Schizophrenia Diaries

Positive Symptoms

A patient of society’s asylum
I take time to consider my senses and make decisions
Knowing what I feel and think
And what I can learn from their calling.
Pressure builds subversiveness
As my knowledge is suspect
And so escape to the ward to read myself discipline My beliefs are paranoid and have been challenged
By those subversives around me
And I must be mad, not to heed their warning
And recognise the threat of discontent – should they know its cause
Beyond the pale of the expected
I fear the prospect of change
Should it bring the desire forgiven
Then I propose I toast to mine own recovery.
Though the threat of my adversaries welcome
Strikes due consideration into my learning -
What may be lost to them?
Should my resistance weaken and fail
Then the independence I have gained will surely lay – down
As a martyr to what went before
And revelation will wake me soon

Negative Symptoms

Nothing changes, left alone in solitude
Surrounded by objects of labour and passion
Plenty happens here at home
But all is lost to amusement not gain
My plans for the future I have already known went awry long ago in the past
When I could enjoy life for what it offered
Now it just presents its curse of solitude and long held dreams failed
Letting disappointment and resentment to settle heavy in my heart
Causing me psychoses and other labours of the soul
Whispers, insulting me in silence
Stir me to shout my innocence out loud to the walls
Should they listen
Or anyone else who may hear my protest
Though none will foster and fewer care for my wellbeing
My beliefs are sentiment to my own derision
And failure
To be as good as the next man