Memory

Memory

She approached the filing cabinet, which seemed to be the only piece of furniture in the room and dragged a door open. The edges were sleek black and metallic. The handle of the drawer looked untouched. She knew this was not the case. The cabinet used to be filed with care. Each past experience in her memory was quantified in significance and filed according to feelings and significance in a diligent manner. Before everything became jumbled up, she could access a file whenever she wanted, pulling out a manila folder containing the appropriate context: place, time, scent and who was there. The room with the cabinet was an icy cold. In the Jumble it had absorbed a certain emptiness and with that emptiness came a bitter cold. The drawer felt cold in her hand as she pulled it open even.

While metal tends to adjust itself to the temperature of the hand touching it, this handle was entrenched in frigidity and showed no sign of moving. There was no one in the room with her who could witness what she saw when she opened the drawer. Everything that had once been organized was now a mess, many of her memories were torn into bits, illegible little notions of who had been where, or how she had felt. Everything inside her little memory cabinet was in pieces and there was no one to help her figure out how to put the bits back together or to make some complete picture of "the past". After all, it was her memory. Who else could come here? Who else would understand the system?

"I'm here for something specific," she said out loud, knowing that perhaps people could hear her, but there was no way they could tell where she was or what she was doing. Perhaps she would seem crazy to them. They didn't understand because their memory had not been vandalized like this. Their little cabinets -- or perhaps some of them had less old-fashioned filing systems -- were all perfectly in tact. Other people lived in the outside world, interacting with objects and others but she felt as if she mostly resided inside her head and her escape from all of that had been her memories which were now destroyed.

He had not taken enough of her when he left. It had not been sufficient for him to destroy the rest of the place. Outside of this room where the cabinet was kept, she'd had a beautiful arrangement of ceramic trinkets that seemed impenetrable to her, but in reality were merely ceramic objects that could easily be smashed upon the ground. And of course, when they were smashed they did so in little bits. With ease they embedded themselves in the soles of her feet and in other parts of her skin, drawing blood at first and later causing a dull throb more like a reminder of pain than pain itself. He had shattered every last one of her little trinkets and not being satisfied with destruction he set out to annhialite the contents of her cabinet.

She wept.

For a time she wondered how she would piece everything back together. Of course the past could no longer be reflected upon in the same way. Everything had to be re-transcribed for the cabinet's insides to be even close to normal. It would take work, which she had begun. She was always diligent and even it matters of restructuring the past she applied this same diligence. Through tears, through pain, through dull throbs, she had diligence at least.

Besides her efforts to piece scraps of paper together, jotting down what memory she could from them she was making new attempts to restore the contents of the cabinet so she could function. First there was the section of the cabinet dedicated to her "identity". It was probably best to scrap most of what had been destroyed anyways. It was not a pretty picture and now she felt more comfortable in her body, in her self. Her hair had grown longer. Her body had trimmed itself of excess fat. Her skin had been restored to a golden brown. Her smile seemed bigger and her notion of self was in general, more positive. What had been destroyed was all bad. Without memory, she could construct a new identity based off of her own feeling and not off of a projection on  a page written by a heavy hand.

She was also working on new memories that would effortlessly write themselves in and she could file them away, filling up the drawers of the cabinet with new material. One day at a time she worked on new memories that had nothing to do with him and his destruction. Then, there was a time when the memories seemed to be filling up the cabinet faster and faster.

She had made friends with someone else who could understand her system. His memories were destroyed too, but his "cabinet" (she was not certain it was a cabinet really) was in far greater disrepair. The hurricane that destroyed it was always on his lips, even after weeks and weeks had passed. She was afraid of him and his memories of her because she could smell the toxicity on his breath when he said her name. She was afraid because she did not want to brush too closely with his poison and disintegrate her new memories just when she'd built up a good thick set again. He was lovable and dangerous and they shared the same consciousness, the same skin, the same disrepair.

They never spoke of their damage but they communicated it all the same. She could sense the reflexive way he fell into things and could sense that she was a placeholder so he could perform the same habits of a lover he had grown accustomed to. He was a placeholder in a way, except the habits her performed were totally new to her. She had never been graced with this kind of affection before. This was the sign. Before every storm, there are signs of course. In the tropics, the birds are too quiet. The beetles pour into the house from every crack. He had just been an invasive beetle, pouring into her home, looking for a place to rest before the storm came. But he was the storm too... The storm. The beetle. The man. They were all the same - all black and twisted with satanic desire to defile what was once pure. (Heart, mind, home.)

They didn't speak of their damage but she could taste it on his mouth, like red wine, like marijuana. She could feel that sometimes he wanted to hurt her just to lash out at women. She could feel that she wanted to hurt him by falling in love with him and making their friendship some "big thing" to cause him guilt and grief. But their desire to hurt each other was tempered by their own pain, their own emptiness and instead of destroying each other their friendship became a blank notebook and they wrote in new memories to replace what they had lost. They guided each others' shaking hands and made promises they knew they could keep.

The future did not exist because they were so busy trying to replace the past with the present and when the future did come, they knew it would not matter what they were or what they had been because they had been nothing to each other but perfect and convenient. It did not matter therefore it did not exist. For a while they were able to write rich memories. Each second they spent together was a precursor to a romance they would never allow to begin. They lived in a world created by magic. God himself had a direct hand in placing him with her and her with him just for a time.

Time runs out and within weeks she was going on her way and neither of them wanted to feel sad but they both did. When he said "I miss you" she did not want to believe it because no one had ever missed her before even if they claimed to love her. Her absence had never been felt and for someone like him to claim to feel her absence felt like a grave dishonesty. In order to counteract this injustice she clung to the words "I miss you" and never spoke them herself out of fear that he was lying and she would fall into a cruel cosmic trap.

He seemed to really fall in love with someone else once she was gone and although she wanted it to hurt her she felt nothing for him, not even jealousy. They spoke to each other every day for more than a month and then time paired with their separation and began to chip away at their contact. Speaking to each other became less frequent. They could not help each other write anymore and trying to write new memories on their own became difficult. There was nothing between them but those truncated memories they had written before. Time had cut them off, God had left them to deal with their destruction on their own.

That is the only way she could fix the mess in the cabinet, to clean it up all by herself. The work would take a while. Piecing together fragments of her past under dim lamp light would be no easy feat. Her helper would not be there to remind her that others felt pain and that her presence was significant enough to be missed. She was afraid to tell him how much she missed him too, and how much he had helped her those hot summer nights. His laughter and the ease with which he provoked hers had profound importance, energizing her to keep up the work of reorganizing her memory. Sometimes she wanted to tell him this. "You are important to me" is only five words after all and they had spoken so much to each other that the impact of five words (one of which wasn't even love) could not be so great as to cause her this much distress. Whenever she saw his face and heard his voice, she could not bear to tell him because she feared it would change.

She became more and more alone as they were apart. In the world she had traveled to people did not understand laughter. They did not understand ways to heal from pain, only feel it. These people did not understand what she had been through. They did not understand why she felt the way she did. They did not understand that all her memories were destroyed. She had tried to explain to a few of them that everything in her mind had been destroyed. I am turning over a new leaf. I am trying new things. Her explanations were not understood. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like if someone could inhabit this near empty room with her and see the mess. How can you expect me to heal from this? How can you expect me to fix all of this so quickly? I have to rewrite everything.

Of course no one could come see the cabinet and the only person who had understood was hardly real anymore.

Time was passing again and writing was becoming difficult. She was bogged down with her life and with writing even when things did not deserve to be written. She was desperate for memories. Since she had flown away from him the face of her destruction was appearing ever so often to remind her that she was incomplete. There was a constant reminder that he had smashed everything in her head to bits on purpose and had ripped her memories to shreds. It seemed that when she saw him he would take a few of her rewritten pages and undo her work. She tried her hardest to forgive but she could not forget as easily what he had done to her. Escape was impossible because he seemed to always seek her out. Just by existing in the same physical environment he taunted her, looking wistfully at her as she tried to ignore him and pretend he was dead. How dare he look at her like he missed her when he had never said the words and when he had left her with such an awful mess.

Her summer was gone. Her memories were being ripped up at a faster rate than she could write them. Her mind was becoming poisoned because she had no memories to saturate its space and toxins were seeping in. She felt death calling to her as he had long before and this time to end everything seemed like bliss compared to this perpetual attention to fixing memories that perhaps could not be fixed. She could not even express affection how she used to and she noted that with the way she held onto her "I miss you"'s.

