Some studies into the biology of manic depression and schizophrenia

“Certain brain regions in people with major depression are smaller and less dense than those of their healthy counterparts. Now, researchers have traced the genetic reasons for this shrinkage.
“Brain-imaging studies, post-mortem examinations of human brains and animal studies have all found that in depression, a part of the brain called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex shrinks. The neurons in this region, which is responsible for complex tasks from memory and sensory integration to the planning of actions, are also smaller and less dense in depressed people compared with healthy people.”
‘How Depression Shrinks the Brain’

“Social isolation in youth may wreak havoc on the brain by disrupting a protein crucial to the development of the nervous system’s support cells, new research finds.
“A new study in mice finds that when the animals are isolated during a crucial early period, brain cells called oligodendrocytes fail to mature properly. Oligodendrocytes build the fatty, insulating sheathes that cushion neurons, and their dysfunction seems to cause long-lasting behavioural changes.
“Some of the myelination changes produced from isolation are also seen in patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, Corfas said, making the project promising for a number of neuropsychiatric disorders.”
‘Mystery of How Social Isolation Messes with Brain Solved’

“People prone to depression may struggle to organize information about guilt and blame in the brain, new neuroimaging research suggests.
“Crushing guilt is a common symptom of depression, an observation that dates back to Sigmund Freud. Now, a new study finds a communication breakdown between two guilt-associated brain regions in people who have had depression. This so-called “decoupling” of the regions may be why depressed people take small faux pas as evidence that they are complete failures.”
‘Why Some People Blame Themselves for Everything’

“Schizophrenia symptoms include memory and attention problems, hallucinations, disorganized thinking and behavior and delusions. Psychotic symptoms typically start in late adolescence and early adulthood. But researchers believe that developmental abnormalities they don’t yet know about also increase diabetes risk.
“One recent study – based on data from the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness Schizophrenia Trial – showed the prevalence rate of metabolic syndrome, a group of risk factors that include abdominal obesity, high lipid and cholesterol blood levels and insulin resistance, is more than 50 percent in women and about 37 percent in men with schizophrenia.”
‘Diabetes Linked to Schizophrenia’

“Although less severe, patients with bipolar disorder share many of the same cognitive difficulties as patients with schizophrenia — including problems with identifying facial expressions, emotions and facial gender, according to a new study.
“Past research has shown that people with schizophrenia have clear cognitive deficits with respect to emotional perception.”
‘Bipolar, Schizophrenia Share Similar Emotional Perception Difficulties

“…researchers collected blood samples from 34 people with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and analyzed them to study their DNA. Each of the participants belonged to families with a history of mental illness. The scientists were focusing on seeking out people with a NPAS3 mutation, they ended up finding one and carried out a series of blood tests on members of that family, including two parents and four adult children.
“Results showed that the mother who has schizophrenia, as well as her two children with the same disorder and another suffering from depression, all shared the same mutant genetic variation of NPAS3. The mutated version of the gene had one single difference in that an isoleucine took the place of a valine. The authors are not yet sure how this change affects the function of the gene, though.”
‘Gene Associated With Schizophrenia Identified

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Back in a minute.

Turns out moving in with two children, and learning the schedule and eccentricities of another adult, takes time… and patience. And time. So… yeah.

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A short story about someone named Alex

This is a mostly biographical short story I wrote back in 1997. This is the second draft, there are some problems with ‘tense’ (has/had was/is)… it’s something I’ve always had problems with when writing longer pieces.*

This was a piece I wrote right in that sweet spot when I knew I needed help and when I wanted help, but ultimately couldn’t find it before I was overwhelmed by the disease again. It ends just before that overwhelmed thing happened.

*There might be (probably are) other problems I’m not seeing. I’m looking for some feedback, and critical comments are welcome… if they’re rational — although, irrational and funny would be okay.

Alex: a short story

Sometimes when birds mate, they lose the power of flight and plummet to the earth.
Sometimes one dies and the children grow up in single homes.

Alex stepped over the dead bird and said a silent prayer as he walked down Wellington street. He thought for a second and then mouthed a prayer for the world to a God he believed in yesterday.
A man on a bike slowly passed, muttering something about niggers or Lebs or something. Yesterday Alex might have given the man’s back a glare or two. Yesterday Alex might have believed it would have mattered.
Today Alex hunched his shoulders, thrust his hands into his pockets, cursed the cold and continued walking to school.

