How has schizophrenia helped me?

People see on television or in movies the dangerous schizophrenic running around killing people or sitting in a corner, rocking, and speaking rhymes to themselves. So, they think that is all schizophrenia is. I try to tell my stories on here as close to how I remember everything taking place. I don't think any of them have been happy or fun in anyway so I wanted to write something a little bit different today. I watched a video on youtube by Rachel Star and she kind of inspired this post. So, if you read it rachel, thanks. :)
As human beings inhabiting this fine planet, we all face struggles that we must work through and sometimes get through alone. Yes, I am viewed as weaker at times because of my disorder. I do need extra help every now and then with lots of support. When stressful times happen, I may need someone to help keep an eye on me just in case I get worse. Also, I know how to work through the bad news. I know that I am living with schizophrenia. That is tough. It encourages me to keep fighting and moving on even when others would be ready to throw up the white flag and surrender. I know not to give up when everything looks black. I know that I am tough enough to keep pushing through.
I know several other people who are also schizophrenic. Some of them I met while I was in a psych ward somewhere and a couple I have met just out and about. I am able to use my schizophrenia as a way to relate with them and encourage them when they are struggling and they do the same when I struggle. It has weeded out the true friends from the back stabbers and my support system is even stronger now. I still have social struggles, but I can relate when someone says they are having a hard time with a mental disorder. I may not have that certain disorder and I may not know 100% what they are going through because I am not them, but I can relate more than most people.
God loves me and I love him. I have an even more powerful testimony now because of my schizophrenia. I have, thanks to God, been able to witness to others because of it. Not just mentally ill either. God heals all wounds and if people know He helps me then they know He can help them. He may not choose to heal me here on Earth, but one day I know I won't be schizophrenic anymore. I know that when a mentally ill persons mentions any religion, especially Christianity it seems, no one takes them seriously because it is "just the psychosis speaking." I agree with that at times. I've met people who say things like, "God wants me to jump of this rock." or they claim even to be the Christ. That is psychosis. Someone saying they love God because he watches out for us is not psychosis. Anyway, I got off topic.
Schizophrenia isn't all rainbows and butterflies, but it isn't always dark clouds and confusing and frightening monsters. Thanks for reading.
                                                     Love, a schizophrenic.

What is the hardest part?

I had a friend ask me not long after I told her about my schizophrenia, "What is the hardest part?" Well, by hard do you mean the symptoms? Do you mean the anger and hatred I sometimes feel towards myself for having this disorder? Do you mean social things like the reactions I get from people?
For me, my toughest symptom to work through is disorganization. When I am not doing to well sometimes I get to where I can't even make complete sentences. I can't carry out conversations. Not because I don't want to, but because my brain won't let me. I have a thought and it moves on or races on really. That causes my memory to be bad. I might do something and then completely forget that I even did it. It could be something as simple as walking to a room or saying something to a person. I sometimes repeat the same things to a person minutes after I have already told them. Here recently, my symptoms are manageable so I haven't been having that tough a time.
Another hard part is when people don't understand. I don't care how many degrees you have or how much knowledge you think you have, you don't know anything and can't understand until you are going through it. Guess what? Even when you are going through it, you still may not understand. I know I have wrote post on here saying to try to understand. The key word is "try." When someone is patient and trying it makes things so much easier. I can't even explain how I feel at times. So alone and misunderstood. So hated and confused. The emptiness sometimes feels so overwhelming that there is no way anyone could understand except for God himself. Sometimes I wonder if people with the same disorder even can understand. I hate myself for it at times. I get so angry and beat myself up. I've done self harm over that before and also because hallucinations tell me to. That also makes me angry at myself. I wonder what I did to get it and why I am such a screw up. Why do I cause so many problems? What is wrong or so different about me that I had to be the one to get this disease?
When I am having a rough day people can notice. I can't tell them, "Sorry. I don't feel well. I am schizophrenic." I can't always tell my teachers that the reason I didn't go to class is because I was hallucinating. I would like to think that it is 2015 and people are open minded, but I'm not that naive. People are people and people are douches sometimes. I can't always tell my boss the reason I am crying is because I am depressed or the voices won't leave me alone. Do you know where that gets you? A psych ward. But, why should I have to go to a psych ward for 1 bad day? Schizophrenics have bad symptomatic days. If I went to a ward every time I had a bad day full of bothersome symptoms, I would never get out of the hospital and God knows what medications I would be on or how much.
I don't know what the single hardest part is because it is all hard for me right now. In the future I may have a different response, but for now this is my answer.
                                                              Love, a schizophrenic.

