FrontalLobe

Friday, July 30, 2004 @ 17:45

number thirty-four

i changed my blog layout as you all can see. i guess the theme for it is gloominess, the song, clours, etc. and the song is by evanessence, although i'm not so what is the title. and the colours are matched pretty nicely too. i like it. haha. today was the 2.4km run. i came in 18 with a timing of 9 minutes and 10 seconds. harold was third. cool. guess i'll have to train harder for next year's run. haha. what a boring day today is, nothing to do at home. so i re-did the maths test that we had. darn, i really have nothing to post. off to watch MTV now. bye.

so come on, tell me.

Thursday, July 29, 2004 @ 20:32

number thirty-three

back to post again. i tried to change my layout today, but i had some difficulties getting into blogspot.com, so i gave the idea up. school was fun today. those that did not hand in the compositions to zehou had to stand for the lesson. heck. can't that guy get a life. it's not that i don not want to hand in my homework but it's just that he don't have my respect. yes, i know that i shouldn't think like this but i really don't see the point in doing something for a guy who i don not respect at all. even if i do, i'll mess it up and hand in crap to him. oh well, i'll just have to bear with him for half a year more and it is, as harold always says," oh sayo-na-na". and speaking of compositions, you all out there have to read clement's rejected-chinese-composition. not that it is good (no offence, fruit), but it's real funny. get it from him if you can. actually, i'm quite guilty for spending time the way i am now. sitting in front of my laptop, posting, listening to music and chatting while i have lots of maths to catch up and tonnes of clothes to fold. but it's alright i guess. chatting and listening to music beats all these. i'll probably rush home after the run tomorrow to do these work. yes. tomorrow's the run. 2.4 km. running in the morning. can't wait. going off now. bye.

so come on, tell me.

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 @ 21:24

number thirty-two

woohoo. what a day. first was the student council initiation. not that i was looking for it or anything but it was more like the satisfaction of being senior to somebody else. haha. yeah, i know i'm bad. and i can't help it. and i can't wait for the intiation day too. that would be the day when the sec ones are tortured by the seniors and me. haha. i'll torture all the ncc councillors. maybe not torture. it sounds too harsh and painful. a notch down torture would be fine. yep. haha. i'm so happy today. i'm not sure why. happy happy happy. woohoo! have you all read the Iliad of Homer? it is so cool. and it is poetry. that's why it is cool. and there's achilles, hector, ajax, priam, zues, aphrodite, aphrodite's mother (who is very beautiful), patroclus, etc. etc. actually aphrodite's mother is an earth goddess. and she's the feminine parallel of zues. cool eh? i think i'm in love with poetry. but i'm taking history for sec three. poetry is just for reading pleasure. i'll probably get dante's inferno next time. well, that's all. today was a really really really really really eventful day. haha. till next time.

so come on, tell me.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 @ 17:51

number thirty-one

cool. blogspot did something to it's system. more user-friendly now. bad sore throat now. damn. maybe it's because i slept with my mouth open last night. bacteria blah blah blah probably went inside. hmm, heard from my friend that all the classes except 2k and 2b were disqualified from the racial harhony thing. but there's not proof. yet. maybe we'll know tomorrow. well, i heard from christen that alex really loves his grandmother, who is dead. i've decided that if alex disturbs us one more time, i shall use the loss of his grandmother against him. i know it's not nice. but i have limits. we had this crappy racial harmony thing today. it was a real disaster or real fun event. you decide. i was slacking and taking part at the same time. and i was also soaked. all because of a particuliar someone and somebodies. but heck, at least half of the class were wet. so i went for the ncc cheering thing later. we had to cheer for the vip on founder's day because we are the best of cheering for 2004. so we cheered and the whatever madam tam kept talking crap. and then mr yow talked to us. and i went for the founder's day rehersal which was about only 5 minutes for me. all i had to do was to direct the prize-winners to their seat. boring. yep. and there's the stupid maths test tomorrow and madam chow has basically taught us almost nothing at all. tsk tsk tsk. mr mok is much better than her. and i argued with mr chen today too. that was fun. he was like insulting quan heng by calling his standard of chinese lousy. then i said :"then is your english very good?"(in chinese) then he was stumped. loss for words for a few seconds. and the backlash came. blah blah blah. complaining that we did not work hard etc. etc. well, does he think that he teaches us very well? no. and besides that, he thinks that all of us has the same standard of chinese, which is so very not true. and i am so darn bored now. heck. going off now. i have no more things to write about.

so come on, tell me.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004 @ 20:33

number thirty

hello. it's been a long long time since i've posted. because there is absolutely nothing to talk about. perhaps i'll make it a point to post more frequently. i'm thinking of writing a real life story about something that happened during my sixth year in primary school. should i? because it is like an event that changed the way i see things. so if you want to hear it, please respond using my tagboard. well, today is tuesday. nothing happened. the only thing that i guess would be interesting this week is the friday's combined rehersal for the National Day Parade. all the uniformed groups would march together. cool. damn. i'm real bored now. i've just read the life science notes for the what, third time? but i can't be sure everything in there is in my mind. but the one on forensics science is. because it is so cool. too bad they did not include anything on biological hazards, or i would have aced it. bored bored bored. my dad and mom are out, so i'm at home with just my sis and brother. i should be revising some other stuff now but i guess i'll do it later. darn, i should have taken french for third language. missed the chance. aargh, i'll go now. i have really nothing to post. good night.

so come on, tell me.

