Confessions of a Mental Health Sufferer

I have Schizoaffective Disorder.

The clinical definition of a Schizoaffective is a mental health sufferer having the symptoms of psychosis, or schizophrenia, and a mood disorder—either of bipolar or depressive type.   Though my doctor didn’t specify what my type was, she confirmed I had schizoaffective disorder.

A schizophrenic, first of all, has several symptoms, and having two of them can indicate that you indeed have psychosis.   Hallucinations, which is one, can be auditory, visual, tactile and even olfactory (smell).   Delusions are a fixed false belief, which despite all evidence pointing against a belief, will be espoused by the schizophrenic regardless.   There is also the disorganized thinking, or a disjointed trail of thought which would jump from one topic to the next, with only the schizophrenic convinced of their connections.   Those constitute the positive symptoms.   The negative symptoms are those that involve loss of motivation or will to do anything, which may be confused with laziness or depression.   But it is the sheer unwillingness to do or think of anything.

The mood part of the schizoaffective could be of the Bipolar type or the Depressive type.   The Depressive Type is characterized by depression, of which much is said, but what is most common is the need to isolate from everyone and everything.  The Bipolar type is also oft-mentioned, though I would characterize mania further. 

Okay.

I’ve had sort of hallucinations.  For some reason I have had an olfactory hallucination where I smell cigarette smoke coming from the outside of the room, though no smoke can be smelled by anyone else.   Auditory, in that I sometimes catch glimpses of whispers right at the point of sleeping.  I have heard my name being called by familiar people.   There was even an instance when I heard shouting outside my room but when I went to check everyone was asleep.   I have also heard internal auditory hallucinations: songs that play on my loop again and again in my head.   Even when I play it on Spotify or anywhere else it continues to play well afterwards.

Then there are the intrusive thoughts: a few years ago my condition was worsened by negative, offensive thoughts that suddenly would pop out of nowhere, with me certain that I would never do or say anything like it.   I had it before, with offensive thoughts that I constantly had to ward off.

I also was assaulted with intrusive memories; snippets of the past that would otherwise be harmless but seem to have a traumatic emotional effect on me as if to mock me.   These intrusive memories first came occasionally… then sporadically… eventually the memories were so frequent and so painful I was vocalizing nonsense words repeatedly just to ward them off.   Or nowadays I groan/moan.

I also had negative affect: the unwillingness or motivation for anything.  The flatness of will, I would say.   This fits neatly to the mood disorder.  Though I have yet to confirm it, but I have had manic episodes where I commit impulsive, self-destructive acts in anger or spite.  These manic episodes are mostly coupled with the psychosis of being threatened.   I’ve also had depressive episodes, where I entertained the idea of self-harm, or my depression manifested to anger.

These mood disorders affected me frequently.  The negative symptom of my psychosis, the abject flattening of my will and motivation, affected my education.   It took three years from my supposed Graduating year to finish my Thesis, partly because I was struggling to will myself not only to do it, but to do anything.

Finally we come to the meat of my psychosis: the delusion.  It had history.   There was this person I liked, and I thought she was stalking me.   And it was so intoxicating that I became obsessed with her.   I thought she followed me everywhere, talked with me through the graffiti, and the songs in the shops and the streets.   Even the signs from vehicles.

Eventually things went ugly, and as the months and years went by I came to the belief that she had talked with everyone I knew or everyone around me, had cameras installed in my room, and in the house in general, up to the point that everywhere I went they knew about me beforehand because they watched me.   I was a public spectacle.

The Truman show, you might say.   And the fact that I’m saying this you could very well say that I’ve gotten better.   But believe me when I say if you try to convince me that it is all in my head, and really convince me, I would have half a mind to throw a mug, a glass or an object clear across the wall in anger.   I know what’s true.   Everyone’s trying to convince me I wasn’t being watched but all signs point to it being true.   It was a fixed belief that I had and still have.

I’ve had lesser psychoses: sometimes I wonder if any of it is real, that I’m actually in a coma and I’m imagining people in my life.  Or sometimes I have the terrifying thought that maybe I’m actually vocalizing or saying what I think I’m only thinking.

I even woke up to a delusion where a laser pointer from a sniper rifle was pointed at me, and I almost wanted to sleep below on the side of the bed, but instead opted to close the windows and turn off the light.

And that, to sum, is my condition.   Has it affected me and my life?  Quite a lot.  Has it affected my thoughts and my concentration?  I can visibly say I’m deteriorating.

But can I talk about it?  Certainly not.

So why say it here?

Because there’s nowhere else to say it to.   This blog, with only the Sci Fi/Fantasy Reading post having frequent views, is otherwise anonymous.   This is the equivalent of shouting in the forest, where your only audience is the trees.  

I am in a place where my kind are mocked, shunned.   My condition is grounds for dismissal.   My doctor would prescribe me medicines, and this would help, but the daily regimen is lacking.   There is also the constant refrain of “It’s all in your head”.   Schizophrenics—and mental health sufferers, in general—suffer this type of condescension, the “snap out of it” type of advice.  

If a gay person were to admit to you of his orientation, would you tell him, “Have you tried not being gay?” (People have done that).   And yet if a psychotic tells you that I have a mental health condition, why do we say different?

I have nowhere to turn to, because my condition is either not believed, not understood, or rejected outright.   We have a law protecting mental health sufferers from discrimination, and yet most of us still live in fear.   Nobody talks about it.   When someone commits suicide, people say “they have a lot to be happy for, why do it?” or “if you need help, there’s always someone there”.   Mental health sufferers would not openly ask you for help, because your responses are usually wrong.

I am schizoaffective.  One day I will be proud enough to say it, without fear of consequence, and wear it as a badge of honor.   One day I will find a place where I can be with a community that accepts regardless of your suffering.

For now, I am here, surrounded by an imagined circle of fellow sufferers, a la Alcoholics Anonymous, openly admitting to my condition and my path to recovery (hehe I’m not sick).