Distraught she decided perhaps it was time to die. She closed the drawer to the cabinet that contained her memories. It no longer mattered whether some memories were good or some were bad. Organization did not matter and it did not matter if she created new memories or not. She looked at the room which was now void of shrapnel although her body was not. She looked at the clean walls and the metallic box that held her memories. She ran her hand across all the surfaces in the room cleaning off a layer of dust with her fingertips. She closed her eyes and began to accept that she would be in this room forever. She slipped into unconsciousness as she willed it. Death was a comfort. A little too much of this or a little too much of that and everything was over. She would never be alone again and she could work on writing. No one could touch her or her memories again.

The room could remain sterile and pristine with no invasion. Perpetual purity was attractive to her. She pulled out a black pen and began to write her last words into the walls. She wanted to create a memory that would last forever, a complete story that would never need to be revised or rewritten. Without consciousness to add and change and reformat, she could work with peace that she'd never had when her mind was being destroyed. This was her magnum opus. The white walls of the room seemed to grow brighter with her acceptance of life's finality.

unusual compat

Summertime makes me sick with how sweet it is. I hope I will still be able to taste the sea breeze and remember warmth and soft kisses in a month. I hope I will be able to smell the dope in months to come and remember breaking it up in manageable pieces as he lies next to me. The beach is relatively quiet, the vague cacophony of Vybz Kartel is the only noise, a subtle reminder of what our culture is reduced to for tourism. “Our culture” that will never really be mine and may not even be his. But here we are, in sweet summertime, St. Lucians in our own right. I used to fail at finding comfort in the uniqueness of my relationship to my culture but now it feels so much better knowing that I am not alone in my cultural confusion. Mixed. Black. White. American. Canadian. St. Lucian. Preppy. Poor. Rich. Nerdy. Reformed Catholic.  Similarity in this amalgamation of identities has drawn us together in a casual yet significant manner.

“I left Saint Lucia and never looked back.”

But here we are.

The breeze whips my hair out of my face as I stand on the porch, ancient cordless phone glued to my good ear. The porch is covered with egg containers, each filled with grotesque dried seeds for my mother’s garden. Our pink hammock swings in the breeze and a giant lizard shiftily crawls across the ceiling enjoying a feast of moths and other insects my porch light has drawn to its strategic position.

I’m leaning over the banister trying to measure the length of my hair against one of our house’s pillars and I’m listening to his voice, reflecting my experiences. Another person has gone through what I’ve gone through. I am not alone. Relating to someone about boarding school is one thing, but relating to a St. Lucian is another thing entirely, and it’s too rare for our meeting to just be hap and stance. We speak for perhaps an hour as I stand on the porch trying to see the full moon through the thick clouds that paint the sky a deep gray. Our experiences in the United States and our relationship to our almae matres are so closely aligned. It begins with culture shock and a complete lack of preparedness to work. Catholic School killed our thirst for knowledge and our love of learning. Readers, dreamers and creators quickly became stifled by rules and our unbearable lightness a problem which is far deeper than being a tragic mulatto of sorts. Children were not meant to be beaten into submission, to have their creativity massacred in favor of conforming to God’s rule.

Then of course, there’s the guilt. Who else understands the guilt that I’ve always felt? It starts like this: I don’t deserve to be the only person to have had this opportunity. He tells me about his cousin: his potential, his wealth and how he could have fit into a boarding school environment if given the chance. But the value system of his cousin’s family is different. And that’s what it comes down to for “people like us”. Our value systems are polarized to the general population of our country. We become drifting anomalies who will never quite belong because we value education over possessions and knowledge over attainable signifiers of wealth. We would have never been comfortable in a Ministry Job or at UWI. So we fled and in doing so we felt guilty.

“There are so many kids I went to school with who were a lot smarter than me and where are they now?” It’s like I’m speaking to myself or listening to a recording of every previous thought I’ve had. I think about their salaries that amount to less than 20,000 USD a year and their 90,000 dollar car loans and their meager houses and the fact that they are trapped here forever. They are trapped by this system because they did not get a chance to experience the world that we did. Our exposure to the evils of liberal American culture frighten them the way the thought of being like them frightens us. We become bonded by our guilt and our fear, perhaps not in a romantic way or even in a permanent way but it’s significant for us to get all this off our chests and push it out into the humid night because we have had these experiences alone for so long and all we crave is understanding.

The night is beautiful. I’m thrown back to my childhood feelings of loneliness and finding the sort of comfort you find when you figure out your emotions are not “crazy” and not every thought you have is a representation of how isolated you are from everyone else. The landline is pressed to my ear as if cellphones don’t exist, as if I’m so far into the past I’m making the decision to go to Groton again and again. Was it a mistake? If I could go back would I do it all over again?

“It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made to this day,” I say, and as the words leave my mouth, I am certain this time it isn’t a lie. Finally I’m speaking about Groton without feeling totally tainted by either resentment or nostalgia — opposite sides of the same coin if you get to thinking about it. In hearing him talk about the person he has become and seeing that he is a few years further along than I am in his personal development, I feel renewed faith that everything I struggled with had a greater significance.

Our conversation reaches a natural conclusion early into the night. How do I feel? Alive. It would be cliched if I hadn’t spent so long simply feeling like I was surviving. I’ve survived Groton, Middlebury, summer in St. Lucia, but talking to him I feel more like I’ve been living. The dichotomy between simply surviving and living has been exaggerated by my feelings of isolation. For once I don’t feel an emotional ticking time bomb like I need to act fast or feel fast or think fast about anything. There is simply connection at the most basic level; it’s the ability to truly empathize and understand someone due to a shared experience. I press the little red button and remain on the porch staring at what I imagine to be Castor and Pollux for a minute or two before returning inside.

Emotional momentum from the deep satisfaction I felt about relating to someone about my high school experience has the odd effect of slowing me down. There is no need to rush into friendship or into love or into fretting about every emotion that pops into my head. I am comfortable with the breeze whipping around my brown legs and with the end of a phone call and with the end of my past relationship and in a sense with all my endings.

How do we fit in here? We never looked back when we left yet something seems to be compelling a return to a home where we may not be able to fit in ever again. Was it worth it? The response could only be an emphatic yes. Looking back into the past has never lacked loneliness like this. Before I return to the sticky indoor heat I wonder if I’m really looking at Castor and Pollux, twin stars, connected.

Going Gluten-Free

Over the summer, a friend of mine recommended that I read the book "Wheat Belly" by William Davis MD. I lean towards skepticism when presented with literature that suggests dietary change, especially given the American penchant for obsessions with fad-diets and obsessive attention to eating that leans upon a lot of unfounded research and media fueled paranoia regarding weight and appearance. The book was a gift so I figured that nothing bad could come of it, perhaps a few wasted hours but nothing more. I was determined to tear it apart; a need to criticize scientific research seems to have been drilled into me throughout my college career. I received the book, and over the course of a week or two I finally got through it. The writing was clearly not targeted at the scientific community and a lot of it sounded cheesy and tacky. After reading it, I decided to experiment with eliminating gluten from my diet; I admit I was seduced by the potential for reducing the intensity of my depressive episodes and feeling better about my body. The challenge appealed to me, so I set out with the idea that removing gluten from my life would be a difficult, but temporary challenge.

I started over the summer by seeing if I could go an entire day gluten free. My family's dynamic is such that a random drastic dietary change would not go over very well, so I decided to play it safe. I felt hungry, grouchy, starved and peeved afterwards. My only solace was that I could eat as much fruit as I want, but I was left out of much of the family meals and snacking events. I realized how hard becoming gluten free would be, especially at school where the meal plan is included in tuition so impossible to opt out of if you live on campus. My job wouldn't supply me with enough money to support myself independently from the meal plan. Despite the initial terror of realizing that I may be in over my head, I decided to proceed as I originally intended.

My first week on campus was a week before all other students arrived; dining halls were opening and serving far better food than they do usually so there wasn't too much of a struggle to find food to eat. The first week and a half felt like a detox. I was perpetually hungry, I wanted to buy out Dunkin' Donuts and wallow in pounds and pounds of wheat products. My determination to control my cravings and my sheer sense of will power prevented me from caving and I managed to make it through the first few weeks with no purposeful infractions and perhaps one accidental wheat ingestion. The list of things a gluten-free diet precludes is extensive and something I imagine most college students would find impossible. You must say no to: (most) Chinese food, soy sauce, pizza, ramen, bread, cakes, cookies, crackers, cereals, hot dogs, many salad dressings, granola, (some) ice cream, home fried potatoes and many other foods.

