How I Found Myself in the Wreckage of Schizophrenia
My battle against voices and delusions.
I’d been mentally ill with PTSD for years, but this was different. My depression was getting worse, and I was feeling more and more angry for no specific reason. I was also thinking about suicide. My energy levels were zero, and I slept 15 hours daily.
I’d lost interest in everything. I did whatever I could to stay in my bedroom without talking to anybody outside of my immediate family.
It wasn’t long after this that I heard a voice that would chatter inside my head every waking hour. The voice never said anything good. Instead, it told me to kill myself, suggested methods, and told me that no one loved me. It was like my worst school bully from years earlier had implanted himself inside my head.
Around this time, I started to feel an all-pervasive fear. Like my anger, I had no definitive target for my terror. I just “knew” someone or something was coming to get me; they could come at any time and in any form. I wasn’t safe anywhere because I didn’t know what I was running from.
At that moment of desperation, a magician appeared on a TV show. I thought I’d found my attacker.
