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3 · Thursday, May 27, 2010 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.oakvillebeaver.com Removing motivation not the best answer Continued from page 1 money for those with schizophrenia and seeks to debunk the stigmas surrounding the disorder. For Purshouse schizophrenia did not become a part of her life until she reached her mid-20s when she was attending McMaster University. Purshouse said she began to experience things like people on television speaking to her directly. She also began to see images of angels appearing out of the patterns on floor tiles. She came to believe the world was ending and the mafia was in control of the Canadian Open. "You can laugh. I know a lot of people that have this illness and we really do laugh at a lot of the things we did because they are so embarrassing. "I didn't know anything was wrong with me because to me this was all real." Purshouse reached the breaking point in the fall of her final year at McMaster. By this time she believed two of her friends were about to give birth to the Messiah and she thought it was her duty to inform people. One night, as a result of this belief, she approached a number of people in downtown Hamilton informing them that Hope, the Messiah, was coming. That same night Purshouse also believed there was a snake in her body. "I could actually feel that. I started to gag on the street. I must have looked like I was drunk," said Purshouse. "I felt like I was dying." She initially tried to get relief from this feeling by praying before a statue of the Virgin Mary at a Good Shepherd Family Centre where she had served as a volunteer. Then she called her parents who met her in the emergency room at McMaster Hospital. At her insistence, her parents took her to OakvilleTrafalgar Memorial Hospital (OTMH) where she began receiving treatment. Purshouse described that entire night as frightening and said she felt she was on the verge of death and requested a priest when she reached OTMH. "I didn't really understand where I was," she said. "There was all this construction going on at OTMH at the time and I thought they were building us in and that I was going to be trapped there forever. I thought that the end of the world had happened, but I didn't know because I was stuck there." While Purshouse said she wasn't diagnosed with schizophrenia at that time, she did begin receiving medication, which alleviated her symptoms. This medication, however, was not without side effects. "There was this humanities wine and cheese thing that I was supposed to write a little thing about for the humanities paper and I wasn't functioning. It's like your brain has taken this blow and things like writing are difficult for you now," she said. "I couldn't organize my thoughts and it was difficult to get things out." On another occasion, Purshouse experienced a muscle convulsion that locked her arm and neck into a contorted position and she needed an injection of a muscle relaxant. But worse was to come. For while the medication took away the symptoms of schizophrenia, it also took away Purshouse's motivation and ambition. To make matters even worse, the therapy for schizophrenia at the time wasn't goal oriented as it is today. "The message at the time was, `You can't do these things, you can't do this, you can't do that, you have to take it easy, your expectations have to be lowered,'" said Purshouse. "That takes away your whole identity." For these reasons, Purshouse stopped taking her medication believing it might be possible to control what was happening in her mind. This failed with Purshouse experiencing a relapse of symptoms. This time she experienced a num- DAVID LEA / OAKVILLE BEAVER TEAMWORK: Patricia Purshouse and Marina Sue-Ping, family and community co-ordinator for the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario Halton/Peel Regional Office, hold up 2010 Walk of Hope T-shirts ber of auditory hallucinations and believed she could hear conversations taking place in other rooms, other buildings and even other cities. At this point, she said she was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia. With neither option of being on or off medication being particularly attractive, Purshouse's next few years were difficult ones involving time at group homes and suicide attempts. "There had just been this profound loss of who I was," she said. "You think you are never going to be who you thought you were and that your goals and dreams are not going to happen." This all turned around, however, when she was put on a new medication in the mid-'90s, with far fewer side effects. With her motivation and ability to concentrate back, Purshouse was able to return to McMaster and graduate with hon- ours. Then Purshouse attended Mohawk College and took courses in psychosocial rehabilitation. Today she works for the Canadian Mental Health Association helping those with mental health issues in crisis. She also speaks to school children about schizophrenia in an effort to raise awareness. "You hear a lot of people thinking it is a multiple personality disorder, which is something completely different," said Purshouse. "Other people think (people with schizophrenia) are going to be violent when, in fact, you're more often the victim of violence when you have a mental illness." While the treatment of schizophrenia has changed considerably over the years, Purshouse points out there is still much to do as there is still no cure and the medications that do exist still have side effects such as weight gain. Purshouse invites everyone to Sunday's Walk of Hope at Coronation Park (1462 Lakeshore Rd., W.). Registration is at 12:30 p.m. The event begins at 1:30 p.m. For information, visit www.walkofhope.ca or call 905338-2112.