On Voices

Why do psychiatrists ask: "do you hear voices?"  It is a baited question posed to schizophrenia.

Also, it is a stupid question because on the one hand, if the patient says: 'yes,' then it is acknowledged that the patient hears 'voices.'

However, the doctor can't hear the 'voices.'  But, the doctor is acknowledging the patient verbatim when a patient says that they hear 'voices.'

(Yet, few psychiatrists or members of the public will acknowledge anything else a person diagnosed with schizophrenia suppositions, instead the norm being to assume that the person 'hears voices' 24/7/365.

Thus, schizophrenics are discounted: except in the case(s) when the patient says that they 'hear voices,' which is stigma).

The term 'voices' originated from hospital settings wherein a patient(s) used the most apt term available to them in their limited vocabulary and education to describe their experience.

The term 'voices' was then coined by psychiatrists and used in the DSM-IV because psychiatrists heard the term on the ward originally from patients.  (Royalties?)

One supposition is that there is no such thing as 'voices' to describe a schizophrenic's experience.

'Hearing voices' is 'hearing things' that are not 'there' or within earshot, in terms of the DSM-IV schizophrenia definition of it.

Thinking is 'voices.'

A person sounds out words in the brainbefore uttering the words.  It might take a nano-second for the brain's thought (sounding out) to reach the tongue.  In that nano-second, it is a 'voice' that is not 'there.'

Thus, a thought is a 'voice(s).'  Everybody has thoughts.  So, everybody hears voice(s).

The term 'voices' to describe what a schizophrenic might be experiencing is a misconstrued description of what is 'disorganized thinking' to one degree or another in terms of the manifestation of 'disorganized thinking' in varied individuals: not just schizophrenics.

Lastly, if 'voices' originate from within the brain because there is no other source for them, then what is 'voices' but thoughts?

An Answer:
I suppose auditory hallucinations could be considered a kind of thought. They're a brain process of some sort. Though not all thinking involves language.
Spoof on Voices: http://youtu.be/5mAOE0H1CYk

Released MedicalCenter Patient on Congress St.:

Inside the convenience store buying a ginger ale about to head out to the idling truck parked in front on a chilled early morning during April at 4AM, the soda fountain spout sputtered and spewed ginger ale into my cup and the night clerk whom I know is at the coffee station behind me fixing coffee.  Some one or two other folk are in the store by the coffee station.

"Oh.  It's crazy man!"

"Hey Rick!"

"What do you mean, crazy man?"

"Oh.  I call him crazy man."

"Nah.  He's alright.  Nothing wrong with him."

"Oh no?" I interject wearing a clown's hat over a baseball cap, an overcoat, jeans and black sneakers with a white stripe standing at the counter with my ginger ale waiting for the clerk at the coffee station to approach the back of the cash registers on a glass counter top displaying lottery scratch off tickets.

"No.  There's nothing wrong with him," the other customer repeats to the convenience store clerk.

"You don't think so?" I ask the customer.

"No," the other customer replies turning back to the coffee counter for something.

"Well, I'm schizophrenic," I reply.

"Really!?!  Diagnosed!?!"

"Yep.  It's like yelling 'gun' in a crowded theater when you say that word out loud."

"Yeah."

The other customer and the second customer who was at the coffee station overhearing the conversation approach the front counter and line up while I pay.

"Forty-eight, ninety-four in gas."

I put down fifty dollars in gas and ginger ale.

"You see the fifty?"

"Yeah.  I see it," the clerk responds picking up the fifty dollars off the glass encased counter.

"Good."

"You wanted forty-seven, ninety-four in gas?"

"Forty-eight, ninety-four."

I exit the store.

(A brief hiatus to eat a breakfast sandwich at 5AM, let the dog in the truck out at a waterfront park and drive back across town ...)

At the convenience store on Congress Street, my truck idles as I glance over a newspaper with a double ginger soda nestled in the groove by the middle console between the passenger seat and the driver's side.