At the beginning of the semester, around three weeks after eliminating gluten from my diet I found that I never experienced bloating after eating or the feeling of hating myself after eating a huge meal. I didn't feel cravings for different foods as much as I did before. If I ate enough at each meal I lacked the sense of perpetual hunger I previously had. More likely a sign that I was recovering from depression than a dietary change, I found myself better able to be motivated to do things and was less overtired for no particular reason. (Now my over tiredness is a result of an odd sleeping schedule and perpetually being woken up by my roommate in the middle of the night.) I spent money on some gluten free snacks to stave off the perpetual hunger I felt during the first week or two of changing my diet. I bought yogurt, cheese, gluten free ginger snaps, gluten-free Ben and Jerry's ice-cream, and strawberries to keep in my fridge (which is actually only mine for the semester). I found the changes in how I felt to be compelling enough for me to continue being gluten-free. I'd gotten used to most of the challenges and I felt like I could keep it up as long as I felt like it.

This was a good idea, but the dining halls seemed to have other plans for me. If serving "nutritional yeast sauce" wasn't bad enough all other foods served were contaminated with gluten most nights except for plain white rice. As much as rice stripped of all nutritional value holds great appeal to me, I quickly found myself frustrated with my "rice, beans and carrots" meals or "spinach, tomatoes and italian dressing" meals. I had occasionally given myself one or two "off days" and eaten foods with small amounts of gluten in them and I figured that everything would be okay if I simply stopped being gluten free and went back to continuous wheat consumption. I ate a huge sandwich at a local café filled with all kinds of yummy wheat-y ingredients convinced that I was done for good. It was just too difficult to find a consistent source of gluten-free food and I was spending what I felt was too much money on other foods.

That night and all of the next day, I knew the sandwich was a mistake. I felt ill all night and my stomach felt like I had been poisoned. I lay in my bed feeling the light tinge of a headache coming on, put my stomach pain out of my head and fell asleep. All of the next day I felt perpetually nauseous. I felt sick to the point of vomiting and couldn't focus or eat the next day. I tried sipping water and slowly drinking soup thinking my problem was related to stress or dehydration. I hadn't slept much the night before and got a migraine around halfway through the day that knocked me off my feet until the day after. Due to that experience, I don't think I will ever return again to eating foods with wheat in them 100% of the time. If I'm  a guest or in a desperate situation, I'm sure I will have no choice, but I honestly feel as if there is something incompatible with human digestion in modern wheat. I am not the type to hop onto fad diets, to claim that coffee causes cancer one week and prevents heart disease the next. I am a skeptic, a critic, broke and hungry, yet in my experience I can't deny the positive effects I've seen after removing gluten from my life. I can't deny that every time I've slipped up I have become at the very least moderately ill. I'm not trying to change people's minds or convert them into giving up every delicious food on the planet, merely sharing my experience with becoming gluten free this semester.

24.

So recently I've found that I haven't written in a while and it's not because my mind is void of thoughts, rather I am finding difficulty organizing many of these thoughts into something coherent. Feedback is something that I am willing to accept when it comes to my writing, but I want feedback to not be in the form of something that is a mistake I could have easily avoided.

Now I'm going to just use this space and this time before class to come up with a list of topics I think I'd be interested in writing in over the next few months. I don't think I'll be able to undertake a writing project as big as the one I undertook over the summer (that yielded vastly underwhelming feedback which I think was largely due to the controversial nature of critiquing religion). No matter what, I'd like to get my brain thinking like a writer a little bit more than I currently do. I have been thinking a lot like a scientist and although this is valuable, sometimes it's helpful to expand the ways in which I collect and organize my thoughts.

1. Negotiating the emotional aspects of long distance relationships
2. The Significance of "Brotherhood" - Expectations v. Reality
3. Self-care techniques for College Students (who don't have money)
4. Summary of Gluten-Free Adventures During the Fall
5. "Serious" Relationships
6. Positive Female Friendships 

Thoughts on Sex

Why are some people so obsessed with changing who they are because of sex? People feel the need to pretend that they are either okay with casual sex because they feel the need to fit in with college hook up culture or they feel the need to act like all sex is life changing because they worry about being judged by the people around them. It's hard to imagine a world where all my female friends and acquaintances are honest about their sexual selves. 

Something as simple as emotional honesty is totally ignored by most young people pursuing sexual relationships for the first time. Too much importance is attached to "virginity" and it's presence or absence when in reality the most important part of any sexual relationship is honesty. Many men are concerned that having sex with a virgin will make her attached to them to a point that they are not ready for. While this may be true for some women, it isn't true for all and virginity has nothing to do with levels of attachment after a sexual encounter. Many women are not honest with themselves about what they want from a "relationship" and this creates problems for them in the future. 

You cannot fuck a guy into loving you, you cannot fuck your emotional problems away and relationships are not a cure to your psychological ills. How can I pound this into the heads of the people I'm surrounded by?

I hate when people look to me and my relationship as an example of a "perfect" situation where someone you start off just sleeping with turns into a relationship. It's such an incomplete picture of what happened between Andrew and me. It's an attempt to turn an exception and a strange occurrence into a standardized experience in an effort to make this chance event something that could happen to anyone and likely will. 

How do I advise people without inserting my own experiences into my advice? This is difficult for me because many people I interact with tend not to comprehend the extent to which I am honest with myself and with others. It's not something "comfortable" or "easy" but it's necessary. Recently, I've been trying to just stay away from giving other's sexual advice. It seems to overwhelm many people when I suggest that you can be interested in both casual sex and emotional sex and having one type of sex doesn't mean you are giving up on the other for life. 

Endocrinology Paper

Something I wrote for a biology class I took last semester, Endocrinology. It's long and has a lot of jargon but I hope at least someone reads it.

Eriche S------

Endocrinology – Spritzer

Spring 2013

Neural-Diathesis Stress Model and Applications to Schizophrenia Vulnerability, Onset, Progression, and Treatment

Schizophrenia has piqued the interest of researchers for years. Recently, discovering more information about the mechanisms that cause schizophrenia as well as finding effective treatments has moved to the forefront of neuroscience research. Schizophrenia has been linked to an excess of dopamine or oversensitivity of dopamine receptors that result in positive symptoms of the disease (Birtwistle, 1998). Antipsychotics that reduce the effects of dopamine have effects on positive schizophrenia symptoms, demonstrating a correlation between schizophrenia symptoms and dopamine activation. In recent research, another axis is being explored, where cortisol release in conjunction with dopamine is highly correlated to schizophrenia onset. The neural-diathesis stress model combines the effects of stress and dopamine on schizophrenia onset, progression and treatment, and provides a more complete picture of the neuronal pathways involved, opening up avenues for more effective treatments.

Cortisol may increase susceptibility to schizophrenia acting via the hypothalamo-pituitary axis (HPA) (Walker, 1997). Anti-psychotics decreasing HPA activation demonstrate the possibility that the HPA axis and dopamine are connected in schizophrenia’s positive symptoms. HPA activation increases transmission of dopamine as well as releasing cortisol. This suggests a link between stress response and dopamine release. A dopaminergic response to stress provides evidence for a connection between dopamine and cortisol, suggesting that they do not act independently on schizophrenia’s onset and positive symptoms (Mizrahi, 2012). Stress also increases a schizophrenic patient’s susceptibility to psychotic experiences, which further suggests an interaction between stressors and a biological response.

The biological connection between stress response and dopamine on schizophrenia’s positive symptoms is neurochemical sensitization of the mesolimbic system (Mizrahi, 2012). The mechanism through which cortisol and dopamine interact is through the prefrontal cortical D₁ dopamine receptors and their regulation of D₂ dopamine receptors, connected to cortisol release. The secondary effects on D₂ are the effects that may stimulate positive schizophrenia symptomology (Scornaiencki, 2009). Scornaiencki (2009) used Sprague Dawley rats injected with D­₁ or D₂ dopamine receptor agonists forced to perform stressful swim tests in order to measure the interactions between stress and dopamine. Dopamine reactivity was greatly increased in rats after the stressful swim tests. Since D₁ receptor agonists decreased dopamine reactivity significantly in injected rats but D₂receptor agonists did not have the same effects. D₁ receptors in the prefrontal cortex regulated D₂ stress response, this pathway may be the one that is affected in schizophrenia patients and is one probable connection between the HPA and dopamine release.

Other researchers used different methodology to determine a connection between dopamine and stress response. Dexamethasone suppression tests were used to measure HPA activity in patients with schizophrenia (Hori, 2012). In this study, levels of cortisol after dexamethasone treatment were measured in controls and schizophrenic patients. Cortisol/DHEAS ratios demonstrated abnormal HPA axis function. Compared to healthy patients, schizophrenia patients showed higher cortisol levels after treatment with dexamethasone, which should have suppressed cortisol due to negative feedback. Patients were simultaneously undergoing anti-psychotic treatment, which may have confounded results, however increased cortisol activation was clear in patients with schizophrenia.

