The demonisation of nicotine and promotion of a bad diet also keeps these schizophrenic patients from perhaps functioning correctly. At the same time, what can help these patients is not really profitable, so there's a win-win of keeping people from gaining knowledge about hyperdimensional reality and earning money from the suffering of these patients.
Oh, most of them smoke like chimneys if they can.
Which provides one of the most annoying problems in modern psychwards. Usually with little money and an endless need to smoke and best to never sleep the cry for 'smoke' is hard to handle.
Some have a cigarette schedule; others go and steal smoke from others; others look constantly for even the tiniest butts others have left - their fingers are black.
We have something like 'emergency tobacco' which often is the holy grail of attention.
Their greed is endless and all consuming. Fighting it takes a huge shield and lots of energy.
This energy has to be handled wisely- if possible.
This annoying behaviour becomes understandable though with the information that 'smoke' dulls the voices by not being so yummy.
Also the craving for all kinds of unhealthy stuff is enormous- soda's; chips; masses of sugar; coffee etc.- the medications make all this worse.
If you watch them over the years you can observe how they lose their humanity step by step.... collapsing consciousness- disintregration.
It's horrible to see. Some you know for years and sometimes the person that once was shines through for a second.
Covid changed psychotic symptoms for worse, imo. More greed; more aggression; MORE refusal of medication; more attacks, psychic and/or physical.
I've read "Hostage to the Devil" some while ago and even with the background of my work, Castaneda in my youth and some reading in that field parts of the book really started to encroach upon me and I had to tread carefully.
I just watched the video which was great, imo, apart from the religious gloss. But also this is understandable.
Even while trying to be constantly aware (what hybris!) and using prayer this work is very draining. These people are very draining. Digging too deep could turn out disastrous.
I usually sense how far to go with a bit of exposure and sometimes I tickle.
But it would take a well prepared working field where the 'parasite' aspect could be openly mentioned.
Because as Jerry states, they'll explode right into your face.
But I'd love to see this approach, I really would (will never happen in this system- too much exposure).
I often feel dismayed and uncomfortable about the job when it's constantly displayed what psychiatry is doing to people. I kills them- slowly... sometimes quickly.
But obviously psychiatrists wouldn't want to hear about 'parasites' to fight. Who would have thought?
What I sometimes can handle is marking and fixing the positions in this everlasting 'invisible' war for the time being with my patients which is due to learning, often the hard way.
Unfortunately they can still anger me which is also their food, I'm aware.
It's a great and weird and sometimes scary learning place.
And prayer is abound on psychwards, many schizophrenics pray or seek faith depending on the state they are in.
But if these 'voices' could be seen as coming from outside this would change everything.I believe that THEN we could work with them, or at least with some of them.
Will listen to the podcasts tomorrow, looking forward to it. A lot can be integrated in a psychiatric setting especially at night when the shrinks and the business of the day are not around... carefully, of course.