Sex + Schizophrenia = ...

It was recently brought to my attention that when I talk about experiences at work I usually talk about male residents. I apologize for that and I really have no idea why other than there are more male residents here than female and the men tend to be more vocal and memorable, I guess. Anyway, I started to think about the conversations I have with my female residents and I realized there is a recurring theme: sex.

One of my residents came to my office recently and she told me, while visibly fighting tears, that she is having severe abdominal pain and she feels like there is a penis in her ass. Psychosomatic delusions occur when someone is fixated on a certain idea to the point that they actually feel pain or pleasure because of it. This resident is always delusional about her father. She thinks he is constantly trying to find her and hurt her or poison her even though she hasn’t seen or heard from him in over 20 years. What I’ve gathered from our conversations is that her father is a terrible human and he raped and beat her starting at a very young age. Obviously, I hate this man and I want to strangle him every time she comes to my office because he did such a good job ruining her life. I can’t do that, unfortunately, so I promise her over and over that he can’t hurt her anymore and that he will never be allowed in this building. She lives in constant fear of the opposite sex and when I walk past her room she is almost always laying in her bed in the fetal position like such a typical crazy person but she’s not just a crazy person. She is a woman and she has a story. Now you know part of her story. She’s trapped inside a mind that isn’t hers, she didn’t make it that way. Yes, a lot of people go through awful shit when they’re young and still lead seemingly normal lives but not everyone can do that and that’s what needs to be understood about mental illness. There’s no exact diagnosis, no real cure, no real cause. It just gets ahold of some people and doesn’t let go. Sometimes, it's initially a defense mechanism but as time goes on it gets harder and harder for these people to remember who they were before they had to retreat into the depths of their brain pieces to hide from their world. The mind is not something to fuck with because it always fucks back.

Other women that I talk to regularly struggle with an ongoing sense of extreme guilt for having abortions or for being promiscuous in the past. Guess how these women were raised? Catholic. I’m sorry and I don’t want to bash religion right now but it sparks my curiosity when I find a common denominator such as fucking Catholicism. Anyway, I’m always telling women that if they made a decision no matter how many years ago it was, they made it for a reason. There was a reason they couldn’t have that baby right then and it does not make them bad people. Our society is so hard on women when it comes to baby making. I mean, no one WANTS to have an abortion. It’s not cool or anything. I’ve often thought about what I would do if I got pregnant right now and I have no idea because it would depend on so many things. I don't ever want to have an abortion. But what if I did? Would I keep it a secret? How would I afford it? Would I be able to live with myself? What would be the deciding factor? I just wish that people didn’t pass judgement about things like that. It’s not your body, it’s not your baby, and it’s absolutely none of your business. But, day after day, these women beat themselves up because they feel like they betrayed God and all that stuff.

Then, I have the women who are nuts because they’ve had sex with too many people. I cannot understand, and it will piss me off until the day I die, why anyone gives a shit about how many sexual partners anyone has. First of all, as long as people are using protection, fuck as many people as you want! I sure as hell don’t care about how many people you sleep with and I don’t think it says anything about anyone’s character besides they have a sex drive. Some people are just more sexual than others. Notice, I said “people”. Not men or women specifically; people. If it feels good and it’s what you want then go for it. These poor women think they’re going to burn eternally because they’ve had too many partners and it makes me sick. We shouldn’t punish ourselves for doing something that is completely natural. We crave it. It’s not a sin. We need it. End of story. One of my residents had a sign hanging over her bed for a few years that was a tally of how long she’d gone without sex because she thinks she had too much sex when she was younger. What? I want to understand why sex has so much power over us. Some people can have sex with hundreds of people and never once feel regret but other people have sex with 5 people and feel filthy. Is it because some of us are raised with the whole bullshit about how sex is only to be between one man and one woman and not until they’re married? (Can we just take a second to laugh at that? hahaha, BAH hahahaha.) I am pretty open-minded about sex and I think it’s a beautiful, wonderful thing but I was raised in an environment that enforced what I just said. I was always told to wait until marriage, yada yada, but of course when I didn’t wait my mom was there with books and lectures to educate me about what I was doing because she’s awesome and not clueless.

We all do shit that we probably shouldn’t and we’re all going to regret certain things but as long as we’re constantly learning and not judging ourselves then who cares? Be yourself. Be free. I’m not saying you should have sex with everything that moves. I understand that sex can be scary these days and it’s important to be educated/know how to protect yourself. All I care about is that we all do what makes us happy. If you’d rather spend an afternoon having awesome sex with a “friend” than go shopping with all the girls then do it. If it feels good, do it. If it used to feel good and it doesn’t anymore, don’t do it! If you only want to have sex with one man or woman your entire life then that’s awesome and go you! If you want to be celibate for whatever reason then may no one get in your pants! My point is that why can’t we all be raised or at least come to realize that life is too short to punish ourselves for “guilty pleasures”? As long as no one is getting hurt...there is nothing to feel guilty about. Be honest with yourself. Don’t end up like one of my residents and never be able to accept the fact that at one point you were young and you had the most fun you possibly could.