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Desdemona


Member

Posted Tue Jan 26th, 2010 1:13am Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

Hello my darlinga,
I don't mean to be insensitive, or pry in any way, But i was wonder if you could help me.
I'm doing a play called 4.48 phycosis by Sarah Kane, a brilliant writer who unfortunatly killed herself after writing it due to sever depression.
I want to know what she felt and what kind of mind set she was in due to the illness, so i was wondering because your all kind and wonderfull if you could help me out with this please?
Maybe by posting some experiances you or someone else has had, feelings and so on.

If you could help i would very much appreciate it.
Thankyou.
XxX

Skip Life and come with me?

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Nitro


Member

Posted Tue Jan 26th, 2010 4:40am Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

Do they get free tickets to the play when it comes out?

Seems a legitimate compensation for those willing to help you get your work done.

Really? Wow.

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michael


Member

Posted Tue Jan 26th, 2010 3:48pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

hmm before saying anything about my own experiences, i'll try and learn a little more about the play...or, can you tell us a little more about it? what types of info would help?

there's a great book called "the day the voices stopped" by ... ken steele that you could flip through, too. it's an autobiography and he's not a writer by trade, so it's pretty straightforward narrative. anyways, he has schizophrenia... and there's several places in it where he describes being suicidal, but it's different from the usual suicide-awareness info. for him it was very much due to psychosis wearing him down. (which i can relate to...) at one point you just think "geezuss he must be so damn exhausted!"

"HELLO I'M TACTILE !" is an anagram of my name

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Desdemona


Member

Posted Tue Jan 26th, 2010 6:27pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

Uh sure you can come and see the public performance, Its only half an hour long and A level standard.. O__o but if you would like to travel to alcester to see it be my guest, i'm not sure what the teachers would say about not paying though ...

If i give you a couple of paragraphs from the play would that be okay?
[you knwo this is really hard to do O__o]

'At 4.48
when despiration visets
I shall hang myself
to the sound of my lovers breathing

I do not want to die

I have become so depressed by the factof my mortality that i
have decided to commit suicide

I do not want to live

I am jelouse of my sleeping lover and covet his induced
unconsciousness

when he wakes he will envy my sleepless night of thought and speech unslurred by medication

I have resigned myself to death this year'

I kind of want to know what she would have been through, Anything really that could help develope the character.
Thankyou. [=

Skip Life and come with me?

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katysara


Moderator

Posted Tue Jan 26th, 2010 8:42pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

A good book that is very teeny if you want to understand more about depression is called DARKNESS VISIBLE BY WILLIAM STYRON. Took me half an hour to read but totally nails it.

I've read 4:48 PSYCHOSIS (be careful with your spelling there) so I am familiar with the piece. Everything you really need to know is in the text, helped by that book I described. You need to put in the reading time. If you do that I'll answer any questions you have.

Oh and know that Kane did not die as she finished the book as so many would have us believe, on an OD of lofepramine. She died 2 days later in a psych hospital by hanging herself.

Disturbing at times, what I know,
KSx

I am an administrator on this site.

"Having a great intellect is no path to being happy."
~ Stephen Fry

See my website: www.katysaraculling.com

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Desdemona


Member

Posted Wed Jan 27th, 2010 6:06pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

katysara Thanks so much darling. [I know my spelling is awfull, i didn't take english for a reason ;)]

the text is pretty good for explaining the emotions and things, I kinda wanted to build a back story for the character. So things like the first diagnosis and things like does depression come in episodes or its it constant? I know bipolar is eposodic, is depression the same?

Thanks very much.
XxX

Skip Life and come with me?

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katysara


Moderator

Posted Thu Jan 28th, 2010 12:14pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

It depends on the type of depression. Some people only have one episode and then it is called major depression (they are too ill to work etc). If they keep having these major depression episodes then it is called unipolar depression, and yes, it comes and goes like in bipolar disorder. But there is also an illness called dysthymia where a person is almost constantly depressed, but only mildly, not enough to stop them getting on with their lives.

For most people unipolar depression is the case. But you have to remember each case is different. Some people might be ok most of the time, some people may spend the majority of their time depressed, it varies person to person.

KSx

I am an administrator on this site.

"Having a great intellect is no path to being happy."
~ Stephen Fry

See my website: www.katysaraculling.com

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Telepresent


Member

Posted Fri Jan 29th, 2010 12:51am Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

Desdemona,

Just a thought - I'm not only someone who has gone through suicidal depression, but also rather knowledgeable in the world of theatre (officially I am a Master of Drama, no less!) - I would be happy to talk to you not only about depression, but how you might think about portraying it on stage without it becoming clichéd, hammed up or 'wangsty'.

