「どうすればよかったか？」を観てきたよ I watched "What Should We Have Done?"

統合失調症のドキュメンタリーを観てきた。日本語だったけど少し聞き取りにくかった。だけど統合失調症の陽性症状のわけのわからなさはよく伝わってきた。あれをうまく言語化するのは、やはり至難の業なんだと思う。

映画の監督の家族は、統合失調症という病気は受け入れられなかったけど、当事者のことは受け入れて、必死に守っていた、そう感じた。全ては守り方の問題だったように思った。「まこちゃん、まこちゃん」と愛情をもって呼んでいたのが印象的だった。

冷静に考えれば、脳の病気なのだからはやく医療につなげればよかったのかもしれない、だけどつなげられなかった。それはそれまで家族が手にしてきた名声から、やはり精神病という病気を受け入れられなかったのだと思う。でもたとえ家族が拒否しても精神病は存在し続ける。そして当事者の闘いは続く。精神疾患は闘いなのだ。個人と社会の。

当事者の弟が映像という道に進んだのは、強みだったと思う。こうして年月をかけて、姉の人生を、あり方を世間に問うことができたから。

合う薬が見つかり、良くなっていった当事者は、明るかった。その明るさがまた陽性症状の「異常さ」を強調する。だけど当事者の私にとっては、薬がすべてを解決したストーリーではなく、やはり当事者は内面でものすごい闘いを繰り広げていたのだと感じるのだ。あの「異常さ」もまた現実なのだ。

わけのわからなさにぶち当たり、とまどい、そしてその後、どう生きていけばいいかと考えたとき、映画の家族は南京錠をかけてでも、「家族」を守ろうとしていたように思えた。そして「まこ」さんはその家族の内側にいた。「まこ」さんが愛されているのをたしかに私は感じた。「まこ」さんは家族に愛されていた。

I watched a documentary about schizophrenia. It was in Japanese, but it was a little hard to understand. But I was able to get a good sense of the incomprehensibility of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. I think it's really difficult to put that into words.

The family of the director of the film couldn't accept the disease called schizophrenia, but they accepted the person with it and tried desperately to protect it, I felt. It all seemed to be a matter of how to protect it. I was impressed by how they read the book with love, "Mako-chan, Mako-chan."

If you think about it objectively, it's a brain disease, so maybe they should have connected her to medical treatment sooner, but they didn't. I think that's because the fame the family had gained up until then made it difficult for them to accept the disease as mental illness. But even if the family rejects it, mental illness continues to exist. And the struggle of the person with it continues. Mental illness is a struggle. Of the individual and of society.

I think it was a strength that the younger brother of the person with it went into film. In this way, over the years, she was able to question the world about her sister's life and her way of being.

The patient was cheerful when the right medication was found and she began to get better. That cheerfulness also emphasizes the "abnormality" of the positive symptoms. But as a patient myself, I don't think this is a story where medication solved everything; I feel that the patient was fighting a tremendous battle internally. That "abnormality" is also reality.

When I was faced with a lack of understanding, I was at a loss, and then I wondered how to live my life, it seemed to me that the family in the film were trying to protect their "family" even if it meant putting a padlock on them. And Mako was inside that family. I truly felt that Mako was loved. Mako was loved by her family.