The neurological development of the prefrontal cortex is another viable connection between the HPA axis and dopamine on schizophrenia. Schizophrenia’s symptoms have often been related to prefrontal cortex dysfunction in the dopamine hypothesis as well as the neural-diathesis stress model. Dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex causes cognitive deficits, thought disorders, hallucinations and delusions in patients (Arnsten, 2011). Within the pre-frontal cortex, cell network connections are marked and altered via dynamic network connectivity. Networks between neurons are strengthened by cAMP-HCN inhibition and formed by D₁-cAMP-HCN channel weakening.

Exposure to chronic stress causes degradation of cAMP-HCN, collapsing the networks ability to fire signals appropriately (Arnsten, 2011). Chronic stress results in cortisol release as well as an increase in PKC signaling due to degradation of prefrontal cortex neuronal networks. In schizophrenia, patients have shown a lack of molecules that would normally reverse stress response as well as strengthen prefrontal cortex activity, suggesting that developing and strengthening these neuronal pathways is important. Exposure to stress ceases regulation of prefrontal cortex pathways that contain vulnerable circuitry; this is linked to the initial descent into illness – the first psychotic episode. Alterations in prefrontal cortex pathways show definitive links to positive schizophrenia symptomology.

Prefrontal cortex damage as a result of prenatal stress increases risk of schizophrenia development later in life; this model of prefrontal cortex damage integrates the HPA and dopaminergic systems as well (Martinez-Tellez, 2009). During the formation of the prefrontal cortex networks described above, some alterations take place that may directly impact the likelihood of patients developing schizophrenia. This could be important in development of prevention methods; decreasing prenatal stress levels may be easier than treating the disease directly. Inadequate stimulation of D₁ receptors that results in bad prefrontal cortex connections and loose associations between neurons is one effect of stress on prenatal prefrontal cortex damage. There is also the problem of too much D₁ stimulation which suppresses neuronal firing under mild stress conditions which increases dopamine release due to malfunctioning negative feedback loops (Arnsten, 2011).

This prenatal stress is often times due to bacterial infection; other researchers have used rat models to outline when this occurs prenatally and the role this may play in schizophrenia risk (Lin, 2012). Using lipopolysaccharide exposure, Lin (2012), examined the role of maternal bacterial infections on fetal brain development. Mothers who experienced bacterial infections produced offspring with reduced dopamine in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. There was a critical period for when prenatal stress would begin to have an effect on neuronal development. Martinez-Tellez (2009) determined that this critical period was around the middle of pregnancies. Infection and other prenatal stressors cause impairments in the HPA axis as well as in hippocampal dendrite morphology. These prenatal changes were shown to have post-natal effects in rat pups that were seen to have increased stress responses (Lin, 2012).  Given the link between stress and disease onset in humans, results from this study are applicable to human models.

Early exposures to stressors post-natally have also been connected to schizophrenia onset later in life. Benes (2004) suggests that mistakes in dopamine inputs to GABA pathways pre and post-natally may be responsible for schizophrenia onset in vulnerable patients. If pre-natally exposed to stressors, there are a number of post-natal factors that increase risk of schizophrenia development. Environmental triggers such as poverty, social marginalization and immigrant status have been stressors linked to increased risk in schizophrenia onset (Jones, 2006). Predispositions to schizophrenia are not the sole cause; cortisol release as a result of exposure to various environmental stressors must happen in conjunction with this predisposition (Benes, 2004). In the Benes (2004) study, rats injected with cortisol post-natally were also examined for dopaminergic responses. These rats possessed greater clusters of dopamine cells, signifying the connection between dopamine and stress within schizophrenia onset, as it relates to early stress.

One of the most highly correlated early traumas linked to schizophrenia is child abuse. A large percentage of schizophrenia patients have been abused throughout early childhood. At risk schizophrenia adolescents – who show schizotypal behaviors or schizotypal personality disorders - have higher baseline salivary cortisol levels than controls (Stilo, 2011). Consistently showing these higher cortisol levels is partially attributed to aging, but may also be attributed to early childhood trauma, described within the traumagenic neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia (Read, 2001). Within this model, biological, psychological and social factors are combined to find more answers regarding schizophrenia onset. High levels of cortisol acting with dopamine may increase risk of disease onset, but the stressors of early childhood are very highly correlated to this excessive cortisol in the first place.

In adoption studies meant to assess the effects of child abuse on schizophrenia development, at risk children who lived with “healthy” adoptive families were compared to at risk children who lived with more abusive adoptive families. 3% of the children with health families developed schizophrenia, while 34% of at-risk patients raised by the abusive families developed schizophrenia later on (Read, 2011). Child abuse causes sensitization of stress axes to stressors, leading to minor threats being perceived as terrors, something that has relevance to schizophrenia’s positive symptoms like paranoia. Stress responses developed in childhood are long lasting; early childhood stress sensitization as the result of abuse may likely lead to baseline cortisol levels being higher throughout puberty and post-puberty during the ages where psychotic episode risk increases.

Another connection between dopamine and stress in the neural-diathesis stress model lies in the age of onset. Schizophrenia’s age of onset is roughly 19 years old, more generally described as “late adolescence” (Gogtay, 2011). Brain processes involved in puberty may play a role in schizophrenia onset due to positive feedback systems triggered by stress, which leads to a rapid increase in positive symptoms’ appearance (Thompson, 2004). In schizophrenia patients who had experienced positive symptoms triggered by an adolescent stress response, there were a higher number of dopamine (D2) receptors. Psychosocial stress worsens positive symptoms and triggers relapse (Walker, 1997).

Adolescence is a time when people are exposed to a large variety of psychosocial stressors, especially in high-pressure school systems that demand a lot academically and socially; this relationship to disease onset is not improbable. Sensitivity to these psychosocial stressors as well as a pre-existing vulnerability may trigger these initial pathways and activate positive symptoms. Since dopaminergic response to stress has been higher in patients vulnerable to schizophrenia, increased psychosocial stressors in adolescence specifically may act to trigger initial positive symptomology. However, the connection between cortisol and dopamine is not only found in early onset of the disease; there is something more than the stresses of adolescence at play in the development of schizophrenia’s symptomology.

Environmental triggers of stress response and stress sensitization in adolescents are similar to ones experienced in children; abuse seems to be more highly correlated in children. Use of cannabis and psychostimulants have been connected to increasing risk of schizophrenia; this is likely via dopamine pathway stimulation (Di Forti, 2011). These drugs have been linked to first episodes of psychosis. Adolescence is typically a time when experimentation with these drugs may come about; in conjunction with higher cortisol levels, over-activity of the two pathways may occur leading to onset of first psychotic symptoms.

Urban residence and migration have also been highly correlated to schizophrenia onset likely because of the intensity of these two stressors. Urban settings may, somewhat counterintuitively, increase feelings of social isolation; threats to the social self are seen as forming the sort of stress response that increases the risk of schizophrenia development (Jones, 2007). Di Forti (2011) shows that in urban areas with the least amounts of social cohesion, schizophrenia rates are the highest. Migrant and ethnic minority groups may also experience higher amounts of stress leading to psychotic episodes as a result of poverty, racial discrimination, unemployment and isolation from family members. Migrant and ethnic minorities are also more likely to reside in urban areas. Environmental stressors that control the release of cortisol should be avoided in high risk patients, however, in some of the cases above like migration or urban residence, this is not a realistic option; exposure to stressors and schizophrenia risk are increased among these groups.

If early childhood abuse and prenatal stressors have such a large effect on schizophrenia onset, there must be an explanation for why the average age of onset is not much earlier than “late adolescence”. Although these early responses show strong correlations to schizophrenia onset, the trigger for most psychotic episodes is thought to lie in post-pubertal maturation of neuronal pathways (Stilo, 2011). In longitudinal studies of healthy controls, age increases were positively correlated to increases in cortisol levels. Schizotypal “at-risk” patients presented with significantly higher baseline cortisol levels than controls; higher baseline cortisol levels combined with a natural increase in cortisol with age increase likelihood of psychotic episodes. Childhood, adolescent and prenatal stressors in typical schizophrenia cases may not be enough to solely cause psychotic episodes. Neuromaturation triggering latent vulnerability may explain why cortisol levels have effects on expression of schizotypal symptomology when they do. Schizotypal symptoms typically appear in adolescence with full-blown psychotic episodes as a result of increases in HPA axis activation occurring towards the end of adolescent neuromaturational processes. Cortisol effects are not only found in disease onset, but also in disease progression.

