![\"\"](\"https://onefootinwonderland.com/media/posts/26/berenstein-1024x706.jpg\")
Sensory gating is the process by which the brain filters out irrelevant stimuli from the meaningful one. It prevents an overload of information in the higher cortical centres in the brain. The process is central to explaining the delusions and hallucinations in schizophrenia. Sensory gating can be measured through the P50 response, a test where the subject hears two uniform sounds with an interval of 500 milliseconds while connected to an EEG that monitors brain activity. In a normal subject, there's a decrease in brain activity while hearing the second sound, whereas a subject that shows equal brain activity to the first and second sound is more likely to have schizophrenia. As there's often an overload of stimuli in cases of schizophrenia, the P50 response illuminates how sensory gating works on a neurological level.
\n\n\n\nWhat's interesting is that research indicates that smoking, which is significantly more common among schizophrenics, can affect sensory gating. Nicotine acutely improves P50 suppression and also stimulates the release of glutamate. In response to the increased levels of glutamate, GABA is released which inhibits certain hippocampal regions and pyramidal neurons, thus suppressing the subsequent response to the next stimuli. When nicotine receptors desensitize quickly, the effect is short-lived, but even in chronic smokers with schizophrenia, there's an improvement in the P50 response. The cause of this is probably that smoking inhibits monoamine oxidase, which in turn affects dopamine metabolism. I'm in no way advocating smoking as a way to combat schizophrenia - I know from experience that a couple of cigarettes would not have fixed my delusions. However, it's fascinating that there is a correlation between nicotine and P50 suppression.
\n", "author": { "name": "Miss Nova" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-07-13T11:28:04+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T21:28:07+02:00" }, { "id": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/why-alcohol-makes-you-depressed.html", "url": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/why-alcohol-makes-you-depressed.html", "title": "Why alcohol makes you depressed", "summary": "For the past few weeks, I've been drinking a lot and it's left me with the blues. Shots of Jameson on the night shift, followed by more shots after the night shift in a bartender's bar. It's often daylight out by the time I make…", "content_html": "\nFor the past few weeks, I've been drinking a lot and it's left me with the blues. Shots of Jameson on the night shift, followed by more shots after the night shift in a bartender's bar. It's often daylight out by the time I make it home, which doesn't make for a good night's sleep. I wake up feeling rough and depressed.
\n\n\n\nLack of sleep is a big no-no for someone with a history of mental illness, so I need to stop it. No more drinks in the middle of the night but straight home to bed. When I feel blue, I tell myself that it's just a case of biochemistry which makes me feel better. The world is exactly the same, and the only thing that's different is in my head. Namely, serotonin. When you drink alcohol, your serotonin levels get a temporary boost, which explains why you feel happier after a drink or two. However, long-term alcohol use can lower serotonin levels and cause depression.
\n\n\n\nIt also plays a potential role in hangovers. As alcohol stimulates the release of both dopamine and serotonin in the nucleus accumbens, you get hyperactivity in the synaptic pathways. The next day, these pathways are a bit worn down from excessive firing. You end up feeling depressed. That is why, if you're prone to depression, you want to avoid alcohol. It's too easy to get stuck in a downward spiral where you drink to alleviate depression when in fact, your drinking is what's making you depressed.
\n", "author": { "name": "Miss Nova" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-06-19T14:48:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T21:28:07+02:00" }, { "id": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/raising-the-free-human.html", "url": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/raising-the-free-human.html", "title": "Raising the free human", "summary": "I wrote my second-year thesis in the history of ideas about education and child-rearing - specifically, the pedagogic ideas about freedom represented by the Scottish educator A.S. Neill. He started publishing books in the 1920s and took a radical approach to child-rearing. Children should be…", "content_html": "\nI wrote my second-year thesis in the history of ideas about education and child-rearing - specifically, the pedagogic ideas about freedom represented by the Scottish educator A.S. Neill. He started publishing books in the 1920s and took a radical approach to child-rearing. Children should be treated with the same respect as adults and raised free from punishment. According to Neill, the joy of learning new things didn't come when children were forced to learn, but when they decided to do so out of their own free will.
