Schizophrenia Diaries

Hi, my name is Shyanne Powell I was born on september, 29 1990, when I was growing up my mom, grandpa, and I had tooken care and helped my granmother who suffered from schitzophrenia and other problems that were physical, I remember waking up every night to remind her to take off her oxegyn before she started smoking her ciggeretts, then in augest 4, 2004 we laid her to rest I was 13 going on 14.

After, I had started the eighth grade alot of things started to change both me and my so called friends but of course the whole time i was growing up i had no real friends who cared but that year is what kicked started everything after my grandmothers death it seemed like and felt like things had changed over night my sucidle thoughts had become worse and I had become paranoid about everything then, there was a night i whould never forget, i had gone over to a so called friends house me and her where thinking about starting a band so we desided to have a sleep over so i went over and once my mom left she asked me if i wanted to get high i said yes of course only because i was peer pressured, that night i went to sleep and was raped, after that it was nothing but halusanations and paranoia.

when i had tured 15 years old i had been idmitted for the first time, i was in and out of hospitles for 3 or 4 years my exsperiances at those places brought me more harm than good all i got was my thoughts and dreams washed away by telling me i whould not make it to graduate high school and i was indangered to be homeless then finally my finnal time in a hospital to one that i had been to seven or more times they had finnaly found the medacine that worked and its name is “clozerail” and once released i was put in a group home but the real test was when i had started school my senier year i had missed my other three years so i was pretty excited although it wasnt a normal school with sports or what not but it was pretty cool with the art classes i got into it but what made me irratated was when my case worker and team was trying to stop me from graduating on time which i did not listen i kept working then my voc rehab specialist tryed to convince my school princabule to have me stop
school for the rest of the year so i could get funding and graduate late , my princable did not go for it she thought it was crule so i continued my work and graduated high school on time with my class,

class of 2009

A couple of years ago, my older brother was a quiet, shy, not so confident guy. Whenever someone asked me about my brother, I could never quite describe him. I would usually say something along the lines of.. a really nice guy, quiet, smart & a gentle giant. Paul was the quiet angel of our family, whereas I was the moody, screaming teenager.
I don’t mean to talk about him in past tense, like he isn’t here. He well and truly is, at age 24, still living at home with our dad, after my mum made him move out.
In about late 2006, he was diagnosed with Disorganized typed Schizophrenia. A shock to my parents, but not so much to me, as I always knew he was a bit ‘different’.
It all started with him hanging out with a group of friends he was close with since primary school. They had a band and played on weekends, usually at one of their houses. There they drank and I’m assuming smoked a fair bit too from what my brother told me. I never thought my brother would try that stuff, after the way my mother brought us up. She was very disapproving of drugs, I suppose like most parents, and he wasn’t the type to go against what mum had to say, or let her down.
He started becoming very withdrawn from his friends, he was chatting with them on Facebook & Myspace quite a lot, but just stopped, and stopped communicating with them.
This is when it all started.
He started saying really strange things, like ” My friend is plotting things against me” and “Do you think I could take over the world with facebook”, and he would just come out with the strangest things. Mum & I would just get so angry with him because I suppose we didn’t get it.
He started to walk around the house alot. He would just do laps of the house, open every single door and turn the heater up, leave lights on etc. Very very annoying. He also started to have about 5-10 showers a day, all half hour ones too.
He would walk around in a beenie, gloves and jacket on hot days. I knew there was something unnatural going on in his brain to make him act like that, I knew he couldnt help it, but it was just so frustrating. Where did my big brother go?
He would also study maths every day, he said it was because he needed to keep his skills up which he learnt in his Diploma of Engineering. This is definetely a good thing I suppose.
I always thought he was excellent at Math, as he used to teach me. But after recently reading his school reports, he actually had quite low scores in Math. But ask him what 100 minus 23 is and jhe ust wouldnt know, but ask him a really long algebra equation and I bet he would know how to do it. Strange huh?
After about a year of this kind of stuff and seeing counsellors etc, he was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. Much to our relief, as I could better understand him, and know it was not his fault, but the illness itself.
Mum thought she understood. I know now that she just couldn’t deal with it anymore, so she asked him to move to my dads place, 5 minutes away. I guess it didn’t help that all of this started when mum had anothe rbaby with her partner or 6 years. She was trying to look after two kids at once I suppose. She still sees him once a week or so, but I wish she would care alot more and show him she loves him. I know she does, but I don’t know if he knows that.
So after two years or so, his condition has dramatically improved. He has finally got a job three days a week as a cleaner, something he knows well after working under my mums business. And he is also studying Literacy & Numeracy. I see him once every two weeks or so, but sometimes it can just be draining trying to make conversation and taking the lead in everything. I love my brother, but I just miss the way he used to be. He isn’t the same person anymore, he was my big brother, now I feel like his big sister.

