Schizophrenia Diaries

It all started around March 2006 when I was attending McGill University in Montreal, majoring in electrical engineering. I was 19 years old at that time. A whole month prior to the onset I had done 5 Grams of magic mushrooms, and my 2 years relationship with a girl was starting to fall apart. a week before the onset, I learn that the girl I was dating was sleeping with someone else. Studies were starting to be unbearable as I was struggling between going to class and coping with the fact that my ex is enjoying her sex life with someone else.

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.

I had a illness as a child. I had to deal with diabeates and it was disturbing to me as a young person my life was disrupted. I became religious at a young age and precocoius. I do not know when it was I began to feel gay or sexual confused..

I was also creative. My mother did not know abut my agressions. or my reactions to being a diabetic.. I also liked in school to coerce people to target persons I was jelous of or had things I did not. I was a manipulator. In life I had visions of witch craft and occult . I was a what u call a gay bully type..

I grew up a born again christian at age 9.

I was not very athletic , or other. I had alot of friends. There were people I wanted to hurt, and to be evil to. I felt I could see things others could not.
This would make me do things and feel I was invincible. ig to to art school and got a job in a gallery I continued to want to target others. and be the agressor… I had trouble with drugs and alchol. and other delusions and over sexual expreiences multiple sex parenters and unsafe male sex.. heoroin cocaine..

I also had some female enconters. but had trouble with woman and men.. I was jelous of people who did not have my conditons and were musical. I was not a musical person. I was a creative person though and it made me friends and got me a job at a gallery..

Eventualy I was able to drive one girl into a mental hospital. I liked to indulge in my psychic insights, it allowed me to intimidate persons who I felt were unstable or fearful in unstable lives. I had a large group of friends and no one realy questinoed me but one person. Who was clean and sober with none of my problems who had my number. and was not afraid of me. eventuly this person was also driven into a state of madness.

I would have paranoid delusions at parties and also chase famous people around the art scene.. one day in my job I crashed and my boss had to talk to me. I reminded me of micheal alig and the club kids.

Now I make jewlery no one ever questioned my crimes or what things I did under the influences. some of them face uncertain lives.. and probaby sad deaths. I go on. I live in a rent stable apartment I got away from a girl who just happend to become heroin addicted. I live comfortable and could not without this place… I do sell jewelry and have connections.

My son Larry was a brilliant student, but his first puff of cannabis was the start of a terrifying descent into depression and paranoia that cost his life.

As a child, Larry had been bright, gifted and extremely energetic. Looking back I would say that he always found it difficult to communicate his feelings, and even when obviously distressed would tell me he was “fine”. At the time I just thought this was a typical male reluctance to reveal his emotions.

As his mother, my instinct tells me he would eventually have worked these through by himself if only he had never touched drugs. From the moment he smoked his first joint of cannabis to try to make himself feel better, Larry had started on a road that would lead him to severe mental disturbance.

Although by nature a shy boy, Larry made several lasting friendships at the local school he attended. He did brilliantly academically. Graham and I knew Larry found his first year at university difficult, although he rarely confided in anyone. He told me he hated his first lodgings.

I phoned a student counsellor, who went to see Larry, but our son simply told him he was fine. Larry later said that he had some of the best, and the worst, times of his life at university. But it was during the beginning of his second year that I discovered, to my horror, how he was using cannabis to try to solve his confidence problems.

I was appalled when he told me. Larry had always seemed sensible and I had trusted him not to do anything stupid. How could he behave like this? I know that thousands of students go out every weekend and use drugs, but knowing how highly-strung Larry was, I was terrified of the effect cannabis might have on him.

I had read about use of the drug being linked to psychosis and felt desperately afraid for him. What would these drugs do to his health and his future? I only hoped these feelings of low self-worth would pass, but I don’t believe Larry ever really got over his lack of self-esteem, even though he was tall, good-looking, and very clever. He had everything to live for if only he’d known it.

His father and I were out of our minds with worry. If he had been defiant or arrogant about his drug-taking, we could have shouted and threatened him. But Larry wasn’t like that at all. All we saw was an unhappy, disturbed boy who needed our help as he had never done before.

We realised he was in danger both of becoming dependent and psychiatrically disturbed by the drugs.

Yet all the time Larry claimed that he was only doing it to “make himself feel better”. I tried my best to persuade him to see the counsellor — but he was deeply suspicious of any attempts to help him and hated talking about himself or his feelings to anyone.

In 2000, he finally admitted to us that his use of cannabis and ecstasy had triggered a deep depression — ironically the very thing he had been battling all along. I said I’d do all I could to help him. At my request, Larry went to see our family GP and was prescribed an antidepressant. For a few months I hoped Larry might be getting better, but then in early 2001 I made a horrifying discovery. Larry had been ordering prescription-only medications over the Internet and using them in combination with cannabis and ecstasy.

