In Defence Of Normal

When does acceptance become a bad idea?

Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

I wasn’t really listening to Cecilia’s interview until she mentioned the giant spider.

It has yellow skin, a large, leathery body, and black legs. When it moves, its joints make a creaking noise that sounds like children laughing.

Cecilia understands that the spider, one of her most frequent hallucinations, isn’t real. She understands that it’s a symptom of her schizophrenia.

But even though she understands this intellectually, it feels real enough that she can’t be sure. Which is why her response to a question about whether she’s hallucinating during the interview is so fascinating:

…I don’t answer that question. I’ve sort of made it a rule with myself not to talk about whether or not I’m hallucinating at that moment. Because then, the first response is,

“Oh, where is the hallucination?”

And then a common reaction is that everyone in the room looks in that direction. I don’t know why, they’re not gonna see anything, but that’s just the reaction. And that’s very dangerous. Because then you have real life interacting with your hallucination.

And that could really hurt the psyche.