\n\n\n\nHe started a school, Summerhill, which ran as a true democracy where the children and teachers decided the rules together. The children who came to his school were thrilled when they discovered that the classroom was voluntary, and they didn't have to study subjects that didn't interest them. Neill described Winnipeg who detested going to school but after a few months at Summerhill was highly motivated to complete her A-levels. Eight-year-old Tom drew maps all day and surprised a visiting university professor when he knew of places that the professor had never heard of.
\n\n\n\nNeill's ideas about free children that would grow up to build a better world were shared by thinkers such as Bertrand Russell and created intense debate. At the time, corporal punishment was still in use in schools and homes, and children were not supposed to be seen or heard much. In the wake of the two world wars, a new modernistic view of man appeared. There was a utopic vision of the good society constructed by free humans who wouldn't bend to authority. Russell claimed that the new methods of child-rearing would create happier people and that we within a generation could see a population free from stupidity and evil. The reason we wouldn't was that we preferred suppression and war.
\n\n\n\nNeill was like Russell a huge social critic. In his opus magnum Summerhill - A radical approach to child-rearing (1960) he mocked how we educate people with the words: \"We train people like dogs - I saw a hundred thousand obedient dogs wag their tails in Berlin when the great trainer Hitler issued commands.\" He stated that while the future of Summerhill may have been of little importance, the future of Summerhill ideas was of the greatest importance to humanity. Neill's school is still in operation today in Suffolk, England, and his ideas raised debate again in the 1960s when many schools opened in America following his educational philosophy of freedom.
\n\n\n\nWhen asked about how his free children would adapt to the drudgery of life, Neill answered that he hoped they would pioneer abolishing it. Maybe we all need a little bit more of Neill in our thinking.
\n", "author": { "name": "Miss Nova" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-06-16T13:16:45+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T21:28:07+02:00" }, { "id": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/how-to-spot-psychosis.html", "url": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/how-to-spot-psychosis.html", "title": "How to spot psychosis", "summary": "I was really happy the other day when someone told me that an old colleague that used to work with us was coming back to the pub. I'll call him Quito. He's young at just 21 and a refugee from Venezuela so he hasn't had…", "content_html": "\nI was really happy the other day when someone told me that an old colleague that used to work with us was coming back to the pub. I'll call him Quito. He's young at just 21 and a refugee from Venezuela so he hasn't had the easiest life. But he's a positive guy and it's easy to have a laugh with him, an essential when you work in a pub surrounded by morons. At least it used to be. Only Quito isn't laughing anymore.
\n\n\n\nFrom working a couple of shifts with him it's clear he's not in a good spot mentally. You can tell that his thoughts are racing and a lot of what he says doesn't make any sense. He's simply not the same person anymore. Quito is fine some of the time, and then he snaps into it and the ranting begins. It's psychotic behavior. One moment you're fine and the next you believe in Santa Claus.
\n\n\n\nAt the end of our first night shift together I tried to ask him about it and he told me he recently spent three days in psychiatric care after he had a breakdown in a café and someone called an ambulance. It didn't seem to bother him much and it was difficult to make sense of his story. When I asked if he was on medication, he replied that he had the best time playing ping pong in the hospital. He's clearly in need of help but I'm not sure how to address the issue. It's really difficult to convince a psychotic person to take medication when they feel just fine.
\n\n\n\nIt also struck me that people without experience can't spot a psychotic person. When I suggested to a colleague that Quito was psychotic she said I was being harsh. The guy was just a bit strange and probably needed to sleep more. When I had my first psychosis we had no idea what was going on so I don't find it strange at all that other people can't see it.
\n\n\n\nPeople just laugh in a helpless way and feel uncomfortable. They struggle with putting a label on the person because they have no clue what's going on. There are a few very clear signs that a person is in psychosis and Quito is exhibiting all of them:
\n\n\n\nI'm of the opinion that psychosis should be medicated with anti-psychotics as quickly as possible to avoid the risk of self-harm as well as any potential damage that comes to the brain from living in a form of hyperreality. Now I just need to figure out how to get Quito to share that opinion before something goes seriously wrong. I have a bad feeling about this one.