I notice a man walk up to the convenience store in a T-shirt on a 25 degree morning at 6AM.  The man covers his head with a white, hospital issue blanket and looks cold.  I immediately think to myself that he had just been released from the hospital in his condition to walk the streets.

I put the truck in gear having sipped from ginger ale and reading the paper while listening to the news and drive off down the street to the tobacco store.

Parked and idling in front of the tobacco store a few minutes after 6AM, I await the store clerk to be ready for customers while the store clerk is busy inside the store stacking newspapers which were left at the door over night.

The man whom I had seen with the hospital issue, white blanket draped over his head calls out from across the street to me at the tobacconist sitting in my idling truck waiting for the store clerk to be ready for customers.  The man in question had just walked down Congress St. in Portland, Maine across State St. to by Longfellow Square.

"Can you call the hospital?"

"The hospital?  Why?"

"I'm cutting."

"You're cutting!?!  What do you mean you're 'cutting?'"

"I mean I don't want to live anymore.  Can you call someone to take me to the hospital?"

"I can't.  I don't have a phone."

"You don't have a phone!?  Well, can you take me to the hospital?"

"Dude.  You don't want to go to the hospital."

"I have to.  Will you at least give me a ride?"

"Alright.  I'll give you a ride."

"Alright.  I'm crossing the street now."

"Alright.  Go ahead and cross the street."

The man with the white, hospital issue blanket draped over his head on a cold April 4, 2013 morning at 6AM when the tobacconist opens on Congress St. crosses the street to me sitting in my truck.

"So.  Can you take me to the hospital?" the man asks hesitantly standing at my driver side window.

"Yeah.  I can take you to the hospital.  Let me just get my cigarettes first," I reply stepping out of my truck to the sidewalk with the man shuffling and shivering towards the sidewalk with a white, hospital issue blanket draped over his head.

"Can you get me a soda?"

"Yeah.  Sure.  What kind?"

"I'll have a Mountain Dew."

"OK.  I'll get you a Mountain Dew.  What's the problem anyway?  The hospital is right down there.  You can walk there."

"I can't.  I'm not going to make it.  I'm schizophrenic."

"Really!?!  You're schizophrenic?  So am I.  I've been hospitalized eight times.  How many times have you been hospitalized?"

"Five times."

"I got you beat.  Eight times.  Three times during the fall of 2002."

"Yeah.  But, look at you now," the man retorts indicating the idling truck.

"That's all mom's.  I get support from my family.  All this is mom's," I say indicating my clothes, drawing the lapels of my coat aside.  "Alright.  Hold on a minute and I'll get you that Mountain Dew."

I enter the tobacconist store, walk to the back of the store by the coolers, pick out a six pack of beer and then a bottle of Mountain Dew and step to the front of the store to pay.

"JB!?!  How many?"

"Two.  What's your cheapest pack of cigarettes?" I ask the clerk as two or three customers meander into the store and wait in line behind me.

"Probably the Hi-Val."

"Alright.  Let me have a pack of Hi-Val."

"Regular or 100's?"

"Regular.  And let me have a pack of matches.  Two packs of matches, if you don't mind."

"Sure."

"How much is all that?"

"Thirty-four, fifty-four."

"OK.  Here you go ... thirty-five."

I palm the change, empty my coat pockets of a Zippo lighter and my cell phone, pocket the Jester tobacco I had bought and paid for out of thirty-five dollars, grab the six pack of beer and Hi-Val's with two books of matches and exit the store.

Outside, dawn is breaking over the eastern horizon and the sky is cerulean blue over head with orange tint above the five story buildings that line Congress Street.  The man with the hospital issue, white blanket waits outside.  He appears to be about my age with a scruffy beard like me, but taller than me at about six foot.

"Here you go," I say handing him the Mountain Dew.  "And here.  Take this and this," I continue handing him the two books of matches and the pack of Hi-Val cigarettes.

"Thank you.  Thank you."

I step to my truck to put the two packs of Jester for myself and a six pack of beer in the passenger side of the truck opening the door to the passenger side.

