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What is it like to have schizophrenia?

schizophrenia

mental health

psychology

everyone

tynamite

I've been schizophrenic once.
I'm not actually a schizophrenic person, but I did experience schizophrenia once. It was one of the weirdest experiences.

I have a true story about this.

One day me and my Dad were in a bedroom, and the landline phone rang. I
knew the phone wasn't for me, as I don't get calls on it. He went to pick it up, and I had a hopeful thought in my head that said that the phone could be for me. All was normal.

My Dad picked up the phone, and I heard a voice in my head that said "The phone was for you, and he's just took it off you." The voice was demonic. The voice sounded haunting, and it had the tone of the scream about it. It also sounded aggressive. For a split second I frantically ran forwards, as he had the phone to his ear. I do not remember 90% that happened for the next ten
seconds.

* * *

After the phone call, my Dad told me that I was viciously fighting him like a crazy animal, trying to take the phone off him. I told him that I thought the phone was for me, and that I didn't remember anything. I didn't know if he believed me, and I didn't think it was a good idea to talk about the voices.

Looking back, all I remembered was one frame of me with the phone in my hand, and my Dad bent down, trying to refrain me. Looking back a second time, the memory that I should have, is feint.
The memory I have of the incident, it feels that I'm imagining it when
I'm thinking of it. It's a memory that I doubt having. The only thing I
have to confirm it, is the prior voice, my memory loss, and post
confirmation of the event.

I learnt that when a voice in your head tells you something, that no
matter how unreasonable or ludicrous it is, that your brain is going to
agree with it, because it is yourself. You're not really going to argue
with yourself when you think things, so you have less reason to do so,
when an overbearing demonic voice tells you that something is true.
Guess why I became schizophrenic for that moment. Because I believed
something so much, it became true.

Before you comment and tell me that there was no way I could have been schizophrenic, keep this in mind. I am not 100% sane, though you would never notice. I've been suffering from chronic depression for 5 or 7 years and I still have it. I've been suicidal, and sometimes I exhibit certain behaviours to be my coping mechanisms. I try to write my answers so that nobody comments saying they don't understand me. To me it means I haven't answered my point well enough.

I don't really understand the prior thoughts I made in my head at the time that caused me to act in that psychotic way. The mind is a powerful thing. People have killed themselves due to the power of thought alone, by a deprecated willpower.

If I was schizophrenic, I would be a very dangerous person. Everything that I think, I would automatically regard as true. Every paranoid assumption I have and make about people (I make loads) in my head, would be considered a fact. I would say you've done things that you haven't done. Witnesses would have to convince me otherwise, so you wouldn't want to be in the same room with me alone, unless I can trust you or if I truly care about you, you would have no swaying power as I wouldn't trust you.

Another schizophrenic person I know, who has violent rages
ust like there are different forms of autistic, there are different forms
of schizophrenia. I know someone who has schizophrenia, which occurs when
the combination of not taking her medication and her being jealous or
disowning by a child happens. All her demonic actions have logical
emotional reasons for them. When she stabbed her son 50 times and drew
swear words of his blood on the wall, the police came round and were
scared of her because she looked demonic. They had to call her mother to get
to the house, and get her in the police van. They couldn't have the
strength to do it themselves.

When this person is going mental, they mention all sorts of elaborate stories which are lies. These include that she's been raped and other extreme things. She talks about religion and especially the devil a lot when she's like that. I would have to ask what the things she says are.

Another person with multiple personalities
A person I knew online has multiple personalities, learning difficulties
and schizophrenia, and has the mental age of a 12 year old. He's a man
who is naive and egotistic. He comments on his own pictures talking
about how good he looks from time to time, as if he is a different
person than the photographed man. This person is aware of their
condition, and writes schizophrenic poetry.

Everyone has a different experience of schizophrenia, as there are different forms of it, so we could sit here and talk about what it's like all day. That's like what it's like to be like to be autistic.
I make a lot of assumptions about people, and believe that my opinions
are facts. I apparently already need CBT (cognitive behavioural
therapy). If I was schizophrenic, I would be hard to reason with, and I
would act on all sorts of assumptions and crackpot theories. I would be
hard to reason with, and would have memory loss and question my own
memories.

If that woman was schizophrenic, she would continue harming people, like when she stabbed her son 50 times and drew swear words with his blood on the wall. When the police came, she looked psychotic and demonic. The men were too scared to put her in the police van. They had to call her mother to do it.

The person I know online, I wouldn't know. I can't get on with him because
the sort of person he is. Some other people can though.

My brother knows psychology, and does hypnotism, so he would have a completely different insightful answer than me. He knows more about schizophrenia than I do. Unlike me, he is very good at understanding other people. I wonder what answer he would give. This question page isn't even completed.

tynamite

Maria

It's weird to have an moment like that, where you are away from reality for a while. Some time ago a had what I call an "episode". It's yet not clear if it was a convulsion and I've been not diagnosed with epilepsy. But I still feel strange thinking about what happened. I lost consciousness for a few minutes, felt on the floor and bit my tongue. But then, when I was regaining consciousness I was rambling and incoherent in what I was saying. I have almost no memory of all this and took me a while to be normal again. I've also been depressive for a few years now. It's hard to deal with these things when you know they can happen again anytime. ¿Did you consulted a doctor for a diagnosis?

tynamite

Me

I didn't get a diagnosis for that, because it only happened once, and although they'd believe me, they'd just find it a funny story that they can write down or share with their friends. "Don't ever do that dangerous thinking again!" they might say.

Sometimes people can have hallucinations and say silly things if they have a fever. I've seen it. Then the ambulance came out, asked simple questions, checked his temperature, and left the house saying all was fine and to wait half an hour. When the ambulance person left, it didn't happen again. It's if these things happen again, that you have to be scared.

Shoutout to Terrence Reed for diagnosing me on this website with chronic depression and Christie Ann Barakat for offering to ship me some zoloft even though it would make her broke.

I've had it since I was 13, and I've never took medication. In the UK, the maximum time you can have antidepressants for is for 3 months, then you have to stop taking them. The three months thing shocked her and she said that was an outrage.

Also when I was 3, I was tested for every type of disability and behavioural or personality disorder or syndrome you can think of, and I got the all clear, so I'm normal.

Adisa Nicholson's answer to How do non-autistic people know they're allistic/neurotypical/not on the autism spectrum?

And that's about it really.

tynamite

Maria

I don't know how the health system works there, but I would have gone to see a doctor. They would have probably not medicate you with an isolated mild episode. But it's good to know what it is and be aware what are the things you have to pay attention to in case it happens again. I don't know, that's just what I would do. I'm still going to different doctors to see if someone can figure out what I had. I feel good knowing.

tynamite

Me

Sometimes something can be so spaced out yet periodic, that you don't class it as a thing.

So imagine I spent years of my life not knowing I had anything with a name on it, not like it mattered anyway, luckily enough.

Maybe this link will help.
What is Chronic Depression (Dysthymia)

tynamite

Maria

Thanks, I'll check it out.