Friday, July 02, 2004 @ 21:12

number twenty-nine

Schizophrenia is often thought of as "split personality". This is a misconception, as the person suffering from schizophrenia does not have more than one distinct personality as is seen in Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder). Instead, they are characterized by having psychosis with, generally, two or more of the following: delusions, hallucinations (visual or auditory), disorganized speech (derailment of speech or incoherence), disorganized or catatonic behavior, or negative symptoms such as flattening of affect or lack of motivation.

Delusions may be grandiose, in which the person believes they have special powers, or may be bizarre in which they feel their parents are martians. Persecutory delusions are also common.

Hallucinations are reported by approximatey 75% of schizophrenics, with 90% being auditory, and 40% visual (There is some overlap as some sufferers have both auditory and visual). Auditory hallucinations may be voices that whisper to the person, command them to do things, comment on their actions, suggest courses of action. The voices may be from people they know (a dead relative) or strangers. Visual hallucinations can be bizarre and frightening, even threatening. They may see things such as snakes crawling from skulls, blood dripping from people, creatures coming from walls. Less common are tactile hallucinations in which the patient feels bugs and ants crawling over or under their skin.

From the beginning, the person with schizophrenia firmly believes in their delusions and hallucinations: they are real. After a time period in which they are very confused, they have a catharsis in which they are able to find their own "holy grail" that ties everything together for them that explains it all. However, this generally makes no sense to anyone else. This might be "The FBI is watching me and sending thoughts into my mind." With increased therapy, medication management and over time, these statements begin to tone down "The FBI might be wathcing me and sending thoughts into my head" then "I'm not so sure about that FBI stuff", and "Every so often I think the FBI is watching me. Isn't that crazy?" and finally "I've learned no to pay attention to those ideas about the FBI. They just get me into trouble." What this shows is not a complete remission of the thoughts. It shows a softening of the hallucination, which are still there, but to an extent to which they are more manageable.

Schizophrenia usually onsets during adolescence or early adulthood, with 1/4 of patients having an abrupt, active onset. The remainder have an acute onset after a slow decline in functioning that may include social withdrawal, impaired functioning, poor hygeine, flat affects, vague rambling speech, odd or magical thinking, ideas of reference, overvalued ideas, persecutory thoughts, and illusions, depersonalization, and derealization.

Schizophrenia is a chronic disease - there is no magic cure. However, it is characterized by periods of exacerbations and remissions. The first years are the worst, with active symptoms predominating and possible multiple hospitalizations. As the disease ages however, a more nonpsychotic state is reached with chronic symptoms of apathy, low energy levels, social withdrawal, and increased vulnerability to stress.. They may pick at imaginary objects or repeat words. Most schizophrenics report symptoms of depression at sometime during their illness, usually following an acute psychotic episode.

The major negative sequela of schizophrenia is suicide. approximately 20% of schizophrenics attempt suicide, and 10% are successful. It is generally during the depressive period immediately following an acute period when this occurs. 30% occur within 3 months after hospitalization and 50% within 6 months of hospitalization.

There are five subtypes of schizophrenia which may be noted: paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated, and residual. The paranoid type have prominent persecutory or gandiose delusions or hallucinations with similar content. They may be unfocused, angry, argumentative, violent and anxious. They assume people can't be trusted and that anyone who likes them must be up to no good. They live a highly contained and structured existence. The disorganized type is characterized by prominent incoherence with flat, silly or inappropriate affect. The catatonic type, on the other hand, which is much rarer, is a case of psychomotor disturbance. They have a sudden onset, better prognosis, and more mood disorders. They can have either extreme motion on one end of the scale, or on the other end, and extreme resistance to movement. The undifferentiated type merely notes that they do not fit into the above categories. The residual type is used if chronic symptoms continue after an active phase ends.

Treatment is with traditional antipsychotics such as zyprexa and geodon. Therapy is used to stress reality testing initially, and later to explore stressors, and improve coping skills.

I offer a case history of a client, M, who is in his early 30's who is diagnosed as schizoaffective-bipolar, non-medication compliant, abuses alcohol and street drugs. He has had "voices in my head since I was a teenager" "they always talk to me, tell me what to do in social situations, in conflicts, they are my guides." Additionally, he has visual hallucinations that he admits to following at work, and he has been found talking to one of these, when it appeared he was talking to a wall. There are a large number of factors that come into play here. He was unmedicated and untreated by the medical community until he was in his mid-twenties. Before that time he was using a wide range of drugs, smoking and injecting, as well as alcohol. This was done as a form of self-medication. When he was finally diagnosed, he was addicted. Fighting his addiction and attempting to go onto medications was difficult, but he did it for a while. Then he dropped off the medications and went back to street drugs and drinking for one simple reason: when he was medicated, his voices went away. Without his voices, he lost all of his internal guides, the voices he had come to rely upon for support, to show him what to do, how to act for the past 10+ years. He was lost socially and emotionally without them. He felt that he had no effective coping skills without them. So, he reverted back.

I chose this case study as a simple example of a reason why a person would choose to continue to stay unmedicated in the case of schizophrenia (which means shattered personality, literally). Along with other mental illnesses, many times the known is more comfortable than the unknown and the work that would have to be put into changing the whole world-view that has been held for so many years

Taken from www.mental-health-matters.com

so come on, tell me.

20:26

number twenty-eight

back to post again. today was a cool day. actually it was yesterday but we had to postpone the event to today due to the absolutely meaningless chinese book quiz. 1st July was actually NCC day. so we wore our uniforms today instead. and i got to shout at alex. it was so fun. maybe i'll learn how to be a sociopath and later torture him with words. actually there's nothing to blog about today. no significant events happened. so it's good night for now.

so come on, tell me.

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