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Return to Northlight Everyday
Living with Schizo 1 HTML
I’m quite irritated as I write this. I have few positive things to say about Schizophrenia and it peeves me off more
knowing that a lot of my religious beliefs will be tossed aside as delusions because I have the illness. It also peeves me
off knowing that there’s people who say I should be happier because I could be dying of Cancer instead. Hopefully I
can educate some of you as to what the disease is REALLY like.
First off, Schizophrenia is not a case of multiple personalities. Multiple Personality Disorder is something completely different
with its own list of symptoms. Secondly, Schizophrenia is not a case of demon possession. It is a legitimate medical disorder
that can be controlled with medication and some therapy. Some people have had much success controlling the symptoms with exercise
and Vitamin B complex added to their diet. Thirdly, we cannot just ‘get over it’ (OOOh..that really pisses a lot
of patients right off!!) and ignore it any more than a diabetic can ignore their need for insulin. It is a medical condition
that, as far as medical science can tell, is created by a chemical imbalance in the brain. Finally, Schizophrenia is **NOT**
caused by bad parenting, a tragic past or anything terrible and awful that the patient has done. If that were the case, most
Schizophrenics would have very questionable people in their midst, or there would be more Schizophrenics around.
There are several types of Schizophrenia. The most well know is Paranoid Schizophrenia, but Disorganized, Delusional, Catatonic,
Undifferentiated and Residual types are known. I have Delusional, Disorganized and some Paranoid Schizophrenia. That means
I sometimes think really weird things, I have no sense of order and I often think people are screwing me over somewhere, someplace,
somehow. This is a very simple explanation, but I will try to post some web sites that describe these types in detail. Most
of us are NOT violent and when we are, we’re violent towards ourselves.
The illness is very individualistic. Some people feel swarms of bugs swarm all over them. I remember being in my grandparent’s
basement and a giant Black Widow the size of a great Dane was crawling down its web at me because it felt like i walked into
its web. Others feel that they are receiving telepathic thoughts from unusual sources, such as aliens, the FBI or the ‘rabid’
pit bull next door. Not everyone who has Schizophrenia is the crazy guy talking to himself, stuffing tin foil under their
hat :-) . Some of us look pretty normal. Most of us, when we’re on medication, act pretty sane, though some of us, like
myself, look pretty scruffy and we have a hard time keeping the apartment clean.
A Huge percentage of Schizophrenics attempt suicide. In Canada, I believe the rate is at 40% and 10% of those succeed. The
biggest cause of death among Schzophrenics is suicide. When I describe to you what I experience, maybe you’ll understand
why so many of us want to die.
Schizophrenia has several levels of severity. At its worst, some people actually see, smell, taste, touch and hear things
that are not there. To them, the object is THERE and there is no such concept of ‘ignoring it’s existence’.
It’s like denying the sky is blue, or that a car is parked on the driveway. Debating it is no use because these people
honestly believe these things are true, even if it is as unusual as believing you are God reincarnated. I have a relatively
mild form of the disease, but I suffer similar problems. In many ways I am happy I don’t have it as bad as some folks
do, but it’s still no treat to live with.
The delusional part of my illness is that I used to believe that I could make money appear, if I just believed in God enough.
You know how the saying goes: If you have faith, you can move mountains. I tried paying people this way, whether it was a
small loan or rent. I was always frustrated when the money would not appear. (To my Christian chat friends: Let me point out
that I was not pagan at the time.) I was 21 and living with roommates. I had just started my first serious job and it was
this job in the restaurant business that triggered the Schizophrenia. Stress often sets off the illness and I was hit with
a vengeance. It didn’t help that I had a complete, arrogant, self righteous fu*k nut for a landlord. **Shudders** I
won’t go into his speech about how everybody with depression just needs self esteem and no medication.
My symptoms were unusual. I wasn’t seeing things, but I could ‘hear’ thoughts in my head. Critical ones coming
from God and his angels. They would tell me to do things or scream at me to not do things. I eventually lost that job, probably
because I kept stopping in the middle of the kitchen floor looking completely phased. For the longest while, I was irrationally
moody - being calm one second and violently angered the next. It felt like I could split myself into a thousand people and
if I tried to control their every action, I went maniacal. When I started sensing dead things rise out of the floor and felt
creatures better left in a horror movie follow me around, I phoned a close friend and she got me in to see her psychiatrist
ASAP. I don’t know how she did it, but I got in that week. The doctor started me on medication right away and she was
surprised that it had been me who had wanted to see her. Numerous people with mental illness deny they need help or that a
problem even existed. I had suspected that I had Schizophrenia for several months and I figured, especially after a particular
trying episode, that I needed to talk to someone **NOW**.