Alex’s cousin is a crack addict. Recovering or something. He stopped thinking about that a long time ago. After Danny last showed up at his door. Looking like he weighed 50 pounds and most of that scabs. Alex had given him everything he had. $40 and change and Danny never came back.
When they were kids, Alex had killed a dog to save Danny’s life. With a shovel or something. The dog was standing on Danny’s chest. Crazed. Barking. Danny was screaming something. Then Alex hacked and hacked and screamed and screamed.
In memories there is no blood. No sound. Just vague, half-blurred remembrances that may, or may not be concealing something else. The mind is a sieve. Only fragments remain of hopes, loves, fears, hates and desires. Pictures fade. The only memory is who you are today. He wasn’t sure why he thought of Danny.

Today Alex has to walk to school. The transit workers were striking again. Eight miles each way. The Christmas lights in the Chinese take-out restaurant were blinking. Alex stopped to look at the display. Christmas in November. He refocused his eyes to examine his hair, then looked up and down the deserted street to see if anyone had seen his vanity. Not quite deserted. A lone hooker marched solemnly from light post to light post. Disappearing in between. He watched her for a moment as she tried to make her quota so her pimp wouldn’t beat her. Or maybe she was freelancing to make extra grocery money. Whatever, there were no cars. Beaten or hungry it was a lost cause. He turned and kept walking away to school.

Alone in the pre-dawn dark, he watched the shadows while pretending to be indifferent.
“I am strong, hear my belly roar,” he thought. His fingers wrapped around the two small apples he carried in his pocket. “Breakfast or lunch, breakfast or lunch?”
He began to whistle.

Alex enjoyed being a failure for a very long time. He hated it but it was easy. The successes he’s had could be counted on one closed hand. He has helped some people, even guided some. A few days ago he chased away two Somali teens who were beating a man with sticks. The man was drunk and had been calling the kids nigger and pushing them. A few weeks ago Alex threatened two high school kids with implied violence because they were using broken tree branches to scare an old woman at a bus stop. As a joke they told him.
Alex lives in the “combat zone” of Ottawa but isn’t really sure why this sort of thing is happening here.

If only are the two strongest words in the English language. But their power is illusionary. No one can change the past, only forget it.

Alex’s face was numb. The weatherman said the low would be -2c. Alex wondered if the weatherman knew it got colder when the sun went down.

Alex can’t wear his Walkman anymore.
He wore it in the Mac’s Milk a week ago with his back turned to the counter. He turned around and four young black men were in a screaming match with the older Lebanese clerk. The clerk thought they were stealing, they thought he was a racist.
After one of the young men punched the clerk and another started stealing cigarettes from the counter display, Alex had to chase them out of the store. He spent the rest of the evening filling out police incident forms.
Now he’s afraid he’ll miss a cry for help. Or a yell to duck. Or the footsteps behind him.

The early morning traffic was picking up. Alex wondered if the hooker actually did any business this early… or late. A breakfast fuck? Was someone out there searching for eggs, bacon, coffee and a blowjob? Homefries with that?

Alex was in love.
Birds fall from love.

He passed the little high school that was saved from the freeway that bisects Ottawa, by a small hand-spasm by an engineer so a few hundred lucky students could be saved from attending a richer school.
J Loves A You Always Knew, Ace Crew, True Love 4 Ever.
The sun was coming up.

Late one night, Alex’s neighbour down the hall knocked on his door. A huge gash on the man’s leg was pouring blood over his foot, puddling on the floor. He didn’t want to see a doctor, could Alex give him a bandage. For the next week it became a ritual. He had a tattoo of a screaming eagle and a swastika on his left, very large, bicep. He always stank of solvents, and had a glazed stare. He and Alex talked now. Alex has been invited to the man’s friends wedding.

It has become impossible to confront people without resorting to violence, or the implication of violence. You can’t reason with ignorance, you can only ignore it or glare at their backs and hope the blonde sees your defiance and asks you to sleep with her. Ignorance makes the enlightened feel emaciated, like a eunuch. What do you say when three men and a woman at the back of the bus start laughing about Somali drivers and how niggers think they rule the world?
What you do is you give your friend a nervous shrug and pull the bus-cord so you can take the next bus, or move to the front, or turn up your Walkman.

