Stupor in Catatonic Schizophrenia - Day 33 of "100 Symptoms"
Channel: nednednerB the Schizophrenic
Date: 2019-05-10

"Hello? Can you hear me?" *snap snap* "Nobody home... He's catatonic."
How do you describe the state of "catatonic stupor"?

To put it simply, someone with catatonic schizophrenia who is experiencing stupor might look like they're awake but they are not responding to verbal communication. They might adjust their physical posture, if touched, but otherwise don't look like they register that others are with them.

Stupor can occur for a few reasons, including heavy metal toxicity and extreme shock such as surviving a major accident. In some forms and  phases of intense schizophrenia and psychotic episode, catatonic stupor is a highly noticeable symptom.

When someone enters stupor, their sentence falls off. They might have been observed as agitated or hallucinating just prior to seizing up. Their eyes get glassy, and they stop noticing what's really there. It's easy to see just how devastating untreated psychosis is and how much it can disable a person. Indeed, they can be rendered virtually insensible and immobile.

I know because I was told so that this happened to me a few times when I was in the psych ward, but it's never been suggested to me that it occurred spontaneously when I was with someone, when I was well. On occasion I might feel what I could call "fades" in consciousness, that it becomes difficult to perceive people clearly, but I don't think I completely blink out.

Such a situation feels related to the subject of my video early in this series, on Linguistic Freeze. An example of a fade in sensibility comes from a therapy session in the last few months. I noticed while discussing a difficult subject that my vision started to flash, and it was like I either couldn't see my therapist or couldn't see the room around her. 

I didn't lose consciousness per se, but I lost consciousness _of some things. It became impossible to continue my train of thought. I think of it as partly related to dissociation and interference due to the trauma being discussed and the processing involved in that.

Sometimes it seems the brain has a power to pull the mind out of the present experience, whether a person is near-unconscious, stunned, or dissociating. The brain has a way of going: "Nuh uh! You're not experiencing this right now!" The brain has access to pulling the plug, so to speak.

I think stupor actually makes sense, in the absolutely strange and authoritarian context of being a patient who was recently hospitalized for psychosis. There is too much to process at that time, and the brain unplugs you a lot. Sometimes a patient will go between being loudly chaotic and being trapped in stupor. Altogether they experience their reality as violent and out of order.

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You're listening to nednednerB the Schizophrenic.
That was Day 33 of "100 Symptoms."

I have schizophrenia every day. Even though I was diagnosed in early 2000s, I experience and manage symptoms daily. So here are "100 Symptoms!"

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