- SCHOOL LIFE
When I was 11 years old I left junior school and went to Kingshurst Comprehensive. I was the only person from my junior school to go to this comprehensive. This was the first stage in my isolation. While at the comprehensive I was never myself and acted the clown in class.

On top of this, when I was 11 or 12, my dad found out that my mother was seeing another man who she had met on holiday in Spain. They did not divorce but the atmosphere at home became more and more strained over time.

When I was 15 I went on a school trip to France and ended up going out with a girl called Karen. She was 13 and yet far more experienced than me. We had a great time but it did not last. On coming back to school I felt uncomfortable about going out with someone younger than myself.. A week after the French trip I went on a geography field trip in Wales. Almost by accident, I ended up going out with Catherine who I had liked for some time. On returning from the trip I ran into Karen who quite rightly gave me a hard time and made me feel really bad about myself. I carried on going with Catherine for a few weeks but things did not work out and I decided to call things off. I phoned up Karen and told her about it. I hoped we could get together but she did not want to know.

Over the next year I became more and more depressed but still managed to get good marks in my exams.

- SIXTH FORM
When I left Kingshurst Comprehensive, I realised that I was in no fit state to cope on my own. I chose to attend Solihull Sixth Form College to continue my education. Only two others from my comprehensive went there and I did not really get on with them. I did not last very long and I soon changed establishments. I chose to go to Archbishop Grimshaw School where a few of my friends had gone. Unfortunately, I did not fit in. I think I had changed and had become less friendly.

While at Archbishop Grimshaw I took my first overdose but nobody knew about it. When I went to the doctor’s I just said I had food poisoning.

After one year at Archbishop Grimshaw I quit and went back to Solihull Sixth Form College. Again, I did not fit in and I continually changed classes. In History I met Elizabeth who I really liked. I think she liked me as well but I never had the guts to ask her out. Eventually I gave her a note and she smiled. She left the room and when I saw her downstairs in the common room I ignored her and I didn’t know what to say. This put her off.

The first year at Solihull Sixth Form College past by and the summer holidays arrived. I spent the time alone at home feeling isolated. I had a big argument with my mother and hit her across the face. At this time, either just before or just after this incident I took my second overdose.

While still on holiday I went into Solihull looking for Elizabeth. The first pub I went into was the Saddler’s Arms and she was there with her boyfriend. On seeing me she got up and left. I was in a bad state at this time. Soon after this, I returned to college and handed Elizabeth another note asking her out. She laughed and said no. I lost my temper and poured a cup of tea over her head and we both started shouting at each other. I then left the building. When I returned I was told that I had been expelled. The following day I handed in all my books. On leaving I saw Elizabeth in the common room but didn’t say anything. I returned shortly afterwards but she had gone. A few days later t took my third overdose.

- EARLY ADULT LIFE
For the following four years I was unemployed. I lived at home with my dad. My mother left home and moved in with Sam in a flat in Kingshurst.

In some ways this was all a relief to me. A lot of the pressure had been lifted. I had failed but life goes on. I was quite lethargic. I did very little apart from reading and writing poetry.

When I was 22 years old I got a job as a clerical assistant at British Telecom and bought my first car, a red Ford Fiesta. I stayed there for about 18 months before I gave it up to work for my brother. He ran an advertising agency that promoted premium telephone lines. He also had his own premium rate telephone business which was promoted by the agency.

During this time I spent a lot of time in Solihull town centre hoping to meet someone. The first girl I fell for was called Bonita. I gave her a red rose and then ran away. I did not know what to say to her. I saw her quite often but never spoke to her. I was churning up inside. I spoke to a couple of her friends and they let slip that Bonita worked at a local newsagent. I eventually found out which newsagent this was and paid Bonita a visit. She was not very happy. I left her a poem but this only freaked her out more. Things got worse. I was looking for work and entered an employment agency in Shirley. Bonita was on the reception. I thought it was destiny but she told the staff about me and I was made to feel a little unwelcome. As time went by, I would post letters through the letterbox at the employment agency addressed to Bonita. I felt so isolated and she was the only hope I had or so it seemed. I had to hold onto something.

- MIDDLE TWENTIES
Eventually, I realised that Bonita was not for me and my attention turned to two other girls. Emma and Claire. I wrote Claire a poem and presented Emma with some red roses. Things slowly got out of hand. I spoke to Claire a few times to ask her out but she said she had a boyfriend. I gave her a book about Frida Kahlo, my favourite artist, but the paintings shocked her and she told her parents who reported me to the police. I was also shocked when the police stopped me, I had the shakes. Soon my reputation spread and some local lads started following me and giving me abuse. At this stage, I took my fourth overdose, my first for over 8 years. Claire knew these local lads and every weekend I would go into Solihull town centre and get abused and then Claire would show up. I was convinced that she like me and that if I only had the courage to talk to her I could sort things out, but I never did. I was on a roller-coaster ride of emotions. At times I gave up on her and tried to go out with Emma but she found out about how I treated Bonita and did not want anything to do with me.