\n", "author": { "name": "Miss Nova" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-04-13T17:06:23+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T21:28:07+02:00" }, { "id": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/amusing-ourselves-to-death.html", "url": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/amusing-ourselves-to-death.html", "title": "Amusing ourselves to death", "summary": "I spent the past week writing about Neil Postman's perspective on technology. Postman was a media theorist who asked the question of whether we're controlling technology or whether technology is controlling us. In his most famous book Amusing ourselves to death from 1985 Postman described how we're…", "content_html": "\nI spent the past week writing about Neil Postman's perspective on technology. Postman was a media theorist who asked the question of whether we're controlling technology or whether technology is controlling us. In his most famous book Amusing ourselves to death from 1985 Postman described how we're living in a world reflected in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World rather than George Orwell's 1984. With this, Postman meant that human suppression occurred in a burlesque culture through dependence on entertainment and not through state control. He was especially critical of the television medium that could trivialize everything and therefore changed our mode of public discourse.
\n\n\n\nIn the 1800s, America was a print-based culture with a language-centered discourse that was meaningful and serious. Scholars who have studied how reading affects thinking have concluded that it encourages rational thinking, so it's no coincidence that the Age of Reason coincides with the expanding print culture. You can pinpoint a shift in communication late in the 1800s when advertisements moved from mediating information and making claims in a propositional form to using jingles, slogans, and images. The uncontrolled spread of images through American society happened through what Daniel Boorstin refers to as \"the graphic revolution.\" The first fifteen US presidents could have walked down the street without being recognized. If instead, you think about Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan, an image is likely the first thing that comes to mind. Little exists in the form of words. That is the difference between thinking in a word-centric and an image-centric culture. The widespread use of imagery helped to put the nonsensical news of the day into context by lending a face to the strange places and people.
\n\n\n\nPostman was especially critical of television news which he thought hurt our sense of the world as a serious place. He questioned why we would follow the newscaster's suggestion to \"join us tomorrow\" when we'd just witnessed enough chaos and tragedy for months of sleepless nights. The clue lies in that the news is not to be taken seriously as indicated by the attractive presenters, vivid footage, and exciting music that opens and closes the program. Instead, it's pure entertainment like everything on TV. Postman did not object to the medium's broadcasting of junk but he rather thought that the medium was at its best when it presented us with junk. The problem occurred when television had high aspirations and positioned itself as a carrier of important cultural conversations. What kind of conversation did it permit? It wasn't that television was entertaining that was the problem, but that it turned everything into entertainment. We got used to the constant interruptions by advertisements to the point where we no longer got surprised when the newscaster who'd just reported on an inevitable nuclear war declared that he'd be right back after a short message from Burger King.
\n\n\n\nAdvertisements did not only create a juxtaposition between serious and entertaining subjects. In the use of slogans, you saw a decline in rational language. Non-propositional language appealed to our emotions and it was no longer about what was right with the product, but rather, what was wrong with the consumer. Postman referred to slogans as \"crazy talk\" and meant that they created an irrational semantic environment. He claimed that whether language should be perceived as good or bad depends on its given purpose. If you're talking science, objective language is good, whereas if you're talking romance the language should rather be emotional and subjective. If you try to reach a purpose with words that are not designed for this purpose, the language becomes an enemy. TV commercials that appeal to emotions rather than reason are most effective when they're irrational.
\n\n\n\nMany of the problems Postman described in the 1980s got worse. You can ask yourself what he would have made of modern social media. What kind of conversation does 240 characters and a picture permit? Or a 60 second video clip? If anything, it's televisions on steroids. Postman worried that we were moving towards a development where our timeless narrative - the story that contains our politics, religion, philosophy, and science - would get lost. With that, life would also lose its meaning. Postman's speculations could go a long way towards explaining why we're living in a world where so many of us are feeling a bit lost. While we're always entertained, we're still missing something.
