I wasn’t told right away what was wrong with me. My psychiatrist told me that what I’d experienced was a psychotic break. I gave him notes that explained that I’d been experiencing symptoms for years prior to this episode, and I guess that’s what led him to the diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. I’d given permission for my parents to receive information from my doctors, as I was pretty out of it and couldn’t understand much, so my dad was the one who spoke to the psychiatrist and first heard about the diagnosis.
While on medication, I still experienced certain symptoms of the disorder. One night, my left arm was cut up because “they” had wanted to hurt me. I walked out to the room my mom in, held my arm out, and started crying about how they had hurt me and that I needed to go to the hospital and be under constant supervision so I couldn’t be hurt again. We couldn’t afford to put me in the hospital, and my wounds weren’t deep enough to require a trip there, either, so my mom wrapped my arm and put me to bed. By the next morning, I felt better but rather stupid for having cut my arm.
My fear of being shot in the head came back every so often as well, but it eventually faded out as a new fear appeared. I became deathly afraid of birds, especially crows, because I felt that they were spying on me for the Devil. I still somewhat retain this fear. Looking at the sky the other day, filled with crows flying around each other, I became extremely uncomfortable and felt it was a sign of something bad about to happen. I was leaving my psychiatrist’s office at the time, so I felt the two things were connected in some way.
This past month, after a few months of doing all right again and being able to return to school and function properly, I started to decline pretty rapidly. I decided to stop taking my anti-psychotic during the end of October. I believed that it was responsible for my symptoms and that I really didn’t need it. It was causing my heart to beat irregularly every so often as well, which really freaked me out. I was able to function decently for about a week or so after going off the anti-psychotic, but then my grandmother died. She had lived with us and was a second mother to me, and her death sunk me into a deep depression. I stopped going to classes for a bit and was drinking frequently. Then I started to lose my mind again. I kept hallucinating, reading things incorrectly, and hearing voices every so often. I told my therapist about it all and she told me that I really needed to get back on all of my medication again.
Before going to see my psychiatrist the other day, I went through some sort of brief psychotic period. I heard one of the cats speak in English, had an intense desire to brush doll’s hair, paint a collage of colors on the walls, and I kept rearranging words (not to form new words, but just moving the letters around each other). My mom drove me to my appointment and I walked out of the house wearing a shirt I’d been wearing for days, no makeup, and knotting my hair around in front of my eyes. I slumped down in the car seat and then again in the waiting room. I received a lot of stares as I flipped slowly through a magazine, either turning the pages extremely slowly or dragging my fingers across the pages in various patterns before turning the page. I eventually snapped out of it and returned fully to reality while I was in a store with my mom after my appointment. I felt incredibly stupid and embarrassed about how I looked, but there was nothing I could do about it then.
Currently, I’m pretty out of it, but I think that’s due to my body getting used to the new drug (Zyprexa). My first dose was on Monday, and it made me sleep for sixteen hours and then wake feeling extremely drugged. I was able to eat something while being somewhat awake, then it was time for another dose, which put me to sleep again. This morning, I woke up at around 10:30 in the morning, and I don’t feel heavily drugged like I did yesterday, but I don’t feel attached to reality very much. It’s difficult for me to write this, even, but I try to force myself to write and focus on things when I’m feeling this way in order to 1) keep myself focused on something 2) keep a record of what I’m like during these periods and 3) allow others to witness what this all is like. The last bit almost doesn’t count though because I seem to remain fairly articulate when I type, even when I’m fucked out of my mind.
I’ve had to quit school due to how little I’ve been able to function this past month. I’ll be able to finish one course if I can get my mind back enough to finish up some lessons and take two tests next Tuesday, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that. We’ll see, I suppose. I’m totally fucked with my photography class though, and I need to email my professor soon and let him know that I’m having health problems. I don’t know how much that will help anything, but I don’t want anyone to think that I stopped going to classes just because I’m a lazy slacker or something.
For all that this mental illness has put me through, and will continue to put me through for the rest of my life, I cannot understand why mental illness seems to actually be something to aspire to these days. I realize that a lot of people (for whatever reason) seem to equate mental illness with genius, but I don’t believe that’s true. This illness robs me of my mind and my entire life. The medication that I have to take to treat it doesn’t make anything any easier, either. There’s nothing glamorous about any of this. Medication doesn’t fix all my symptoms, either, so I’ve had to come up with ways to cope with them when something happens and I’m around other people. I’ve learned to (for the most part) ignore my hallucinations and such if they happen to me when I’m not alone.
Anyway, this is the last of my introduction posts. I hope this has given you some sort of idea of where I’m coming from in all of this. I’ll probably write other posts that go into better detail about who I am and various aspects of this disorder, but I wanted to at least have some sort of basic outline of everything written first.
Please pass a link to this blog around as much as you can.
My purpose in keeping this blog is to inform people about this disorder, so the more people who read it, the better.
I am always open to questions.
Don’t be afraid to talk to me. If I’ve mentioned something that you’d like me to expand upon, feel free to ask.
Posted by K. - Living with Schizoaffective Disorder 