While all this was going on I was still working for my brother apart from a 6 month period when I was sacked after an argument. On returning I got involved in setting up some businesses for the company overseas. I spent time in Portugal and then later on in Cyprus. Eventually, my brother decided to sell his business in Cyprus and I was offered a job over there to help run the business and try to set up operations in the Middle East. I arranged a flat in Limassol and flew over to start my new adventure. I was nearly 29. This was my dream job. I was still hoping to sort things out with either Emma or Claire. I was planning out my life hoping to marry the perfect girl and have a great job working abroad. However, I was deluding myself. Things were about to get much worse.

THE ILLNESS
- THE START
While in Cyprus working for Michael at Telemedia I had my 29th birthday. A couple of weeks later I returned to the UK for a week hoping to sort things out with Clare but I never saw her. I came back to Cyprus and fortunately arranged some interviews in the middle-east. As things happened, one guy I met was planning to set up his own business in the United Arab Emirates. I persuaded him that we would be ideal partners. On the telephone he suggested that he visit our operations in the UK and Cyprus. This was the crunch time! I could stay in Cyprus or return to the UK and hope that the UAE business would take off. Things were not going to well in Cyprus. I decided to leave and left the Cyprus operation in a mess and losing money. I hoped that my brother would re-form a partnership with Michael and run the business together in the UAE.

When I returned to the UK I had no job. I was waiting for the UAE business to start but I soon realised that this could take some time. On returning, I saw Clare in Solihull with a few boys. It was clear that she was not interested in me. One of my main reasons for returning was the hope of going out with Claire. Slowly my life was falling apart. My home in Monkspath was being rented out so I stayed with my mother and Sam at their flat in Kingshurst. I thought I would be there for a few months. As it turned out I was to stay there for 3 years.

While working for my brother and then for Michael in Cyprus I was on a good salary and could afford a house in Monkspath but now I could not get a job that paid more than 10k a year. I was still hoping the UAE business would take off. I started to do temporary work and then got a job as a media administrator at an advertising agency.

The start of my breakdown began here. I was working with an Indian girl called Nicky and I told her a little bit about Claire. I started to get paranoid. I thought that she knew Claire and that she was deliberately winding me up. I also thought that both Claire and Nicky had made contact with my mum and were planning a party for my 30th birthday in February. Things with Nicky became too much and I resigned after 8 weeks. I then flew to Cyprus for a holiday.

In January I was offered a temporary job at Apricot computers which I was told could lead to a permanent position. I thought Claire had arranged the job for me. While at Apricot computers I was invited to job interviews at BRMB and the Birmingham Evening Mail. I thought that Nicky had arranged these because she felt guilty about me losing my job. I was becoming delusional. I thought that the staff at Apricot computers knew about Claire and me and were planning a surprise birthday party for me at which I would meet Claire. I tried to top this idea and asked if I could fly to Cyprus for my 30th birthday.

I was hoping that they could arrange for Claire to come with me. I bought a bunch of red roses and took them to the airport and asked of they could be taken on the plane. The following day at Apricot computers I felt a tense atmosphere. I came to the conclusion that Claire knew someone at the airport and that by taking the roses there I had spoilt the surprise. I was in a panic. I thought that through my stupidity Claire would not urn up. That evening I returned to the airport and picked up the flowers. I took them to Brueton Park and threw them in the bushes. The following day was my 30th birthday. I still hoped that Claire would turn up but no joy. I arrived in Limassol and signed into the Mediterranean Beach Hotel. I still deluded myself. I convinced myself that Claire might be an air stewardess and had come over on another flight. I even imagined that she was staying in the bedroom next to mine. I visited Michael in Nicosia and asked him if he knew Claire. I was still trying to create my dream world, but that was all it was, a dream that was fast turning into a horrific nightmare.

- FIRST ADMISSION
I came back from Cyprus feeling depressed. My job at Apricot computers had finished and I had not been offered a full-time position. I thought that everyone was angry with me for messing up their plans for my 30th birthday party. I kept on going into Solihull hoping to meet Claire. The idea came into my head that she would re-arrange things for Easter and that maybe we could fly out to Cyprus to celebrate Easter there. The pressure on me was growing, everything was falling apart and I just could not accept it. I spent a couple of weeks on Parade Mailing and then I worked for my brother for a few weeks. Working for my brother was really stressful and I was starting to get messages from the newspapers and the radio. I thought that certain headlines were intended for me. I saw one article about Richard Branson which I thought was encouraging my original thinking and that I had the potential to be a great entrepreneur. I was starting to get illusions of grandeur. I thought that I was an important person and that secret operations took place at Birmingham Business Park which is where Apricot computers were located. I started to think that the government knew about me, that I had telepathic powers, and that I could transmit messages on TV and radio just by thinking thoughts. I imagined that scriptwriters could read my mind and would include my thoughts and ideas in their programmes.