i would like to aim this for all the partners and family members who live and share there lifes with the person who has become cruley cursed with SCHIZOPHRENIA.this evil illness is probably one the most challenging trying experiences to all involved,my partner of 8 years is a schizophrenic with personality disorder,when i first meet him i thought id meet the most loviest caring kind man that i could ever meet,he moved in with us after a few weeks and id never been so happy after lots of unhappy years.he was 42 and i 32 with two children aged 4 and 9 to who he was great.It didnt take very long till i started to see strange little stupid things,or he would answer me in a odd way which would confuss me but not him,he was a alcholic but not a drunk,he was allso on antidepresants and had been for alot of years,which i didnt think any thing strange i know lots of people who take them including myself in the past.this one night after about 6 months we went out and he got very drunk after we
got home he began to act very strange and talking and shouting out,but there wasnt anyone with him,when i asked him who he was talking to he bagan crying and acting like a young child,you going to live me if i say,:if you say what i asked,it took him a fews hours of crying and panicing behavior before he said IAM A FUCKING NUTTER you dont know what ive done and i hear voices…….i burst into laughter thinking hes just drunk and mucking about,untill i looked at him i assumed he was laughing aswell,but he wasnt,his face had change and allso his mood and his behavior, naw he was very aggressive angry and very frightning,this was not the person who i knew,i was very scared and started to cry asking him whats the matter,the more fear i showed the more he seemed to become worse with in a few mins he sat down and had a razor in his hands i was petrified i really thought i was going to die,i was so confused id never experienced anything close to this,all i could think to do was talk to
him very softly and loving and i held his hand and told him that i loved him very much and how happy iwas that id meet him and asked him to talk to me and what was going on to why he was acting like this he then began to self harm up his arms quite servere there was blood pouring out every where but he calmly carryed on cutting even though ibegan screaming and begging him to stop,he began rocking backwards and forwards asking me to stab him,he then got up and went into our kithen and picked up a big knife held it sharp point to his stomach and asked me to push it in then grabing my hand and tryed to make me push it into him,oh my god i thought what on earth happening i began shouting and screaming at quite aggresively i guess due to shock some haw i managed to grab the knife of him and he ran of to the bedroom crying.I Grabbed all the knifes in the kitchen and threw them out the window of our secondfloor, flat in a terrible state i wondered what he was doing in there i could hear
him once again talking to himself and crying i didnt have a clue what was going on or what to do or who he was,i went into our room and asked him if he would like a drink as iam having one,hea said yes please he was once again back to the child like ways he was to begin with and feeling very sorry for himself in a very winy manner just the same as a child of 4 would behave he was rocking back and forth with one hand up to face sucking on a few fingers, it was exactly as child.i made our drinks and sat next to him on our bed he still crying sayins sorry over and over again and kept saying that i was going to leave him again,i suggested we got into bed and go to sleep and well chat in the morning,i really was so confused and scared it was the only thing i could think off,and after that vodka was hoping hed pass out as i gave him it practicaly neat with tiny bit of coke.i was planing on sitting up all night or sleeping with one eye open.as he layed down i told him i loved him and he
replied back the same still crying and he said to me{iam going to die any}meaning himself,i sat up quike and asked him what he meant after half hour of asking him he started to fall in and out of conciousness and his eyes were going in the back of his head ibagan screaming and shakeing him shouting at him what has he done,i jumped out of bed and ran to find my phone i ran back to the bedroom round his side as i could only get phone signal by the window,thats when i noticed all the empty packets of tablets by the bed i phoned for a ambulance straight away whichcame within 10 min,at the hospital they gave him a stomach pump which was touch and go he was in a bad way,and i mad it all worse be giving him that huge vodka that he downed in one.As i sat out side that room were he was i didnt know what the hell was going on ithink i was in a state of shock and very emotional sad and confused and on my own i wasnt going to phone my mum and tell her even though i really needed her more than
ever,i know whAT she would say straight away ,and my dad would go mental and wont to kill him,i phoned his long term mate who he was very close to and asked him to come to the hospital as he was in being seen as he was very drunk,and nothing else.he arrived soon after and we began to talk i needed to know what the bloody hell that was all about and told him would he was doing,he was not surprised at all and quite calmly told me that he was a manic deppressive paranoid registered schizophrenic, and sayed i thought you knew…….my stomach and mouth hit the floor then it doomed on me that he could have killed me, and that ive been living with a tidking time tomb and my kids have been around this mad psychopath who was capable of any thing i had very little knowledge of the illness and assumed they were all mental and very dangerous and a liability,haw wrong was i,i left the hospital and went home on my own and broke down i cryed all night very confused angry disgusted with my self
and very mixed up.th e next day the hospital phoned saying he was asking for me,i didnt know what i wonted to do,Iknow what i should have done?thats ran in the opposite direction and never look back,but i couldnt it didnt feel right and that confused more,i had had fallen in love with him and he was Mr perfect,but i didnt really know he is he could have been any one on them.i went to the hopital and asked to speak to a psyciatrist or th main person who new about this,three and half hours of listening to him and a lot of sad shocking truths and how lonely and confusing this illness is to cope with and that its not mad people at all they cannot help it or even aware of it or do they know about the different personalities or behaviour changed they go through,but it was reasuring to hear there was medication to take and a normal life led,I naw had to decide my fourture ahead and if i was able to cope or handle the possibilities that could possibly lay a head ……that was 7 and half
years ago,no its not all been easy and its pushed me way to the limits and on the edge of a break down on more than one occassion.and as for him in that time 8 over doses 9 terrible terrifing episodes of psychosis and a lot of heard ache and hard work and as i write this hes in hospital having been sectioned,but i love him very much and he loves me hes my man who i could never be without and a wonderful kind loving person who adores my daughter…it breaks my heart to see the suffering and fear in his eyes that he must be going through and when the voices are telling him to do bad thing i see the agony and cant even start to think what my darling baby is going through i hate it so much that i cant stop them when he begs so much to make them stop…………..i would do anything at that point to help him

“Mom! why are you sending me messages?!”

I am 22 year old and I have 2 married sisters and one single bro .I’m the youngest among siblings and all of them are living abroad.

My Mom is schizophrenic since even before the birth of my eldest sis who is now 34 year old. I don’t know how it all happened tht Mum got schizophrenic after she got married. I could never ask my dad and my sis neither ever told me how mum came into this disease.(Maybe she herself doesn’t know)

She takes medicines to cure the disease and these medicines she has been taking for almost about 15 years.These medicines I give her in the morning and before going to bed and she doesn’t know that am giving her these medicines. She is diabetic and hypertensed too and when I give her the medicines advised by the psychiatrist so long ago , I tell her that these are for diabetes and hypertension. If I ever told her that these were given by a psychiatrist then she would never take them.After taking these medicines she sometimes does feel normal for a few hours but then again soon starts shouting and screaming .In the begining she was taken by her parents to doc to get shocks which did help but mum didn’t agree to continue havin those shocks. Even now whenever I tried to take her to a psychiatrist she refuses to go. Even if she agrees to go yet she doesn’t take any shots or medicines they advise. All this has made my life terrible. I have no confidence to face people as mum acts so weird
before people . She yells all the time at home and dad also gets disturbed with it . she gets hallucinations as in she talks to someone while looking at walls or somewhere in the air. i can’t invite my friends at my place , I can’t talk to anyone so regularly on phone because her shouts are echoing all the time in the house. I have to spend most of my time with mom, no other activities , no fun.The building we live in has another family too whom i can’t meet or befriend with because they’re gonna ask me why ur mum acts so weird, because people here laugh at someone acting like this rather than helping. It’s so embarrassing for me when mum screams at the unseen character and the other family does notice it am sure.

Even when mum watches TV dramas, she associates all the stories to herself. For example if she sees a girl being murdered in a drama then she’ll assume tht this girl is she herself and then would worry that the unseen character is gonna kill her.

There is a lot , a lot, a lot to say. And I never share this thing with anyone. Don’t even have close friends cuz then they’re gonna ask me to let them visit me which is not possible because mum would keep yelling , how’m i gonna stop her shouting.

I think I have to live with it.

always_worried@yahoo.com