Schizophrenic patients have higher baseline cortisol levels than controls before the onset of psychotic episodes (Jones, 2007). Treatments for schizophrenia that concurrently raise cortisol levels cause positive symptoms of schizophrenia to worsen. Throughout schizophrenia’s development, continued exposure to stressors plays a role in symptom’s worsening. Hippocampal damage has been found in cohorts of schizophrenia patients; this directly affects the HPA axis and release of cortisol, leading to excess cortisol production and increases of positive symptomology, not just at the onset of schizophrenia. Sensitivity to dopamine stress responses has implications in relapse or conversion to psychosis, showing that stress response is connected to schizophrenia throughout disease progression (Mizrahi, 2012).

Raison (2003) found that the HPA axis released less cortisol over time in stress-disorders that began with high levels of cortisol; this is not in contradiction with Jones (2007), rather demonstrates the likely progression of HPA axis and hypothalamic degradation in schizophrenic patients. Prolonged stress, from continuously high levels of cortisol may eventually damage the HPA structures responsible for producing cortisol, down-regulating cortisol in the long run by either stopping the production of upstream hormones like CRH and ACTH or by alterations in enzymes that metabolize glucocorticoids.

Brenner (2009) focused longitudinal research specifically on schizophrenic patients stress response. After first psychotic episodes, patients were found to have less reactive stress responses to psychosocial stressors, which supported the Raison (2003) finding. Stress and coping mechanisms correlate to schizophrenia patients’ quality of life; high quality of life is significant to management of positive symptoms (Brenner, 2009). Schizophrenics typically report lower quality of life than healthy controls. Use of less effective coping strategies may be connected to cortisol reactivity. Emotionally focused coping and the blunted cortisol response are maladaptive for schizophrenia patients. HPA dysregulation that causes a weaker cortisol response could lead to neurological changes that debilitate cognition and lead to misjudgment of coping technique effectiveness in patients with low cortisol responses to psychosocial stress. Drug treatments are often not enough for disease management; using the neural-diathesis stress model may provide new insight in how stress responses can be used to determine more effective coping strategies for patients and improve quality of life.

Typical drug treatments for schizophrenia are dopamine partial agonists (Miyamoto, 2005). Drugs that target dopaminergic systems frequently come with a host of side effects – researchers seek out different treatments that do not act upon dopaminergic pathways. Cortisol response in different drug treatments is an area of interest for drug developers as well as researchers who seek to better understand schizophrenia causation and progression. Ritsner (2005) looked at changes in cortisol / DHEA ratios in schizophrenic patients treated with different antipsychotic drugs of the same class like haloperidol, clothiapine and risperidone in conjunction with anti-Parkinson’s drugs to control for side effects that mimic Parkinson’s disease symptoms. Higher baseline cortisol/DHEA ratios predicted that a patient would be more likely to respond to treatment.

Other research has been done looking at only plasma cortisol levels as opposed to cortisol/DHEA ratios (Meltzer, 2000 and Cohrs, 2006). Cohrs (2006) sought to clarify antipsychotic effects on schizophrenics, but rather than looking at cortisol/DHEA ratios, he looked at the upstream glucocorticoid hormone, ACTH, as well as cortisol levels in schizophrenic patients being treated with olanzapine, quetiapine and haloperidol. Olanzapine and quetiapine are atypical antipsychotics that have been shown to reduce positive symptoms as well as negative symptoms. These drugs have also been effective in treating comorbid disorders like PTSD. This study tests the hypothesis, mentioned briefly earlier, that antipsychotics will act on cortisol levels. Atypical antipsychotics are more likely to show changes, since they have been connected to reducing symptoms of comorbid depression, which is characterized by over-activation of HPA axis. Olanzapine and quetiapine decreased plasma cortisol levels as well as ACTH levels from the baseline, whereas haloperidol did not have the same effect (Cohrs, 2006). These atypical antipsychotics act both on dopaminergic systems as well as cortisol, which may make them more effective treatments than current typical dopaminergic antipsychotics.

Meltzer (2000) looked at the antipsychotic drug apomorphine and it’s effects on plasma cortisol levels in treated schizophrenic patients; unlike the Cohrs study (2006) Meltzer (2000) also looked at the effects on psychopathology to ensure effectiveness of the drug and to possibly find a correlation between drug effectiveness and plasma cortisol levels. Plasma cortisol response was significantly blunted in schizophrenic patients as opposed to controls. Patients who had previously responded to other antipsychotics showed more reactive cortisol response to apomorphine. Ritsner (2005) showed that higher levels of baseline cortisol/DHEA ratios predicted drug responsiveness; this finding could be related to Meltzer’s (2000) findings in that responders did not have higher cortisol levels as a result of previous treatment, but their higher cortisol levels allowed them to be more responsive to drugs in the first place. Cortisol response to apomorphine may also predict whether or not a patient will respond to future antipsychotic drugs.

Studies of different clinical drugs are inconclusive regarding cortisol’s role in antipsychotic drug treatment. Cortisol levels seem to result in different coping mechanisms and responsiveness to treatments; cortisol levels also change based on different treatments regimens. A lack of conclusive evidence on cortisol’s role in schizophrenia treatment means more research needs to be done to fully understand how the neural-diathesis stress model can be employed in developing schizophrenia treatments. Baseline cortisol is a good predictor for coping methods outside of antipsychotic treatment (Brenner, 2011). Cortisol response as well as cortisol levels seem to be related to antipsychotic drug treatment, but this appears to be dependent on the drug and whether or not baseline cortisol levels or cortisol/DHEA ratios will allow a patient to respond to drugs.

The neural-diathesis stress model provides some conclusive results with regards to the connection between cortisol and dopaminergic pathways. The HPA axis that regulates cortisol production is directly connected to dopaminergic pathways. These two pathways interact in schizophrenia patients; this has been demonstrated by showing that common antipsychotic drugs dull the cortisol response in patients treated. Stress via cortisol response has effects on schizophrenia risk and onset at different stages of development. Increased pre-natal stress can increase schizophrenia risk, as well as early childhood traumas like abuse. In adolescence, the cortisol increases associated with post-pubescence increase the risk of a first psychotic episode. Decreased cortisol response reduces the ability to cope well with symptoms and have a higher quality of life. Decreased cortisol response is also linked to being a non-responder with many anti-psychotic drugs.

A link is clearly present between stress and schizophrenia; the link between dopamine pathways and stress response is in the neurological development of the prefrontal cortex as well as the neurochemical sensitization of the mesolimbic system. The prefrontal cortex connection between stress and dopamine is found within the dopamine receptors; D₁ receptors in the prefrontal cortex regulate the D₂stress response. A cortisol-dopamine connection is demonstrated through cAMP-HCN, which strengthens prefrontal cortex neuronal networks; these neuronal networks are formed through D₁-cAMP-HCN channel weakening. Chronic stress damages cAMP-HCN, which in turn damages neuronal networks.

Future research should focus on solidifying the connection between cortisol and dopaminergic pathways in order to find more definitive results about the connections between the two in schizophrenic patients. Longitudinal studies looking at cortisol levels periodically throughout a schizophrenic’s life – before the first psychotic episode –throughout disease progression may provide data on when exactly cortisol levels are blunted and why this may occur. Understanding the connections between dopamine and cortisol more thoroughly could provide better information for drug developers looking to improve antipsychotics that act solely on dopamine pathways. Currently, conflicting information about cortisol response either being blunted or heightened makes this difficult.  Although more complex, large scale longitudinal research would provide the best data with regards to cortisol levels and dopamine activity’s connection throughout the progression of the disease, beginning with patients who are at risk – patients with schizotypal personalities for example – and following up with research on patients who eventually develop schizophrenia. Perhaps then we can develop better treatments of schizophrenia that manage symptoms more effectively with fewer side effects.

References

1.    
Ritsner M, Gibel A, Maayan R, et al. Cortisol Dehydroepiandrosterone Ratio and Responses to Antipsychotic Treatment in Schizophrenia. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2005;30:1913-1922.   

2.     Brenner K, Liu A, Laplante DP, et al. Cortisol response to a psychosocial stressor in schizophrenia: Blunted, delayed, or normal? Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2009;34:859-868.   

3.     Brenner K, St-Hilaire A, Liu A, Laplante DP, King S. Cortisol response and coping style predict quality of life in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Research. 2011;128:23-29.  

4.     Cohrs S, Röher C, Jordan W, et al. The atypical antipsychotics olanzapine and quetiapine, but not haloperidol, reduce ACTH and cortisol secretion in healthy subjects. Psychopharmacology. 2006;185:11-18.   

5.     Meltzer HY, Lee MA, Jayathilake K. The blunted plasma cortisol response to apomorphine and its relationship to treatment response in patients with schizophrenia. Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. 2001;24:278.   

