Sorry if this is rocky, it’s incredibly hard to write about,
I’m trying.
I have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post traumatic
stress disorder, psychotic depression, impulse control disorder, borderline
personality disorder along with other things.
When I was about 13 I started waking up hearing screaming. I
heard people running down the halls. I heard people dying. I didn’t get
diagnosed with schizophrenia until I was about 15. It just started getting
worse and worse. It went from just
hearing noises, to hearing voices, to the voices never stopping, to seeing
things.
I was convinced that my boarding schools were haunted at
first. I heard footsteps and people running down halls. They were always
screaming like they were trying to get away from something. The screams were
blood curdling…like they were being murdered. I could never sleep because of it;
my friends just thought I was mad. I would wander around the halls trying to
find the source of the noises but nothing was ever there.
It slowly evolved into hearing voices. It was just at night
at first; I’d hear people screaming my name, calling out to me violently like
they were trying to kill me. I’d hear them threatening me, telling me how awful
I am and how I should just kill myself. The voices were so loud I couldn’t hear
anybody or my own thoughts over them. Eventually it just didn’t go away. All
day every day I’d hear the voices. I couldn’t concentrate in class, I couldn’t
hear my friends talking to me…the only thing I could focus on were the voices.
I never slept because of it.
The voices became more and more morbid. I’d hear my mother
dying, screaming at me to save her, describing what was happening as she was
being murdered. I’d hear my sister screaming as my dad killed her. I’d hear
small children’s voices begging me to help them, as I heard beatings happening.
A common voice I’d hear would be a man with a deep voice. He’d describe how
he’d kill me and would constantly scream at me, telling me I’m worthless,
urging me to kill myself.
Eventually my teachers started noticing me constantly
panicking in class, or talking to myself as I begged them to go away. I was
sent to a psychiatrist and immediately was given medication. The medication
never helped so I had to keep going back. Eventually I was on 6 times the
recommended amount and they wouldn’t allow me to have anymore. The medication
didn’t necessarily make the voices go away; it…turned the volume down. Instead
of 2 or 3 people screaming at me it became 20 people whispering.
For the past 4 years I’ve heard the constant whispering with
screaming occasionally thrown in, mostly when I’m stressed or having a bipolar
episode, and always at night. The most
disturbing part is that it’s evolved from just the voices, to visual things. Once
again, it started at night. If I fall asleep I’ll wake up to screaming, when I
open my eyes I’ll see my entire room on fire, melting. There will be people on
fire, asking me to help them. For some reason I feel like I’m pinned down, so I
can never move…I just have to wait until the flames engulf me. Sometimes I wake
up and I see Sunny hanging in front of me, blood everywhere. When I walk around
corners I can see children being dragged away, trails of blood behind them. When
I walk down the streets I see people’s faces melting off…until all I see is
their skulls…dead bodies walking all around me. I can’t drive because I constantly
hit “people” and start panicking. I occasionally see scenes from the things
that happened to me as a kid..like waking up to someone shoving a needle in my
eye. I can sometimes feel what’s happening…it’s not the exact intensity as it
would really be like though.
I completely know that it’s me, that I’m the crazy one, it
isn’t reality…I just can’t seem to understand that when it’s happening. You
know when you wake up in the middle of the night, look at the clock and see it’s
3am, but can’t comprehend the time and just start getting ready? You know that
it’s 3am, but you just convince yourself the time is wrong anyways. That’s what
happens to me, I know that it’s just all in my head but I just convince myself
that it’s real….and it fucking terrifies me.
There’s only three ways I can make it stop even for a
minute, drugs, talking to/ being around someone I care about or actually
listening to the voices.
I’m constantly high. I can’t handle being sober. Weed
sometimes helps, it makes the voices less violent so I can actually
concentrate, but it doesn’t make me stop seeing things. I generally go for
stronger drugs, even if it makes it all stop for an hour and come back a
million times worse later it’s worth it to me. I hate being on drugs. I don’t
want to do this. I don’t want to be a drug addict…I just want to be normal. I
just want peace for two seconds.
