# Catatonia: a user's guide from Henstepl



## henstepl (Aug 12, 2022)

To understand catatonia, be ready to guess there are many catatonics perambulating the world, in spite of the institutions built to corral them, and indeed I speak to you _now_ in catatonia. It is a clinicized disease with a clinical definition for those that _have it so bad_ as to need internment. But that's not all of us!

And to understand catatonia, you must be told the phrase: "you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't." And what is it that a catatonic might "do"?

Posturing is seen in mildest and profoundest catatonia. This posture implies a constraining condition of _catalyzing_ posture, one correct to the patient even if bizarre, which when unmet produces a cognitive deficit. The profoundest catatonia is the result of: *1)* failure to abide by one's catalyzing posture OR abiding by that posture when the posture itself is debilitating, and *2)* failure to diet and medicate as makes those postures easier or less absurd.

And around this notion of a posture "correct according to the patient", we can form a hard-hitting generalized definition: catatonia is really Acatalytic-Tonic disorder: the one describing the two issues catatonics face, which I notated with an "OR" statement a moment ago.

The *Tonic phase* of the disorder is when you assume the catalyzing posture and the posture is debilitating, as some postures are
The *Acatalytic phase* of the disorder is when you're "damned if you don't": going about your day with an unmet posture catalyst, feeling scrambled like an egg or simply just "lacking something".
And you don't like it. So at the first opportunity, you settle in some nest of yours and confer with the posture, and you feel better.

And a typical case of mild acatalytic-tonic disorder is of a man who's infirm of some necessary adrenergicism if he doesn't look _down_. Some days it's ten degrees down, and he can put on a bit of Kubrick stare and go about. Other days it's all the way, absurdly down, and if his day was troubled he'll have to have release at the end, and he'll sit, and look all the way absurdly down, and relish in the _correctness_ of it all.

That man may not be every catatonic, as that doesn't describe every posture constraint. But it is mine, and he is me. It was my first sexual experience that learned me of catatonia rules - and yes the posture was pointedly needed as you think - and understanding the mild syndrome that risks procession to such profundities and absurd postures as to get me hospitalized has been a changing moment in my life.

And here, and elsewhere, I hope one day to help some souls challenged by the traceable intricacies of mind, when it's a mind made intricate by disease.


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## WolfeTone (Aug 12, 2022)

I thought this was going to be a guide to Catalonia


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## T0oCoolFool (Aug 12, 2022)

...You okay there bud?


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## Stephanie Bustcakes (Aug 12, 2022)

Is the carbonation grimace involved in this in any way?


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## Massa's Little Buckie (Aug 12, 2022)

Aren't you the soda sperg that set fire to something?


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## Uberpenguin (Aug 12, 2022)

WolfeTone said:


> I thought this was going to be a guide to Catalonia


I thought it was going to be a guide to the band Katatonia. I like them a lot, especially their more recent albums.

But I'm not currently in Katatonia so I can't write a guide though.

More on topic: poor schizophrenics, that has to suck.


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## henstepl (Aug 12, 2022)

Stephanie Bustcakes said:


> Is the carbonation grimace involved in this in any way?


I have a complicated condition in which my catatonia changes its rules, and when this happens, the rules for carbonation grimace change as well. However, I inherited my mother's illness _and_ my father's illness - without his NMDA deficit and schizo family history I would probably be catatonic even without the grimace. I see as much in my mother, in any case.

Carbonation grimace still means Henstepl's disease! A better-informational manifesto rewrite is in the works: as with Duke Nukem, "when it's done".


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## Secret Messenger (Aug 12, 2022)

How much do you burp?


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## Dick Pooman (Aug 12, 2022)

In your experience which race is the worst when it comes to hospital orderlies, @henstepl ? I hope you're doing well and staying out of trouble!


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## Epic Fail Man (Aug 12, 2022)

I need my ADHD stimulants to read through that schizo post.


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## henstepl (Aug 12, 2022)

Dick Pooman said:


> In your experience which race is the worst when it comes to hospital orderlies, @henstepl ? I hope you're doing well and staying out of trouble!


If you know the lore, it's the one that's "the fairer". I am well and making sense of myself. Any inflammation night is a good night!


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## Aquinas (Aug 12, 2022)

How are you these days, King?
I hope you and your soda aversion are doing good


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## Cymophane (Aug 13, 2022)

new banger from the carbonation autist, based.


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## Toolbox (Aug 13, 2022)

Thank you henstepl for doing what no other schizo will.


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## Agent Abe Caprine (Aug 13, 2022)

Whatever your variety of catatonia is, no good can come of it. That's what these Swedish lads said, anyway.


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## Chocolate Wombat (Aug 13, 2022)

henstepl said:


> I have a complicated condition in which my catatonia changes its rules, and when this happens, the rules for carbonation grimace change as well. However, I inherited my mother's illness _and_ my father's illness - without his NMDA deficit and schizo family history I would probably be catatonic even without the grimace. I see as much in my mother, in any case.
> 
> Carbonation grimace still means Henstepl's disease! A better-informational manifesto rewrite is in the works: as with Duke Nukem, "when it's done".


Looking forward to your continued work in the field!


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