There Was Once A Borje

This is Börje. A seemingly ordinary young man, with one exception. He's mentally ill. Documents from Somewhere - Once Upon a Börje We are at Dag-Sven's Mental Hospital in Tyringe. We are here to meet Börje- and his psychologist Dr. Albin, who has taken care of him for the past seven years. Börje has schizophrenia, a mental disorder that has made him paranoid and hearing voices. - My name is Dr. Albin and I work at Dag-Sven's Mental Hospital. I'm an expert on schizophrenia- Volvo, and other mental disorders. - I am Börje, and I live here. This is my home. And... they... are out to get me... they are in the walls- or in the wall sockets... they are trying to to kill me. - Schizophrenia is a rather common disorder. About 0,7% of people have schizophrenia sometime in their lives. - That means that 24 million people are schizophrenic at this very moment. - Most people who come here to Dag-Sven's Mental Hospital have schizophrenia in some form. - For example, this form, this form, or this form. - The most common symptoms for schizophrenia are hearing voices and having delusions- that can't be affected by rational arguments, and an unorganized flow of thoughts. - There are hardly any budgies in here anymore, there used to be my reindeer and stuff but then... - Those kids are always hiding, they are running around and trying to kill me and... - You keep away from other people, forget about how you dress and your hygiene- and you don't react naturally to emotional situations. - Börje, I have bad news for you. You have AIDS. - There are both positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms are those that might be found in- normal people, and which can often be cured with medication, like delusions and hallucinations. - Negative symptoms, on the other hand, are hard to cure with psychotropic drugs. - For example, a lack of emtions, being asocial, or total lack of motivation. - Börje mainly has positive symptoms, like paranoia, but he has still proven hard to cure with medications. - They're out to get me. They want to kill me. They see everything I do and they can hear my thoughts! - Here at Dag-Sven's Mental Hospital we have cameras in all the rooms and microphones in every wall socket- so we can see everything that our patients do. Which is very practical, actually. - Paranoia is a very common symptom. It usually means that the patient thinks he is followed by someone- or that someone wants to kill him. Sometimes it is so bad that they think TVs send out dangerous TV-waves- that control their brains, and other weird stuff. - The origin of schizophrenia is often a combination of your genetic heritage and environment. - You can also get it from using cannabis, *** and other drugs. Even alcohol, although at a lower rate. - Have you ever used drugs? - No, no... or, yes, once! Then I tried alcohol, *** and cannabis. - Now that was a fun year! - We had very low security here at the hospital for a while, and then Börje used to go outside and do drugs- all day long. We then hired a guard to keep him in check. But it was then that we started to notice his- most prominent symptoms, because of the problems with abstince he suffered from. Which of course is tragic- but, yeah, what can you do about it? - How long have you been here? - All my life. I have been here all my life. - Börje came here about seven years ago, and then he was pretty much mentally healthy. And if I may speculate- freely a little, I would say that it was probably here that he got his schizophrenia. But that is how- we are here at Dag-Sven's Mental Hospital. We see the potential in every patient, even before they become- mentally ill. And I think that is something unique about Dag-Sven's Mental Hospital that we should preserve. - Schizophrenia can often be cured, generally with pshycotropic drugs or therapy. Cognitive behavioural therapy- is often used to increase the patient's self-confidence and social abilities. - You're completely worthless. Worthless! WORTHLESS! - You can also use so called family therapy, where you teach the patient's family to handle schizophrenia- in a constructive manner. - Börje is actually the only patient who has been here for over a year. - And that is probably, if you ask me, because all the others have escaped. But that is just me speculating. - Of course, Börje is a real hopeless case. I have tried everything, really everything, every method I know. - Nothing has worked. At all. Right now all he does is cost us money. We have no hope for him anymore. - So I have been working on a technique of my own at home and refined and meddled with it,- so I am going to try it out! - They are going to kill me, they are going to kill me! - Hello Börje. Dr. Albin's knife therapy never became very popular with the mental health services. The patient did stop being ill. The only side effect was that he died. Dr. Albin was fired soon after "the small incident". Dag-Sven's Mental Hospital is still up and running. Now there are no doctors or psychologists left at all, and only one guard. Featuring: Crew: Camera: Music: