Everything is a drone of noise, I feel distorted and unplugged from reality. I don`t feel myself. I ask myself what are these limbs I carry, why are they hard in the centre ? I have lost all interest in life and my goals. I feel like a toppled pawn. MY life has no purpose left. The delusional thinking is killing me and I want to know why thinks work the way they do.

Why did my drunk brother beat me up and my parents did nothing.I think maybe this was the cause of my illness,all the stress and the hits to my skull.

I just want to climb out of my skin I fell uncomfortable trapped inside this human body.I tried to commit suicide and I didn`t realize it.I saw my arms like tentacles they were attacking me and I defended myself.People appear smaller and their heads have shrunk.I have lost my social skills.My emotions are confused and my mind is distorted.I self medicated with weed to help me ,but it only helped for a little while.My character changed and the way I mean and do things.I would walk around the house for hours talking and thinking to myself.I became obsessed with a Band called Pig destroyer.I believed they wrote about my life.I foiled my room believing it will protect me from RF links and EMI so that I cant be controlled.I thought I was an alien and my mission was to observe people and make a report.my parents were my tutorial.I believed everyone can copy my mind and hear my thoughts but I cannot do the same even if I was supposed to.I wrote strange things on my foiled walls.weird things
and pig destroyer lyrics.I carved alien like signs in my arms and burned a symbol in my chest .my mind would run into walls and i would talk funny according to witnesses.I cant remember much anymore but it basicly sucked.I`d forget things and my memory was delayed.I couldn`t meet people and talk to strangers.

I was diagnosed by a psychiatrist and the professor of psychiatry in south africa.I was put onto respirdal and depramil.I don`t know how things will be from now on but it seems a bit better.

Sometime in the summer of 2005 I was getting very nervous or I had symptoms of anxiety. I had headache, very nervous, and sweaty and I can easily smell myself even though I just had a shower. One afternoon I went home from work, I thought I was having flu. One thing that I couldn’t understand was I was shaking very much. I was very nervous for no particular reason. I thought something bad is happening to my family back home.

Then finally I have this thought that people have been following me around every where I go, even my work they were there watching me. I didn’t know why: it was driving me crazy. I thought I was a subject of a study and these people following me were students and researchers of Mental illness and they are trying to humiliate me to put me to hospital because somehow they know me and all my personal emails were being hacked. They were humiliating me through broadcasting everything I say in the radio.
I thought I was a fish that they were trying to fish. Everytime I hear radio they sing to me and it’s all about me. Even articles in the newspaper have hidden meaning and the subject were about me. They were humiliating me to drive me crazy so that they can put me to the hospital.

Then I started having these ideas that some articles and comics stories in the newspaper have hidden meaning so that all people can’t understand it. They make fun of you in the radio or newspaper and they hide it. Newspapers are afraid to be racist so they hide it through their comic stories and words.
Everything I read started to have different meanings.

I stopped listening to radio and I stopped watching TV because I felt that everything they talk about is offensive. It was hard for me and making me very angry that people were talking about me and laughing at me and listening to me. I started becoming weak and very depressed. I started calling for God, I asked why are they doing these to me. I stayed in my room a lot.

Finally I moved back home to my parents house and my mom was so worry because of my crazy stories. She ended up calling for help. A social worker and a police officer picked me up in my house to put me to the hospital.

I was diagnosed with schizo-effective disorder. I was even more depressed when they told me I had mental illness. I didn’t believe it, instead I thought it was just a bad events in my life and God is trying to call me or some spiritual calling. I had some spiritual longing in my heart and due to the sickness it became distorted. I started hearing voices and hallucination: I thought I was special.
The voices were telling me what to do, even telling me some stories. I thought I was having telepathy because I can hear my friends’ voice while I’m locked up in the hospital. I didn’t know whose voices I was hearing I thought I was talking to ghosts. At night I was so afraid to sleep because I was afraid the devil will get me.

I’ve been in the hospital 5 times before I realized and accepted that I was really sick. I been in in few medication but because of side effects I didn’t take them properly. It took about 3 years before I’m back to myself again. I feel lucky because I stopped my medication and I am well now, I don’t hear voices anymore. All my paranoia is gone. I feel better now. It’s like a miracle.

Having mental illness have many stages:
First stage– not knowing you’re sick, getting the symptoms
Second– sickness getting worst so you ended up in the hospital for treatment
Third– getting diagnosed
Fourth– YOu don’t accept that you have mental illness because of stigma so you don’t want to get proper help so you have relapses or you get sicker
Fifth– Acceptance that you’re sick
Sixth– Getting theraphy and and taking your treatment seriously
Seventh– relapses because you stop taking your medication
Eigth– Being sick again
Nineth– some people have to stay in medication a lifetime to stay well, some get lucky and be well after few years of taking medication

What I have come to, that has cured me, is that people can not know who you are. Because, Who you believe yourself to be in your heart is who you are (Your Soul) From your soul is where you get regular functioning. You can decide how you want to come across to people and what is important for you to do and get done. If you believe that somebody could know this part of you it would throw you off completely from who you really are, and you would not be able to function the same and also you would begin to think all sorts of different dillusions about who you are and what reality really is!

So regaining a stable concept of what a normal person’s function is has enabled me to reconnect with my actual soul and to be in control of a ‘me’ that I actually recognize. To do this you must know that you heart (feelings) and your soul (who you believe yourself to be in your heart.) are hidden from the world.

I think a functioning in ourselves that we had never known about came over us suddenly and we were unable to distinguish the true boundry lines. This functioning is known as telepathy, being able to connect with other people in our minds. This is a function that we have control over. We can control what we speak in a similar manner to controling what we think. So having your thoughts known isn’t a privacy issue seeing that we choose what we will reveal to people!

Tom

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I was in and out of the hospital and day treatment for a while, as the voices came and went. Sometimes I felt so good that I was in denial about my illness… until symptoms returned. I was so tired of treatment at that point, tired of the stigma I felt from my own mother and even my psychiatrist. He’d told her I’d be disabled for the rest of my life, and she believed it—neither of them thought that a person with a mental illness like schizophrenia could recover.

I couldn’t stand the stigma, so I moved out. My plan was to find a job, but I ended up homeless on the streets in Florida. I had no food, no medicine, and a job working a concession stand. For a while, I was living in someone’s garage, and in exchange for the living space, I had to do all kinds of work. When my symptoms became more severe, I was taken to a crisis unit.

This is where my story turns around. For the first time in my life, I was connected with a social worker who helped me get case management, Social Security, clothes, food, and shelter in an assisted living facility. My insecurities about living alone started to go away, and I felt motivated. This was the beginning of my recovery.

I was prescribed newer, more effective medicines, and a drug called Respidol finally made the voices disappear for good. I was able to live on my own in a regular apartment for the first time. I learned basic coping skills from my case managers and friends, as well as from consumer advocates who had experience in the mental health system. They taught me how to advocate for myself. Their help was so important in my recovery process, it made me want to give something back. I started telling my own story to consumers. Amazingly, I found that doing this not only inspired others, but helped my own recovery. The momentum kept building, like an upward spiral.

After 20 years, I finally went back to college. There were case managers who doubted me, who said I shouldn’t apply for student loans because I might not be able to get the necessary grades. But in the 1990s, I got my bachelor’s and subsequent master’s degree in social work and consistently achieved straight A’s. At this point I was completely independent. I was off Social Security, off Medicare and Medicaid, off subsidized housing. I now own a condo through a rent-to-own program I created, and that’s where I live… with my wife. Did I forget to mention I got married?

Now, I’m the coordinator for the Office of Consumer Affairs in Florida, an office funded by the Florida Department of Children and Families. I supervise peer specialists who are sharing their stories the way I shared mine. When my organization conducts focus groups with consumers, they usually say that it’s a little bit of everything that helped them the most. Not just medicine, not just therapy, not just financial stability, etc. It’s all important to work on, and it’s different for every consumer. Recovery is an individual thing. No one can tell you how to do it—the important thing is to know you can. You have the power and ability to make recovery a reality.

William McDaniels

My diagnosis was schizophrenia. After the hospitalization, I continued with therapy and medication. I continued trying to work, but I couldn’t keep a job very long. I tried clerical work, proofreading, waitressing. I even tried substitute teaching (I had gotten a teaching degree as “something to fall back on”) but my illness caused me to treat the students inappropriately.

One of my psychiatrists suggested I try to get a civil service job. At first I was reluctant, because I thought I’d be working with people like me. Eventually, I started working with people with mental retardation. There was a provision in the job that allowed me to take off 12 weeks if I worked 1250 hours. That leave helped considerably, and I kept that job for about 11 years.

I had a very bad day treatment experience in 1998. At the day treatment program in New York, someone committed suicide. I had to leave after that, and I went home to Florida, thinking my life was over. I was cut off from my medication, and I constantly thought about death and dying.

A psychiatric assessment center helped me find a source of medication again. The center also ran a day treatment program. Despite my doubts after my last day treatment, I ended up going there. And even to this day I miss it. It was the best.

This program was great because it was long-term (I stayed from July 1998 to February 1999) and because the people were really caring. I had a car and could drive myself, but the occupational therapist always said to me, “We’ll pick you up.” This was so helpful because I had to be up, showered, and ready for the car at 8:30. It got me out of bed.

The day program was instrumental in me securing a volunteer position at a place that helps find housing for people with special needs, mental illness. I volunteered there for approximately four years. Now I work there part-time. I help people with mental illness find housing, and it’s something I want to do. It’s a far cry from the other jobs I’ve had. I never thought I’d be paid to talk on the phone!

