Life Seen Through Negatives

The negative symptoms of schizophrenia are characteristics which should be present but which are not. They include: apathy, affective flattening (a blank facial expression and an inability to express emotion), anergia (low energy), avolition (low motivation, lack of interest in life), anhedonia (loss of pleasure even in activities previously enjoyed), alogia (poverty of speech often due to poverty of thought), and social withdrawal/isolation.


I don’t think I can move right now. I hate to wear the same clothes without washing for so long but I hate to move. It seems like a type of paralysis of thought. My head is blank and empty. I spend a lot of time asleep. The numbness rises higher and higher. I can’t feel a think.

I have been pacing up and down because I have a starting block, a kind of inertia, which slows me down. I wear a hat to remind me of the presence of my head. What does it take to feel real? I wander round in circles or rock to and fro to try to get back in time. I am out of time. For all I know I could be screaming.