be imbued. Next, reflexes abated and dystonia took hold with all its distortions (Assume bizarre rigid postures with the inability to discern). Thus, the legitimate doctor would have in a traumatic situation dispense the agonist drug Dantroline in order to re-establish critical function between nerve synapses and vital dopamine 2 receptors. In a lingering state of dementia, the main character thought that the inept psychiatrist was making references to the Winfield Funeral Home and the possibility of cremation.
Once home in an impending residual catatonic state purging on death, the main protagonist unduly inflictted second and third degree burns upon himself. Rushed to an emergeny trauma unit, the patient was bedridden, entrenched by prescription drugs, under went numerous skin grafts and could not even scantily walk with a walker. Once placed in the hospital psychiatric unit Clozaril was prescribed. The drug causes slow deliberate movements and rigidity. Agranulocytosis, a reduction in white blood cells frquently occurs. However, the life threatening aberrant condition linked to Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome rarely arises. In the hospital, numerous doctors stated, “that a full recovery was not imminent”. On one occasion, a local parish priest paid visit. Here is a brief overview of the conversation. The main protagonist exuded, “I use to enjoy some of life’s aspects particularly the outdoors”. The hedonistic priest inferred,”Look at the trees, you must adhere to your medicinal regimen”. The regimen precipitated the abhorrent and life threatening anomalies in the first place. The priest further asserted, “That doctors, professionals and the unfortunate or afflicted are bestowed upon by God”. This assimilates and correlates to the concept of the Puritan Ethic that surmise,”Character all, Circumstance none”.
Throughout the world, faith in religion is dwindling. Although it is stated, “That energy can neither be created nor destroyed and that it merely changes form”, studies in the Netherelands prove otherwise. Through numerous case studies of near death experiences those sixty and under were more likely to have experiences. On the other hand, those over sixty were capitulated in enduring oblivion. Neurotransmitters ferry the signals between neurons and are more efficient in younger persons not entrapped by prescription drugs that block and blunt vital receptors. Therefore, near death experiences and the paranormal are worlds encapsulated within the mind.
During hospitalization, a psychiatric nurse and social worker from the community mental health center that precipitated the daunting problems that virtually led to the main character’s demise remiss, “Your Homeless”. They caused a detestable state and than were audacious in their demeanor. They further assessed the main character as schizoid and unresponsive to any stimuli. This is the distinguishing characteristic of the mental health system. The system perpeyuates the problems and than renders a diagnosis.
Next, the main character was placed in a transitional living arrangement. Undergoing therapy and trying to regain both physical and mental plasticity was slow and demure. During Therapy, the main character was blatantly accosted by facial gestures, poked fun at and made mockery of. With more progress to endure which was rather arduous, the main character lasted but three days on a janitorial job that embarked on drudgery hastened by prescription drugs. Next, a rambunctious, unqualified case worker contemptuously stated, “Is it because of your obsessive compulsive disorder that you lost the job”. This reiterates how the mental health system and other human service agencies laden, mount, endear and engender Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Two years later, the main protagonist reinstated himself in the Activities Basic Professional Program offered at the community college. Regardless of previous near fatal life threatening neurological anomalies, enrollment one semester later would have caused all previous credits to be extinguished. This justifies a capitalistic society with its emphasis on the Puritan Ethic and the tenets of Macchiavelli that states, “The end justifies the means”. Nearly one and a half years later the main character received a Certificate in Activities. The task accomplished seemed laudable but was rather daunting. Now working part time in a nursing home activities department for a menial and paltry sum, the main character with great apprehension enrolled into an Associates Degree in Human Services. Thus, resilient in appeasing impossible odds under insurmountable stress, the tenacious character with little confidence and great determination advanced in small increments through his own atonement. Nearing the final scene prior to graduation, the main character gives a presentation in the form of a lecture on how antidepressant drugs are similar to some of the stimulant drugs such as cocaine. This is particularly true of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors that act as catecholamines. Inhibitory, the drug is re-absorbed by the neurotransmitter that discharges it thus procuring its stimulating effects. The main character than describes the anti-cholinergic effects of older tricyclic anti-depressants with its waning popularity and discontinued use. The newer atypical drugs that bind to both nor-epinephrine and serotonin receptors are also mentioned but briefly. Resounding, reverberating and echoing in the backgroung the audience can hear the World War II song Keep the Home Fires Burning. Finally, Graduation Commencement takes place and the main character that had to endure the rigors of academis in addition to being demarcated and demeaned by society graduates Cum Laude. A daunting task, rather laudable that shows resiliency. The final song after graduation commences is It don’t come easy by Ringo Starr circa 1971.