What it is like to have schizoprhenia

[Luxord]

Ok, so this is what it's like to have schizophrenia. But, first a little backgound information. Without getting too deep and convulted I created a schizophrenic voice in my head when I had my first creative, yet psychotic episode. It felt likea rush of euphoria that quickly dissapated. This happened after I started to feel intense and extreme level of pure and deep excitement. I believe this caused a mental break in me because I had been so depressed, sad, and angry for so many years. And because I suddenly felt things that most people don't feel all the time or at all, I sperated myself from reality so much that it caused a split between that version of me feeling good, and the version of me feeling bad. Since then, the voice has been mocking, condescnding, and ridculous to try to sabtoage me. Over time it has gone from a level 5 to a 2 and 3 out of ten I suppose. The main thing that makes this so haunting and terrible for me, is that I have OCD. And because I have OCD I literally have a strong and almost unmagniable compulsion ot think in a way that is the voice talking to me. So, even though I know it's me and that I can activate it most of the time out of my own choice, I still expereince it as another person who's main goal is to **** with me as much as possible. And when the compulsions get really abd, it's like an autopilot mode has come on and I can barely steer wheel the way I want to go. I spend so much energy and effort defending and trying to protect myself from this voice that I can't enjoylife when I desire from my heart to. Not only that, but because of my second psychotic epsiode I keep perceiving my environment similar to what it was while I had the second epsiode. In addition, I spit on a police officer causing me to be charged with a 3rd degree offense and go to jail. But guess who told me to do that in my state of utter confusion and fear? The voice of course. What a great friend right? Now, the weird, disturbing, and unsettling things from my sencond episode I am experiencing now that just get under my skin works together with the voice to create a toruous expereince. It isn't like normal torture. It's more like having something really distracting, scary and annoying constantly whispering into your ear or messing with you. How exactly does the voice work together with these distorted, if they are distorted, perceptions of reality. Well, to start, the perceptions is that everytime I think a negative thought that isn't saulbirous to my health or if it's the voice, someone laughs in a weird way, or someone coughs in a unsettling fake ass way. It constantly happens to me and the timing of it is too perfect for me to recover and let go of the perception. Imagine, if everytime you thought of eggs a loud banging noise happened over, and over, and OVER, and OVER again. Did I mention it happens over again? Another thing that scared the crap out of me is I heard a voice say in a demonic creepy whisper "i can see youuuu". I thought this was the devil trying to get me since the theme of my second episode was religion and I perceived and expereinced other people as demons, angels,( I didn't ahllucinate objects but my perception which is like a hallucniation but not the same) and me being roomed in with the devil in jail. Finally, the voice in combination with my OCD and habits of thinking, cause me to think a lot of times in a way that isn't healthy or productive to my emotinal state. An example, would be imainging what I would say to somebody I am angry at and talking to myself and saying what I would say. This triggers and creates anger, a negative judgement of the person, and teaches me to be negative and form a negative personality. When I catch myself I stop. Another thing if forgot to mention that is highly important is that when I am feeling emotional and wanting to cry when I listen to music because I am letting go of things or feeling really excited and beginning to garner hope and postive thoughts, the voice comes in and sabtoages me. It says stupid things like "your a *****." "your stupid" "how do you know it is real?" "what if ____ makes fun of you for it?. It says these things in a way that is mocking and intentionally hurtful. And I really feel like it is a different person when I talk to myself through the voice because that isn't who I really am or what I really believe or want to. And it really contradicts my emtoinal state too. Alright, So this is a basic, yet detailed and in-depth look at what it is like for me to have schizophrenia. And remember this is jsut ONE porblem I have. This isn't inlcuding other things such as my struggle to not think negative and fight depression so that I can feel any amount of happiness. Hope you liked this and maybe learned something from it.

[Daughter of the Nine Moons]

I think it's brave of you to open a discussion on mental illness and not let it stigmatize you.

[+OverSword]

Are you on medication? My Uncle suffers from Schizophrenia and has to take medication which is always having to be changed because his brain compensates for it. I wish you luck, you seem like a really nice guy.

[Just_Seeking]

Thanks for sharing your story. Stay strong good luck and God bless.

[Luxord]

I think it's brave of you to open a discussion on mental illness and not let it stigmatize you.

Thank you. I believe I do have negative beliefs about myself regarding my circumstances and illnesses, but not to an extreme extent to where I believe it is disgraceful. I had to look up the word stigmatize. And yeah, I do take medications, but for my mood and to prevent another psychtoic episode and not for shizophrenia. And honestly, I am thankful for that and it is a relief. Why? Because I know I need it to go away on its own and not have to take medications that don't let you naturally deal with it. Not to mention the side effects. Edited March 4, 2015 by tomatoedrama

[She-ra]

I'm going to PM you something.

[SpiritWriter]

Thanks for sharing.