On the Wednesday after the Grand National and US Masters I finally cracked. I spent all day in my car driving around in a crazy fashion. I thought that the number plates contained messages for me and that the colour of the car signified whether or not I was safe. I was also getting messages off the radio. I thought that Claire, Emma and Bonita were fighting for my attention by playing different songs on different radio stations. I thought that everyone was forming alliances either to help me or hinder me. I thought that Rupert Murdoch and Richard Branson were involved. I drove along the Stratford Road heading for London to see John Major or his representatives. I thought that MI5 and MI6 were onto me and following me around. I reached Henley-in-Arden feeling dizzy not knowing what to do. I drove near to a church just past Henley-in-Arden and stopped the car. I got out of the car and walked over to a green patch of land. I thought I would be safe there. I thought green colours could protect me. After a short time an RSPCA van came by and the woman in the van spoke to me. I was obviously looking distressed.

I don’t know what I said to her but she evidently decided to call the police in Stratford-upon- Avon. A police car arrived and took me away to the police station. I must have been there about one or two hours. I traded riddles and nursery rhymes with one of the pc’s. I thought his stories contained hidden messages but he was just playing for time until the doctor arrived. Someone assessed my condition, I had no idea he was a doctor, people came in and out. Then I was taken outside and led to an ambulance. I pleaded with them to let me go. I thought I was being taken hostage. I thought that the UK and US governments had done a deal with Iraq. I thought that this happened, that mental hospitals were filled with victims of psychological warfare and that if you broke enough rules you could be admitted. I had broken too many rules.

I was taken to Central Hospital to be assessed. I thought that I was a victim of psychological warfare. All knowledge of my importance and telepathic powers would be denied. Over time I began to realise that I was indeed ill. I still held onto some of my beliefs. I confided in my mother about Claire and asked her to visit her which she did. She was shocked. Claire told her about me. That she was not interested in me at all and that I followed here everywhere and that she had sold help white Suzuki jeep because of me.

I was in hospital for four weeks. When I left I was on anti-psychotics which were very strong and made me feel like a zombie. I went into Solihull in the hope of seeing Claire and confirming the story my mum had told me. I soon realised that a few people in Solihull knew about my illness. I thought that certain people were trying to send me messages. I went into the Raison D’Etre wine bar and Claire was there with here friends. At first she ignored me, then she spoke to her friends who passed a few remarks which were not very nice. Eventually I left. My life was in pieces, I thought it could not get any worse and yet things kept on deteriorating.

I started working at Parade Mailing again for two weeks then left to work for my brother but the drugs made this impossible so I stopped taking them. The UAE business was finally up and running and I went over there to help set things up. I did not feel too bad. I went over on two occasions. While back in the UK we got news that the business had been closed down due to the fact that an explicit love horoscope had been promoted on one of the telephone lines. This was catastrophic.

- SECOND ADMISSION
I was again out of work. I eventually got a job with an internet company but only lasted a few days. On the day I left my dad died. my mother and me found him lying in bed. I think the stress of this led to my second breakdown. This happened on the 19th December 1995. I again believed that Claire was going to meet me over Christmas. I got into such a state that I stayed out all night the day before my dad’s funeral in a very bad psychotic state. My mum eventually picked me up but I missed my dad’s funeral. I felt ashamed and thought that people would hate me. I still thought that I could sort things out with Clare. I thought that secret societies met in pubs to discuss business matters and industrial espionage.

The day after my dad’s funeral I was sectioned and taken to Solihull Hospital. I thought I was going to be killed. I stayed there four weeks and was then released.

- THIRD ADMISSION
Shortly after this, I went to Emma’s house and found out that she had lost all her hair. This was another shock. It seemed that not only was I suffering but those I cared about were hurting to. My 31st birthday arrived and passed, and then on the 21st February 1996 it would have been my dad’s birthday. A couple of days later I took my fifth overdose in my life. I was first taken to Heartlands Hospital and then transferred to Solihull hospital where I stayed as a voluntary patient for nearly 6 months. I had no energy, I was very lethargic, and stayed in bed nearly all the time I was there. I only had tuna and cucumber sandwiches for both lunch and dinner and occasionally went downstairs to buy myself some chocolate bars. Also at this time, my dad’s home was being emptied and redecorated so that it could be sold. The whole thing passed me by. I did not want to know about it. I could not deal with it. I could not cope with it. I just tried to ignore that fact that it was happening.