Alex was uncomfortable with his size. He wanted to be invisible, but was made to look like a truck. Six feet tall, 236 pounds. Dirty blonde hair that started nice, but looked goofy by noon, big hands and brown eyes.
He lived in a neighbourhood where, if there was a car in the driveway it was usually the company truck. A-1 Appliance, CANON Copiers, Lareau’s Plumbing Supplies. Every once in a while there was a Volkswagen, or an Acura, the kinds of car that beep when you walk away from it and scream when a kid bumps into it on his Big Wheels.

Alex walked.
Carling and Holland. He stopped to light one of his last five cigarettes.
He could have gotten his licence ten years ago. He had a learners permit three or four times and has known how to drive since he was ten.
He crossed against the light.
Holland turns into Fisher in the middle of the intersection.

Alex was always in love. He had fallen in love with every girl/woman he ever dated. For Alex, love involved a lot of guilt. Alex felt self-pity a lot. At least he used to when he enjoyed failure.
Now Alex is medicated and only feels guilty about the self-pity and the inevitable joy of failure. And the love he thought he felt.
When he’s alone he can still get overwhelmed by it. Not so much now that he’s medicated.
Medicated.
The word conjures up alchemists and electrodes. At least it did for Alex for so many years.
He takes seven pills a day. 2100mgs of Lithium. And his mind clears up. The guilt subsides. The faces fade. And he can speak at parties. Not that he gets invited to a whole lot.
Thick, wet flakes began to fall. For Alex this meant his hair would be soaked from the snow, or creased and flattened from his hood. He pulled up his hood and fixed his backpack. His cigarette had burned a new hole in his glove. He flicked it into traffic in disgust and pulled out one of his apples and began to munch.
“Breakfast,” Alex said out loud. His voice was still thick with sleep.

Alex could always write. In his high-school yearbook it was his ‘claim-to-fame’. Poetry mainly. Also short stories. It was mainly this attribute that had allowed Alex to pass through life with limited effort. Alex now believes that his high school teachers believed it was a sign of intelligence that he could put words together in the form of half-sentences and vague thoughts.
High school teachers need very little incentive to pass a student, and their perception of Alex’s assumed intelligence was it. His potential. Now the same seemed to be happening in college.
Alex dropped out of high school. Twice. He won’t do the same in college. At least not again. He should have graduated by now, would have too, but he had quit when he got overwhelmed with self-pity towards the end of his second semester. He was unmedicated at the time.
Of course he blamed a lot of other things, minor events made huge by lack of medicine.
Alex was in love then too. He thought it was for real that time. For three years Alex listened, laughed, touched her lips, caressed her hair and kissed her nipples hard. But Alex was a failure, and after three years she reminded him of that. Just to make the year complete, he was forced to quit college a few months later. Both were his fault for being unmedicated. A few weeks later he decided enough was enough and began eating his pills like a good citizen.
Manic-depression. The self-pity disease that breeds failures and self-help books with self-pity titles.

The indecisiveness is the killer. Does she love him, does she think of him? Is she laughing right now, her hand seductively on the table, the other at her mouth caressing her smiling lips waiting for him to reach over and take her stretched fingers into his?
Alex was in love. New love. Alex wanted to fall like two birds.
Finding her name in the phone book, Alex had walked by her apartment for no other reason than to make her tangible. To make her exist.
And now Alex walked. Six long blocks to Baseline and Fisher, right on Baseline and straight to school. Halfway is about one block away from Baseline, on Fisher.
The snow fell harder. Nice fat flakes. The kind of snow that sticks to you no matter how warm you are. If you just lay down, you could be buried. If you just lay quietly. Pretended to be dead. Just lay quietly and wait for the suns of spring.

A drunk man wearing dirty clothes and smelling like dog-shit staggers towards you on a dark and semi-deserted city street. There’s just enough people around that you’re embarrassed enough to stop when he starts his line, but not enough that someone will call the cops if he attacks you. You know that they’re all thinking “thank God it’s not me”. And then he asks for change because he’s from Sudbury and he’s going back there in the morning so he can receive treatment at a schizophrenic clinic and he needs $2.86 so he can get something to eat before his bus leaves.
And as you’re reaching for change and getting ready to apologize for not having any, his friend walks up and you freeze as you wonder if someone will call the cops and you bring your hand out of your pocket, praying that the coin in your hand isn’t a Loonie, and that your hand doesn’t brush the $20 out of your pocket. And then you eloquently express your sorrow at only being able to part with nine cents and smile and turn away and get angry at the fucker for interrupting what was an already shitty evening and would he please just drop the fuck off the planet please, just to put a smile back on your face.
And they start to laugh as you walk away. And once more the idea hits you that you may live inside this city, but they really own the outside, and once more you suppress that thought before you start laughing, because you know that maybe you won’t stop. And then you’ll own a little chunk of the outside as well.