Later I found out from the local pharmacist that hundreds, if not thousands, of unsolicited e-mails offering on-line drugs are sent to Internet users all over the world every day.

He didn’t even attempt to deny what he had been doing, but broke down, telling me over and over how sorry he was, and repeating: “I’m evil, you don’t really know me, Mum.” When I asked about the prescription drugs, he told me Valium was used to soften the come-down after taking ecstasy. I was appalled and, as any parent would be, dreadfully frightened that my son’s life was out of control. I kept thinking: “If only he had never started smoking cannabis, none of this would be happening.”

It seemed so obvious that it had led him on to more serious drugs. From then on, I was constantly trying to prevent Larry’s access to drugs. Sometimes I would go through his room and get rid of them. On one occasion I threw away as many as 200 Valium tablets. After confiding in both my local pharmacist and our GP, I started handing any drugs I found to them. I couldn’t understand how it could be possible young, vulnerable people could obtain prescription-only drugs online. Surely it was illegal?

I was beside myself with worry and stress, and made sure I had the chance to intercept the mail before Larry got it.

Looking back, I wonder how I managed to stay sane.

Partly as a result of my increasing stress about Larry, as well as the fact that I was also caring for my elderly mother, my husband Graham and I separated in May 2001. We remained loving friends, but simply had no reserves of energy left to put into our own relationship.

Larry continued to live with his father while Ros came with me. I noticed that Larry did not show any emotion at this time, either over our separation, or my mother’s death shortly afterwards. During the following year, Larry continued to be very unstable. I knew he was still experimenting with drugs obtained over the Internet, and he admitted that he was still using cannabis “occasionally”.

Yet all the time he claimed not to be doing this for thrills, but simply to feel better about himself. I asked him what we could do to help. He decided he wanted to live on his own and rented a unit close to his father and me. But he continued to act in a very frightening way.

In June 2002, he came to my house in a highly disturbed and paranoid state. Terrified, I took him to the local hospital, where he was eventually seen by the duty psychiatrist. An out-patient appointment was made for a few weeks later.

But Larry’s behaviour was deteriorating too rapidly for this to be of use. He barricaded himself into his room so that communication became impossible. It was agonising to see my brilliant child’s mind unravelling before my eyes.

Two weeks later, I had a phone call from Graham to say Larry had been taken to hospital after running in front of a bus. I felt almost faint with relief when he said Larry had not been hurt.

I went straight to the hospital, where the doctor on duty administered an anti-psychotic drug. Larry suddenly showed a dramatic improvement, proving the doctor’s diagnosis of a drug-induced psychosis to be correct. Yet a urine test showed he had taken only six codeine tablets.

When I talked to a drugs helpline, I discovered that psychosis does not have to be the result of drugs present in the body, but may be the result of drug abuse from years earlier. This is particularly linked with the long-term use of cannabis.

Recent medical research has established a strong link between the use of cannabis and the development of psychosis and schizophrenia in vulnerable young people. Scientists say that by disrupting the delicate chemical balance of the brain, the drug causes changes leading to long-term mental illness.

I kept Larry with me as much as possible for six weeks after that.

He seemed to be improving steadily, and appeared brighter and more optimistic about the future. I even persuaded him to see a counsellor. But a diary he kept shows his mood swings: “Still getting delusional thoughts — worst fears — dying painfully, having to relive my life again and again, voices encouraging me to kill myself.”

In the autumn he got a permanent job. He had moved back to his father’s, but frequently came around to me for dinner.

HE saw his psychiatrist regularly and was prescribed various anti-psychotic drugs.

Larry had complained of hearing voices and had been diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia from all the drugs he had taken.

By June last year, Larry was more active: swimming, cooking and playing the piano at home. I began to have hope. When I said he could live with me, he said he loved my house but felt there was something missing inside him.

He complained of an emotional numbness, described by psychiatrists as the “negative symptoms” of schizophrenia. He asked how he could go on for another 50 years feeling like this. On the day he died, he was due to come for lunch but he didn’t turn up and we were all worried. If he was not at his father’s house, where was he?

Even as I took that first call from Graham, I knew the answer. But it was not until about 20 agonising minutes later that Graham rang again: “Sue, come straight away. The police are here . . . Larry has thrown himself under a train.”

I didn’t ask whether our son was dead as I could not bear to be told over the telephone. Instead, after driving to the house in minutes, I ran up the path crying: “But he is all right, isn’t he?” Of course, in my heart I knew he wasn ‘t. Later the police told us that Larry had thrown himself under a train at 11 that morning.

Like any distraught mother, I blamed myself. Whatever I had done had not been enough. All I can do is hope to prevent other vulnerable people from being harmed by drugs in the way Larry was. I only wish with all my heart that I had been able to save my own son.

Wow…7 years gone and not a day goes by that I don’t hear something…I have it pretty managed now, if I was walking down the street you wouldn’t even know I have a label..for I am Schizophrenic…actually for I AM ME!!.