6.     Lin Y, Lin S, Wang S. Prenatal lipopolysaccharide exposure increases anxiety-like behaviors and enhances stress-induced corticosterone responses in adult rats. Brain, behavior, and immunity. 2012;26:459-468.  

7.     Martínez-Téllez RI, Hernández-Torres E, Gamboa C, Flores G. Prenatal stress alters spine density and dendritic length of nucleus accumbens and hippocampus neurons in rat offspring. Synapse (New York, N.Y.). 2009;63:794-804.  

8.     Simona A Stilo, Marta Di Forti, Robin M Murray. Environmental risk factors for schizophrenia: implications for prevention. Neuropsychiatry. 2011;1:457.   Link

9.     Read J, Perry BD, Moskowitz A, Connolly J. The contribution of early traumatic events to schizophrenia in some patients: a traumagenic neurodevelopmental model. Psychiatry. 2001;64:319-345.  

10.  Walker EF, Walder DJ, Reynolds F. Developmental changes in cortisol secretion in normal and at-risk youth. Development and psychopathology. 2001;13:721-732.  

11.  Birtwistle J, Baldwin D. Role of dopamine in schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. Br J Nurs.1998;7:832–841.

12.  Jones SR, Fernyhough C. A new look at the neural diathesis--stress model of schizophrenia: the primacy of social-evaluative and uncontrollable situations. Schizophrenia bulletin. 2007;33:1171-1177.  

13.  Walker EF, Diforio D. Schizophrenia: A Neural Diathesis-Stress Model. Psychological Review. 1997;104:667-685.

14.  Mizrahi R, Wilson AA, Addington J, et al. Increased stress-induced dopamine release in psychosis. Biological psychiatry. 2012;71:561-567.  

15.  Hori H, Kunugi H, Teraishi T, et al. Schizotypal Personality in Healthy Adults Is Related to Blunted Cortisol Responses to the Combined Dexamethasone/ Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone Test. Neuropsychobiology. 2011;63:232-241. 

16.  Simona A Stilo, Marta Di Forti, Robin M Murray. Environmental risk factors for schizophrenia: implications for prevention. Neuropsychiatry. 2011;1:457.  

17.  Thompson JL, Pogue-Geile MF, Grace AA. Developmental Pathology, Dopamine, and Stress: A Model for the Age of Onset of Schizophrenia Symptoms. Schizophrenia Bulletin. 2004;30:875-900.   

18.  Walker EF, Diforio D, Baum K. Developmental neuropathology and the precursors of schizophrenia. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. 1999;99:12-19.  

19.  Walker E, Kestler L, Bollini A, Hochman KM. Schizophrenia: etiology and course. Annual review of psychology. 2004;55:401-430.   

20.  Scornaiencki R, Cantrup R, Rushlow WJ, Rajakumar N. Prefrontal cortical D1 dopamine receptors modulate subcortical D2 dopamine receptor-mediated stress responsiveness. The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology / official scientific journal of the Collegium Internationale Neuropsychopharmacologicum (CINP). 2009;12:1195-1208.   

21.  Gogtay N, Vyas NS, Testa R, Wood SJ, Pantelis C. Age of onset of schizophrenia: perspectives from structural neuroimaging studies. Schizophrenia bulletin. 2011;37:504-513.   

22.  Arnsten AFT. Prefrontal cortical network connections: key site of vulnerability in stress and schizophrenia. International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience. 2011;29:215-223.   

23.  Benes FM. The role of stress and dopamine-GABA interactions in the vulnerability for schizophrenia. Journal of Psychiatric Research. 1997;31:257-275.   

23.

I feel a lot of things today but I don't feel much like going into details until I have a conversation with my boyfriend. I am making plans to start my four week gluten-free life and I'm not sure if I should post about it here or make a side blog. I think I will feel better if I can just post some things on here and remember to post daily even if I have a lot to do. I go back to school to start work on the third and I'll begin chronicling my new dietary changes then.

22.

Unpopular Opinion after the jump.



People are so unwilling to critique their religious beliefs. They are willing to accept that you can critique without mocking, yet they refuse to do it. No one questions the church and everyone constantly makes excuses for it. They mirror the very complaints they have about whites, homophobes, etc. saying things like "Well not all Christians are like that" to shut down valid critiques and questions. Our communities have a sickness, which isn't Christianity but a widely permeating fear of questioning it. I don't want to question something so fallible that a mere critique and questioning of the harmful parts of it will cause my belief system to crumble. I'm not sure how others do it. Yet we are supposed to believe that it's not brainwashing, but teaching. I've been taught many things that I continue to question and adapt my beliefs about. If you are truly "taught" and not brainwashed, shouldn't you be able to do the same? 

Christianity & The Church Within St. Lucia

Religious institutions in St. Lucia are a powerful political force that transcends personal beliefs and community organization. Within St. Lucia, Christianity was implemented by colonizers for specific reasons. Is it believable that people who raped, destroyed and enslaved really cared that their slaves were saved by God? Is it plausible that Christianity was spread throughout the Caribbean to "save" the very people that colonizers were attempting to control and enslave? It seems unlikely that Christian missionaries were interested in spreading goodness and truth and more interested in creating a system of power that would force subservience among specific groups of people, stamping out their traditions and cultures, convincing them of their evil and making them more pliable for the intentions of slave masters and colonizers.

Regardless of the malicious intent of our colonizers, they were successful in their spread of religion throughout the Caribbean. Although most countries in the Caribbean are sovereign nations, colonial mindsets remain prevalent. In St. Lucia, religion is greater than a set of personal beliefs and individual's practices. Religious beliefs are used through religious institutions in exacting social control and maintaining power over underprivileged groups of people (including women and the poor). From birth to death, religion is a controlling force in every day life and through this control which can range from the seemingly harmless to the openly violent, societal problems are obscured. Large scale religious institution as a replacement for smaller scale, community based religious gathering hinders progress.

In St. Lucia, a child's relationship with religion begins from the time they are born*. Baptism is seen as a requirement regardless of the level of parental devotion to a particular faith and only two generations ago, parents were forced to choose Catholic names for their children. For example, when my grandmother was born, her parents wanted to call her Morella, but were forced to put "Catherine" on her birth certificate by priests. These early influences in religious indoctrination may seem innocuous. It is possible to argue that things like baptism and name changes are not legally enforced, but it would be ignorant to disregard the powerful effects of societal pressure in St. Lucia, where our culture considers adhering to a particular standard and tradition to be valuable. This early induction into a church (predominantly the Catholic church) serves as an initiation into a system that flourishes on the oppression of others and on exercising social control for the benefit of those who support abusive patriarchal values and wish to continue a destructive status quo.

For young children, schools are one of the primary locations where religious control is ensured. Regardless of your parents' faith, you will be exposed to Christianity in schools and be forced to comply. Exposure to Christianity is not an exposure to the Christian ethics of kindness and love but rather an exposure to a system that values dominance and violence if specific behaviors are not performed. School becomes a Skinner box where performance of  learned behavior is emphasized and punishment is frequent and violent. Educating students about religion and Christian ethics is not the reality of early Christian education. Children who have only recently learned to talk are forced to pray words that they do not understand the depth of; prayers become mindless while performance is the focus.

During prayer, the punishment for non-compliance is a beating. The difference between beating and spanking is important. A spanking is supposed to cause enough pain to be a deterrent whereas beatings are excessive. Within public schools, students are beat with 1-2 inch thick wooden sticks between a foot or a foot and a half long. Often times, these sticks are broken in half or splintered on the backs of disobedient students, from as young as five years old. We have not moved forward from the same punishments West Indian slave masters used to force compliance from their slaves.

This sort of punishment can be "earned" from either perceives or actual non-compliance during prayer; it doesn't necessarily have to be disruptive. Students who were not totally silent, didn't clasp their hands properly or didn't close their eyes were often subject to this punishment. Sometimes, entire classes of students were subject to beatings if more than one student did not comply. Teachers often cited the popular phrase "Peter pays for Paul"; it is not coincidence that Peter and Paul are important figures within Christianity. By using violence not just in all facets of producing obedience, but in religious obedience, an association whether conscious or not is founded between violence and religion (specifically disobedience from a religious tradition will result in a violent reaction).

Prayer occurs at least three times a day. The recitation of prayers and prostration before God is seen as one of the most valuable aspects of a child's development within our school systems. It is unfair to deny the value of spirituality, but the public education system leaves no room for children of other faiths. Although these people are in the minority, should they be forced to abandon the traditions of their parents and families? Who does this benefit? The only Muslim child who I went to school with in primary school was forced to participate in Christian prayers, likely facing violent punishment or at the very least humiliation if he did not comply. This student left the school after only a year.