The walk along Fisher, from Carling to Baseline, is one of the more lonely in Ottawa. Dark windows and empty driveways on one side, and the empty fields of the experimental farm on the other. Baseline itself is a boundary road. It separates Ottawa from the suburb of Nepean. It’s a major roadway where, if you cross the street, your postal code, city, government, and taxes are all different. Even the space is different. Ottawa’s tall buildings, brownstones, tall trees, small parks, and full sidewalks gradually fade away until you’re at Baseline. Empty fields, new trees, row-housing, industrial parks and subdivisions.
Ottawa’s about people. Nepean is about safety while watching t.v.. Baseline Road is about boundaries, and cars.
Alex didn’t notice the change until he looked back at Fisher when he turned right onto Baseline.
Without the trees and tall buildings, Baseline was like an open air wind tunnel. Alex stopped to put on his scarf. The snow had given up trying to be polite, and now streamed straight into his face.

A few nights ago it was raining when Alex reached into his pocket and prayed that his last $20 stayed in place while he apologized for only having nine cents.
There were no homeless in Nepean. In Nepean you don’t have to worry about owning a piece of the outside, because it’s safe to watch t.v..

Alex grew up in Guelph. He doesn’t remember it. Pictures fade, and there were few pictures. His parents split ugly. His mom, younger brother and Alex moved to a small, rural community and hour and a half east of Ottawa. It’s been 17 years since Alex spoke to his father. He stopped thinking about that 6 or 7 years ago.
Memories are who you are today. The whole of the parts that made you.
Photographs are for those who need a history.
Birthdays, Christmas, holidays in the sun, school yearbooks, parties. Pictures fade like a summer tan in November. Brief seconds that would be forgotten but for a photographers whim. Smiling faces with no bodies. Out of focus smiles. Long forgotten friends hugging, kissing, laughing. Candid moments exposing nothing but guilt for having lost touch.
Pictures fade like the memories that make us whole.

Alex began munching on his last, frozen, apple. He continued walking on the Nepean side of Baseline, trying to keep his hood down, his scarf up, and his stomach quiet.

After finding her name in the phone book, Alex had walked by her apartment to make her exist. To make her tangible, approachable.
A long time ago he used to beat himself with his daydreams. Daydreams that would act as a jealous outlet for his frustration fantasies. Whom is she smiling at now, her hand resting seductively on her smiling lips.
There were still some aspects of his unmedicated past that Alex was trying to outgrow.
To make her exist he had walked by her apartment, it was an old habit that he realized was one he could not rationalize any longer. He had to learn to trust the intangibles.
It was frustrating for Alex, it still only takes a brief smile, a kind word or a pleasant conversation to lead him to believe that there might be something more tangible.
He had yet to have a relationship of any kind begin while he was medicated. He still had so much to relearn.

Alex had loved. But it wasn’t like two birds falling. It was more like one bird spinning out of control, trying to grasp another before he hit the ground.

Alex had finally come to terms with the memories that made him. He could see the world, and himself, in the light of a Lithium induced haze of clarity.
Alex’s Gods had always been Failure and Remorse. But yesterday he discovered he no longer believed in them. He had been gradually moving away from them for some time without realizing it. Now he had discovered he was more able to face the winds of the present.
It’s like he had been walking without his boots on through the snows of February, only to discover that his boots had been strapped to his back the whole time.

Alex was in love. And it wasn’t like two birds falling.

A red light at Merivale and Baseline stopped Alex. He had been walking for an hour and forty-five minutes exactly. The snow had stopped, and the cold wind had relaxed to a stiff breeze.

Today Alex has to walk to school. He let his hood snap back in the wind. His hair streamed back. Alex hoped it would still look good later. He hoped it looked cool to the drivers, but felt good even if it didn’t. He decided he was going to get it cut.
Alex enjoyed being a failure for a long time. But, twenty minutes from school, at a red light on a cold corner in Nepean, he knew that part of his life was over. The sun rose at his back, and the wind blew in his face, but he didn’t mind.
Other peoples problems were their own, to be worked out or ignored. “If only” had no hold over Alex anymore. Their illusionary power had faded like the trees on Fisher. Replaced with the stark reality of “Right Now”. Fine, he was too big, but fuck it, his pants still fit, he was still young. He had time.
The melodrama that is depression was under control with the pills. Alex walked because he could. He didn’t have to love now. Birds fall, and only too late realize that their partner was only in it for the ride.
Birds die from love, Alex wanted to live in it.