- FOUTH ADMISSION
My mother wanted to move to Cyprus and also thought it important that I find accommodation of my own. Up until now, I was still living with her and Sam. I t was arranged with the local council that if I could sell my house in Monkspath I would be offered council accommodation. In time I agreed the sale of my house. I was discharged from hospital and returned to my mum’s until all the paperwork was sorted. I would stay there another 9 months. The house was finally sold in December 1996. In January I was offered a council flat in Chelmsley Wood in a tower block. I turned it down. My mum wrote a letter to the council supported by my consultant suggesting that the accommodation was not suitable. I was offered a second flat in Kingshurst which I accepted. I agreed to move into the flat in April. The stress levels were growing again. This was my worst nightmare. To live in a council flat for the rest of my life, growing old and living alone. I started to get delusional again. I thought that the IRA had planted a bomb under my car. I also tried to prove my telepathic powers. I was determined to watch the Grand National and control the race but it was cancelled due to a bomb scare. I booked my self into The Moat Hotel on Saturday Night feeling very delusional and acting in a bizarre fashion. On the Sunday I drove to Stratford and onward to a Glider Club near Evesham. I told the members there that I thought there was a bomb under my car. They called the police who took me to Evesham police station. They called my mother who took me to Solihull Hospital where I was sectioned. I stayed there two months and was then discharged but I soon stopped taking my medication and quickly became psychotic. I started betting on golf and tennis matches believing I could control the results. When I lost I believed that there were stronger forces working against me. I thought that the Chinese government had dropped a nerve gas over the country and that I was responsible for the death of thousands of people. I thought that people were after me and were trying to trap me. I ran into the back of a red car which I thought was trying to slow me down and was part of the conspiracy. I returned home and took about 8 tablets of olanzapine. I phoned my mum and told her I felt tired. I was taken to Solihull Hospital overnight to be assessed for a potential overdose. I discharged myself the day after but I was still ill.

- FIFTH ADMISSION
In December, I locked myself out of my flat and became psychotic. I walked into Chelmsley Wood police station and asked them to take me to a place of safety, possibly to the church near Solihull town centre. I was locked in a cell overnight. In the morning I was seen by my consultant and later on taken to Solihull hospital by a social worker where I was sectioned again. I was there for 3 months. Over the Christmas period, I was allowed out to go to my brother’s. While I was out I paid three visits to Claire’s home asking her parents to help me. I thought that Clare’s dad wad high up in the business world and could help me. Eventually he and his son Glenn lost their temper. Glenn threw a couple of punches and I knelt on the ground in submission. I think that finally broke the cycle. I had pushed things as far as they could go. I had few illusions left. I started to realise that the only way I could remain stable was to take my medication regularly.

CONCLUSION
I was discharged in March 1998 and I have taken olanzapine on a regular basis ever since. I am now stable and have not been in hospital since. My confidence is slowly building. I have undertaken a few college courses and put together some basic internet sites which help me pass the time. I watch soap operas such as Neighbours and Eastenders, lots of sport, and I listen to radio 5 a lot with its coverage of news and sport.

My next objective is to try and find employment. I have tried a work placement but only lasted a week. My confidence is still a little fragile it seems. Not having a social life and only having one friend can make you feel very unusual. It is difficult relating to other people. The simple routine of working is hard to cope with. The stress levels rise and if you don’t have a social life then you cannot relieve the stress and it grows and grows.

I hope in time I can come to terms with this. I have accepted a lot of things which before I could not deal with. I thought that if I never marry then life would not be worth living. I still hope that I will meet someone special but only time will tell.

FINAL MESSAGE
Where there is life there is hope.

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.

A___ had a very disrupted childhood. I’m sure a lot of people have heard or have lived similar stories, but she had problems coping with reality. What I had taken for rebelliousness was actually an angry disconnect with the world around her. I know it seems I’m speaking for someone else but it was like she was pissed at the world for being the way it was, but also she was pissed because she could never really connect with it, she could never really be apart of the “normal” world because her mind was tearing her apart from it.

I didn’t really know she had Schizophrenia until she had disappeared for a few weeks and then one day I got a call from her. She sounded very weak, as if she had just come through a hell of a beating and was unsure if it was over. She had tried to kill herself because she was tired of the voices that no one else heard. She decided instead of listening to them and hurting other people should would hurt herself instead and make them go away.

She screams profanities at the top of her lungs at least 15-20 hrs. out of each day. Saying that people in the movies are doing all these things to her. 99% of the time, none of it makes any sense. She even says I have done things to her and that im with all the people that are against her and hurting her. Which of coarse im not.

It is impossible to communicate with her in any way. I’ve tried to talk to her and understand for almost 6 months now, the more I tried to help the worse it got. She cusses me out she says she wants to kill me. I feel like a prisoner in my own home. She bangs on doors and stabs the walls and doors with knives. She throws and breaks things in the house. She calls the police and businesses just to cuss them out.