I suffered a drug induced moment that somehow followed me 7 years later…only because I should have stopped the pills and thrills, so it eventually went from an episode to a full on, life long illness.

My first episode involved me thinking I was the star of a movie..thinking I could see cameras..A STAR IS BORN…and not in the "normal" sense…it was a dream from when I was little that I would be a movie star and somehow as a 23 year old young women it came smacking back into my life..the thought of being a movie star.

Then it went from that to me not knowing what the hell was going on and I remember this over whelming feeling of wanting to crawl under a rock and hide. I did run…right into my Dad’s arms and my step mums embrace made me feel safe…not secure, for I was about to get a whole lot deeper and hear a whole lot more.

I walked around thru that city for days, trying to get the signs, trying to fight the spirits that the voice..let’s call him The Jim was telling me. He said you hear those noises in the roof, they are spirits and I am gonna help you fight them, good golly gosh and fight I did.

Seriously we would probably need months for me to tell the whole story but in a short version…I went thru religion, God, life, movies, reincarnation, every little kind of spiritual awakening I experienced made me who I am today. A happy and healthy Schizophrenic..God bless my life..he does everyday!

Written for Internet Mental Health, August 1996

When I first became ill is hard to say. There was no dramatic change in personality or behaviour. I was always quite shy and withdrawn throughout my teen years and early adulthood. When I turned 27, I moved from western Ontario to central British Columbia. The B.C. economy was booming and it was easy to find a job as a draftsman with a large utility company and I was doing quite well. For the first year I travelled extensively throughout the central interior, only home on weekends. I made a few friends, and even found a girl to fall in love with.

As the relationship grew she moved in with me and my roommate. I was still travelling a lot and only home on weekends. I had been a casual marijuana smoker and, with my girlfriend and my roommate, experimented with cocaine. I gradually became depressed and slept a lot when I was home, and withdrew even more. I became untrusting of people and even thought my girlfriend and roommate were having an affair behind my back, which turned out to be true. When I found this out to be true, the house broke up and we went our separate ways.

I thought I had a good reason to be depressed and paranoid, however the depression lasted too long and in time I couldn’t even work. After about 1 year of breaking up with my girlfriend I started to seek medical help, but the availability of services was limited and I couldn’t express my thoughts and feelings well enough to be understood. I was always having thoughts about my girlfriend and roommate and how I caught them. I was very depressed and unable to sleep.

Finally my parents came and “rescued” me. I went on sick leave from work and moved in with them. In the ensuing 6 months I attended an outpatient program at the local hospital and gradually started to feel better. With the introduction of Stelazine (trifluoperazine) (20mg/day) I quit ruminating about past events, gained trust in people and lost the depression.

When I recovered enough, I was discharged from day care and moved back up north with a reduction in medication and not knowing what the diagnosis was. After being home for a while and receiving counselling at the local hospital, I learned my diagnosis was schizophrenia and thought I was an “axe murderer type guy”. Not wanting to be schizophrenic I quit the medication; after all if you don’t take the medication, you don’t have the disease. This only lasted about 6 months, then I was hospitalized and treated for depression. The treatment for depression was 1/2 way working, however my thoughts were very jumbled and then I didn’t trust anyone, not even my therapists. My thoughts were like listening to 10 different radio stations that weren’t quite on the station.

Eventually I was prescribed Navane (thiothixene) (2.5 mg/day). I filled the prescription and one day a few weeks later when I was trying to solve a tough problem at work, I took one of the pills. The results were very dramatic. Within 45 minutes of taking the stuff my thoughts cleared up as if by magic. I wanted more of the stuff but I didn’t know how much was a therapeutic dose and my physician wouldn’t prescribe a higher dose. The local psychiatrist didn’t believe the schizophrenia diagnosis. Over the next 3 years I was running on about 1/2 speed and hospitalized on average every 9 months.

Eventually the economy became bad and I was laid off. I moved in with my parents and began to see a local psychiatrist. The diagnosis was schizophrenia and I was prescribed Navane (20 mg/day) and felt as though the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders. I hadn’t had anything to do with street drugs for about 4 years now and was warned that involvement with them or alcohol would cause a worsening of the symptoms.

I attended Okanagan College and earned my grade 12 over again and first year university. Eventually I met a wonderful woman, fell in love got married and moved to Vancouver. I found work as a draftsman and attended night school. The medication was eventually changed to Risperidal (risperidone) and I felt even better. It had been 12 years from the onset of the illness till then. I spent 6 years living in hell without proper diagnosis and now I am fully recovered. I have earned an honours Diploma of Technology and am about to start a wonderful career.

It is now 1996 and without the support of my loving wife, psychiatrist and medication I would not be where I am today.

The keys to recovery are:

• stay away from street drugs
• take your medications as directed
• proper counselling and therapy
• correct diagnosis