Factibilidad en la generación de electricidad

A sense of loss pervades the accounts of all the parents, at different levels of interpretation. The most tangible accounts relate to the loss of independent skills and adult qualities possessed by the “old” sons, as well as to the loss of other characteristics, such as “spark” and “humour” (Victoria, 19, 306). Furthermore, the parents’ accounts describe not only the loss of these desirable characteristics as a result of their sons’ negative symptoms, but also of personality characteristics that typified the “old” son, even if these had previously been viewed as unpleasant. For example, in the following extracts, it is as if even these formerly unwanted behaviours were better than the “new” sons’ failure to respond at all, and there is a feeling of nostalgia for past times:

Karen: Adam was always in a lot of trouble so I mean, we had a case when the

they were quite aggressive really, the old Adam would’ve not have been very happy he’d have just said you know “Do one” but he was just so “yeah alright then well they are allowed…” there was…he he he was so different to how he was, you know like I’m not saying it’s a good thing but I dunno he just seems too laid back about a lot of things that normally would’ve been an issue for him (Karen, 2, 20-25).

Victoria: _{he used to be in his room, you know what teenagers are like, listening}

to his music all night, “turn it down!”, I’d rather hear the noise again (Victoria, 14, 235-237).

More profound examples of loss are also evident in parents’ accounts. Their descriptions often give the impression that the “new” sons represent a state of transition between the past (the “old” self) and the future. This state also appears to represent a transitional position between what the parents view as “reality”, and a separate, illusory place in which the sons are perceived as being “miles away” (Pauline, 16, 253) or in their own “little world” (John, 34, 552). Sometimes their parents talked of “living in hope” (Victoria, 21, 343) and “trying to be optimistic” (John, 29, 470) about their sons’ future, viewing the loss of their sons to this state, as a temporary “rough patch” (Grace, 28, 466), as the following examples demonstrate:

Pauline: _{I’m just hoping that there’s hope at the end you know but he’s} improved such a lot, because he dropped out of church as well, but now he’s started to come back to church (Pauline, 5, 83-84).

John: He has improved he is I think he is, touch wood, he’s sort of slowly getting

better (John, 3, 38-39).

However, a deep sense of fear that the future might bring the complete loss of their sons to a permanent state of separation from reality, and from community functioning, permeated the interviews. Pauline, whose son had begun to show improvements in his functioning at the time of interview, recalls this fear:

I felt well, I’ve lost him really and I didn’t know when he was going to recover, you know I didn’t know, I prayed and hoped that God would help him but I didn’t know that he was going to come round so well as he’s done now (Pauline, 17, 270-272).

Karen articulates the pain of her ongoing experience of not knowing whether her son will recover:

Just horrible really because you don’t know how long this will last, that’s what does your head in, will they get better, will they stay the same? That’s, are they

going to get sick again? The worst bit I think’s not knowing if they’re going to get better, if you’re going to see improvements. (Karen, 8, 121-124).

The intensity of feeling that accompanies this fear of complete loss is often evident in the accounts, as illustrated by the following examples, which liken the experience to bereavement:

Victoria: _{It’s awful. I feel like I’m mourning for the old Steve (Victoria, 8, 131).}

Pauline: It was very heart rending, I was so distressed, I think it was like a grief

that you’ve lost somebody (Pauline, 9, 138-139).

Dennis provides a poignant example of a less conscious fear of the permanent loss of his son. He describes his son, Ryan, as a sometimes like a “zombie” (Dennis, 8, 174) and often likens his presentation to a deep state of sleep, or a “daydream” (Dennis, 3, 60). In an attempt to illustrate Ryan’s brief moments of “waking up” (Dennis, 15, 324), he compares him to the people in the film “Awakenings” (an adaptation from the book (Sacks, 1973)), in which patients who have been catatonic for decades having contracted sleeping-sickness briefly “awaken” in response to a new medication. The film concludes with the return of the patients to an assumedly permanent state of catatonia, as the medication fails to achieve its desired effects. Dennis does not discuss the film’s ending, and in fact goes on to explain that his own experience “wasn’t scary or nothing” (Dennis, 9, 189); however, both his use

of this film to illustrate his son’s condition, and the urgency with which he denies feeling scared, may be cautiously interpreted as an allusion to a deep fear that the “old” Ryan may, in the future, disappear altogether.

Like Dennis’ description of Ryan as a “zombie”, Karen uses metaphorical language when she describes her son as “a vegetable” (Karen, 7, 106). And, as well as their use of words depicting the loss of their sons to an inanimate or mindless state, many of the parents often used language relating to “up” and “down”, giving the impression that the “old” son represented an elevated status of hope, and the “new” son as having fallen to a low position of parental despair. Grace illustrates this when she discusses attempts to “pull” her son, Carl, “up” (Grace, 12, 192) and contrasts the change in cognitive functioning in the “old” and the “new” Carl when she says:

His way of thinking was high, so he came down (Grace, 21, 342).

John frequently uses similar language to exemplify progression and regression as part of his son’s process of recovery:

It’s like an up and down thing, we think the trend, the er overall trend we hope and we feel is gradually, but it is very slow, gradually upwards (John, 3, 39-40).