She also terrorizes the managment and the children in the building, and nothing satifies her. Most of the family won’t and can’t deal with her, but refuse to put her in a mental institution. She wont take any medication. At times it seems like an act, and at others it appears ginuine but shes been doing it so long it’s almost natural.

In her mind everything is related to something that has to do with her.

In high school, still without treatment, I eventually began drinking in a desperate attempt to ease my pain. It only made things worse, increasing my psychoses and intensifying psychotic episodes that terrified me.

I entered college in 1972, still not understanding my illness. In the winter of 1975, my mental anguish grew so severe that I tried to commit suicide. I ended up in the psychiatric ward of a nearby hospital, where I was diagnosed with schizophrenia and began to receive treatment. I finally began to understand the bizarre world of hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, and psychotic episodes that is called schizophrenia.

I started doing research to better understand the illness; I was determined to overcome and recover from it. This process continues to this day.

Then came a turning point: I became involved with my local chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). I attended NAMI support groups and began to go to state and national conventions, where I met many other individuals diagnosed with mental illnesses and we shared our experiences of recovery.

My association with NAMI led me to The Advocacy Alliance (an affiliate of the National Mental Health Association), another wonderful organization that helps people who have mental illnesses. I began doing volunteer work there, and this has better enabled me to reintegrate into the community. The wonderful staffs at both organizations have helped me a great deal. My fiancée, whom I met at the Advocacy Alliance, has also been diagnosed with schizophrenia; we try to help each other in our recovery, and we have hopes for a bright future.

I still have schizophrenia but I have recovered to the point where I am able to function within the community, and I try to pass along this hope of recovery to others. I have become involved with my local Community Support Program, a coalition of people with mental illnesses, family members, and mental health professionals; and the Pennsylvania Mental Health Consumers’ Association (PMHCA), a statewide organization of people who have mental illnesses, in order to help others like myself.

Recently, I was hired by PMHCA as Northeast Pennsylvania Coordinator for “Leadership In Recovery” programs that will be taking place for the next three years. I really love this job, and I am trying to apply my experiences in recovery from mental illness to my work. I also do educational presentations about mental illness at local colleges, facilities for children and adolescents with mental illness, and local mental health counseling centers. These presentations are sponsored by the Advocacy Alliance.

A diagnosis of mental illness should not be a barrier to achieving one’s goals. Anyone can recover: It just takes hard work and a willingness to develop the coping skills necessary to overcome mental illness.

Frank Catrelli

by Dean Johnston

Schizophrenia can come on rather suddenly around age 18 in men and 25 in women or it can have an insidious, meaning gradual onset. My schizophrenia seemed to start when I was about 17-18 although I was not a well adjusted teenager before that. I developed my first major romantic relationship at 17 which gradually deteriorated over the next four years. With an insidious onset you gradually lose your relationships with friends, family and lovers, as your symptoms increase and you end up quite alone.

My mother says now that she noticed a change around 18, that I lost all my ambition to suceed. When I was sixteen I scored in the top three percentile in a province wide mathematics contest, and my favorite subjects were math and physics. By the time I was eighteen I had lost interest in school and only applied to university because my father was so insistent I go. I was quite strange from 18-25 at high school and university and thought I needed psychological therapy along the lines of Gestalt therapy or Rolfing. I was a very rebellious teenager who experienced a lot of emotional turmoil. One significant indication of schizophrenia was my inability to plan my future. I took courses that sounded interesting, smoked a lot of marijuana and drank too much at parties. I was notably incapable of and uninterested in long term romantic relationships and in fact was very anxious in any kind of social situation. I doubt that any psychiatrist would have been able to diagnose schizophrenia at that point though. I graduated with an Hon B.Sc. from Trent University with a double major in biology and anthropology. I applied to one graduate school at the last minute as I realized that my degree was not a career and was accepted.

At graduate school in Nova Scotia in 1978 I kept going to the university clinic about my physical health, afraid that my health was going to fall apart, that I had picked up a form of syphyllis that couldn’t be detected by standard lab tests, etc. I was referred to a psychiatrist and before long I was hospitalized for a couple of weeks. What started as having an analyst like Woody Allen became an involuntary hospitalization. I had some delusions that Jim Jones, who was responsible for 500 people committing suicide en masse, was trying to force me to commit suicide but I never told anyone. I was getting pretty confused though. Unfortunately no one mentioned schizophrenia to me or my father, who is a physician, and I thought I had just had some sort of nervous breakdown. I saw someone after I was discharged about once a month for a few months. I remember taking Chlorpromazine before I was hospitalized which I didn’t like and some Stellazine after I was discharged. My father encouraged me to take it but I was scared of it and I only took it for a little while. The medication seemed to cause my delusions and I believed that for many years.

