Schizo: A Memoir

Let's Talk...

I couldn't be more wrong.

Here it is, almost 4 o'clock in the morning and I'm up with an itch to write. My brain is threatening to do me in, I swear. Every idea that flutters into my mind sounds awesome but I am unable to tackle them all. I need a clone with simultaneous brain waves and telepathy. I need a machine that can kick this stuff out. I need.....more time! But I'm wrong to just start talking without apologizing for my absence. I am sorry please forgive me.

As I am finding out, this writing as a career choice ain't half bad. I'm not a paid writer yet but I'm still working towards that...I have to have the stories for the monies so I submerse myself in my writing.

So the new project is called ...The Life and Times of DeChelle and DeVine.

There will be some truth to the story I'm telling, actually, a lot of truth. And that's fine with me, I want to tell MY story and involve the one I created. I see it being pretty damned complicated to write but I hope the reading is easy. I just have to find the right music to help push me along.

My mind isn't the jumbled mess it was when I penned Of Flesh and Blood for nanowrimo, which is awesome in itself but I am experiencing a lot of anxiety over the start of the story and with a specific aspect of my life. I always wonder if I'm managing my schizo well. I talk about the things that I am doing for it with my therapist and to my surprise she tells me I'm doing right but...BUT I always feel like I'm messing up or doing something to cause an episode.

The plain truth is this.....Schizophrenia is unpredictable. It's a life long disease for which there is no cure. It's hard to live with and its especially hard to think when an episode sets off. Very few understand it, very few want to understand it and it has an ugly stigma attached to it. My diagnosis is severe clinical depression, anxiety and neurosis with a side helping of Schizphrenia and Schizoeffective. I have had hallucinations...auditory, visual, taste, smell and touch. That means I hear voices and other sounds that aren't there, I see things that aren't there, I've tasted things I've not put in my mouth (grass and cinnamon), smelled phantom things in the air and have felt as though I was being hit or touched by someone that wasn't there. In the beginning, before the medicine, before the doctors and the therapist - I was free falling. Those things that I had just described up there were out of control so much so that I thought there was a person, that I could only see - no one else, beating me up. So because I was convinced that he could feel my pain - because that's what his voice said and he begged me not to hit him back - that I began harming myself to make him hurt.

Now I know what you're thinking....the girl is nuts and certifiable. Nuts no, certifiable yes! And if you're not thinking that then you are thinking, how does a female hear male voices in her head. People, this is something I really want to know for myself. I've heard the voices of angels as that is what they announced themselves to be and I have held 2 way conversations with God. Q & A with the big man upstairs and wasn't harmed by it until it took an ugly turn for the worst. I've been haunted in my mind and home by the figments of my imagination, waking nightmares and hallucinations of disturbing visions right before my eyes. But some how - through all of that, I never questioned my faith. I never questioned God's existence, if anything I figured he can do what he wants with us people here on earth and if my mental illness is to be my long suffering, then so be it. But you had best believe that I prayed like Jesus did when he fell on his face in the garden to ask the Lord to take his cup from him. I did the same exact thing everyday the voices spoke. Today I am good. No voices, no out of control emotions and no hallucinations and that is how I know God is good. He's leading me through this - as I asked of him to do. He's showing me the ropes and instilling in me the skills I need to get through this, traits to remind me who I belong to and hope - to know that trouble doesn't last always. As he told Paul about the thorn in his flesh - his grace is sufficient enough. And when my issues grow bigger than me - he takes it for me. Sorry to gush, but I will boast on him. My learning experiences have made me tougher, stronger and more compassionate to people like me and to the family members that suffer along with this.

It seems I learn something new of this disease every day. I learn my strengths and weaknesses, the things I can handle and the things I can't. How I interact with people and how they interact with me. Right down to what my silences mean to me and how they are percieved by everyone else. I'm learning what my triggers are and the signs of an oncoming attack. Last but not least - I'm learning to be intelligent with my decision making. Giving a wide birth to the things that could hurt me.

(The damned pills are hurting me but I'm not allowed to complain about that because they are what is needed.)

Drama...I've never stopped taking them, that's just not in my best interest but I'm gaining some weight and that is pissing me off. The doctor took forever getting me meds and then blamed me for his mistake. My fault was that my memory isn't what it used to be since the onset of Schizophrenia...its one of the side effects of the disease but knowing this about me, he should have been prepared where I could not be. Communication is a two way street.

Anyway...I can see where I've come from. And I'm doing great. I just have to keep that in my mind. Along with the fact that the episodes occur a whole lot less now. I'm pretty much just dealing with anxiety attacks but being ever watchful because they too can sometimes can initiate the schizophrenia.


Everything is one day at a time and I'm fine with that. It's what I need. The worst thing I can do, is rush the healing process. Time takes great care of us, illness or not but we have to be willing to let it work out for us. 

When next we meet again. My prayers and wishes are with you.