"Hold on.  I got something else for you," I tell the man taking off my coat.  "There's some change in the pocket.  And, I also got this for you.  Here's my card.  It's got my number on it.  Don't go to the hospital.  They suck."

"Thank you.  Thank you."

"What's your name?  And, where you from?"

"Nicholas.  I'm from Michigan.  I want to go back there."

"Really!?  Yeah I hate this state.  This state sucks.  The people are assholes."

"Oh.  I got nothing bad to say about this state.  This state has been good to me."

"It hasn't been good to me.  I want to go to Washington."

"Do you party or just take meds?"

"I just smoke a little weed and drink a little beer; smoke cigarettes and take meds."

"Dude.  Do you have any weed?  Can I have some?"

"No.  I don't have any.  I can't get it anyway.  Alright.  Listen.  Don't go to the hospital.  They suck.  Just look how they sent you out into the cold with no clothes on.  Just see a doctor and take meds."

"OK.  I'm going to a meeting."

"Good.  Call me anytime."

I round the front of the my truck idling in front of the tobacconist as the man to whom I had been speaking removes the white, hospital issue blanket draped over his head and puts on the coat I had given him.

"See ya later," I say from the driver side door over the bed of the truck to Nicholas now shuffling from in front of the store towards a meeting.

I sit in the truck and drive off home to warmth and heat blasting because it is cold without a coat.

Five separate fatal shootings ...

... of mentally ill people by Maine police in 2011 prompted the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram to examine law enforcement's use of deadly force. Since 1990, police have fired on 101 people, many of them mentally ill, and in every case the state attorney general ruled that the shooting was justified. The newspaper sought to find out why so many mentally ill Mainers were being shot and whether the outcomes were avoidable. The investigation, involving hundreds of interviews and thousands of pages of documents, revealed that Maine and rest of the country have failed to employ methods or invest in training that could defuse life-threatening situations with mentally impaired people.

http://www.pressherald.com/special/Maine_police_deadly_force_series_Day_1.html

http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/maine-should-revive-police-shooting-panel-bill_2012-12-16.html


12/13/12 Dear Editor:

The fact is that there is a culture of stigma against mentally ill people and people who are different from by and large general populations worldwide and in any community, not just Maine, which manifests itself in sub-human mannerisms by some people of general populations towards people with mental illness.

For example, 77% of media when portraying mentally ill individuals (whether in news or on TV programs) portrays mentally ill people as criminal whereas the actual statistic of mentally ill people who are criminal is less than 3%: a statistic that reflects the general population's criminal element in America.

I, myself, who has always been a little different in my background, speech, actions and mannerisms, was diagnosed with the MENTAL HEALTH diagnosis of schizophrenia in 1996 after three years living in my vehicle and locking myself in a library reading and writing.

Another fact is that absolutely everybody has a mental health issue at some point in their lives, if not a mental health issue 24/7/365 for their entire lives being that everybody has a brain.

Concerning the term "voices" that psychiatrists have dubbed as a symptom of mental health in the DSM-IV, if "voices" originate in the brain as there is no other source for them: then what are "voices" but thoughts?

The term "voices," in my opinion, is an impetus for malicious people to tease or bully people with severe mental health issues.

So, that 42% of police incident using deadly force in Maine is against people with severe mental health issues does not surprise me with regard to my experiences.

Also, as a person who abhors violence in any form and a person who has taken steps to help those who seem or are less fortunate than me by for example visiting a children's ward at a hospital and retirement facilities with my two successive trained pet therapy dogs intermittently since 1998 upon settling in Maine: I would venture to state that by and large people who would kill than be killed or beat up than be beat up are the people with severe mental health issues: if not outright psychopaths.

Lastly, the term is "mental health:" NOT "mental illness," which connotes stigma and reflects the very real culture of stigmatic perception and interactions by some in general populations against people diagnosed with mental health issues, such as Bi-Polar or Schizophrenia: not to mention against the LBGTQ community, among others who act or appear different from populations at large in communities worldwide.

