Enduring schizophrenia

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By Andrew Low

Mental health problems have plagued and blighted me since I went to university in 1982. The diagnosis by psychiatrists and other doctors is now paranoid schizophrenia. But I think that is a simplification and a cop-out, a convenient evasion. Mainly the symptoms have been guilt and embarrassment and a vulnerability to the sounds of coughing and traffic and laughter. Enduring schizophrenia was so distracting at times that I basically was not able to function. I had to leave the medical course and was not allowed to return.

Also there are internal voices to consider, and at one stage they were hostile and unpleasant. They even asked me to cut into myself with a knife and end my life. They were murderous really.

Yoga meditation – my lifeline

A thread, or a lifeline, running through this mental chaos has been the guru Shree Mataji and free Sahaja Yoga meditation. Many people would possibly rather know about Sahaja Yoga and what it can do for them rather than narrow their attention down to my own particular problems. But this is a mental health blog and I’m trying to open up on mental health issues. Actually what I have learnt kind of complements the knowledge of Sahaja Yoga. Particularly in relation to the problem of guilt.

People can look at the Sahaja Yoga websites and go to the local meetings run by volunteers. They can read the books available through Amazon. And they can watch the documentaries on YouTube (such as The Vision 33 minutes). Medically, there is Silence Your Mind by Dr Ramesh Manocha, GP and researcher at the University of Sydney.

Terrifying changes in me

I started to study medicine at Cambridge in the autumn of 1982. This was just after learning that the girl I felt attached to no longer wanted me. Perhaps, in retrospect, because she didn’t get into university herself. It was a devastating blow and immensely confusing, and about six months into college life I thought of suicide. But the thought of Sahaja Yoga pulled me back from the brink. Or rather the “vibrations” from Shree Mataji’s picture did.

Following both an incident where I was seen picking up pornographic litter from the side of the road and time spent flirting on beaches, I developed troubling feelings. What one would call symptoms. At that young age I found these developments terrifying.

The sense of guilt was suffocating and I felt my face had changed in appearance. Then two medical students coughed aggressively as I was looking at a notice board and I was overcome with a sense of vulnerability. A deep change went through me – I was like a little leaf in the wind or a scalded cat. I lasted about nine months at the clinical school with the voices episode and some relationship heartache too. And then I withdrew. I was assessed by psychiatrists over the following few years but was considered not fit to return, which was and is painful.

Another episode

That was the first breakdown, and then in 1997 there was a second episode with particular distress caused by traffic noise. It went right through my head like a tumultuous storm in the brain. At that stage I had to go to the mental hospital and I was violent when I was sectioned.

I did recover and was allowed to continue work as a pharmacist but it was an awful time and the whole “episode” lasted two years.

Reading helps too

Sahaja Yoga has helped me enormously, but it is a pity that the free meditation techniques are not better known. Reading has definitely helped. There is the “repressive cough” of the bully in The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat, and a “most malicious cough” in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. There are words to describe coughing (disapproving, disgusted, cross, angry, scornful or artificial, for example). Although what came from psychiatrists was the diagnosis of paranoia and grandiose overvalued ideas.

The endless noise of hooves and feet and wheels is used as punishment in a little prison mentioned in Culloden by John Prebble. The feet swell and the head aches from the noise.

The writing of James Joyce has helped especially and I am very glad that BBC Radio 4 has broadcast these books in the last six years. There is Ulysses and the treatment of sexuality and removal of some of the taboos and cobwebs. And there is the question of voices addressed in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. “God spoke to you by so many voices but you would not hear” is derived from an old sermon and was used three times as a “lightbulb moment” by the charity Rethink Mental Illness. Joyce speaks of telepathy in one essay.

My writings

I am very grateful that some magazines and charities have published some of my contributions. In 2003 I was “highly commended” in the category of courage by the Beacon Fellowship Trust. This was for writing about enduring schizophrenia and for spreading Sahaja Yoga. That’s a kind endorsement and certificate. More recently, in spring 2013, Your Voice, the magazine of Rethink Mental Illness did my story.

With these problems I think it is best to engage with doctors. Because even though one may disagree with them over points and issues, one can try and move things forward. There is the question of medication, and I am lucky I am no longer on depot injections but have sulpiride tablets.

There may be others in similar situations, so I do think it is wise to be collective, and people can learn about the unique discovery that is Sahaja Yoga. This has been a lifeline and continues to be a relief and comfort in what is a troubling condition.