I eventually got evicted by that first landlord (another story in itself...) and I moved into an apartment of my own. For
the longest time I went without medication, but I called up my friends psychiatrist to make another appointment. She started
me on Haldol. When I couldn’t take that (It made me so drowsy I literally could not leave the bed), I was switched to
Thorazine. I hated the shakes and fidgeting that it gave me, despite medication to counteract the side effects. I was switched
to Loxapine. I was on that until I Found a new Psychiatrist two years later. Because I was so poor, I was forced to use the
older and cheaper anti psychotics. I was lucky if I made five hundred dollars a month! The Loxapine made me function able,
but because I made so little, I could not always always afford my medications. I lost several jobs because I was a less than
starling employee. When I was on my meds, I was too drowsy to pay attention. When I was off them I was so spontaneous that
People got rid of me because of my habits. If I tried to phone in sick, it felt like I was getting evil thoughts from someone,
or I fought madly with some invisible entity that would mock my every decision. Even worse, I would receive subliminal m,messages
from the TV, Radio or things as simple as picking up a pencil. I would get so frustrated that I would just not show up to
work. I continued doing this even though I knew it would get me fired. I couldn’t help it! If I told employers that I
was mentally ill, no-one would hire me. It was one, big, god awful mess.
I finally applied for welfare/disability. Thankfully I was accepted right away.
I’m still on it. It’s scary. My medications cost more than what I was making when I was working. My Seroquel is
over two hundred dollars alone! I get my medications for free, which has allowed me to switch to newer anti psychotics with
fewer, if any side effects. I was switched from Loxapene to Risperdal at my request (It’s thought to improve negative
symptoms) but when I was diagnosed with diabetes, the psychiatrist switched me to Seroquel. I’ve been on that for almost
six months. I still prefer Risperdal, but it has a high incidence of weight gain and that would not fair well with my diabetes.
Risperdal gave me few, if any side effects, with exception of some occasional and annoying twitching that will persist for
the rest of my life. That is, if I understand the literature right. Seroquel isn’t as good, as it makes me drowsy, but
it’s not as bad as Haldol and Loxapene were.
Living with Schizo 2 HTML
I don’t see, hear, feel, smell and taste my hallucinations as if they were on the physical realm. I get the images so
clearly in my head that they might as well be real and the clearer they are, the more stress I’m under. The clearer they
are, the less real I know it is. I become stressed because the hallucinations are clearer which makes the hallucinations even
more pronounced and the nasty circle continues. That’s why I have not returned to the work force. If I did, my stress
levels would increase while being forced back onto poorer quality medications, which would make me a weaker employee, which
would get me laid off. Now repeat THAT nasty little cycle ad nauseum! There’s no end to this situation. Some find
relief over time, but I have not. If anything, the problem has increased since I was first diagnosed, though not enough to
make a gargantuan impact.
My Paranoid symptoms include feeling as if everybody is screwing me over. I’ve had some very bad experiences with ‘friends’
and employers in the past so I can’t help but give into the paranoia. I always ‘know’ that someone is plotting
something against me and sooner or later their true intentions will be known. I often make predictions that so and so is doing
things behind my back and it’s depressing when I find out its true. This aspect of my illness is hard to pinpoint as
I am a naturally very cynical individual. Hard not to be when you’ve seen the things I have and seen people claim to
be helpful when they’re anything but. I figure this aspect of my illness is a mixture of honest experience, but enough
paranoia exists that I’m more critical of other people.
My disorganizational aspects are very, very problematic. I have to have my mom, grandmother and sister help clean the apartment
because things become frighteningly wild if they don’t! Sometimes, when I clean things up, I get subliminal messages
and to prevent the messages from reoccurring, I refuse to pick up objects. It’s helped since my mom, Oma and sister aided
me and they come every 2 weeks to do minor cleaning, such as vacuuming, dishes and laundry. I’m in charge of the cat’s
litter box and the caged critter’s homes. Thankfully the Goldfish take very little serious cleaning, or they would be
in serious trouble :-P !! I do water changes, test the water and scrub the tank now and again. If I had no animals, I would
have done something very serious to myself. In a way I’m happy they have helped me. In another way I wish I had followed
through with my suicidal urges. The animals give me something to look towards. They give me greater company that any human
would (well, except those I know on the spirit realm. Sorry Boys!) and they don’t give a rat’s arse how mentally
ill I am. As long as they get to eat, have water and get to chew on my fingers on a regular basis, they’re just fine!