Talking to someone I care about can make it stop for a
little while too. Even texts help. When Sunny was alive it would all stop the
second I was anywhere near him. You have no idea how amazing it is to finally
be in silence for a minute. That’s why I’m so clingy…I NEED that minute. It
doesn’t work with everyone, there are only 3 people it actually works with…one
who I’ve never talked to in person and lives across the world.
The last thing that actually helps is listening to the
voices. If they tell me to cut…I cut. When they say to cut, it isn’t just a
scratch. I have to cut to the bone to get them to shut up for an hour. I have
impulse control disorder as well, so as soon as I get stitches I have to bite
them and pull them out…so I NEVER have clear arms. If I don’t do anything to
relieve myself from the voices for too long they get worse, telling me to kill
myself. Telling me how they want me to kill myself. I give in about once a
month and try...I usually try and cut out all my veins. The more blood, the
more silence. My friends are paranoid so they usually catch me and I only have
to spend a few days in the hospital.
Mixed with bipolar disorder the schizophrenia get’s even
worse. With bipolar disorder I get “episodes” of a never ending sadness,
happiness or anger. It can last between a day and a year. My longest one was a
year of constant depression. They usually last about a week, usually once a
month. When my depression episodes come on the schizophrenia get’s a million
times worse. It’s pretty much impossible for me to get out of an episode once I’m
in one. I’ve learned to hide it so people don’t hate me though. I have
psychotic depression so my bipolar episodes are depression 90% of the time. The
difference between psychotic depression is that psychotic depression makes you
paranoid and it’s more intense. I become paranoid that everyone hates me or I
feel guilty.
I have borderline personality disorder as well. Most people
think it means I have split personalities, but I don’t. It makes my personality
change in a way frequently. It’s not that I’m changing…it’s just my interests
and…values? One minute I can be completely head over heels in love, and another
minute I’ll despise that person. My interests change all the time, usually this
shows through what I’m doing in university. I’ve had 17 different majors. With
BPD I get episodes of nothing. I feel absolutely nothing mentally or
physically. The best way to describe it is it’s like there’s cotton in my
brain, I feel like a zombie. I can’t have relationships because I can’t feel
love. I get hurt constantly because I can’t feel pain. BPD makes me really
clingy because I feel like everyone has abandoned me. If someone I care about
leaves me I completely lose it. I can’t be alone. BPD makes it difficult to
gauge how bad something is, so I frequently overdose or binge eat, and then
make myself throw up.
Impulse control disorder shows itself through trichotillomania,
(pulling my hair out), or in weird habits. I don’t pull out the hair on my head
anymore; I’m more likely to pull out the hair on my legs/arms which isn’t too
bad. I don’t actually notice what I’m doing, I’m completely unaware. When I
turn on a faucet I have to turn it off and turn it on again before I can use
it, I have to close drawers twice, turn off and on lights twice, put my glasses
on twice and light my cigarettes 3 times. Once again, I don’t notice I’m doing
it, but if I do I have a complete panic attack.
I also have post traumatic stress disorder (you can find out
why here…). I have constant flashbacks about what happened to me. If you ask me
about it in person I’ll “turn off”. My brain and body just stop working and I
can’t get anything out. When I fall asleep all I see is what happened to me. I
can’t sleep near other people because I wake up screaming every few hours…my
dreams are SO vivid and realistic. I blame everyone for what happened and I
have no idea why.
I take about 27 medications every few hours to even
function. I have no idea if this is my real personality or if it’s just the
medication.
I’m not writing this for sympathy, I just want people to
understand that I’m not trying to be emo or an asshole. I’m absolutely not crazy;
I can live a normal life. I don’t want people to think they should treat me
differently because of this. I’m a normal person; I just have obstacles I have
to get around.
I’m so worried people are going to think I’m insane after I
post this…