\n", "author": { "name": "Miss Nova" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-02-22T19:24:31+01:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T21:28:07+02:00" }, { "id": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/what-is-reality.html", "url": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/what-is-reality.html", "title": "What is reality?", "summary": "There's something called the Mandela Effect which is the phenomenon where masses of people believe that an event occurred when it didn't. The term was first coined in 2009 after researcher Fiona Broome got talking to people at a conference about how she remembered Nelson…", "content_html": "\nThere's something called the Mandela Effect which is the phenomenon where masses of people believe that an event occurred when it didn't. The term was first coined in 2009 after researcher Fiona Broome got talking to people at a conference about how she remembered Nelson Mandela's death in a South African prison in the 1980s. Only that never happened. Mandela was released from prison in the 1990s, went on to become president, and didn't pass away until 2013. Fascinated by the false memory, Broome began to talk to other people about the event and found that she wasn't alone. Others had vivid memories of seeing news coverage of Mandela's death on TV and hearing a speech by his widow in the 1980s. How can so many people remember an event that never took place?
\n\n\n\nNelson Mandela's death is not the only example of the effect. Masses of people recall the famous line from Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back as \"Luke, I am your father\" when it was in fact \"No, I am your father.\" Another movie line that's remembered differently by millions of people comes from Snowwhite. Most likely you'll remember the evil queen saying \"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?\" when the line actually starts with \"Magic mirror on the wall…\"
\n\n\n\nThe perhaps most famous example is in the beloved children's book series about the Berenstain Bears which came out in the 1960s and became a TV series in the 1980s. It's spelled Berenstain with an A, only masses of people swear that it was actually Berenstein with an E. The Berenstain conspiracy has triggered some wild suggestions with a theory that involves quantum physics. It suggests that sometime between 1986 and 2011, our universe, in which the bears were named Berenstein, merged with a near-identical parallel universe in which the family is named Berenstain. The event altered our history and left people perplexed as to what was going on with reality.
\n\n\n\nIn quantum physics, the many-worlds-interpretation, aka the multiverse, deals with a branched reality where there are most likely an uncountable infinite number of universes. That also opens up the possibility of an infinite number of yous living vastly different lives. If you like this sort of idea, I've read two really good books in the past few weeks that I'd recommend. They're Blake Crouch's Recursion and Dark Matter which are both science fiction thrillers that keep you hooked to the page. I have a weak spot for the latter when it deals with the problematic scenario where multiple variants of you turn up in the same world - how do you deal with yourself? Recursion draws inspiration directly from the Mandela Effect and is set in a fictional New York where more and more people are presenting with False Memory Syndrome - that is, they're remembering events that never took place. What's causing the problem?
\n\n\n\nWhether we merged with a near-identical parallel universe at some point between 1986 and 2011 where the Berenstein Bear family got a new name is impossible to say. Because in an infinite universe, anything is possible.
\n", "author": { "name": "Miss Nova" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-02-15T22:13:50+01:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T21:28:07+02:00" }, { "id": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/how-categorization-defines-us.html", "url": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/how-categorization-defines-us.html", "title": "How categorization defines us", "summary": "I came across an interesting essay on Asperger's syndrome. It investigated how the new disease category was established and the effects the diagnosis had on the self-understanding of the people diagnosed. On the broader spectrum, it touched on how categorization works to define who we…", "content_html": "\nI came across an interesting essay on Asperger's syndrome. It investigated how the new disease category was established and the effects the diagnosis had on the self-understanding of the people diagnosed. On the broader spectrum, it touched on how categorization works to define who we are.
\n\n\n\nWhen it comes to Asperger's, there is a lot of disagreement on what defines the syndrome, which leaves the diagnostic criteria rather vague. The introduction of a subclinical variant led to that people who exhibited Asperger's-like behavior could be categorized, and clinicians became attentive to behavior that up until that point had not been relevant within psychiatry. It allowed for normal and deviant behavior to be interpreted in a new way. By establishing the category, a large group of people who had previously been defined as normal could suddenly be classified as ill.
\n\n\n\nA glorious history was also attached to the disease. Successful historical figures like Ludvig Wittgenstein were described as Asperger's personalities which contributed to a form of self-understanding that made the syndrome easier to live with.
\n\n\n\nThe philosopher Ian Hacking has taken an interest in the categorizations of people, both in how they affect those categorized and further how the effects on people, in turn, change the categorization. As people change within a category, they are no longer the same people as before - something Hacking refers to as a \"looping effect.\" The sciences sometimes create kinds of people that didn't exist before, thus they're \"making up people.\" This often happens in fields like psychology and psychiatry.