In addition to my work, I volunteer for the Mental Health Association and facilitate a Schizophrenics Anonymous support group. I think being busy and having something to do is important. I still spend some time at home, but I try to get out every day.

When a person is ill, it’s important to have the support of family and friends. I stayed away from my family for 22 years thinking that if I came home, they’d lock me away in an asylum. But to my surprise, they were very supportive. Of course, some are less supportive than others. There are people who say “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just spoiled.” But there are always going to be people who don’t accept it. A mental illness isn’t like a physical handicap—you can’t see it.

Drop-in centers are very important places for consumers to go as an alternative to isolating themselves at home. Presently I attend and am active member at three drop-in-centers including 9 Muses Art Center, in Lauderhill, FL; REBELS Drop-in-Center in Hollywood, FL; and the Personal Empowerment Education and Recreation (PEER) Center in Oakland Park, FL. Before leaving New York to help in my recovery I also attended drop-in-centers there.

I used to think I was doomed. I used to talk about how I would prepare for my funeral. Looking back on that now, I feel marvelous. As long as there’s life, there’s hope.

Sandra E. Sears

A few days before the onset, I can clearly remember sitting for hours at this coffee shop that was just next to my ex’s place and hoping I would catch a glimpse at her going in to her appartment with her new boyfriend. I completely rejected any of my friends support since it wasn’t the first time this had happened and I had deliberately decided to dwell by myself to get over it this time.

The day the onset started : I was in my room, my friend called me and told me that I have been unusually isolating myself this past week. I still refused to see anyone. I played some very sad music and started writing a letter to my ex, but this time it was evident that I was starting to experience an altered state of consciousness. The letter ended up to be coherent according to my ex, but I wasn’t expecting it, as I have found trouble reading it. I drop it in her letter box.

The next day I cross into her in the library. I had to work for my upcoming midterm. I remember spending 5 hours on 3 lines I was starting to enjoy the visual halluscinations I was experiencing ( green colors). (Note that these hallucinations were somewhat differently experiencing then the later ones when I was in my recovery phase : although the colors were the same, in my pre-schizophrenic state I was deliberately forcing myself to have these hallucinations in the library, whereas in my schizophrenic state I was experiencing them out of the blue and had to work on ignoring them, maybe it had something to do with my consciousness in the first case and my unconsciousness in the second case ? ). My ex noticed that I was very bizarre.

There are other details and odd behavior as well but I won’t talk about them.

The onset lasted 2 days. At that time, I wasn’t aware that the state of mind I was experiencing was going to be a chronic one. I am thankful for that because I would have commited suicide. 2 months later I experienced my first and last psychotic relapse. During the first stages of my relapse, I was having delusions and one of them was that I was schizophrenic. Ironic. I thought at this time that it was what it is not, that is split personnality. I had this habit to google every delusion and as I was searching for schizophrenic I found out that its describtion was compatible with what I was experiencing, thus I automatically rejected it as it was not very amusing since I was seeking to distort my true identity. A few days later my dad took me to a psychiatrist and I told her I have schizophrenia, eventhough I also had delusions on the side and was purely psychotic. She was astonished by that.

A few weeks later I was in Lebanon, and I went to see a psychologist. He insisted that I stay in the country and continue my studies here since I can get family support. I started university barely beeing able to cope with my personal hygiene and going to class. I dropped a few classes but I was still able to hang on there. I made a few friends. My grades were weak but passing courses. This spring I finished my fourth semester in this university in computer science and the Spring semester was my first full-time student semester. I am proud of myself. I am currently taking a summer course and doing well. I have periods of distress but I am always confident that I won’t go downhill since I say to myself that I have been able to cope with previous ones everytime a new prodromal period comes up.

Everyday is a fight for me to go on in my life, there won’t be a day where I would live the life I had, but it is a good life now. I think recovery is not when u don’t have symptoms but when you are able to control your life and live a productive life, hence the dissapearance of symptoms will be a consequence of that, and not the other way around.

The key factors to my recovery were:
- Living by myself without any family caregiver
- Meeting friends and being in social situations
- Playing the guitar which contributed to 40% of my recovery
- Reading books

The key factors to my recovery were not:
- doing drugs or alcohol ( I smoked pot once after the onset and it was a very displeasurable experience and I wouldn’t advise to anyone, I drink from time to time a beer when I am in bars but I try to limit myself to 3 beers per week max)
- Living with my parents ( I think it is important to have your own space and learn to take care of yourself.
Someone who is there to tell you to take a shower or to do the dishes for you is not going to encourage me to do it by myself.
Schizophrenia is a disabling disorder but the person affected by it is well aware of the way they endeavor to live their lives.
To make myself clearer, it was helpful for me to live in the dirt in the begining in order for me to take care of my house and personal hygiene).

As for medication, I am currently on 0.5 mg of risperdal, but I am not a big fan of medication and I cannot contribute any of my recovery on them.