I mentioned before that I sense my hallucinations as if they’re on another level. It’s as if they exist on a realm
of their own and most of the time I can tell the difference between the spirit plane, the physical realm and my mind. When
these things blur I become frustrated and angerly incoherent. I can tell the difference between the spirit realm and my head
by working with friends in order to teach myself the difference. The spirits I work with are understanding, gentle and eager
to help. If they tell me anything that contradicts my mind, it is noticeably helpful. My schizophrenic episodes are always
nasty, pushy, obnoxious and downright mean. They mock everything I do while pretending to be kind. If they and my spirit companions
were all due to schizophrenia, more people would have the disease and I don’t see how 90% of the world’s population
could be having a psychotic attack all the time. There must be something to religion and the afterlife, or religion would
not exist. I certainly believe spirit guardians are out there and I can feel them assist me every day. They help me differentiate
between a psychotic fart and a true disagreement. My spirit Guardians never tell me what I should do. They stand back and
let me make my own decisions. My Psychotic farts don’t give a damn who or what I am, who I care for, or themselves most
of the time. My spirits will back away if I ask, unless there is a serious risk to myself or the things around me. Psychotic
farts never listen. NEVER. Even a demon would back away if you pestered it enough!
My hallucinations are frightening. Most of them belong in a grave yard. I regularly sense corpses crawling out of the floor
in all shades of decomposition. Severed hands will greet me in the fridge door and I will regularly suck eyeballs up through
my straw. Once It felt as if a child had planted severed fingers in my food. When I ate them, the fingers grew into a hand
in my stomach, which started to crawl up my throat. Many mornings I will wake up with a mummy beside me, or it will fell like
someone is trying to rape me. At its worst, I am terrified to sleep in my own bed. I have spend many a teary night huddled
on the linoleum floor under a thin blanket.
Did I mention that I have a mild form of the disease?
I have been known to scream for five hours straight because there is no relief from the chaos. It feels like you’re
trapped in a cage barely big enough to sit in and twenty people are poking you with sharp sticks. No matter how many times
you beg, yowl, cry or plead for mercy, the beings will not go away. Other times it feels like I have someone sitting on the
toilet when I am desperate to go. Something always prevents me from barging in on them and only when I am at my angriest can
I ignore the sensation. Other times it feels like someone is forcibly trying to make me type, but if I follow the pushing,
all I get is gibberish. Sometimes it feels like someone is shoving me in circles, or someone is sticking their finger in my
ear so annoyingly that I will start beating the unseen assailant in hopes of driving off the attacker. Other times, especially
when I am seriously frustrated, it feels like someone is putting hands on my back. This will go on for days. I **CAN NOT** ignore these sensations any more than you can ignore someone driving
a hot poker into your eye. The hallucinations grate on my nerves as if they’ve purposely been planted there
to drive me mad. Thankfully, medication controls most of my symptoms, but not everything goes away. If my spirits were psychotic
farts, they would have disappeared with the medications.
I find it very hard to talk with my doctors about my faith. If I tell them that a spell worked and that I saw Anubis guarding
my door, they immediately feed me more pills. My last doctor asked me if I was into the occult because I kept sensing skulls
and skeletons. I nearly ripped a strip off of him. I am pagan, but it doesn’t mean I have a skull on my alter with candles
burning it its eye sockets. F**K...It’s bad enough putting up society’s crap, but from a doctor who specializes
in mental illness? **shudders** I’ve decided that doctors, religion and mental illness don’t mix, no matter how
understanding the doctor claims to be. If they see ‘Schizophrenics believe they are religiously all powerful’ in
their text books, they paint everyone with the same God Damn brush.
I’m always suicidal. Always. Schizophrenia is something that never goes away, especially if you have it the way I have.
Some are lucky enough to get one psychotic episode their entire life time, but I have not been granted that blessing. Medications
help control some of my problems, but you have to re-learn simple things, like brushing your teeth every day, or putting pajamas
on before you go to bed. It’s pathetic. So many people take these things for granted. Even remembering to take a shower
is difficult to do. Or putting on deodorant! The mind always feels cluttered and the words may be in your head but they jumble
together like dinosaur fossils piled in a river bed. People don’t have the patience to wait for you. They don’t
hire you because they don’t want to deal with your problems. Numerous Schizophrenics end up either on the street or on
welfare because they have difficulty finding jobs. Add to that the hallucinations, the side effects of some medications and
the attitudes of people around you and maybe you can understand why many of us want to die. I can’t see how wanting to
escape an agonizing life such as this is cowardly, or selfish. I am a burden on society. I am a burden on my parents. I am
a burden on myself. My mind is a burden on everything. If I can end the suffering, why can’t I be granted the release?
Who needs hell when you live it every day?
That’s all I can think of for now. I will attempt to add links regarding medications, symptoms, etc on the Links page.
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