AGGRAVATED ILLNESS: http://youtu.be/yPSWK7yPi4U

Almost an Epitaph:

Darkness shrouds the streets of Portland early during an evening in December of 2002.

(I was hospitalized on a psych ward for three, two-week stays between September 2002 and November 2002 due to mood-disorder-episodes I was experiencing on a medication that a quackprescribed me beyond efficacy duration.  People whom I knew (family and the quack) implored me and literally shouted at me to take it, which I was doing: taking it!

The medication that I was prescribed was poison to my mind and body and caused me to act out in strange mannerisms.  It also caused my two sodium seizures from thirst of too much water.  I took the medication from May of 1996 to December of 2002.  I was to join a class action suit against the manufacturer of the medication in ensuing years and win a settlement.

During the fall of 2002, I was not only hospitalized on a psych ward three different times for two week periods each: but, I now have the bragging rights of having been in at least ten paddy wagons, cruisers and ambulances without ever being arrested as of September 15, 2012 while I write this piece).

Lori (who had been with me during the episodes throughout the fall of 2002) and I are in my first floor apartment at a three story house among many three story houses along a side street in Portland.  She and I are feeling frisky when she sends me to the pharmacy to buy condoms during an evening in December of 2002.

I await oncoming vehicles to pass in the darkness shrouding the corner crosswalk about to turn left back home to Lori, turn left and stop short within five feet of a tall, muscular black man and an overweight, short white woman pushing a stroller with baby walking caddy corner outside of the painted, white lines of the crosswalk in the middle of the street.

Suddenly, the black man turns to face me in the driver's seat while his wife is pushing the stroller to the sidewalk.  He holds a black flash light which was not lit as I turned left and he yells obscenities at me hitting the vehicle hood with the heavy duty flash light while switching it on and off pointing it at me through the windshield.

I think that he is going to wrestle me out of the vehicle.  So, I gas the engine and drive forward down the street.  As I pull away from the black man with a flashlight, he hits my vehicle's right hand side headlamp with his flashlight attempting to break it.

I park in front of the house down the street, jump out of my vehicle, check the right hand side headlamp and see the black man running down the sidewalk towards me.  His wife follows hurriedly walking the stroller.  He reaches me in front of the house, grabs my neck clawing it and raises the flashlight with his right hand as if about to hit me in the head with it.

"You almost hit my baby!" he shouts clawing at my neck holding the flashlight up for a pendulum hit to my head.

"But, I didn't!  Your baby is fine!  Your baby is right there.  Don't hit me with that!" I retort.

His wife is standing on the sidewalk with stroller behind her husband who is on the edge of the curb while I am a step down from the curb and shorter than what seems like a rampant monstrosity about to hit me hard with a flashlight while clawing my neck in the dim, street lamp darkness on the street.

"You almost hit my baby!" he repeats shouting.

"But, I didn't!  Your baby is right there!  I would never want to hurt your baby!  Don't hit me!" I shout back at him cringing.

"Don't talk about my baby!" he retorts bracing to hit me.

"But, I didn't hit the baby!  The baby is right there.  Your baby is fine!  I'm NOT drunk!  Don't hit me!"

Out of the corner of my eye as the big, black man is clawing my neck about to hit me, I notice a neighbor who lives around the corner drive by with his mother in a white SUV.  They don't stop, but do rubberneck.

The man releases his hold on my neck and steps back from the curb standing beside his wife and stroller.  Lori had appeared on the front steps of the first floor apartment having heard a commotion and proceeds to shout at the angry black man after he releases his hold on my neck and steps back from me and the curb.

Lori yells a racist epithet at the mixed race couple as they are taking steps walking away down the block while the black man is walking backwards keeping an eye on Lori and me.

"I'll get you too, bitch!" the man yells back at Lori.

"Don't listen to her!  Don't listen to her!" I tell him stepping up from the curb onto the sidewalk.