My father convinced me to try and finish my year even though I wanted to drop out. It was a very miserable year for me. Some courses went unfinished and I was kicked out of graduate school. I worked for a summer in Toronto, the fall in London, and then I headed out west to Vancouver Island. I knew someone there in a small pulp mill town called Crofton but he moved up island and I rented an apartment in the strip joint tavern, alone again.

As I relapsed I had mostly delusions and paranoia. I thought the CIA was after me for awhile after I wrote a letter to the editor of Science magazine about how the US military was using dioxin as a weapon in Vietnam. My delusions had faded for the previous summer but they had never completely disappeared. That is to say I believed some pretty strange things. In Halifax I thought I had discovered the cause of World War Two. The influenza epidemic of 1918 changed peoples’ nervous systems so the cause of the war was a neurovirus. I thought my law professor in Halifax was very well connected with influential people in world politics and was telling people about my theory.

Various important people were coming from Europe to meet the man who discovered the cause of World War 2. So for example someone might come up to me in Crofton and talk about mopeds and I would think this man was the president of Motobecane, the world’s largest manufacturer of mopeds. People seemed to know me before I introduced myself, and the local townspeople seemed to be laughing at me. I remember once the political cartoon in the local paper seemed to be about me and people who picked me up hitchiking seemed to know who I was.

In the spring of 1980 I left Crofton forced out by the townspeople who demanded I get a job. I took the bus with no destination in mind until I ran out of money. From then on I usually hitchiked, mostly through Alberta and B.C. quitting a job with my first pay check because I found working with people so difficult. They were playing games with me and making fun of me. I would then hitchike somewhere else. I thought I was being followed by a WW2 veteran everywhere I went who wanted me to shape up by working in construction like he did after the war. I kept trying to escape him but he had friends everywhere. I slept in city parks, by the side of the road and in single men’s hostels. I was homeless and often penniless.

I remember once in Calgary staying at the single men’s hostel and not getting to eat very much for several weeks, becoming quite weak. I couldn’t work because I had dioxin poisining and this was affecting my cortical hormone balance making work too stressful. Tibetan buddhist lamas were reading my mind everywhere I went in Calgary, respectful and curious, because I had caused the Mt. St. Helen’s erruption for them earlier that year through tantric meditation.

I don’t think I quite understood or believed what was happening to me, but I was determined not to admit defeat and return to my parents house. It seemed like I had powerful friends who wanted me to pull myself up by my bootstraps. Only two years earlier I had been in graduate school, with a new friend, David Rae, discussing world politics while watching the CBC news at a local bar. David’s brother, Bob Rae, later became the Premier of Ontario.

Come late fall I was in Victoria, driven south by the approaching winter. There I was somehow able to pay rent and I stayed there for four years. I started studying Tibetan buddhism and took refuge in the lama who lived there, Tashi Namjyal. I thought he was capable of all kinds of supernatural powers of the mind like telepathy and telekinesis. It is a tremendous invasion of privacy to have someone reading your mind all the time uninvited. I believed he was controling my dreams while I slept as well. He said to me in his broken English, "you special" and I thought that meant I had a lot of natural ability to be a very powerful tantric like him. He was the equivalent of a graduate teacher in the Tibetan monastic system.

I had caused the Mt. St. Helen’s eruption with his guidance through tantric meditation. I had bad karma so I wasn’t given control or access to my power but by causing Mt. St. Helen’s to errupt the Tibetans were taking pressure off the California continental plates. We saved San Francisco.

I had gone to several family physicians about my physical problems of which dioxin poisining seemed to be the cause and I thought it was also causing my adjustment problems but the family doctors never realized what was happening to me and I stopped going to them and instead thought this Tibetan buddhist lama would be able to help me, because I did realize that something was wrong.

I was losing contact with reality gradually and stayed in abject poverty and I was miserable. I remember I bought a WW 2 rifle to please the WW 2 veteran and I would sit in my basement room with the barrel in my mouth and wonder if I should pull the trigger. I started to think Tashi Namjal was evil because he was celibate and I got messages from Beatle songs which I thought were from the Marharishi Mahesh Yogi to run away and that’s what I did. I thought there was a war going on between two groups, both with supernatural powers, that would decide the fate of humanity. I called one the Sexuals and one the Antisexuals, because these powers came from sexuality.

I forget some of my life out west. I do remember being very miserable and very alone, identifying with Milarepa who is a Tibetan saint of sorts. The Tantric tradition, which is very interesting, has its roots in India. In the ninth century these supernormal powers were close to becoming a part of society. Tibetan buddhism incorporates a celibate tantricism in its teachings which has survived I think because it is also very religious. I was entranced by the erotic temples in India like Konarak and determined to become a tantric and help the world rediscover the supernormal powers of the mind in sexuality.