Zero

I'm not always sure when my hallucinations first appear to me. I don't always know if they are real or not. Sometimes I can't tell that the frog people are fake and other times I can. Sometimes my memories f them fade or mix with others because there are so many.
Zero is a little girl that I used to see often. She was around 8 when I first saw her. She was always angry and I could never figure out why. She was full of hatred and evil intent. One specific time I remember seeing her is one I will never forget. It was night time and I was out for a walk on campus. We have a fountain here with a flame in the middle called the Eternal flame. I smelled something strange as I approached the fountain. As I turned the corner, I saw her standing there gazing into the flame reaching her hand towards it. She saw me. I walked up and sat at the edge of the fountain just looking. I was trying to ignore the basketballs bouncing on the outdoor court and the screaming coming from the sand volleyball area, but everything just kept echoing as I starred. She smiled. Something was different this time. Something bad. Blood began to pour from her mouth as shouts of joy escaped her throat. She thrusted her whole arm into the flame and began to laugh louder. I jumped up and made my way quickly to my room. There, I saw Mr. Blue. He asked me how I was doing. He has a way of knowing my thoughts and the answers I am going to say before I say them. I guess that would make sense since he is a hallucination. "I know you saw her because I saw her and you see everything I see." I said to him. "Don't let her worry you. She is still confused." He said as he sat in my chair. "That wasn't confusion! That was self harm!" I caught myself shouting. "Why do you care?" Was his response, "She is just a hallucination." I cared because she somehow is apart of me. I don't always believe that hallucinations are meaningful, but with Zero I do. "Go take a shower and calm down." He said to me.
I went into the bathroom and there stood Mr. Red. "Do you mind?" I asked as I stepped into the stall. "Not at all if you don't." He smiled. I got into the shower. I was talking to him about it while he was on the other side of the room. All of the sudden I felt something grabbing my foot. I looked down to see Zero climbing her way out of the drain. She looked fine. No burn marks or anything were on her. "You are starting to turn into Used To Be. She always sneaks up and grabs me." I said to her as I washed my face. "I just wanted to mess with you." She smiled as she stood in the corner of the very small shower. "Is that why you did that at the flame?" I asked angrily. She smiled, "I'm like you." She pointed at my arm. It was covered in blisters and began to burn. All I knew to do was to turn on the cold water and let it run over my entire arm. "Why? What? I don't understand." I cried as I felt myself slide on the wall to the floor of the shower. Why do these hallucinations plague me? Maybe my step mom was right? Maybe I am at least demon oppressed. But what about the bunnies? Even satan can appear as an angle of light. Confusion and racing thoughts stormed my mind as I cried in the shower floor. Zero just watched smiling. My arm had quit burning sometime while I sat there. I got up and got out of the shower. Why she did those things to me I'll never know. That is one of the most vivid memories of her and 1 that I catch myself thinking about often. If I ever have a conclusion to these thoughts, I'll be sure to let you know.
                                                               Love, a schizophrenic.

What made me unafraid to talk about schizophrenia?