The man and his wife pushing the stroller disappear down the block into the night and I climb the five front steps into the apartment with Lori locking the front door behind us.

"You shouldn't have said that to him.  I had it under control," I say to Lori.

"Well, I heard something and came out."

"I know.  You almost made it worse.  He let go."

"Yeah.  Maybe you're right."

A loud knock on the door startled us.  Lori and I think it is the black man at the door.

"Could that be him again!?"  I ask Lori.

Lori looks dumbfounded.  Again, a loud knock and then:

"Open up!  Police!"

I take reticent steps to the front door from the living area where Lori and me had been hashing and open it for two uniformed officers: a male and a female officer.  The black man and wife with stroller stand on the sidewalk in the dark looking up at me and the two officers at the front door.  I am about to step out onto the front porch with the two officers and they indicate that they want entrance to the apartment.  I step back from the front door into the living area with Lori and me standing in the living area.  The two officers ask me what happened.

"I was making the left onto the street here and they were in the street.  I stopped in time and was waiting for them to walk away when the man started hitting my truck and yelling at me.  I thought he was going to pull me out of the truck.  So, I drove ahead and parked.  When I got here, he came running down the street and grabbed me by the neck and was going to hit me."

"And then what happened?"

"Well, I convinced him not to hit me and he let go.  I came inside and we thought you were him."

"Look at his neck!  It has blood on it," Lori chimed.

My leg shook with a reflex standing in the living area with the two officers and Lori.  The policewoman notices my leg shake as of reflex.

"I'm just a little scared.  That's all," I say to her noticing my leg shake.

"Well, he was in the crosswalk," the policewoman replies.

I reply nothing.

The two officers leave as I step behind them to lock the front door.  I look out of the side window to see the couple with a stroller walk away into the darkness once again and I step out of the front door to the cruiser parked across the street with an officer in the driver's seat.

"So?  What happened?  Are they coming back?" I ask the male officer in the idling cruiser.

"No.  I told them to go on their way and not come back tonight."

"OK.  Thank you."

Lori and I do not sleep at my apartment that night.

Cringing at "Schizophrenia:"

The word: "schizophrenia" triggers negativity in anybody with any knowledge of the word's portrayal in media, popular thinking about it or else experiences with it.

Since being diagnosed in 1996, I have thought of the word: "schizophrenia," first thing every day and throughout the days, months and years until today, seventeen years later.

Until 1996 when diagnosed "schizophrenia," I think that I may have heard the word: "schizophrenia," once in my life as a kid in a school locker room.

I have not missed but two appointments with a doctor or nurse since 1996.  I missed the two appointments due to mitigating circumstances.  Nobody can call me late for a doctor's appointment!

(A reason for my being steadfast in consulting medical professionals is that I do not want to ever again experience what I experienced in 1996 when I did not sleep for a month after reading the Old Testament night and day for a year through to the Book of Malachi where it states: "therefore, thou shalt not deal treacherously with the wife of thy youth."

I was literally scared shit less of my own shadow by 1996 with no contact to anybody since 1993 where I was living in the back of a truck locking myself in a university library for twelve hour days reading and writing.  I lost my "voice" and "nerve" in 1996 when diagnosed and have only begun to regain my "voice" through writing).

However: every morning since 1996 when diagnosed, I have thoughts of the word, "schizophrenia" flitting through my mind, which triggers wretched feelings in me as to what that word, "schizophrenia" connotes to me as someone diagnosed with it, on relational levels in my life and in popular thinking about "schizophrenia," as broadcast by media of "schizophrenia."

77% of cross platform and cross genre media portrays "schizophrenia" in a negative light, such as violent or criminal; whereas, the actual percent of violent or criminal people diagnosed with "schizophrenia" in communities of the United States is 3%: a number corresponding to the number of violent or criminal offenders in general populations.

Yet, media portrays "schizophrenia" as "violent or criminal" in 77% of cross-genre, cross platform, depicted scenarios from news to sitcoms.  Media shapes "popular thinking" in the public's eye about many world topics, "schizophrenia" being one.

