Defender
Adventures in Schizophrenia
By Richard M Clements
ISBN: 9781847471260
Published: 2007
Pages: 330
Key Themes: schizophrenia, medication, mental health services
"Obsession with a celebrity - in my case and film director Clive Barker and his associates - is a common psychosis. He was my chimera, my phantom 'Them' against whom I went into battle. The story becomes more accessible as the jargon unique to the conflict is introduced. I was stretched almost beyond return but the memoir is resolved with sheltered housing, affective medication, and tears of joy at the turn of 1999 into 2000. I was still alive, after many utter miracles of survival, and the book reaches closure during the first moments of an infant millennium. I have been well ever since". - Richard M Clements
Description
Not all schizophrenics are violent. This is a myth that the press would like us to believe, a myth undone by my Richard's example. This book is the culmination of a four-year project written from the first-person 'unreliable narrator' perspective. It utilizes truth with facts that, however, illusory, Richard could not voluntarily create himself. This book documents Richard's adventurous learning curves to psychiatric treatment on nine occasions in eight different hospitals for over twenty-nine months since 1990: as terrible as being locked in an I.C.U for over nine weeks, as exciting as being the saviour of alien planets, and as beautiful as being released from that same I.C.U to walk under trees that were the tallest things I had ever seen under a blue sky that stretched on forever. This is an inspirational and important book for schizophrenia sufferers. It is perhaps unique: a non-academic work that would appeal to academics, an exciting adventure for the sympathetic, and a case-study for mental health professionals to gain a long look into a private world.
About the Author
Richard M Clements is an inspirational author who has survived from acute schizophrenia and now wishes to use his experiences to help others with this disorder. He considers that discussing successful treatment in public is the responsibility for having recovered from illness to those that yet haven't. Richard has written several fictional novels and describes creative writing as the mainstay of his self-esteem, which is vital. Having a book published has been a life changing experience for Richard, of which he is very proud. For many service users it could be said that empowerment begins with pride, that pride is good. Richard would like to use his experience to counsel other sufferers of schizophrenia, particularly those also prescribed Closapine, a medication which has kept him out of hospital and happy for over six years.
Book Extract
This is a memoir from the battlefield of the psyche. It is a hazardous environment.
The choices made there can be as pivotal as facing down a firearm in the Material Plane. You might think the gun to be far more lethal than the gibbering ghosts and wisps of its custodian's mind, yet blood is spilt in the killer's imagination long before his finger slips through the trigger guard. Mental afflictions can carry people to places equally bleak, yet their weapon of choice is almost always aimed at themselves. Suicidal courageousness, that impression of a final act of 'gallantry' is a dire illusion. Schizophrenia (psychotic episodes of self-harming, paranoia, perception, hallucinations, "voices", personality, and other disorders) affects 1% of us. That is over 10,000 sufferers living in London alone, and, like the landing craft pouring out young lads onto the bloody beach at Omaha, schizophrenia is up there at the Front and is still little understood.