Nothing. It is still a frightening topic to share about with others. What did get to me is all the ignorance surrounding mental illnesses and all the "friends" I lost once they found out. People have tried to put me through exorcisms before. My own step mother asked me several times if I thought I was demon possessed. People think I am suffering from DID or Bipolar disorder. They make jokes about it. Why is is that a cancer joke is something you shouldn't tell, but mental illness jokes are okay? People have accused me of faking before just for attention. No. Why would I do that? I know I can be hard to be around because of social issues coming from schizophrenia, but why would I pretend to be crazy and risk losing even more friends? Unfortunately, there are people that do that. I am not one of them.
Through all of my chatter, what I am trying to say is people's ignorance and rudeness led me to it. I am not ashamed. I am still afraid to share about it at times with people, but not ashamed. Why should I be? I did not choose this and I don't know why it happened to me. No one is ashamed of talking about their diabetes or their heart disease. Why should I be ashamed of a disease in my brain? I shouldn't, and I won't be. If anyone reading this also has a mental disorder, don't be ashamed of it. The right people will cross your path. Don't use it as an excuse, but also be real with yourself and others. If they don't like you because you have an anxiety disorder, you have add, are bipolar, have schizoaffective disorder, or anything they will leave and they were never worth your time to begin with. You are still the same person you were before you told them or they found out. Don't listen to these people that try to shame you for an illness. Keep working hard and trying to get better and don't be ashamed.
                                                             Love, a schizophrenic.

Quite the Opposite

The other day I wrote of sometimes where I was looked down on or mistreated because of things I couldn't help. I know that many people think that behavior issues can always be helped and I beg to differ in the case of mental illness. The brain can be sick like anything else in the body. I also believe that there are things that I have done and still do that are not part of my illness. I just wanted to write a post to explain and give some examples.
When I was a child I was very self centered. One day, my sister wanted to play dragon ball z, but I wanted to play soccer. I told her, "Why don't we do what I want to do first and then we can do what you want to do." My sister agreed. After we played soccer I told her I was too tired to play dbz and that maybe we could play another time. The first couple times, she bought it. Then, she started to say to me, "That's what you said last time and you didn't do it!" I would then get mad and storm off. Sometimes I would hit her and others because hallucinations told me to, but this time was different. I chose to do this myself. I hit her. Under my own decision, I hit my sister. Some may argue that because the brain is different in schizophrenia, that I wouldn't have been able to see how socially that wasn't acceptable or whatever. In this specific case, I knew the difference. Schizophrenia is not always to blame.

Now, I still do things that are wrong, but I don't blame on schizophrenia as much as I do my own self centeredness or whatever. I've been known to toy with people's emotions in order to get what I want, I lie and am manipulative, and once again can be quite self centered. The difference now is that I am not afraid to admit to my short comings which leads to less anger.

So, if you are struggling with a mental disorder my only tip to you is to try and be as honest with yourself and a trusted family member, friend, psychiatrist, or psychologist. Don't beat yourself up. You do have a mental disorder, but you are also human. Being human means we are going to make our own mistakes. It may be tough and scary at first, but you can do it. Honesty with yourself can save a lot of stress and unneeded emotional outbreaks and confusion. This, however, does not mean that the things you do during psychosis or because of your disorder are your fault. Be honest, be patient, and communicate. You got this.
                                                                    Love, a schizophrenic

Hurt

People who have lived with someone with a mental illness or even personality disorder know how stressful it can be at times. You have to know the right things to say or the right things to do to avoid conflict or breakdowns on either side. You have to be able to keep the peace. Most people don't realize how hard that is until it is happening to them. Caretakers often get hurt emotionally by something a mentally ill person says, but they aren't "supposed" to fire back because it could end very badly. This topic came to me while I was playing a game on my phone. I heard a familiar voice say to me, "Because, not all girls are monsters like you!"
This familiar voice belongs to someone who helped out in my youth group when I first started going to church. Our youth group had taken a trip to the mountains. That many kids to be in charge of for 2 days is more than enough to upset people. Some of us were outside playing wiffle ball. I don't remember what I said, but I do remember always managing to say the wrong things just about anytime I open my mouth. Whatever I said, I wasn't meaning to harm anyone. I do know the comment was directed at this youth leader's daughter and I was asking her something. I remember standing there smiling after my question so whatever I said I know it was intended playfully. Thats when I heard him. "Because" was his answer, "not all girls are monster like you." I remember the confusion I felt. Why would he say that to me? I never expected anything like that from this man's mouth. I respected him because I thought he was kind. Did having to deal with me for 2 days make him that upset? I walked away and pretended it didn't bother me, but to this day 7 years later,  it still does. I try not to be a monster. I try not to use schizophrenia as an excuse, but sometimes it is actually schizophrenia's fault.