The use of religion and violence to exert control is reminiscent of what Caribbean colonizers did to the slaves and Amerindians under their control. In children however, the damage in reinforced throughout generations; no one seeks to modify our attitude with regards to children and we keep rehashing the same catchphrases regarding the discipline of our children. A common one is "Spare the rod and spoil the child".

Violence is effective at producing obedient behavior. Throughout early childhood and even afterwards, fear is a motivating factor in religious behavior and may eventually influence powerful religious beliefs. Children and eventually adults grow to believe that straying from what is perceived as "righteousness" is understandably met with violence. How can this message be true to a faith that (theoretically) preaches kindness and love above all else? Fear is a tool of control, not one that promotes love or positive growth.

Early in childhood, the importance of religious performance is extended from school to family life. In Catholic families, first communions are expected to take place when a child is between six and ten years old. Pressure to confirm your faith follows soon after; many confirmations take place when a child is between eleven and fourteen years old. Once a child is between eight and ten years old and older gender separation under the guise of "religious" ethics and proper behavior begins. There are different sets of behavior that are deemed correct according to religious leaders as well as other public figures who openly incorporate so-called Christian views into the ethics that they preach, but may not necessarily practice.

Girls are initiated into the role of sexual objects and boys are initiated into a cult of patriarchal masculinity where deference from female members of society is expected, respectable and in extreme cases justifiably punishable by violence. From a young age, women are told that dressing a certain way is inappropriate. People use words like "skettel" and "twi hal" to describe women who dress a particular way and female children internalize these concepts regarding what is respectable and what is not. Objectification is disguised as protection. By telling girls that dressing a certain way makes them either more or less sexually available for abuse, this reduces their clothing choices to choices rightfully subjected to the male gaze and to the behavior of rapists and other deviants. Predators have no responsibility here; blame is thrust upon girls who have either just entered puberty or are just about to. This is what we are taught is right.

This may not seem connected to religious institutions on the surface, but "respectability" is tied into Christian ethics. In a society with widespread Christian institutions, morality of any kind doesn't exist independently from the church.

Young boys have a different experience in their pre-pubescent and pubescent years. Instead of becoming sexual objects, their authority and superiority begin to be reaffirmed through religious patriarchal values and participation in patriarchal rituals. Families deeply involved in churches encourage involvement in the church through becoming altar boys or joining choirs. Church is a place where boys are expected to interact with the opposite gender, although girls interacting with boys is not encouraged. The ethics of respectability that are implemented on girls are non-existent for boys. Masculinity and patriarchal thinking is established via religion; the religious narrative is one where only the voices of men are significant.

Gender dominance is established through the structure of the church. Male priests and pastors are the dominant voices and control the behavior and beliefs of all their constituents. Even in churches with nuns, the nuns are clearly deferent to the male authority figures. Women are often supportive figures, working behind the scenes and sub-ordinate to male counterparts. This affects young, observant children who will then see the policing of women's behavior as natural and righteous. They begin to see a woman's unwavering obedience as expected and a lack of subservience is justifiably punishable by violence.

Women and men both serve to enforce "church patriarchy" within their homes; the practices become cultural and not just religious. We are falsely led to believe that this is all our culture entails. Girls are made to serve their male siblings and held to more rigid standards of behavior with emphasis on household duties, sociability with family members and child care. Boys may participate in household chores but are more often encouraged in activities aside from cooking and childcare such as yard work or household maintenance. It is foolish to think that this family structure is independent of religion as the values are clearly enforced by those who claim to preach the word of God and whose behavioral ethics are intertwined with Christianity.

If childhood experiences connecting to adulthood feels like a stretch because you somehow doubt young children to be absorptive or impressionable, rest assured that religious institutional practices are present and influential in the lives of teenagers. The two top performing secondary schools on the island are both Roman Catholic. Choosing Non-Catholic options doesn't eliminate the influence of religion - the influence is merely a non-specific Christian influence. To expand upon the educational options if you doubt the lack of separation between Christianity and education, I'll describe the best options for education if you place value on your child's secondary education.

Besides the two Catholic schools which are considered the best through reputation and CXC results, there is the International School, Leon Hess Secondary School and Castries Comprehensive Secondary School. The international school costs upwards of $13,000 per semester, and is known for housing spoiled children of expatriates and locals with excessive wealth. Leon Hess is co-educational and not preferred by most families who are interested in "protecting" their young girls from being around teenage boys; the educational standard is considered slightly lower than the Catholic secondary schools. Castries Comprehensive is also considered to have a slightly lower educational quality and is again co-educational.  These "reputations" may not be based in truth, but they still affect decision making processes of families making choices for where their children attend secondary school.

In secondary schools, regardless of denomination, prayer is constant and there is no opting out of it. There is a minimum of three prayers a day. A good education is incomplete without being forced into a religious practice which may not become genuine belief but conditions behavior that one believes to be "good". This is not questioned despite any apparent logical contradictions. With a so-called religious education, you would expect most, if not all students to emerge with a strong sense of ethics and critical thinking skills complementary to faith as opposed to contradictory. The reality is different from the theory because a commitment to Christian ethics is non-existent. There is a commitment to the institution of Christianity which has a destructive force because the power of spirituality is harnessed for social control.

Many of the school rules at the leading girls-only secondary school focus on appearance. The appearance of chastity and purity is the focus of the school's rules with a disproportionate number dedicated to policing appearance. Punishments are swift and frequent, disciplinary notes range in color and severity; although most punishments are not placed on the permanent record, the effects of receiving punishment are typically enough of a deterrent. Being punished frequently often means being labelled as a troublemaker by teachers; this may eventually lead to teachers being less willing to write recommendations for a student. Students at this school receive far more frequent punishments than students at the boys-only counterpart.

The focus on appearances is sadly, not unique to the secondary school experience. From childhood, the appearance of devotion has been valued more than actual devotion; this is extrapolated to a high school setting where the fixation on appearance becomes more literal. The policing of girls' appearances is an extension of Christian ethics. Being abstinent from sexual activity until marriage and ensuring that you don't tempt men before then are  both considered important within a Christian society; having a chaste appearance is a method that this abstinence is safe-guarded. Occasionally this commitment to chaste appearance is disguised (or maybe genuinely perceived) as an interest in protecting girls. How is suppression, blaming and shaming girls between the ages of eleven and sixteen also seen as ethical, necessary and even helpful? Within a patriarchal society reliant on Christian institution for validation, this attention to women's behavior is attributed to logic and men's behavior is attributed to "human nature".

In a boy's adolescent environment, the rules are a lot different. Boys are almost expected to come home with their collars off center and shirts untucked. Discipline in a male environment is an extension of the violence they experienced in primary school; boys who are too flagrant about their disobedience of school rules are caned by the headmaster. This experience, for boys who have grown up beaten their whole lives, is seen as a status symbol rather than a punishment by the time they are in secondary school. Defiance may appear to have been punished, but it is in fact rewarded by granting them status within their social groups. Boys are rarely punished for establishing dominance over female teachers who are often powerless to punish them or do not see the purpose in doing so. One girl recounted her brother's experience where students threw plastic bottles at a female teacher as she taught. There were no consequences, and she merely continued to teach until becoming overwhelmed and just exiting the class. If the leniency of an all boys school is contrasted to the constant vigilance teachers have in all girls school, we can easily see how this would create problems in the future for both genders. Both have different expectations of how the world works and these expectations are the result of patriarchal values being attributed to righteousness and using the institution of Christianity to peddle these differences as human nature.

In young adults, the detriments of religious institution are more obvious, as well as the hypocrisy behind the alleged commitment to Christianity that is fostered early in their lives. The marriage rates in St. Lucia are some of the lowest in the world, yet children populate our schools. It's absurd to believe that all these children come from the few church sanctified relationships on the island. In a religion that believes that pre-martial sex and divorce is against God's law, looking at birth rates and marriage rates is the only proof you need to show that genuine commitment to God's law is rare especially in regards to sexual behavior. The number of murders and other petty crimes support this as well. Religion is used when necessary for social control and genuine practice is uncommon. 0.06% of 15-19 year old St. Lucian men are married, 0.02% of 20-24 year olds and 0.25% of 25-29 year olds according to 2001 census data (the most recent available on line). The statistics for older men are not much more promising; 5.07% is the highest rate in the entire set of statistical data. (x)

I focused on these age ranges because teen pregnancy is a well known and well cited social problem facing St. Lucians; major news sources as well as international studies on St. Lucia focus on the "very high" teen pregnancy rates. Are all these pregnancies the result of church sanctified marriages? If we have to look at government statistics, this can't possibly be the case. St. Lucian newspapers, preachers and pastors will neglect looking at the United States models for public health especially regarding birth control because they believe it is against the Catholic church. Pastors and priests have openly claimed that birth control white supremacist invention to lower the birth rates of black people. They preach bold-faced lies to their congregations. People still believe that the church is the solution to the problem of teen pregnancy although it has shown no allegiance to any such movement and demeans practices that have been demonstrated through reliable scientific research to be helpful in reduction of teen pregnancy rates.