In Toronto I managed to get a job changing lightbulbs at a large department store. I ran away twice, to England and Jamaica expecting to be welcomed personally by the Maharishi. When a terrorist bomb blew up a plane over Lockerbie Scotland I thought it was an attempt on my life, which prompted me to fly immediately to the Maharishi in England but he wasn’t there and I came back the same weekend. I saw a movie called "Oedipus Rex" directed by Passolini and immediately flew to Jamaica expecting to meet the Maharishi. I was looking for Strawberry Fields mentioned in the Beatles song and there are two in Jamaica. It was a memorable trip. I ran out of money after one week and mostly learned the importance of money.

I was just a pawn in a secret war. I didn’t have any friends, any lovers, and very little contact with my parents between 1980 and 1990. My parents had moved to the States while I was in Victoria and I never told anyone what was happening. I lived in a cockroach infested rooming house never even realizing that Diazinon will eliminate cockroaches. I had a strong sense of mission to help humanity instead of myself and in my poverty I believed the cause of suffering in the world was overpopulation. My solution was to hybridize the AIDS virus with the common cold and eliminate 3 – 4 billion people.

I got a lot of messages from favorite Rock and Roll songs, from movies, cartoons and library books. The library was my special friend who could show me what I needed to know by having me open and read exactly the information I was looking for. Someone was leading me to the books I needed and that was too much for humans to be capable of. I started to believe I was in contact with aliens from outer space. At first there were two kinds. I learned humanity was going to become extinct from a nuclear holocaust that would break up the continental plates. The oceans would evaporate with all the molten lava and I was going to live in a box out in space with a woman the aliens had been breeding since life started on this planet. She had dark blue skin like the Hindu god Krishna and we were going to have children who would be turquoise in colour. We were going to be the only survivors of Armageddon and we would propagate the species. Only girls would be born as identical twins and they would be able to impregnate each other from a single drop on their funny long noses. I would be the last surviving male although I would only live a thousand years.

I believed that to be my destiny completely and got a lot of messages everywhere I went. I heard voices several times but mostly I experienced telepathy. I had what are called "ideas of reference" where things are thought to have a particular meaning just for you. For example, a license plate on the street could be an important and appropriate message for me from the aliens. By the end my fate had changed a bit. I was going to become an alien and have eternal life and be capable of time travel and my companion was going to be a part time anthropolgy professor at the University of Toronto. Sexuality was as important as intelligence to the aliens and they had evolved beyond the use of machinery to doing everything with their mind. I thought they were turning on my nervous system with experiences of pain so that every neuron was active, so that I would be able to experience greater pleasure as an alien. I asked them once if a machine might not make the process less painful and I remember them laughing, saying "Machines… Dean, we don’t have any machines."

My delusions changed as the aliens instructed me on the real nature of reality. Three things happened as my contact with reality became very tenuous. I got in trouble with the law, I became alcoholic, and I lost my job.

One night after convincing the aliens to transfer my mind to another body I got mad at the aliens, and started breaking windows in the rooming house I was living in. The police came, subdued me and I spent a couple of nights in jail. The judge realized I was a psychiatric case because I carried a pocketknife to defend myself against homosexuals. The world’s most powerful man was a homosexual and he was trying to make me a homosexual. By then the Maharishi was my second worst enemy. I believed they both knew about the end of the world and my destiny with the aliens and they wanted to take my place. I didn’t mention that in court though.

Nobody asked why I did what I did. I got three years probation with the condition that I see a psychiatrist for those three years. Psychiatrists are only human though, while I was almost alien and they wouldn’t have understood what was happening so I never told them anything. I went to my appointments to stay out of jail.

Jail was such a shock to me. I was so mad at the aliens after that experience I tried to force them to give me a new body by killing the body I was in. I bought several bottles of vodka and guzzled them like water until I passed out knowing that people overdose and die from alcohol. I got pneumonia but lived and decided that the aliens wouldn’t let me die, only experience pain until it was time for me to go.

Although I didn’t drink anything for awhile I eventually started to drink and heavily because I could afford it. You need $11 an hour to become an alcoholic. Originally I drank for the hops which I thought were medication for celibacy. My behaviour became more and more bizarre and I was fired from my job. I went from unemployment insurance to Welfare, brewing my own beer in plastic pails and eating in soup kitchens. I thought I was going to become an alien when I turned 37 because I saw a book written by the ancient seer Nostradamus entitled 3791. I thought that since he could see the future he would realize I was not capable of understanding the book and that all I would need to know could be explained in the title. I turned 37 in 1991 a year after moving to Guelph but I’m still here unfortunately.