Thus, there is a lot of misinformation surrounding "schizophrenia" and what it connotes to people's mindset about it and reactions to it when the word, "schizophrenia," is a topic.

Relationships are difficult for me to maintain with most people because people whom I meet or know think negatively about me in my experience due to knowledge of my diagnosis and they express it verbally and physically.

The word, "schizophrenia" invites negativity in no matter whose mind it is seeded because of ill informed, negative connotations, thinking and reactions to the word "schizophrenia" brought about by portrayal of it proliferated in media.

Personally, when I think of the word, "schizophrenia" as a person diagnosed with it for seventeen years of my life since 1996: the word evokes negative thoughts in me about me, which in turn cause me to experience wretched feelings of regret, anger, belittlement, suicide ideas, unhappiness, distress, anxiety, depression, despondence and a host of other negative feelings about myself.

For me: "schizophrenia" and what it connotes as far as my feelings and thoughts are affected by what the word connotes to me and by and large, a lot of people in my experience, is a "curse," like being in a nightmare of emotional and psychological negativity, day in and day out.

I pang daily to feel good about myself and to think positively or in positive affirmations, but I find that the world around me exudes negativity in myriad ways causing me to feel bad about poachers in Africa feeding cyanide to elephants for tusks to be ground down into powder aphrodisiacs on top of the negativity that the word "schizophrenia" evokes in me.

Knowledge of what it is that causes ails is the key to curing ails and a cure for me would be to feel good about myself in spite of "schizophrenia" or other negativity in the world.  What thoughts and actions do I need to practice on a consistent basis in order to feel good about myself on a daily basis in spite of the way that thought of the word "schizophrenia" affects me?

"When life looks like a piece of shit, don't give up!  Give a whistle and sing and dance ..."

Trapped in a Crawl Space:

"I have been in the attic for twelve years, mom.  I need out.  Twelve years is just too long.  It gets hot in here during summer and cold in the winter.  It must've been 120 degrees in here today.  I want to move out of here and into the first floor apartment or someplace on a first floor."

"Never ever forget that I have expenses of upkeep outside the mortgage payments.  The rents I collect almost cover the monthly payment.  Plus I pay taxes, electrical, oil, water, gas & maintenance - inside and out -- bills for the whole building."

"I will find out about my medical suit from the lawyer in October, if I don't call the lawyer before then, but according to the last two times that I have talked to the lawyer: things should be moving ahead with the settlement.  I can give you that money to put towards the mortgage."

"I don't think I will be able to change the situation you are in any time soon.  If you want to move into a shelter for a few weeks while the authorities find a living space that is better, you can try that."

"Really!?  The shelter?  Where I can catch double pneumonia and a case of incurable tuberculosis?  You would wish that for me?"

"Nothing is free or easy in this world."

"Obviously, you didn't listen to what I said.  I am going to be getting some money that I can put towards it."

"It's all in your head."

"You just fucking hate me.  No wonder you asked me for a date and time of when I was going to kill myself while I ate hot dogs and nachos outside of 7-11 over Xmas 2011 and you ate lamb from what I saw in pictures online."

"Oh dear!"

"Then, I was threatened with eviction as in 'I am thinking of evicting you' in an email because you wanted to adopt some tenant's baby who calls the cops on me for nothing."

"We have a budget.  If I sell the house and buy a condo or small house, there are still the expenses of upkeep, taxes and all of the above. I need the rents to help me."

"You didn't listen to what I said.  I am going to be getting some money that I can put towards it."

"It's all in your head!"

"Really!?  That's all you can say to me: 'it's all in your head?'  You don't think very much of me.  Why do you say that?  Because I am schizoid?  You know the time I hung myself here I was on the phone to you moments before and you said that and hung up the phone on me.  So, I hung myself.  You've said 'it's all in your head' to me too many times.  It hurts my feelings."

"If you want to repaint the apartment, it would be a good project for you.  Think about it."

