
{"id":22198,"date":"2011-12-01T12:47:26","date_gmt":"2011-12-01T17:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=22198"},"modified":"2011-12-13T15:30:44","modified_gmt":"2011-12-13T20:30:44","slug":"awakening-to-what-life%e2%80%99s-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/12\/01\/awakening-to-what-life%e2%80%99s-about\/","title":{"rendered":"Awakening to what life\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure id=\"attachment_22201\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-22201\" style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Oasis120111.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"514\" class=\"size-full wp-image-22201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Oasis120111.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Oasis120111-102x150.jpg 102w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Oasis120111-76x113.jpg 76w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Oasis120111-68x100.jpg 68w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-22201\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Binanay is a client of the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Outreach and Support Intervention Services program.  Photo by Alicia Stemper<\/figcaption><\/figure><strong>By Taylor Sisk<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff Writer<\/em><br \/>\n<em>This is the first in a three-part series on the onset of psychosis in young adults, its treatment and UNC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Outreach and Support Intervention Services program.<\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/oasis-\u00e2\u20ac\u201c-charting-a-path-to-recovery\/\">[OASIS series main page]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My heart and brain are in concert,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d David Binanay says. <\/p>\n<p>But there was a time, not so long ago, when Binanay felt as if cleaved to his core. Such is the nature of his illness. <\/p>\n<p>The road on which Binanay, 28, has traveled has been switchbacks and straight ahead, then around again and on. It started out rough: a congenitally troubled heart. He endured four open-heart surgeries, the first while in preschool, before graduating from Cardinal Gibbons High School in Raleigh in 2001. <\/p>\n<p>But that was just a thing, the heart trouble, something he was born to live with. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I never was afraid,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Binanay says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My mission was to survive.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>He survived and thrived \u00e2\u20ac\u201c became class president, school president, top of his class, a talented violinist. He attended Villanova University, where he made dean\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s list and was elected vice president of his fraternity while earning a degree in the humanities.<\/p>\n<p>His senior thesis was titled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I found a continual aesthetic experience through music, and through music I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve discovered the meaning of life, which is to love.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Binanay returned to the Triangle in 2006, joined a band and took a job at Chapel Hill Violins.<\/p>\n<p>But then it all went haywire, and in a great big hurry. <\/p>\n<p>In writing his thesis, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d studied a number of philosophers, and remembers an analogy equating life with being at sea, amid a fog, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and there are two ways you can take it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You can be really scared, or you can hear the soundtrack playing, and be, like, this is an amazing adventure, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m surrounded by the fog.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how it had been for me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an amazing adventure. I would face death and not be scared. There was a fog around me, but I was living the adventure, and loving every second.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Now though, something had happened, and he saw his hands \u00e2\u20ac\u201c these hands that so skillfully traversed the violin \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for the first time. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d trained myself to be removed, like I was truly adopting nonattachment. Then when I had my schizophrenia, I awoke to my hands.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I awoke to being, to self-awareness,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he now recalls. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was like, wow, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a human being.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Binanay now wonders if the effects of schizophrenia were visited upon him, or perhaps worsened, by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153all that pain that was built up from my surgeries. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just an idea.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Therapists, he says, have told him it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plausible. <\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe beginning of wisdom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/strong><br \/>\nSchizophrenia translates, roughly, as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153splitting of the mind.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most commonly first diagnosed in older adolescence and early adulthood. There is no cure, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s treatable, especially if confronted early.<\/p>\n<p>Binanay had known success his entire life. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d performed with the Raleigh Boychoir in Carnegie Hall and at the White House, done well in school and been popular. <\/p>\n<p>Now his life was unraveling, and it was terrifying, and exhilarating. It was spiritual. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d grown up a practicing Catholic. But this was a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153heightened spirituality; it was like everything was spiritual, and it was running through all things.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what was happening to me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says of the first days and weeks of his psychosis. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was being re-created. \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I went from where I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sensing anything to 100 percent sensory overload. It was like \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it was intense.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>He wanted it to stop, and he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. <\/p>\n<p>He was institutionalized for the first time. Medication became a part of his life \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a source of dispute with his parents \u00e2\u20ac\u201c on and off the meds. They dulled his senses, for better and for worse, to his mind.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everything that I was seeing and everything that I was hearing was confirming this spiritual experience,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he recalls.<\/p>\n<p>But, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was scared. It was like a baby cries. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know why a baby cries, but sometimes you can see a baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scared because it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know yet. And I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know; I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what was going on yet.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Binanay pauses in conversation, and listens. A train whistle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blowing, and it triggers a memory.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be at a barbershop, and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d hear a train, and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be, like, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an old one.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Like, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an old spirit. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153In our book, we relate what we know and hear and see \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in our book of life. Everything we see, everything we hear, everything we touch, everything we feel \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my book of life. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153And a sound has the power to evoke.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d begun to listen, was hearing things. Not auditory hallucinations; just things being uttered, perhaps in a whisper. He couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make out what, specifically, was being said, but, he now says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still some kind of understanding.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The world out there<\/strong><br \/>\nWhen David Binanay first came to the Outreach and Support Intervention Services (OASIS) program, administered by UNC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health, in Carrboro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Carr Mill Mall, he had, he says, the stare \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the psychosis stare.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen many patients, but they have that stare,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I had the stare. When I talked to someone, I could see everything; I could see right through them. My eyes would not turn away, and I could see their shoulders, the weight they were carrying. I could see their eyes. I could see their faces, their auras. It was like a holy moment, completely.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>He had awoken, he says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to the magnificence, to the exuberance that my paper was about\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c his college thesis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and the fog was lifted.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>He had awoken to schizophrenia, and had seen his hands for the first time. He was listening, feeling, for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was, like, whoa, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually a lot out there in the world, and I was scared.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>So too were his parents, who stood by him throughout. Compliance with his meds came in fits and starts, and eventually took hold. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I had fear for the first time in my life,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but they say fear is the beginning of wisdom.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>His mind was split open, and he was coming from a place in the heart. His work with OASIS had begun.<\/p>\n<p><em>Next week: Understanding, observing and treating schizophrenia  <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153My heart and brain are in concert,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d David Binanay says.<br \/>\nBut there was a time, not so long ago, when Binanay felt as if cleaved to his core. Such is the nature of his illness. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":22201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22198"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22359,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22198\/revisions\/22359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}