My Story
My story is similar to many stories of the development of schizophrenia. You read about the spontaneous appearance of symptoms that happens so slow that it’s hard to even notice as the years go by. You read about drug-induced psychosis that actually ends up being the on-set of symptoms. Then you read about the sudden brick wall that gets run into and symptoms just come out of nowhere in full force.
My own story was the slighter type. I was really into spirituality and philosophy and always thinking about the big pictures topics. Is there a god? What is reality? How many spatial dimensions are there? Is there a multi-verse? What is the nature of consciousness? As you read those questions, you may think that those are really whacky questions to be asking. They are and aren’t, but the fact is they have you thinking at such an abstract and dissociative level that you could see it either as causing or being a symptom of schizophrenia. It’s hard to say, but that’s what I was doing at the time it all began.
I started noticing strange features in my vision, like sparkles and static, and eventually what began looking like solid color visions rather than the gradient of colors that we all see. When I closed my eyes, I would see swirls and whirls of color and eventually I began seeing complex geometry moving around behind my eyes. I began to think that everything I encountered was somehow a message placed in alignment with my life. I would read things in books and hear lyrics in songs that seemed to be specific to events and thoughts going on at that specific time.
That’s how it began. Eventually I was feeling very dissociated and confused with philosophy and spirituality. I ultimately decided I had to stop thinking about these deep concepts for a while. My dissociation made me depressed and anxious and I began having panic attacks. There’s not a lot to say beyond this. As time progressed, things got better as I began to control my mind better as well. Things will get better for you too, schizophrenic or not. Life improves.
My own story was the slighter type. I was really into spirituality and philosophy and always thinking about the big pictures topics. Is there a god? What is reality? How many spatial dimensions are there? Is there a multi-verse? What is the nature of consciousness? As you read those questions, you may think that those are really whacky questions to be asking. They are and aren’t, but the fact is they have you thinking at such an abstract and dissociative level that you could see it either as causing or being a symptom of schizophrenia. It’s hard to say, but that’s what I was doing at the time it all began.
I started noticing strange features in my vision, like sparkles and static, and eventually what began looking like solid color visions rather than the gradient of colors that we all see. When I closed my eyes, I would see swirls and whirls of color and eventually I began seeing complex geometry moving around behind my eyes. I began to think that everything I encountered was somehow a message placed in alignment with my life. I would read things in books and hear lyrics in songs that seemed to be specific to events and thoughts going on at that specific time.
That’s how it began. Eventually I was feeling very dissociated and confused with philosophy and spirituality. I ultimately decided I had to stop thinking about these deep concepts for a while. My dissociation made me depressed and anxious and I began having panic attacks. There’s not a lot to say beyond this. As time progressed, things got better as I began to control my mind better as well. Things will get better for you too, schizophrenic or not. Life improves.