Disclaimer: This is a fictional narrative written to emulate what a typical case of Schizophrenia may look like, and is not meant to reflect any true events or people.
Written by: Muhammad Qureshi
Edited by: Benjamin Hewitt
The voices began to flood my mind, and there were shadowy figures everywhere I went. Creatures that were made up ran through my consciousness in my ever-waking breath. As a child, these hallucinations confused and scared me, and I didn’t understand why I was hearing and seeing the things that I did. The voices often screeched statements that told me that the world would be better off without me, or that I should harm someone. When I reached middle school, I had my first meltdown.
In my first week of middle school, the visions of the shadow-like figures were far stronger than my normal hallucinations, and eventually, they started to surround me; and corner me. Feeling conflicted, it felt like everyone who passed had their eyes on me. The walls and floors started to speak my name and whisper their ever-so-soft sentences making me feel as if I was insane. I had to escape. I ran towards the girl’s bathroom and locked myself in one of the stalls. I told the voices to go away and begged, yelled, and screamed at the top of my lungs causing some of the other girls to notify a teacher in the closest classroom. The teacher called the school psychologist and the local police officer to try and calmly get me out of the stall. I yelled, “Everyone is trying to kill me. They will hurt me once I step out!”. The police officer and the psychologist were completely oblivious as to what I was talking about, but I explained that the voices were trying to get me to harm everyone and myself. The officer reassured me that I needed to stay calm and that no one was trying to hurt me as long as I was there. After a 30-minute standoff that seemed like 3 hours, I finally stepped out of the stall and broke down crying. When I got outside, an EMS team was waiting for me with a stretcher. If I had known how serious it was then, I would have gotten help earlier. The psychologist notified my parents who then agreed to turn me into state care when they realized the severity of my symptoms.
The ride to the hospital was filled with many emotions. I had no idea what was wrong with me. My parents spoke with the psychiatrist and doctors about the symptoms that I was experiencing, and what my next steps were in terms of medication and prevention treatment. My parents agreed that I needed to stay at the hospital until I got better, however, this was painful for me as I had to miss seeing my friends. After what seemed like ages, the doctors discussed with my parents and I that I was diagnosed with schizophrenia - a serious mental condition of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation (“Psychiatric Services”). After several weeks, my condition started to vastly improve with the help of antipsychotic medication, though I was having trouble regulating my mood and emotions. The medication helped remove my hallucinations and delusions, however the depressive symptoms kept their constant presence.
Over the course of the next month, I decided to join group meetings and actively participated in different exercises and activities with other people who have the same condition as I have. One of these methods to regulate my feelings was the usage of cognitive behavioral therapy, which focused on how I could change my thinking and behavior. The therapist showed me how I could alter my thoughts and feelings to deal with the voices and hallucinations (“Schizophrenia Treatment”, 2023). Working on certain triggers that started my schizophrenic episodes allowed me to analyze what really happens inside my head and how to effectively put an end to a possible bad beginning. With the news that I would always experience some type of schizophrenic symptoms, I used this to my advantage and motivation to work on my emotional regulation exercises, and hopefully, my middle school memory would be of a certain distant past.
References:
Psychiatric Services. Advanced Psychiatric Care. (2018, October 18). https://www.advancedpsychcare.com/psychiatric-services/#:~:text=Schizophrenia%3A,a%20sense%20of%20mental%20fragmentation.
WebMD. (n.d.). Schizophrenia treatment: Types of therapy and medications for treating schizophrenia. WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/schizophrenia-therapy
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