Another time, I was a bit younger, my sister and I were playing in our room. We were kicking and pushing each other off our bed. I had already had spankings and talking to's earlier that day. I didn't understand why I got in trouble for doing things the voices told me to do. "If they were so bad dad, why didn't you make them leave?" That was a question I used to ask him under my breath. My sister ended up falling off the bed and managed to grab my leg so I went down with her. She caught my leg on her chest and got up crying. She ran into the living room. Worried, I got up to go see if she was alright. My dad busted in the door angrily, grabbed me by my shoulders and began to jerk me back and forth screaming, "How do you like it?" Then, he threw me on the bed and stormed out. I just sat there crying wondering why everything I did was wrong and why people hated me so much.

In schizophrenia, and other mental disorders, people's thoughts sometimes don't make sense. Logic goes out the window and there is nothing that person can do about it. The mentally ill aren't always trying to be douches. My step mom used to get angry at me for self harm. The hallucinations I had made me do it. Zero, the little girl, would bite me if I didn't. Her bites hurt worse than the cuts it took to make her leave me alone. "You know you don't have to listen to them!" She would yell. Except, I did have to listen. Decision making, problem solving, logic, and so many other parts to thinking are disrupted with this disorder. Alot of the time, we really can't help what we say or do. You'd probably have the same reactions if you were in our shoes.

Emotions can be the same way. When people get super angry or hurt, things are said that just shouldn't be. Here are a few tips to caretakers to avoid hurt on both sides:
1: I've said this before, communicate and educate. Talk to each other. Share stories, thoughts, and SPEND TIME WITH EACH OTHER. Learn not just about the person's illness, but also about the person. The more you know about them when they aren't psychotic, the more you can help them when they are.
2: Try counting. When you get so angry you are ready to bust, try counting to 15 in your mind so you can think about wether or not what you have to say is helpful or not.
3: There are ways to get the point across to people without being rude. Take time to think about what you want to say and then find a nicer way of putting it. You are dealing with someone who is mentally ill. Excitment out of anger could easily land them hurt of back in a psych ward.
4: Maybe do some therapy sessions together. I would have loved it if my step mom or dad did this with me. My dad never wanted to because he never felt good. My step mom was afraid I'd been making her sound like a really bad person. It isn't my fault that is how she treated me. Regardless of how afraid you are, at least consider it. It may be helpful. Always talk to the person you are caring for and their therapist before actually doing this.
5: Take time for yourself. If at all possible do something nice for yourself. The sick aren't the only ones who need to be taken care of. Maybe you just need a vacation for a while. Maybe goto a spa or simply out to eat. The more you stay relaxed, the easier things will be.

Thanks for reading.
                                                     Love, a schizophrenic.

Common misconceptions

There is a difference between bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, psychosis, and dissociative identity disorder.
Many people get them mixed up and if you are going to help or even be around someone with any of these, you should know the difference. So, let me help. To sum it all up:
Bipolar disorder=mood swings sometimes accompanied by psychosis (if the psychosis isn't during a manic or depressive state, it could be schizoaffective disorder). There are 2 different types. See a Dr. if you or anyone you know may have symptoms.
Schizophrenia=hallucinations(just because you have hallucinations doesn't mean you are schizophrenic and being schizophrenic doesn't mean you have hallucinations) ,delusions,paranoia,catatonia,confusion of reality and fantasy. If symptoms are present but not for as long it may be schizophreniform. There are many schizoid disorders. Once again, please seek help for yourself or anyone you know that may have this.
psychosis= some sort of hallucinations, maybe paranoia or delusions. Find help if someone you know or yourself may have this.
DID=multiple personalities. Seek help if you think you or someone you know may have this.
Going undiagnosed with anything like these conditions can be very dangerous, even deadly.