Remmbering Lori Schiller

• Spanish name is Espana.
• Lori's first semester of college was here. The Voices would speak nasty words to her in spanish. Ex: “... Vaya con el diablo” (Schiller, 37).’
• Capitol: Madrid
• Shares the Iberian Peninsula with Portugal.
• Mount Teide is the highest mountain and active volcano in Spain.
• The Pyrenees mountain range separates Spain and France.

• •First place that Lori was admitted into after suicide attempt. This is where Lori would receive shock treatment and lose most of her memory.
• •
• “This was a locked-door psychiatric facility. The people inside couldn't just walk on out. And we couldn’t just walk on it” (Schiller, 63). “Payne Whitney was a city hospital, dingy and grimy..gloomy and badly maintained, with scuffed walls and old motel -type furniture...
• "The doctors at Payne Whitney wore white lab coats, which made the hospital feel remote and institutional... was a hospital filled with a bunch of inexperienced students, and we were their guinea pigs” (Schiller,91).

•6/17/82 Nursing Note: “...had an episode of severe auditory hallucinations coupled with intense psychomotor agitation... writhing, forcefully grimacing, holding her hands to her ears... shaking her feet repeatedly, and seemed nearly oblivious to external stimuli” (Schiller,65).

• 6/21/82 Nursing Note: “Patient appeared quite preoccupied and angry earlier this morning. Patient refused to discuss what was the matter and stated she was fine!...wants to very much leave Payne Whitney” (Schiller,65).

•6/23/82 Primary Therapist Note: “Patient remains evident agitated and intermittently hallucinating... clearly evident in discussion how tormented she is by these voices and how hard she is fighting to resist their commands...fear of repercussions of revealing these hallucinations to the staff,'They'll kill me if I tell' “( Schiller,66).

•This is a different part of the New York Hospital where long-term patients were sent.

“...was adjacent to some of New York’s wealthiest suburbs, and surrounded by acres and acres of well-kept lawns, graceful old trees and gardens...the public areas of Westchester hospital were filled with lovely upholstered chairs,glass front armoires and grandfather clocks. The patients’ areas were furnished in a light, cheerful Scandinavian style... we somehow felt more in the hands of professionals who were trying to help us more than as cases for students to practice on” (Schiller, 90-91).

Payne Whitney Clinic

Medical Records of Payne Whitney

London, England

Morocco

• Lori's second semester was in London. Her depression worsened as the Voices taunted her, but she kept moving forward.
• There are more than 300 languages spoken in London alone.
• Biggest city in Britain and Europe.
• The Canary Wharf Tower is the tallest building there.

• Lori booked the trip “with the Tufts alumni association” (Schiller,147).
• Lori hated Morocco because of her memories there, including the Voices tearing her apart
• “I longed for the relief that street drugs could bring me. I tried to get some the first opportunity I could” (Schiller,148).
• Official name: Kingdom of Morocco
• It lies in the North West corner of Africa.
• The capital is Rabat.
• The Atlas mountains separate the mid coastline from the harsh Sahara.

Westchester Division

Spain

Remembering Lori Schiller

Her Life in a Scrapbook

By Mariah Smith

Lincoln Farm

#AOTD

THe 9925 KeY

Neil Young

• Lori had been associated with Lincoln Farm for many years; from a camper to counselor.
• Lori enjoyed spending time with other camp counselors in “long wooden bungalows we called 'motels', playing cards, eating cookies, and drinking a Kool-Aid type of concoction we called bug juice” (Schiller,16).
• This is the place where Lori Schiller began to hear the Voices telling her “You must die! You will die!” (Schiller, 19).

Al Jarraeu

Stevie Wonder

Pat Benatar

The Quiet Room

•Lori was very honored to have the 9925 Key. “The best key of all was the 9925 key."

"It was the universal pass key to all the doors on and off the units, ... even The Quiet Room. It was the key that Dr. Rockland and Dr. Doller and Dr, Fischer and all the staffers used to come and go from the unit. Patients never touched that key. That key was power. It was the key that opened the locked the doors that stood between me and freedom” (Shiller,270).

