- Joined
- Oct 6, 2020
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.
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.
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 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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