In the biblical story of Jonah and the whale, Jonah falls overboard during a storm and is swallowed by a whale. He then spends 3 days and 3 nights in the stomach of the whale, searching his soul and reflecting on his life. I have chosen to use this story to illustrate what living with schizophrenia is like. I have not spent 3 days in “the belly of the whale”; I have spent my whole life there. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was young and went through an identity crisis. When I got the diagnosis, I did not believe it. The doctor could not be talking about me—it had to be someone else. The psychiatrist told me that I was abnormal; a condition that could be changed by filling my body with antipsychotics. It was apparently a question of chemistry and biology. I had spent my whole life thinking of myself as normal, until the psychiatrist told me that I was not. It brought on a sea of thoughts and questions. Does this mean that everything I believed about myself was wrong? If I am “a schizophrenic,” am I then someone other than myself? Who am I, as a person, if I am not myself? Am I a freak? Does this mean that I have to deconstruct my identity and divide it up into what is normal and what is abnormal? And how do I know which is which, when all that I am, is such an integrated part of my identity and have been since I was a small child? I do not have a scale where I can weigh the terms “normal” and “abnormal,” and divide everything that is going on inside my mind into 2 well-sorted piles. Dealing with objects in the physical, external world is one thing, but dealing with the subjective internal conditions is something else entirely. Consciousness is a peculiar phenomenon. It is fluid, fluctuating, and elusive. You cannot hold on to it, because how do you hold on to a sensory experience and give it form, function, and meaning? When I look at my body, eg, I can sometimes feel like the right side of my face and body is distorted; that it is out of proportions. I see black animals crawling on my body. The experience is real. I see it with my vision and my inner eye. How do I ignore that? The answer is; I cannot. Rationally, I know that it is a result of the schizophrenia, but I cannot deconstruct the experience and make it normal. What I can do, is observe the experience, as some kind of anthropologist, classify the phenomenon, and find space for it somewhere in my mind. Place it in a fictional room in my head and that way create some meaning in the chaos. I have gotten lost in my psyche numerous times when I was young, but over the years, I have learned to navigate in the subjective experience that the condition places me in. Over time, I have learned to draw an internal fictional topographical map of the states I experience. A map, where I place the different sensory experiences, voices, hallucinations, sounds, and delusions in categories. Each state with different characteristics. Doing so, has given me some handles to hold on to when everything becomes too overwhelming. I have gone through a metamorphoses from childhood to now. Not only in growing up and the ordinary human development, but also metaphysically. By this I mean not only the things that can be observed, but also the more hidden and hyper sensory forces. The schizophrenic cosmology has caused me to move outside of time and space. A space where I have seen a world that other people do not have experience with. A multiverse of possibilities. I have experienced divine epiphanies, megalomania, terrifying sensory experiences, olfactory- and auditory hallucinations, and experiences of complete chaos. All of which have formed my identity and me as a person, and it is an ongoing process. I have not reached the other side of the schizophrenia. “The other side” is nonexistent if you ask me. I have not, like Jonah, been spit out by the whale after 3 days. I am still in the belly of the whale, trying to navigate in my own psyche, consciousness, and soul.

中文翻译：

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在鲸鱼的肚子里

在约拿和鲸鱼的圣经故事中，约拿在暴风雨中落水并被鲸鱼吞噬。然后他在鲸鱼的肚子里度过了三天三夜，寻找自己的灵魂，反思自己的生活。我选择用这个故事来说明精神分裂症患者的生活是什么样的。我还没有在“鲸鱼的肚子里”待过 3 天；我在那里度过了我的一生。我年轻时被诊断出患有精神分裂症，并经历了身份危机。当我得到诊断时，我不相信。医生不可能在谈论我——一定是别人。精神科医生告诉我，我不正常；这种情况可以通过用抗精神病药物填充我的身体来改变。这显然是一个化学和生物学问题。我一生都认为自己很正常，直到精神科医生告诉我我不是。它带来了大量的想法和问题。这是否意味着我对自己的所有看法都是错误的？如果我是“精神分裂症患者”，那么我是不是我自己以外的人？如果我不是我自己，我是谁？我是怪胎吗？这是否意味着我必须解构我的身份并将其分为正常和异常？我怎么知道哪个是哪个，当我是我身份的一部分并且从我还是个小孩子的时候就已经是我的身份了？我没有可以衡量“正常”和“异常”这两个术语的天平，也没有将我脑海中发生的一切分成两堆整齐的东西。处理物理外部世界中的对象是一回事，但处理主观内部条件则完全是另一回事。意识是一种奇特的现象。它是流动的、波动的、难以捉摸的。你无法抓住它，因为你如何抓住感官体验并赋予它形式、功能和意义？例如，当我看自己的身体时，有时我会觉得我的右侧脸和身体扭曲了；这是不成比例的。我看到黑色的动物在我身上爬行。体验是真实的。我用我的视觉和内心的眼睛看到它。我怎么忽略它？答案是; 我不能。理性上，我知道这是精神分裂症的结果，但我无法解构这种体验并使其正常化。我能做的，是观察经验，作为某种人类学家，对现象进行分类，并在我脑海中的某个地方为它找到空间。把它放在我脑海中一个虚构的房间里，这样就可以在混乱中创造一些意义。我年轻时曾多次迷失在自己的心灵中，但多年来，我学会了在这种情况给我带来的主观体验中导航。随着时间的推移，我学会了绘制一个内部虚构的地形图我经历的状态。一张地图，我将不同的感官体验、声音、幻觉、声音和错觉归类。每个州都有不同的特点。这样做，让我在一切变得势不可挡时可以抓住一些把手。我经历了从童年到现在的蜕变。不仅在成长和普通人的发展中，而且在形而上学上。我的意思不仅是可以观察到的事物，还包括更隐蔽和超感官的力量。精神分裂的宇宙观使我游离于时间和空间之外。一个我看到了其他人没有体验过的世界的空间。多种可能性。我经历过神圣的顿悟、狂妄自大、可怕的感官体验、嗅觉和听觉幻觉，以及完全混乱的经历。所有这些都形成了我的身份和我作为一个人，这是一个持续的过程。我还没有到达精神分裂症的另一边。如果你问我，“另一边”是不存在的。三天后，我没有像乔纳一样被鲸鱼吐出来。我仍然在鲸鱼的肚子里，试图在我自己的心灵、意识和灵魂中航行。和完全混乱的经历。所有这些都形成了我的身份和我作为一个人，这是一个持续的过程。我还没有到达精神分裂症的另一边。如果你问我，“另一边”是不存在的。三天后，我没有像乔纳一样被鲸鱼吐出来。我仍然在鲸鱼的肚子里，试图在我自己的心灵、意识和灵魂中航行。和完全混乱的经历。所有这些都形成了我的身份和我作为一个人，这是一个持续的过程。我还没有到达精神分裂症的另一边。如果你问我，“另一边”是不存在的。三天后，我没有像乔纳一样被鲸鱼吐出来。我仍然在鲸鱼的肚子里，试图在我自己的心灵、意识和灵魂中航行。