Schizophrenia and mental illness. Why does it seem to me to be the most feared, the most misunderstood illness around?
I am a 31-year-old male who has been living with schizophrenia for 11 years. I have come a long way since my diagnosis, not just in health but in awareness, attitude, and prejudice. I will give you my experience from my one and only time of hospitalisation, and my handling of my own diagnosis.
At the age of 20, I was hospitalised for erratic and weird behaviour. It was partly my choice and partly my parents concern that things were not right that had me hospitalised. All the time I was in the hospital I stayed away from the other patients. I felt if I even talked or associated with them, I would catch what they had. I thought I was "normal" and the rest of them were "crazy." I was insulted to think that I could be considered one of "them." After a while, to make a long story short, my illness went into remission and that's when my doctor told me my diagnosis.
The year after, I was in a depression. I still had a ways to go to recuperate from my breakdown. But all I could think about was that I was schizophrenic. The other thing very important to me was my feeling that no woman would ever consider dating me, a crazy man. Then I snapped out of it. I had an illness and I had to accept it. One thing for sure though was that I decided that my life wasn't over, it was a fresh start. My illness was an eye opener. I had nothing to stop me from living life. I had no excuses to avoid people. I was going to live, not curl up in a ball and quit.
Since my battle with my illness was 50% medication and my own 100%, my illness is not even noticeable, not even to myself. I will know when my illness is bothering me, and if I sense it coming back and that I'm heading down that path of living hell, I will run to my doctor, or take extra meds on my own, but I will never let myself go off the deep end again. Even my first doctor noted that he had never seen such a strong attitude nor a patient like me in his experience.
The battle with my illness was a hard one, but now with 50% of the work done with the medication, the 50% of the work that is expected from me, and my own personal extra 50%, I';ve kept my illness at bay and have been healthy for 11 years.
But there are other battles I have to fight which I find are even harder. My friends, who have known me long before my illness, treat me like nothing has changed. They are my friends, and they don't see the illness. They see the person who I've always been. Thank God for true friends.
But the new friends I make will never be more than acquaintances, most of the time. The first person I tried to make friends with had bigger problems than I, but I didn't look at his problems. We hit it off, we were both computer fanatics. This was when bbs's were the rage and the first really good modems were 2400 baud, costing $115.00. We were always playing computer games.
One day, after say four months, he told me about his stomach reflux problem he had since he was a child, due to a valve in his oesophagus that was destroyed. He told me how he suffers with it and that it's always present. He told me of his suicide attempt, his addiction to Demerol, and his alcoholism. I took this as an opportunity to bond, to become closer friends, and tell him of my illness.
Since that day, his phone calls had become infrequent. He practically ignored me, and I noticed his insensitive jokes about the mentally ill and how he never joked about it before. He has moved away since then, and I have even before then stopped bothering with him. He has not called since. In other words, I stopped being a comrade to him and became persona non-gratta.
My father was the last person I'd expect to make me feel different. He made me feel like I was sick and that whatever I did wasn't normal. Since I was a child, my mother installed an appreciation to listening to the rainfall. The serenity of it is very relaxing. One night, coming from a friend's house, 2:00 in the morning, I decided to sit on the back gallery under the awning, smoke a cigarette, and listen to the rainfall. It was raining rather well, not a downpour, but a moderate shower, perfect to make the tapping sounds on the awning and leafs of the surrounding trees. Ten minutes later a light inside the house turns on and my father swings the door open and yells, "What the hell are you doing?" I replied, "Just relaxing." He in return says, in what I took as a cruel and inconsiderate manner, "Get to bed! Maybe I should tell your doctor about this!" And my father still treats me that way. I have never told my father to "f" off, but I do most of the time now, or I just ignore him. If my mother had not passed away from pancreatic cancer when I was 24 years old, I would have a fighting chance here at home and my father would not get away with being such, as the French say, a trou de que.
Everywhere I go, when I bring up my illness in a conversation where I deem it necessary, I tend to whisper its name. It's like it's something to be ashamed of, something that shouldn't even exist. Schizophrenia is misunderstood. The first thing I'd love to dispel is the conception that it's split personality. They are not the same thing. Schizophrenia is schizophrenia. Split personality is split personality. Schizophrenia is a chemical imbalance of neurotransmitters called Dopamine and Serotonin. It is a medical illness.
Secondly, the word "crazy" should be banned from the English language. Crazy is not what a mentally ill person is. That person is sick. Crazy is an ignorant word for something that is not understood. And mentally ill people are not all killers like television portrays and are not all to be feared. I am a prejudiced person. I will freely admit that. Everyone is prejudiced about something. But my experience with mental illness and prejudice towards me has given me sensitivity to it. If anything, my prejudices have lessened. We only show our ignorance when we make fun of or discriminate against something we don't understand. Most of the time it's fear or ignorance that is the cause of prejudice.
If you want to know what it's like to be schizophrenic, take LSD. I will not endorse the use of drugs but to illustrate my point, LSD is a good example. That horrible drug is a more exaggerated sense of what it's like to be schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is a more subtle "out of reality" experience. What baffles me is why anyone would consider it "fun" to hallucinate on purpose, or lose reality by taking drugs. If it's so much fun, then why am I taking medication? And I take my medication almost religiously, on purpose, and wantingly.
Schizophrenia is like diabetes. A diabetic has to take insulin daily, watch his/her sugar level, and constantly keep the illness in check. Well, the same thing goes for a person with schizophrenia. A person with schizophrenia has to take medications daily, see a doctor regularly, and not only that, but just like diabetes, there can be complications.
My biggest question I have to ask is why is a cure for diabetes more sought after than a cure for schizophrenia or any mental illness for that matter? After all, we are talking about the mind, our souls, not a pancreas.
I plead with everyone to take the time to inform yourselves on schizophrenia and mental illness in general. There are a large number of people out there who are sick and need help but don't get it, and suffer needlessly. The only thing that stops those people is the fear that they will be labelled crazy. I will tell you something, you are less sick asking for help than not asking for help.