Let me know if you're interested.


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judasishmael


Member

Posted Sat Feb 13th, 2010 2:21pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

Suicide, in my case, is something that I do not wish to do. However, when the noise comes, I cannot help but picture a gun against my temple, a bullet penetrating my brain, because that is where the noise is. I think it would be so much easier to breathe and open my eyes if I could just kill the pain and the static and the noise that drowns out everything rational. Sometimes I imagine downing a bottle a sleeping pills because the noise keeps me awake. Sometimes I do just want to die. I can't hear the good thoughts anymore when it gets too loud. Killing myself would not be something culminated from years of depression...it would be sudden...not a decision, but a sudden act precursered by a seemingly endless session of the deepest despair. Nothing was ever good and nothing will ever get better. I KNOW this. What I feel right now will never end unless I kill the noise. It's so loud. I can feel it reverberate through my whole body. My head is killing me. Please just make it stop. I just want this to stop. A simple movement of my index finger on a trigger could end it all. It would be so simple. I don't care if there's an afterlife. I'm already in hell. I'm not even thinking about the people who will hurt if I kill myself because I can barely see there faces through the pain. It would be so easy. I could just end this right now. No more pain. It would be quiet. I just want it to be quiet. I just want it all to be still. It's not even a question any more of whether or not I want to die. I just want the pain to stop. Please, I just want it to stop.

That's how I felt when I was suicidal. If it helps, prop wise I guess, I have journals that are interspersed with such writings where the letters getter bigger and bigger until I can only fit a few words on a page. Sometimes the pen was dragged through the page. I wanted to say something, but all I could feel was wordless and raging.
Why didn't I kill myself? Sometimes, I don't know. I didn't have gun or sleeping pills? Hanging just seems like it would have taken more preparation than I had the energy for. I could always just fall asleep in the car where it was cold. Away from anyone. I could take comfort in the distraction of discomfort. And maybe even freeze to death.
Mostly what went through my mind were lound, repetitive non-thoughts. Always about the pain and the noise. It was always loud.
I've heard there are many people who plan there suicide and are even more at peace and almost happy in the preceding days. I never wanted to be suicidal. It's horrifying. ...I just wanted it to stop. I use to sob, beg it to stop out loud. "Please stop...please stop," while I held my head together in my hands because I knwew it was coming apart. It was horrifying.
I hope this helps. Suicide is so often call a selfish act and, while it may seem like it is the those left in the wake, it's not like someone said, "Hey, I guess I don't care about the poeple who love me, so I'm just going to off myself for some pithy reason. No. Suicide, at least as far as I can tell, is an act of desperation.

The "flaws" that move us to hurt move us also to share our pain with others, thereby making others feel less alone and, thereby, becoming a vital link in a chain reaction of, subtle though it may seem, healing.

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katysara


Moderator

Posted Sat Feb 13th, 2010 7:26pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

Wow, powerfully written and totally agreed with.

KSx

I am an administrator on this site.

"Having a great intellect is no path to being happy."
~ Stephen Fry

See my website: www.katysaraculling.com

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robinbailey301


Member

Posted Wed Jul 13th, 2011 2:25pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

Desdemona said:
Hello my darlinga,
I don't mean to be insensitive, or pry in any way, But i was wonder if you could help me.
I'm doing a play called 4.48 phycosis by Sarah Kane, a brilliant writer who unfortunatly killed herself after writing it due to sever depression.
I want to know what she felt and what kind of mind set she was in due to the illness, so i was wondering because your all kind and wonderfull if you could help me out with this please?
Maybe by posting some experiances you or someone else has had, feelings and so on.

If you could help i would very much appreciate it.
Thankyou.
XxX


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robinbailey301


Member

Posted Wed Jul 13th, 2011 2:54pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