Pictures fade like the memories that make us whole. There is nothing so real as the frozen apple core you carry in your mittened hand. Alex’s gods were dead. Now he was free to discover new gods.

Alex was in love. And it wasn’t like two birds falling. It was like his wings had wrapped around himself before stretching out and catching the wind.

Twenty minutes from school, Alex smiled. And kept walking.

Alex: a short story

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Something I wrote a long time ago about someone who doesn’t exist (updated)

Sorry for the double post, I accidentally sent this to my Facebook account. This is a story I wrote back in 2001… it’s fictional, but just barely. I never gave it a title, and I haven’t edited it. Critical thinking and comments are mostly welcome.

But maybe, looking back with enough distance, everybody looks sad just before they die.

That’s how I remember him. Half a smile, his eyes trying to catch up to mine. His left hand near his shoulder, immobile, in a solitary frozen wave. The last time I saw him had been the first time we had met in eight years.

Eight years since we had discussed the sudden and expansive growth of Susan’s breasts. Eight years since we had snuck a cigarette behind my parents house. Eight years since he had moved to Vancouver to be with his mother after he had found his dad naked on the bathroom floor with a small pool of blood under his face.

Now all I remember is how sad he looked as we parted. As I fully turned around after walking sideways for a few steps, waving and smiling like an idiot. Thinking we would have all the time in the world to reminisce. Just his eyes and that stupid hand. Frozen just at his shoulder.

And as my eyes turned away, now in my memory, it all just fades to black. With time, and a focused imagination, I can see him. In a room full of books and music, window open to a city baking in the summer heat, sitting on a single bed with no sheets, holding a picture of his long dead father.

He had come back here looking for something that I knew he couldn’t describe. And then he was gone. Lost in a thick fog of painkillers. It was ten days before his landlord opened the door.

The less intimate details came from his mother. Between quick dabs at her eyes with a bunched up tissue. She was standing very still. I don’t know why I noticed that. Maybe it was because my legs were shaking, and I hadn’t been able to hold a full cup of coffee for over a week.

The more intimate details came from my imagination. That he was sitting in his boxers. Thinking of his dad holding him. Trying to cry, but getting more depressed as the tears refused to come. Listening to the kids laugh and chatter outside his first floor window. Alternating between anger at what a stupid death his dad had. Slipping on the way out of the shower, trying to reach for a towel so the floor wouldn’t get wet. Anger at having to explain it over, and over again.

He knew people’s first instinct was to laugh. He could see it in their faces. Or maybe the look was one of disbelief at such a tragic finish. In my imagination, after the anger would come melancholy. Remembering the times they would talk. Stupid things, like school and girls. His dad slightly patronizing, of course. Having done it all before himself. But making his son feel like it was all for the first time. He was made to feel unique by his father’s smile, his father’s laugh. The way his father looked at him over the dinner plate, or the breakfast table.

But the tears still wouldn’t come. He had left, to be with his mother, almost eight years ago and he had never cried. And now he was back. Had seen his old home, his old school, and his old best friend. And still the tears would not come.

And then came an even darker depression. And everything in his little room seemed to speak to his failures. Eight years of immobility. Eight years lost to a father who was no longer there. Eight years out of twenty-four. I know, in my imagination, that he forgot his mother. Forgot her in his memories of his dad.

If someone, anyone, had been there in his last ten minutes to remind him he would still be here. If anyone had just whispered “mother,” just louder than the traffic outside his window, he would have stopped to think. But no one did. Not even me when we met, purely by accident, around the corner from the schoolyard where, in grade nine, we both spent a few dollars to stare at Susan’s naked young chest.

We knew each other instantly. We embraced and shook hands. Looking back now, I’m sure I can remember hope in his eyes, and how his look made me feel. Wanted. Remembered. But in my imagination, I can see the blankness in his eyes. The desperation. The need to speak to someone, anyone. His best friend. About everything.

We talked. I talked, mostly. I asked questions that he could only answer with single words.“What have you been up to?” “How long has it been?” “When did you get back?” “How long are you here?” Then I had to go. I. Had. To. Go. I gave him my phone number. On a torn piece of a cigarette pack. And told him to call me.

Then I turned to go. And then he gave that stupid shoulder high wave. And then, as I turned, in my imagination, the world just turned black.

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