\n\n\n\nThe classification of people can be described as nominalistic, which means that the general ideas are mere names without a corresponding reality. Hacking mentions Nietzsche as a potential first dynamic nominalist. In The Gay Science, he wrote that \"There is something that causes me the greatest difficulty, and continues to do so without relief: unspeakably more depends on what things are called than on what they are.\" The aphorism ends by stating that \"creating new names and assessments and apparent truths is enough to create new things.\" It also applies to the making up of people that Hacking describes.
\n\n\n\nAll this made me think about what categorizing myself as schizophrenic has done to my self-understanding and how I perceive myself because of it. While schizophrenia comes with a social stigma, there's just like with Asperger's the romantic notion of the mad genius. Experience tells me though, that few successful creative ventures come out of psychosis as the mind is too disorganized to function. The most important thing I've taken away from my diagnosis is that the condition can be managed. Through group therapy, I learned that my experience is not unique. By being categorized, I no longer navigate the straits of madness alone. Still, I guess I remain, in a sense, a made-up person that exists in a new way.
\n", "author": { "name": "Miss Nova" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-02-13T18:53:21+01:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T21:28:07+02:00" }, { "id": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/the-emperor-of-portugallia.html", "url": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/the-emperor-of-portugallia.html", "title": "The Emperor of Portugallia", "summary": "Last week I finished a novel that left me in sadness and has lingered ever since. It was Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf's The Emperor of Portugallia. The author herself referred to it as a Swedish King Lear, another tragedy about insanity. I'm unable to…", "content_html": "\nLast week I finished a novel that left me in sadness and has lingered ever since. It was Nobel Prize winner Selma Lagerlöf's The Emperor of Portugallia. The author herself referred to it as a Swedish King Lear, another tragedy about insanity. I'm unable to let go of the characters.
\n\n\n\nThe story's set in rural Sweden in the mid-1800s and centers around the poor farmhand Jan and his daughter Klara Gulla. She comes to him late in life and becomes the pinnacle of his universe. After the family falls into financial hardship, she leaves the village and travels to Stockholm to earn money. Things do not go well for her in the big city and for that reason, she fails to send any letters home. Jan can't stand her absence and enters dreamland. Every day he waits for her at the pier where the steamboat arrives, and every day he's left disappointed. He fantasizes about how Klara Gulla has become the empress of Portugallia and how he, as her father, is the emperor. He's obsessed with her return and what will happen then. The empress will arrive surrounded by kings and soldiers to take her rightful place.
\n\n\n\nLife in the village changes for Jan, who walks around wearing the emperor's regalia in the form of a stick and a hat. He also starts to question the social hierarchy. As the emperor, he sits at the first row in church, attends functions at the high table, and tries to socialize with the important landowners. Meanwhile, the villagers whisper about him behind his back and some even mock him openly.
\n\n\n\nIt's a striking portrait of madness that touches the soul. The novel reminded me of my own delusions of grandeur during psychosis where I was convinced that I was a queen set to rule the world. When I interacted with people I thought that they were honored by my mere presence. I carried a huge bag of change that I used to pay for everything, thinking my subjects were thrilled to receive silver from the queen. Reading The Emperor of Portugallia, I recognized myself in Jan. Maybe that's why the story of the emperor struck me so deep.
\n", "author": { "name": "Miss Nova" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2022-02-09T16:22:58+01:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T21:28:07+02:00" }, { "id": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/a-long-snooze-goodnight-how-antipsychotics-affect-sleep.html", "url": "https://onefootinwonderland.com/a-long-snooze-goodnight-how-antipsychotics-affect-sleep.html", "title": "A long snooze goodnight - How antipsychotics affect sleep", "summary": "On a whim, I lowered my dose of olanzapine from 10 to 5mg a couple of weeks back. Like so many schizophrenics, I can't shake the idea that in a perfect universe, I'm medication-free. We'll see how this one pans out. I'm starting to see…", "content_html": "\nOn a whim, I lowered my dose of olanzapine from 10 to 5mg a couple of weeks back. Like so many schizophrenics, I can't shake the idea that in a perfect universe, I'm medication-free. We'll see how this one pans out. I'm starting to see the effect. While I feel fine mentally, my sleep is altered. One of the consequences of a drug like olanzapine is that it makes you sleep more. Quite a bit more. I often clock in on ten hours, so more than the recommended eight.