"Repaint the apartment?  I can't repaint the apartment with my rib contusion where I was punched during the home invasion, the which you told me was 'all in my head' too.  I can't do any labor."

"I need you to help out.  You have a job to do.  I want you to mow, clean up the basement, sweep ..."

"I can't do any of that.  I have a rib contusion, which hurts when it is aggravated."

"I can't help that."

"You would have me walk on water or stand on my two legs if I was a double amputee.  I can't do labor because of where I was punched in the ribs."

"It's all in your head."

"Don't say that!  I told you that it hurts my feelings.  I have experiences.  I am getting some money to put towards the mortgage.  I've been working on that suit since 2004.  You can rent out the attic and second floor as one unit or else sell it as a condo and have the new owners pay the expenses while I move to the first floor as a condo."

"Nobody wants the second and third floor as a unit.  There are no renters for it."

"How do you know that?  Ask the property manager.  I bet he can rent it out."

"I don't care."

"You don't care!?  I have about twenty years left on my life judging from the way I smoke.  I want to live somewhere I like living for that twenty years.  As it is, I have no place to go outside here without some passer-by or tenant calling the police or some thugs beating me up."

"They do not!"

"Thirty-four stops in fifteen years of living in this town, twelve years in this apartment, and you are telling me people don't call the police on me for nothing since I have no arrest record and no points on my license?"

"Stop it!  Nobody calls the police on you ..."

"You called the police on me, once.  You don't remember?"

"Well, you were not well.  You were acting bizarre."

"That was because of the medication that I was on at the time.  It caused me to have two sodium seizures.  You two shouted at me to take it.  I was taking it and almost lost my life twice hospitalized  with hyponaetremia."

"I don't want to go over all this old stuff."

"Well, stop saying that 'it is all in my head.'  I have experiences.  The doctor even came over to the house and took that medicine out of the cabinets after he received the results from a blood test I went for at the hospital back then.  You let him in to take the medicine away after you two shouted at me to take it.  Now, I have won a medical suit and will be getting some money."

"Check in hand is something else."

"OK.  When I receive that check, I will give it to you to put towards the mortgage.  The check should be proof enough that 'it is not all in my head.'  Meanwhile, stop saying 'it's all in my head!'  And, I want out of this crawl space and into the first floor.  I can't take this apartment anymore."

"I've had enough of this conversation.  Let me repeat: if you want to move into a shelter for a few weeks while the authorities find a living space that is better, you can try that."

"You make me want to kill myself.  I may just give you your wish for me to go live under the bridge over I-95 where the homeless people shit."

"Just be sure to give us a date and time of when you are going to kill yourself."

"Five minutes from now."

"Five minutes from now!?  Oh really!?"

"You know: I have been called 'pathetic, crazy, schizoid, motherfucker, teat sucker, asshole, not capable of empathy, chicken, zero credibility, hears voices as in 'you hear voices,' alkie who swills drinks with sperm and some epithets I can't even remember.  People say within my earshot: 'don't have anything to do with him.  He will make your life a living hell.'  And, I have been called those things by family, so called friends and strangers alike.  What you don't realize is that people, including me, are not altogether autonomous entities and words can affect me just as they would someone else, just as being punched in the ribs during that home invasion."

"You haven't been called those things.  I don't remember any of that."

"I have my experiences.  You were off globe trotting."

"And, those experiences are all in your head."

"I had four X-rays on my ribs over the years and all show a rib contusion.  How is that in my head?  I just want some semblance of peace in mind and I can't have that in this attic."

"I don't know what to tell you.  There's always the shelter."

"The shelter!?  Stop telling me to go to the shelter!  I just as soon go under the bridge over I-95 where the homeless people shit and slit my throat than catch a double case of pneumonia at the shelter.  I already contracted tuberculosis from shelters out west when you all kicked plastic chairs at me shouting over lunch back then and I left."

"We didn't do anything of the sort."

