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Yesterday I finally came up for a breath of air. I feel as if I have been holding my breath for three years. I have been living with a man we'll call Bob, whose reality is hearing torturous voices inside his head every day. He lives day in and day out convinced that three people, not sure of whom they are working for, are "electronically monitoring" his every move. This man, no college education, knows the insides and outs of microwave transmitters, Super Quantum Interference Devices (SQID) and anything else related to this equipment these people are using to follow him. The voices are half of his daily life. Bob also experiences physical pain throughout his muscles, which is so severe it forces him to keel over in pain. His explanation for this pain is that this device these people, Tom, Darlene & Debbie are using can send waves of energy from a 40-plus mile radius to target him and gouge his body with painful, sharp pains.

This only child of a broken home, a 33-year-old drywall hanger, has been living with this for seven years. His immediate family is aware of this but they believe if they don't bring it up at all, it will go away. They are wrong. I met him three years ago through a friend. We were engaged and three months later I was pregnant. After I knew him for some time, I was told that he was in a lawsuit against three people, it ended at that. Once I was made aware of the details, I immediately knew that something was not right and he needed some professional help. One Phoenix lawyer had graciously taken $3,000.00 for a non-refundable retainer in pursuit of information about these people. A Harvard graduate-turned-attorney still took his money even though he could smell this troubled spirit a mile away. This made Bob think there was really something there if a lawyer would assist him. He received a letter from the attorney three months later that he will have to drop Bob's case after an additional $2000.00 later.

Begging Bob to go seek help from a psychiatrist, he finally gave in and made an appointment. Bob was immediately diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He was prescribed Zyprexa and in just 4 days he called the doctor complaining that he was too exhausted to function or even go to work. The doctor switched his medication to Risperdal. This still gave Bobo a feeling of extreme sedation. Three weeks later Bob elected to stop taking any medication.

His symptoms remained and he went back to work. The diaries he has written for years contain word for word what the voices say. "You are a piece of ______," "You eat too much, you are talking too much!" Other times they would tell him he is driving too fast, sleeping too much, etc. Very personal messages. I could watch Bob from a distance and see his expression change from loose and expressive to hard and emotionless, then I would know he was hearing the voices. We would be driving down the road and he would laugh for no reason. We would engage in conversation and he would just move on to something with absolutely NO relation to the subject.

Bob will only believe something if he reads it. He does not trust the spoken word of friends or family. Yesterday, something inside me clicked. I went to the bookstore and bought three books on schizophrenia. I was elated to read as plain as day that symptoms of schizophrenia include having auditory hallucinations. Two or more people conversing in one's ear without being present. Voices that speak negative and horrible things about the one who hears these voices. It was as if this book was written about Bob. I came home and immediately showed Bob what I had found. I read and read for hours out loud to him and some to myself. I could see in his face I had hit a nerve. Tears filled his eyes. He had agreed! He had agreed that this was all what he feels. I went on and on. I read about depression, anxiety, etc. He told me I had hit the nail on the head. "Why didn't you do this a long time ago?" he asked. I thought to myself. It was because I had given up. I had been struggling for years to convince him that he was ill. My words were not enough. He had to read it. That was the key. I could now grab him by the hand and swim up to the surface of the water I felt I was being drowned in, and take a deep breath.

Bob is hesitant to get back on medication. He knows that on Tuesday when we go to the doctor, he will be put on medication. He is afraid of losing his job. He is afraid of being sedated and not going about his usual routine. To me, I see it as taking six to eight weeks out of his existence, and start living. He has lost many years and missed out on so much. I don't want him to talk himself out of this rehabilitation. It is the only hope to realize that this is an illness, not real voices, not conspirators wanting to inflict pain to his body and ridicule to his mind.