•“On my last day I was quiet, withdrawn... And then they gave me a gift too. They handed me the 9925 key. On november 6, 1989, I opened the door to the outside world all by myself, and left the hospital forever” (Schiller, 270-271).

• The Quiet Room is in the New York Hospital (Located in White Plains, NY), where patients were placed by force or voluntarily.
• It was known to some patients as “Hotel California- the hotel you could never check out from” because for patients who were fond of them room, it seemed like they were there for a very long time.
• It was “empty except for a green vinyl mattress on the floor. The window to outdoors was covered with a heavy, industrial-quality mesh. Between this mesh and the window was a fan. In the corner of the ceiling there was a mirror tilted so that the person on the outside looking through the window had a complete view of the inside of the room” (Schiller, 160).
• “The Quiet Room was supposed to be a safe and tranquil place, a place where patients could be alone, free to relax and calm themselves down during or after a crisis, or hopefully before one occurred” (Schiller, 160).

Tufts University

• Where Lori attended college. This is the time where Lori was enjoying life. “For a long time relief came more than torment.... I was interested in writing ; Tufts for its prestige...college life was wonderful...everything I did had a kind of sheen to it, an exciting biting edge.” (Schiller,33).
• “Took a class in abnormal physiology.” (Schiller, 37).
• All of the symptoms in the books she read seemed to apply to her.
• The Voices became unexpected. Lori’s illness was getting worse.
• “Its the best time you'll ever have. It gets a lot worse after that” (Schiller,169).

Basic Information

Daily Dose of Music

• Born March 26,1959 in Michigan
• “Moved to Chicago where *Mark was born...we all moved to Los Angeles, where *Steven was born” (Schiller,24). Later on, Lori moved to Scarsdale, NY, where she is raised until college.
• Raised by Nancy and Marvin Schiller
• Attended Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts
• Diagnosed with “schizo-affective disorder” which is a combination of Manic-Depression and Schizophrenia

* Mark and Steven are Lori's younger brothers. *

• Music was important to Lori. She “was never without music... just to cover up the sound of the voices... plug a Walkman in my ears, turn the volume to full strength and blast the suckers” (Schiller, 114). “Music is the doctor, as they say” (Schiller,115).

Favorite Artists

• Al Jarreau = Picked up spirits
• Double dose of Neil Young = Temper feisteness
• Pat Benatar cassette = Revved up Lori
• “Golden Lady” by Stevie Wonder = dancing/excitement/exhilaration/ “Feeling high as the Milky Way” (Schiller, 115).

Records from Westchester Division(Unit 3)

The Effects of Clozapine on Lori

•“Patient’s complaint is that she is very confused, which she attributes to Electro-convulsive Therapy that she received at Payne Whitney Clinic and that she is hearing Voices that tell her to hurt others and criticize her” (Schiller,88).

•10/1/82 Nursing Note, 10:30 PM:(Constant Supervision) “Lori tried running out...Staff decided to take patient’s shoes away and make her wear hospital pajamas” (Schiller, 89).

•10/3/82 Nursing Note, 3-11 PM: “... patient stated that she hears two male voices, can’t identify them...tell her to jump out the window, that she would be able to fly, and also that she should also leave the hospital.

Patient feels the voices in her head are coming from ‘a radio inside my head’. Patient also stated that she deserves to die because she is no good” (Schiller,89).

•

“ I felt like I was stoned... 25 milligrams in one small tablet at a time... My own emotions were warring within me... I wasn’t actually sure I was feeling better. Different, maybe, but not all together. In fact, in a lot of ways, I felt much worse...my body gave me strange, unpleasant feelings. My chest and throat were tight. I felt like I was smothering... My emotions too were unchained” (Schiller, 259-260).

“But slowly...the new medication was doing its work... I was less impulsive, they said, and more thoughtful. I was looking brighter, more alive, they said. My parents said they saw beginnings of the sparkle back in my eyes again... The most striking thing I felt was a new sense of calm... I slept... The Voices were growing softer...” (Schiller 260-261).