i have had pycosis for 22 years off and on it is especially scarey when new, symtoms can be exteriamally dangerous to ones self phycosis is not a mental health condition phycosis are symtoms of a mentle health condition such as skitzaferinia forgive my spelling during the hight of my phycosis i could not sleep my eyes were stinging and i was burning up i believed that if i shouted "love" something brilliant would happen by the power of god even if it was as simple as the devil not getting me i recieaved messages from the tv such as calm down one vouice in my head told me my 2yr old daughter was going to hell i decided this was not god and seeked help like i said i,v had it for years and its easy to ignore the vouices or halusinations i thought i had a direct connection with god and christ alcohol helps with my phycosis but who can drink all the time not me it can be a lonly place to i want to be on my own most of the time but when on a high i feel alone cos i,v burnt to many bridges i am low in energy most of the time but sometimes extremally hyper tablets help with my phycosis but not with the sleep problems i could go on all day one way of recogniseing a phycotic episode can be the subject is wide eyed rarely blinks i belived the goverment was out to get me via the tv and sometimes succeeded in hideing thease feelings of fear i also pulled off a vent at the front of the house i thought the goverment was connecting avan to the vent to emmmit toxic gas so it,s quite compicated but good luck on your play hope this helps


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byron_blake


Member

Posted Fri Jul 29th, 2011 5:18pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

Hi Desdemona,

Two ways of looking a psychosis/depression...

For me, psychosis (mania and depression) made me see that it is heavily connected to what we think of as 'dreams'. My mania was like a slow dissolving from reality, into a more loose mental state.

First - how does the brain work? From the first moments of our lives, our brains are storing away sense memories, and also storing away the relevance of each memory to other memories.

For example, if you think of an oven, and the experience of burning your hand. There's a whole string of identifiers in there - oven, white, metal, hard, hot, hand, pain etc.

And each of these has a connections to other sense memories - metal = oven, car, tin, spoon, gold, filing cabinet, bicycle frame etc etc.

So it's like one giant lattice of associations. Behaviours all come with socialised connections ie. sex = private etc.

I think of an analogy of a musical instrument like a guitar, with vibrating strings, that can resonate with each other.

So mania was like all the strings being in tune, and 'excitable' - everything that you sense, in turn vibrates into many other associations. Numbers with numbers, thoughts with other thoughts etc.

Depression is like someone has their hand resting on the guitar strings, so everything falls flat, with no connections with anything else - apart from fear - my theory is that depression is like the 'fear' node is overly dominant - so everything seems connected with blackness.

It's not rational - it's a dysfunctional brain state.

Like judasishmael said - suicide is like wanting to stop a traumatic mental state, much more than it is a rational response. There's many people in the world living in extremely desperate situations, but they won't be depressed unless their brain chemistry has become dysfunctional.

Even that is debatable - I think my brain knew that my mania was getting out of control, and my depression was it's attempt to 'put out a fire'.

The second part is about the connection to the 'dream state'. The dream state is very like mania - in fact I think mania is pretty much like your brain withdrawing slowly from reality - and the random association part of the brain starts to take over more and more. I think that's why people sleep less - the body is getting very confused about whether it asleep or awake.

When people ask about responsbility for bipolar actions, I often say to people - if you were held morally, and legally responsible for what you do in your dreams, would that be fair or reasonable?

Which leads to the conclusion - what if we're effectively always dreaming - even when awake. It's just that waking reality floods our senses with cue from the world that makes our brain process more stable.

Except in the case of mental illness, the sense stimulation is decreased, and our brain association process is increased - a sense of confusion, or unrealistic thoughts.

It's a theory that seems to fit a lot of different conditions.

Our kidneys sometimes are dysfunctional - we called it diabetes and there is no blame associated with it. Why people should think brains are perfect, but people's 'personalities' are flawed goes all the way back to mind/body Dualism, and organised religions idea of the 'soul' and 'being moral'.

Turns out these ideas are the ones which are highly flawed - and are the reason why life is hell for so many people with mental health conditions.


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Astronomeradam


Member

Posted Sun Sep 18th, 2011 2:49pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

I am very well acquainted with this play. It is a mistake to assume that it is a statement about MD or some form of suicide note or similar. It is also a mistake to assume that psychosis is the subject matter. Put all of this aside and read it as a text, not something written by a bipolar disorder sufferer.

You would do well to read the rest of Kane's plays along with Graham Saunders' book Love Me or Kill Me.

If you wish to learn something then the night sky is the best university you could hope to attend. Have a look tonight.

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Vampyros


Member

Posted Sun Sep 25th, 2011 7:28pm Post subject: Drama help? 4.48 phycosis

Interesting stuff, always looking for something to read.

Vx

I think my multiple personalities have multiple personalities - makes for quite a party.

"Books and friends should be few but good."

"It is better to be in chains with friends , than to be in a garden with strangers." -Persian Proverb
"Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is before you can meet again. And meeting again after a moment or a lifetime is certain for those who are friends." - Richard Bach

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