I experienced many extreme emotions when I was psychotic with positive symptoms. In fact its a wonder I didn’t come into contact with the police before I did. I can say that I never harmed anyone but I realize I came very close, although I experienced more fear than anything else. I am by nature a gentle person who has never fought with anyone. Family members I have met in Guelph have usually had some experience of verbal abuse or physical assault from their ill relative before they were treated. I remember I thought I was dying from celibacy and I hated women for a couple years even though I went through adolescence with only feminist friends and was convinced women were the superior sex. Schizophrenia can force you to feel and do things that are not in character for you. Dr. E Fuller Torrey says violence in schizophrenia is predicted by three factors: a previous history of violence, substance abuse, and not on medication.

I would destroy my own possesions first like my guitar without having much choice. I shied away from people. I remember sitting on the ledge of a window on the sixth floor wanting to jump but knowing that the aliens would have an open truck loaded with mattresses come by just as I jumped and when I actually saw such a truck weeks later it only confirmed my conclusions.

I didn’t win the lottery though after I lost my job and the people in my rooming house started mainlining heroin in the living room. I was desperately poor by that point expecting to become homeless and sleep on a hot air vent and I couldn’t believe that was necessary in becoming an alien. I was experiencing quite a few blackouts from the drinking I was doing and getting scared of alcohol. I kept waking up in strange places. One fellow in the rooming house had attacked me with a chain such that I needed stitches above my eye. I was too disorganized and too poor to find another place to live. My mind seemed to be falling apart into the left brain, me, and a right brain I hardly knew who was in tremendous pain and very demanding, and a dinosaur or core brain, very powerful and very angry at me. I agreed to go to the Homewood Health Centre in Guelph to be treated for alcoholism. Going into hospital was the easy way to get out of a situation that was very frightening. That was at the end of my three year probationary period.

As I sobered up my delusions faded a lot and I realized I had no concrete proof of aliens or my imaginary wife. I also realized I couldn’t put my faith in aliens to take care of me. I moved into a basement room in Guelph and started a maintenance dose of antipsychotics. The year was 1990. It took several years to completely believe and understand that I had schizophrenia though. I was sure I had been misdiagnosed, and I would much rather have had bipolar disorder so I could compare myself to various famous people. I wanted to go off medication but the psychiatrists were very firm about that. Medication didn’t seem to have any effect so there was no reason not to take it. It kept my psychiatrist happy.

I was very depressed for several years and very lethargic. I didn’t accomplish very much and was quite anxious. I lived in basement rooms, had no friends and little contact with anyone. At that time I was seeing a psychiatrist at the Community Mental Health Clinic once a month or so. I don’t think my period of depression could have been avoided. Antidepressants didn’t help which suggests I didn’t have an actual depression. I was very anxious having nothing to do and no one to do it with and had very low self esteem. My mood eventually improved a bit and I made a couple of friends and became more active. I started to do a little volunteer work and I eventually met Rosemary and courted her. I started to work for some extra cash, delivering flyers and then the local newspaper. Rosemary and I moved into the apartment building where I delivered newspapers. We shared a two bedroom apartment for 16 months until the Provincial government made that too expensive.

The quality of my life has been improving a little each year for the last eight years so I can’t complain too much but every once in awhile I really feel the losses I am enduring. Life is a series of opportunities as you grow older, and I missed all of those opportunities. I wonder about my future alone. Living on a limited budget could make anyone miserable. Being celibate is a great loss many people don’t mention to anyone. I will never get to experience what a lot of people take for granted. I may never own a car. I may never marry. I may never have a vacation again, let alone full time employment. It is only in the past couple of years that I can say that I have been able to accomplish anything productive. Before that I was pretty unhappy and didn’t feel very good about myself.

My friend Susan says there are two kinds of people. You get on a plane that is supposed to go to Hawaii and instead the plane lands in Siberia. Susan prefers to use Arizona as the alternate destination. You can either learn to enjoy Siberia or forever feel bitter that you didn’t land in Hawaii. Lately Siberia has been fairly pleasant. My life does seem a bit "empty" compared to ordinary peoples lives. I also have a lot of unpleasant memories in which I’ve done things I now regret. Its difficult to know how much I’m responsible for and how much schizophrenia is responsible for. I think its important for me to focus on enjoying life as much as I can and not dwell on the past.

I went to Schizophrenia 96 a couple of years ago, sponsored by Eli Lilly. I was mistakenly booked at the hotel as Dr. Johnston and the next day at the conference in my sports coat and dress shirt I was just another psychiatrist and it felt pretty neat. This was the life I should have had. But the first keynote address by Dr. Weinberger, world reknown researcher in schizophrenia, compared finding the cause of schizophrenia to finding the cause of the TWA flight explosion that was in the news at that time. There was no evidence that it was a bomb. Finding out what happened when all you have are the twisted pieces of metal scattered along the ocean floor was causing difficulties. Over the three day conference I became very depressed realizing how appropriate that image was for me. I could empathise with the psychiatrists who were looking at their patient in front of them and asking themselves "why doesn’t this person have the same lifestyle that I enjoy?".

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