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I'm writing this article to tell about my experiences with schizophrenia. Around 1980 when I was 31 years old, while living alone in a basement apartment, I suddenly began hearing voices and experiencing visual hallucinations. Suddenly, dead people in cemeteries were speaking to me. Also, the voices led me to believe that all my old friends were dead, that I was going to lead a revolution, and that I should kill myself by letting a car hit me. I actually stood in the middle of moving traffic, but thank G-d none hit me. The voices also convinced me that the world was ending, and that I should join the devil at some apartment house to escape the world ending. I walked around the neighborhood many times, but finally I walked to my parents' house, and after seeing the state I was in, they hospitalized me.

Actually, my stay in the mental hospital was enjoyable because it brought me into contact with people, although most of them were far-gone mentally. There were a few classes in the hospital, which I enjoyed. The hospital also served three square meals a day, but you had to wake up early and go to sleep early, a routine that you get used to. Anyway, that's when I started getting a medication called prolixin, which I take to this very day.

I was let out of the hospital one month later and I had to regularly see a psychiatrist and get a prolixin shot. Since I didn't feel tranquilized by prolixin, I eventually convinced my family that I didn't need to see a psychiatrist. I started working again in the family business and soon picked up selling goods and shipping them out. But, the voices returned and soon I was back in the hospital taking my prolixin medication.

It was almost as if the voices didn't want me to become independent or successful. Soon I went to a clinic to get my prolixin shot free, as the psychiatrists were getting very expensive. Religiously, I got my prolixin shot from a nurse for seven years and didn't hear the voices in all that time. In the meantime, my father had passed away, which had a big effect on my life. Suddenly I understood what it was like to lose somebody who was important in your life.

I moved to Manhattan in 1994 and the voices had slipped back into my life innocuously, talking to me day and night. I could now afford a psychiatrist, as I had saved up money in the 1980s and was getting paid well in my family business. My new psychiatrist was a distinguished man who actually believed in me and that I could attract women, a problem that I had most of my life. But, I still had the problem of hearing voices.

In 1998, I discovered the Awakenings Group and Ken Steele and Daniel Frey, who welcomed me into the group with open arms. Ken Steele found me a new psychiatrist, Molly Finnerty (who is also the president of the Picnic for Parity) who charged less and gave me a lot more time than my old psychiatrist. Also, I am now taking, in addition to my prolixin shot, a drug called Risperdal. Risperdal had helped Ken Steele, Daniel Frey and many other schizophrenics. Alas, the voices plaguing me are still there and I'm now having trouble with sleeping too much. I've missed a lot of days of work the last few years due to misuse of sleeping pills. So, it's not a happy ending, but at least I'm still alive.