\n\n\n\nI've read studies that people who sleep more are just like people who don't sleep enough at a higher risk of dying than those who get the \"perfect\" amount of sleep. The problem with these studies is that they fail to take into account that many of the people who spend extra time in dreamland are often sick, hence they sleep a lot. Sick people die because they're sick, not because they sleep too much. It's cause and effect, so it can very well be that there's no adverse effect from excessive sleep. Regardless, if I could get myself out of bed a couple of hours earlier, that's some extra time I could spend on my novel writing.
\n\n\n\nThe first thing I've noticed is that it takes me longer to go to sleep now. On 10mg there's a knockout effect that sets in half an hour to an hour after taking the pill. That feeling that I must fall asleep now. With it missing, I'm getting used to reading in bed until the small hours, which hasn't happened to me in years. Olanzapine in higher doses doesn't only work in putting me to sleep, but I've also used it from time to time against anxiety. At the maximum dose of 20mg, it makes me drowsy to the point where I'm almost asleep, which takes my mind off any worries.
\n\n\n\nIn addition to a slight case of insomnia, my sleep quality has changed. For years, I've only remembered fragments of my dreams, if anything. Before olanzapine, I used to remember my dreams more or less every night. It looks like dream recollection is back. I wake up several times a night from vivid dreaming. It's explained by the interesting fact that many antipsychotics don't just increase the total sleep time but also the time spent in stage 2 sleep. It's the stage when you're fully asleep and unaware of your surroundings, so-called deep sleep.
\n\n\n\nConsidering how much time we spend asleep, it's surprising how much of it is still a mystery. There's a good book on the topic, Why we sleep, by sleep scientist Matthew Walker. While Walker might take it a bit far in blaming almost all society's problems on lack of sleep, there's something to be said for the detrimental effects when you don't get enough of it. Every time I've slid into psychosis, it's been foreshadowed by insomnia, sleepless nights, and erratic thinking. For that reason, I'm always cautious with things that affect my sleep, whether it's coffee late at night or cutting back on olanzapine. Since I have no other adverse effects, I'll stay on 5mg for now and observe how the sleeping monster develops. This morning, I was stuck in a river in India surrounded by cobras, so maybe there is something to be said for not remembering your dreams.
\n\n\n\nIt's that special time of the year again. I'm sure this Christmas is difficult for many people with inflation and rising food prices. At least pork and potatoes are still cheap. My friend is having an especially tough time. He's addicted to benzodiazepines and alcohol. A few months ago, he snapped into psychosis, and we're still waiting for him to come back. Whether he will or not is uncertain. He refuses to see any more doctors and watches Harry Potter on repeat, as he analyzes his difficult childhood. Harry is the one person he identifies with, and soon the imaginary character of J.K. Rowling will be the only one he'll have left.
\n\n\n\nHis wife left him for Christmas and went to Slovakia. She couldn't take anymore. It sounds coldhearted, but I don't blame her. She's living with a shell of a person. The man she married is gone and he now spends his time asleep, or in the garage drinking vodka and popping pills. It's difficult to get anything sensible out of him. The other day, we tried an intervention. We made an appointment with a doctor friend of ours as a first step to getting him back into psychiatry. Ben went to his house for a chat and to bring him to the hospital for a general checkup. He flat out refused, got really angry, and threw Ben out of the house. At this point, we're out of ideas. It's really hard to get someone forcefully committed to a mental hospital which is what he needs. Not only would he be around like-minded people, which might make him question what's going on, but also it would serve as detox. He no longer works, takes showers, changes his clothes, or leaves the house.
\n\n\n\nWhen she returns from her Christmas holiday, his wife wants to throw him out. Whether it would be a wake-up call or the final nail in the coffin is impossible to say. The strange thing is that with all my experience of being mentally ill, I'm unable to help him. It breaks my heart. If there's one thing I know though, it's that you can't reason with the insane, the drunk, or the stupid.
\n", "author": { "name": "Miss Nova" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2021-12-25T00:12:07+01:00", "date_modified": "2026-07-19T21:28:07+02:00" } ] }