Working at Rye Physcatric Hospital

The Futura House

• •“ Rye Psychiatric was small, a thirty-bed hospital. The road was short, but it was lined with greenery. It had well kept lawns and a small side building called ‘The Cottage’ that really did remind me a bit of a country cottage... Rye Psychiatric was not a closed-door facility. As long as they stayed on the hospital grounds, patients were free to come and go as the liked. There were no bars or safety screens on the windows. There were no passkeys or security people in jeeps riding the grounds... I was in charge of other psychiatric patients” (Schiller,136).
• •Worked “the evening shift, which went from 3:00 PM to 11:30 PM, the workload was lighter and I could be spontaneous. I wound up doing a lot of paper work because, unlike the other staffers, I enjoyed it. I liked to write, and I liked to interview the incoming patients and their families... I also learned how to do EKGs, which were required for all admissions, hooking people up to the electrodes and taking the totally painless reading of their brain waves” (Schiller, 137).
• •Lori Schiller did enjoy working. She worked hard and it kept her mind off of things. However, signs of her mental health began to show, like the tremor in her hands.
• She would be watched closely by Eddie Mae Barnes, the director of nursing.

Clozapine

Journals

“The drug was just becoming available to us on an experimental basis. It was possible that it could offer Lori some relief from the voices and other hallucinations that were tormenting her. It was also possible that it could kill her” (Schiller, 242)

“...because of cloza-pine’s dangers, the drug should be given only to hopeless cases” (Schiller, 245).

“... it hadn’t been approved for general use here... the drug’s use had to be carefully monitored.

Sandoz, the manufacturing of the drug, was collecting data to present the Food and Drug Administration as part of its application to market the drug in the United States... caused a condition called agranulocytosis, a suppression of the white blood cells that was potenitially fatal... About one in one hundread pople who took it risked dying” Schiller,251-252).

June 3, 1988, 8:25 PM- “I ran away today.

I’m back now. And I feel like a real loser... No one will believe me anymore... I’m confused. I’m scared... The Voices bothered me a lot today. They in fact inspired me to run...” (Schiller,217).

June 4, 3:05 PM - “I know now at this moment that when I’m discharged I’ll kill myself... No one cares about me anyways except Mom and Dad, and they didn’t even rescue me right away... I want to cry, like I did in church yesterday. I want relief...” (Schiller,217).

June 8, Noon- “I feel that therapy with Dr. Fischer is too slow. At times I feel like murdering her. The voices tell me to strangle her to death. At other times, I wish I could say I love you to her.” (Schiller, 217).

June9, 3:45 PM- “I know deep in my heart despite my cries to leave the hospital that I really do want to get better” (Schiller, 217-218).

•“Futura House was actually two apartments in a building in White Plains. One apartment was for men, the other for women. There were nine of us women in our house, three in a triple room, and six divide up into doubles.

Despite our formal cleanup schedule-we each had our own tasks to perform... the place definitely looked lived in...we shared cooking duties too, and ate all together at one long table... My biggest problem was learning how to fill my days. My hospital days had been filled with aimless pacing. My real-world days had to be more structured than that... The morning was filled with nonsense... I felt they treated us like morons... I had lunch there every single day-every day an ice cream sandwich... Because Futura House wanted us to find meaningful things to do with our days, the house was closed and locked between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM” (Schiller, 177).

Electroshock Treatment

Lori received twenty electroshock treatments at Payne Whitney Clinic. She doesn’t remember any of it and blames the treatment for all of her memory loss.

“First we had to make sure the patient ate and drank nothing after midnight.

Then, around the time of the scheduled treatment, I would help connect the electrodes to their temples, and watch while the doctor gave anesthesia. The patient lay, covered, on a bed. Then the doctor would administer the current by flipping the switch. The whole thing reminded me of the scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy and her three friends find the little man behind the curtain flipping switches to make thunder and lightning to go off. My job was to help hold the patient down. For when the jolt of electricity went off, the patient would have a seizure, and arch up from the bed. Then, as the seizure subsided, their toes would curl. That was a sign that everything had gone well... It made me feel so helpless and out of control” (Schiller,141-142).