Cast of Characters, Part 1: Patient F.S.

Image by Kent Matthews at Getty Images,

with my addition of the popular German emoticon for schizophrenia.
EDIT: It's been pointed out to me that this image is more bipolar than schizophrenic.
Oh well. It's hard to depict schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is one of the most visible mental disorders in the media, particularly television and film. Who doesn't know about crazy people with voices in their heads? It's been ingrained into the public consciousness. Therefore one would expect a psychiatric ward to be lousy with schizophrenics, but sadly Ward 3A disappoints in this matter. We had only one schizophrenic out of all the 30+ patients who came in and out of the ward during my week-long stay. Just one.

 A schizophrenic patient's brain scan during a hallucination,

by Tim Beddow at Getty Images.

I call her Patient F.S., which stands for Fräulein Schizophren -- "Miss Schizophrenic" in German. Though I never personally asked her about her ethnic origins (I'm not sure I ever spoke to her, come to think of it), I gathered from her name and accent that she was indeed German. Except for the intimidation factor that comes naturally from All Things German, she wasn't what I expected from a schizophrenic, for she was the first I'd ever known. She was quiet, clean, and polite; she never made a fuss. Her comments in group sessions, when she attended, were reasonable and succinct.

Sigh. How boring.

Where was the unkempt madwoman who screamed about the voices in her head? If Patient F.S. hadn't told us all in her calm, reasonable way that she heard voices, I never would have guessed. Every patient is asked to bear themselves before nearly every group with the request, "Tell us your name and why you're here." Most cite the Big Three -- anxiety, depression, and anger. Sometimes something about suicide goes along with the depression and anxiety. But no, not Patient F.S., who looked at us all and said in her calm and matter-of-fact voice, "Hello, my name is [Patient F.S. name], and I'm here because the voices in my head were getting out of hand." Sounding so sensible and practical as she confessed that she heard disembodied voices made the others' confessions about the Big Three sound so unimpressive. It just isn't expected. My preconceived notions of schizophrenia need that unkempt, screaming madwomen.

Even the bipolar patients got nothin' on Fräulein Schizophren.

The only truly disturbing thing about Patient F.S. is what she said during a group discussion on going back to work after getting out of the hospital. She said that she wanted to go to school to be a dental assistant.

...


Fräulein Schizophren. The schizophrenic. A dental assistant.

Call me prejudiced, but I am. [sarcasm] Because I want the woman standing over me with sharp tools to hear voices that aren't really there. [/sarcasm] Going to the dentist is scary enough without adding a schizophrenic dental assistant into the mix. 

Original image by Ron Levine at Getty Images.

The irreverent word bubble is by me.

Sorta chills the blood, doesn't it?