While women's sexualities are constantly policed, their position in society diminished. Being diminutive and always saying yes to people in power is valued for women. Is it such a shock then that they find themselves unable to say no to predatory men who only seek their company for sex? Is it any wonder that they continue to trust people who don't care about their agency when they have been repeatedly told that their agency is unimportant compared to the appearance of chastity? Women are blamed for the actions of rapists and abusers. Women are taught that their biological urges are impure unless they are married when they see children born out of wedlock constantly and can see that those who they look up to are immoral scum. The church denies them agency, yet blames them for societal problems.

We can also examine the fact that many teen pregnancies are the result of incest and rape. People will admit that these two things are huge problems here, yet no data currently exists with these statistics. Due to the taboo nature of these two, victims are left without recourse unless the rapes can be used to further the political (and sometimes personal) agenda of those in power. Rape cases are occasionally sensationalized to control women's behavior, reminding them that they are constantly in danger of an unknown rapist. I'm not suggesting that the danger isn't real, but there is a specific reason that these cases are the focus of the public eye as opposed to the frequently occurring rapes and incests that happen in secret.

No one tells their child to beware of their uncles or fathers or family friends who statistically would provide a greater danger, suggesting that the concern - consciously or unconsciously - is not about preserving safety but preserving a status quo. This regard to status quo is not independent of existing in a society where religion is the primary way social control is exerted. Regardless of personal beliefs, social and cultural mores that stem from religious institutions become internalized; the result is widespread denial of agency and misplaced blame.

With people who have moved out of "young adulthood" into "adulthood" and begin to have children, the emphasis on the value of men that has been bred into our culture early on in life is maintained. Parents are encouraged to have more children, and are seen as odd if they don't keep trying until they get a boy. Going around the island with my parents to visit different family members and family friends through out my life, my parents were asked on numerous occasions if the "didn't want a boy" or "didn't have a boy yet".

There is a huge emphasis on raising children within the church - baptism, first communions and confirmations are arranged without question because they are all seen as "something people do". Religion is indoctrinated since birth by those who are faithful and even those who can occasionally be forced to admit that they are not true believers. There is no way to question Christianity. There is no critical analysis, merely blind belief. Parents were once taught that "spar[ing] the rod will spoil the child" and perpetuate the violence they experienced as children. In fact, almost all that they were indoctrinated with as children continues into adulthood. It is anti-religious and satanic to question God; the ills of society are seen and taught as the will of God. We perpetuate our own colonization even without the presence of masters. There is no room for other religious beliefs which are mocked openly as well as subtly.

Criticism of Christianity in it's function as an institutional power within St. Lucia isn't inherently anti-Christian, atheistic or an imposition of imperialistic values. Social issues that all humans can agree are negative - teen pregnancy, rape and incest for example - are perpetrated in situations where men are given all power over human sexuality. Religious institution forces spirituality and religion to be associated with dominance, fear, threat and a method of having power over other human beings.

Humanity's drive to find peace with our place in the universe and with the possible existence of a greater power - God, science, a polytheistic pantheon - can hardly be accomplished under conditions where fear and power exist and are constantly perpetrated. Additionally, the belief in religious freedom is not an imposition of Western values as much as it is a belief in equality and a belief that people should be able to question God and choose whether or not to ally themselves with the practices of the church. It is evident that allegiance to the church is not allegiance to perfect or at times even remotely Christian behavior.

How is this all really negative, and can't these problems be critiqued and solved without questioning or counteracting the church (as an institution)? The church is inextricable from society and culture in St. Lucia. It is heavily involved with every aspect of life, as I hopefully have demonstrated above. Men are given all power over sexuality via church patriarchy and social issues like rape, incest, child abuse, domestic violence and teen pregnancy are all prevalent within the culture of church patriarchy. Religion is intertwined with dominance and violence and used as a way to exert power over people en masse; this of course was the intended use of religion in the West Indies by colonizers seeking to find ways to control their slaves.

A critique of religious institution in a country predominantly made up of people of color is also not a racist condemnation of their cultural practices, although it can easily be transformed into one without sound analysis. This is not an imposition of colonialist ideas of curing non-white savagery, but rather an attempt to assess how St. Lucia can begin to decolonize how we think about societal issues.

St. Lucia's population is 54% female according to most recently available census data. West Indian women have been historically anti-patriarchal. It is culturally embedded within West Indian women to fight against injustices thrust upon us; within the church this aspect of our nature is suppressed. In the past, St. Lucian women have consistently fought against gendered wage gaps, led marooned slave colonies and spoken out again sexism through Calypso music. It is clear that the roots of anti-patriarchal thinking are there, but church ideology and it's widespread social control prevent these instincts from actualization especially today when more and more people are retreating to the church for solutions to society's ills. Women are deprived of bodily autonomy, their basic rights and the awareness that something is wrong within our society that they have the power to fix.

Our culture is greater than Christianity. Our traditions and social beliefs do not need to be totally lost in an examination of what constitutes social power and how we can seek to improve our society post-independence from Great Britain. Recognizing the connection between the way religion is used by people in power so that issues like incest, rape, sexual assault and child abuse can be brushed under the rug for the sake of appearing moral or by using the justification of "God's will" is not a condemnation of our entire culture. Within St. Lucia, we need to examine the way religion is used to terrorize us through dominance and violence for us to have any real progress with eliminating our social ills. Thus far, the typical complacency with regards to social ills seems to be ineffective. Using God as an excuse for this complacency is not going to suffice if we truly desire change independent from major Western powers. Relying on Americans, the British or Asian powers will not work for us.

Condemning a belief in God and a removal of religion as many radical atheists would advocate is also not a practical solution to what is happening within St. Lucia. It is more important to differentiate between religious institutions - which to me represents the church as the primary method of social control and organization - and religion as a personal system of beliefs and a small scale method of community organization. Whereas religious institutions require turning towards a male leader (or a patriarchal minded female leader in rare occasions) for all understanding of Christian ethics and morals, churches should be a place where active engagement with scripture and a personal and individualized approach to God's teachings is encouraged.

There should not be only one way to follow God; in an ideal situation, Christianity would be tailored to the individual who would then share some of their beliefs, but maybe not all of them, with a larger congregation. Conformity to what a pastor or priest believes is the correct interpretation of the scripture means that no one asks questions. Parishioners are not encouraged to actively engage with what they believe but rather to accept whatever male leaders dictate is correct. How can you have true belief if you don't constantly grapple with what your belief means or actively engage with your spirituality? If you must suppress all other spiritual differences for yours to remain powerful, isn't that a demonstration of the weakness of your beliefs?

True resolution to our social problems can only come from decoupling politics - sexual politics, government etc. - from religious beliefs. This doesn't mean abandoning Christianity, but rather preventing a myopic view of morality from obscuring our vision of a better St. Lucia in the future. Christian morality  today cannot realistically reflect the same values it did at it's inception. Scholars and people in power in the church should be engaging with scriptures to provide a modern interpretation that fits within the context of our world today.

A place where the majority of child bearing citizens are not married cannot claim to have the same views on sexual morality as the Bible originally intended. The New Testament condemns divorce, yet we live in a nation not only of unmarried people, but in a nation filled with adulterers. Some of these adulterers sit in the front pews of the church.

Religious leaders need to take on a more positive role in communities. Instead of using their power to enact domination and violence, religious leaders or leaders who encompass religion as a huge part of their public personae should be encouraged to analyze scriptures with a critical mind and modify their understanding of the Bible to reflect an updated Christian morality that doesn't necessarily depart from the Bible, but certainly leaves behind the normalized violence that is rampant throughout our region.

Many religious leaders will likely argue that going back to church will solve the problems plaguing the youth. How can this be true when three generations of church goers (and likely more) continue to be plagued by ills that were around long before today's youth? We need to reflect on who carries the power in our society and what they intend to do with that power. Beliefs that are made "stronger" through violence and suppression of non-conformist thought should come into question. We will only see progress when we genuinely reflect on what controls our society and behavior instead of concocting new external evils or rehashing now irrelevant evils to place the blame on.

* A relationship with religion is not a relationship with God.