"You did too.  Kicked me out is what you did.  I left and lived in my truck for three years.  I had a good mind to break all ties with you back then because of the things that you say to me, which reflect what you think about me.  Sometimes, with the things you and others have said to me over the years, I think you would rather I was not born.  You make me want to kill myself.  I can't even talk to you because you just make it up as you go along with no recall of events."

"OK.  I'm hanging up now."

"Wait ..."

Click.

Lorded Reinforced Stigma:

I am a "pathetic, crazy, schizo, whitey monkey, teatsucker, motherfucker, chicken, 0 credibility alkie who swills drinks with sperm" and everyone from family to strangers would rather me dead, non-existent and/or coming down with double pneumonia and an incurable case of tuberculosis at a shelter or barefoot and homeless in front of a seven eleven where I cannot enter to buy a hot dog due to bare feet on Christmas Day when my family is gorging on lamb from what I see on Facebook pictures.

Then, I am asked for a "date and time" over the phone of when I am going to kill myself to being threatened with eviction as in "I am thinking of evicting you" in favor of some irrational, postpartum, depressed, tenant mother who calls police and DHHS on me having done nothing but save the apartment house from tenants almost burning it down over the years, collecting rents as super over eight years from hell tenants who count four twenties into $100 and then say "I thought that they were $25 bills ..."

... not to mention pill dealing tenants, the tenant who accused me of stealing heat as heat rises because I lived in the above apartment and the tenant who accused me of going into their apartment and masturbating on the floor because her dog puked saliva on the floor to which she says that her dog does not puke.

Then, there was the tenant whose toilet leaked caca when I wanted to have it fixed by calling a plumber, the 5,000 flies in the apartment house due to 1915 pipes in the walls and a myriad of other bad experiences for which I bore the brunt of blame.

When I wanted to transfer control of the rents to a professional manager after eight years as super and was scolded for not doing my job in an email from family, I hung myself with a rope in the back staircase having lost all hope of any self esteem or support.

I have not even included the event wherein a tenant stated thus to me: "I am going to fuck you, fuck your family and god is going to get you," when I raised $850 cash just for that tenant to leave and never come back here.

It was June 11, 2008 when I was released from the hospital after hanging myself May 29, 2008, cut down from the rope, approved for SSDI after a two day, court ordered review (blue papered) and quit both my jobs as super of the house and at a nearby university as a $12/hr. technician.

And, the above rants are not even the half of my problems with people in my fifteen years living here in New England having been questioned 34 times in fifteen years by police: once having the police called on me for drinking a soda pop out of a paper bag on a stoop the day of the Boston Marathon 2013.

The best time I have ever had in my life was living in my truck on the West Coast between 1993 and 1996 where and when I was diagnosed "schizophrenia."  People are much more easy going out there: not like here on the East Coast, the Capital of Assholes!

I may just be well inclined with my reinforced stigma rant that this post is to take up residence under the bridge over I-95 where homeless people shit and give everyone their wish by slitting my own throat under the bridge over I-95 without any rescue possibility other than a State crematorium.

I imagine that the world will be a better place for others if I go under the bridge over I-95 and do just that!  In fact, there may even be celebrations of my self destruction.  I imagine that people will be dancing in the street when I am dead due to peoples' treatment of me as a pariah because I am diagnosed "schizophrenia" and thus: must obviously hear voices 24/7/365 and have "0 credibility" as a result.

In short: from the things that I am told by family, so-called friends and strangers due to my diagnosis of "schizophrenia" being known throughout the vicinity wherein I live ... the things that I am told by family, so-called friends and strangers make me want to slit my throat under the bridge over I-95 where homeless people shit as I am no better than shit in myriad peoples' eyes other than in the eyes of nursing home and children's ward residents whom I visit with my pet therapy dog.

Were it not for adopting my dog and cat and visiting the nursing homes and children's wards with my pet therapy dog, I would most certainly give my family, so-called friends and strangers their wish for me to slit my throat under the bridge over I-95 because people in my life other than people in nursing homes, children's wards, my dog, my cat and animals in general make me feel like killing myself.