Its been 7 months since being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Since being diagnosed things have gone from bad to worse. I do not believe I have schizophrenia, although I did experience a psychotic breakdown. I believe I have something else, as well as schizophrenia, but something that’s effecting me way more. The medication they put me on has hacked away at my personality such that basic conversation is now difficult. I struggle with basic interactions with people. It’s like there’s something in my system I’m fighting against. When I close my eyes in the morning it is mentally chaotic. Theres a piercing sensation throughout my face and mouth, coupled with heavy and laboured thoughts.
I keep going back to when I didn’t know any better – key decisions which have left me as a social recluse, with no friends, no family, no money and no hope. It started off by me recognising that I was in pain and that pain needed time. I started making decisions which were not about me but instead about the pain I was in. I thought that to be a better human you had to recognise your own pain. This was a key mistake. As soon as I made this spiritual decision, I stopped caring about material possessions and the need for things left me. Spiritually I had achieved something but emotionally I didn’t know I would be opening a can of worms that are not designed to be opened. Some pain is so great its better off leaving – doing what most people do to survive – work and keep busy.
As soon as I got out of the system the desire to work soon left me. I started singing but I did not have a means to support myself financially anymore but crucially the need to have something to support myself left me. This is the crucial mistake that was made. Once the need to have things left me I lived life in a bubble, not being about to see that I was heading into unsurmountable difficulty due to a mixture of unmitigated factors.
First of all I’m transgender. That already puts me in an unfortunate mental space. I wish I could go back the decision to leave work and tell myself it would be a bad idea in the end. If you’re already quite a lonely person anyway, without many friends then work is crucial for mental sanity. The selfish desire for things keeps you on the side of the majority in society of people who believe that if you want nice things you have to work for it. This helps keep the mind focused albeit quite a depressed way to live.
I now spend much of my time alone in parks trying to figure out how I ended up so lonely. I wouldn’t wish my life on my worst enemy. What happened to God? How can I believe in God when I’ve witnessed so much pain and suffering? I pray for relief and nothing comes. Belief in God would be the easiest way out.