I sometimes wonder what a normal mind would be like my memories are faint about it. I developed schizophrenia at the age of 5. It is the earliest I remember hearing a voice. I understand I may never be able to perceive and understand the reality of those without this illness. Do any of you remember what it was like before you developed schizophrenia.
1 Like
I dont remember it well after a year of being sz, but Iām hoping to find it again. Just have traces of voices and a little paranoia about telepathy.
I was weird and quiet I guess. Except around my friends. My dad told me I got weird and withdrawn starting in 7th grade. But no one said anything about mental illness until I was 19 and I saw my first therapist. If I look at my childhood in one way, I did a lot of normal things that kids do. I didnāt have a large circle of friends just a few close friends. But we rode bikes, went fishing, played sports, had water balloon fights. When I became a teen, we started getting into trouble a little bit but so were other people. We did a little vandalizing and stealing, nothing serious. Started smoking pot and drinking. When we got cars we got around more. Started going to parties,went to the beach whenever we could. Of course we were always thinking of girls. But since girls liked my friends my friends did more than think. I just had very little luck with women. But I still had a lot of fun. But I had MANY bad times too. I always felt different I guess.Got picked on and verbally abused buy these same friends. When we were all getting along,life was great and fun.When they ganged up on me to put me down life was miserable.
3 Likes
I was touched by sz and bipolar as far as I can remember - There was no real ānormalā period for me. I had anxiety, paranoia, panic disorder, mood swings, distorted thinking, as a child
basically ā no '.
take care
I do. Forgive me for saying this, but the difference is as if you took drugs.
This is my normal. It has always been like this, just a way of life I guess.
I too started having issues when I was about 5. I was also hyper and life spun by fast. I remember being wide eyed and always running. I had a few friends in my childhood. Some were real and others were imaginary. The problem was, Iād get confused by which ones were real and which ones werenāt.
I am a lot like 77Nick77 in that, I went to school when I could, I rode my bike around, I wandered around my neighborhood, I had swim lessons and swim team when I was younger. I climbed trees and jumped around just did my thing.
But there were also a lot of problems with stuff happening around me that I didnāt remember or could explain. I had friends telling me I had to give them my blood so they could become real. There were moments of calm, and then moments of chaos.
But it was never normal.
I had a nice normal happy childhood, then when I hit my teens everything changed and I became a wreck of panic and fear. It continued till it developed into full blown sz at 18. So only my childhood was ānormalā
Yes. I remember sanity very well. I was 18 when it struck me, and it crept up slowly and then went full blast 100% when I was almost 19. I was a military brat. I got Krav Maga belts in high school and conditioned like hell and studied hard and had a 3.9 before the illness struck. I went to an international school and was friends with the best athletes, I would lift with them and we would go eat high protein meals together and hangout. I was a straight-edge, no drugs, not even caffeine or aspirin. I wanted to complete Navy ROTC and try out to be an officer in the SEALs, it was my dream every since I was 10 years old.
Now I am doing well, meds have me 90 something percent symptom free. Some days I am crazy 10% of the time, some days I am 99% cured, but then I have some really bad days here and there.
I miss the old times but schizophrenia has made me stronger. I am now a competitive powerlifter and straight A student on a full academic scholarship, not bad for someone with a ā ā ā ā ā ā up brain.
My IQ has increased since I was a teenager by 8 points. I scored 125 in my junior year of high school and last week scored 133. I am extremely lucky to be the 20% who recover from this ā ā ā ā ā ā ā ā illness and I am told that among that 20% I am in the very top of them, my doctors say I am āincredibly highly functioning and of superior intelligenceā.
Normal might have sucked after a while. Having this illness is my motivation in life, to beat my prognosis I was given at 19 is my goal. I feel like I have something to live for, to live well for those of us who cant and for the old me who was psychotic, antisocial and abusing substances who even attempted suicide once. ā ā ā ā the old me and skullfuck schizophrenia.
I remember the times when I thought with tears āWhat is normal? I want to feel normal.ā All these feelings made life painful and no normal person would understand even me now that most of it is goneā¦ I who donāt believe in God asked for his help. Sometimes I went to sleep with a wish āplease let me never wake up again. Maybe this medicine will kill me.ā I came to the conclusion that I never were normal.
Yeah man when I was normal I was typically as high as I could get. I sort of asked for this disease, but its not so bad these day. Itās just another facet of the complex that is me. Sometimes I feel like it has to do with something spiritual, but my voices are dumb as hell they either repeat me or label me for my fears. I feel like it is slowly making me a stronger person. Or at least that what Iām doing with it. If it werenāt for schizophrenia I probably would have never set the pipe down. Now that I have Iām taking a good look at my life and realizing just how far behind I am and how much more I need to grow. Voices be damned
1 Like
Iām lucky compared to most of you I suppose. Sz started when I was 16 or 17. I do remember what it was like to be ānormalā. There was not much fear. Not much anxiety. All thoughts were brief and freeflowing. If I thought of felt something, I went with it, but all in small amounts and with smooth motion, if that makes sense. Meaning, if there was any anxiety, it merely pulled me to the side a little, instead of taking over and āeruptingā. I was more emotional, like a girl. By god I found the cure! jk.
If you want one word that could sum it up, it would be āpeaceā. I liked āunimportantā things. They were important to me. Like green grass. Awesome. A notebook to write in. Awesome. And with medication that comes back a good bit, atleast with the Saphris it did. I seemed to āfeelā a lot more. Even the weather was much more alive. But with sz, itās like Iām always on fire. Everything is bland. All I see are 1s and 0s, logic, structure, as if there is not much ālifeā in ālifeā. Itās either way too exciting, or not exciting enough. Just one energy stream, but so many different categories; like everything is āsnappingā into place, and has to. Just has to.
Before there was one category, life. Just life, man.
Seeing everything so logical does not make it right though. Schizophrenics are very smart, but that doesnāt mean theyāre right. They could be right, or partly right. But more times than not, the hyper-awareness of a certain situation leaves other thoughts and facts out of the picture, leading to the deluded state. You can picture ānormalā to sz as a sound wave, or a wave of energy. You start at the core sub-conscious which is a deep, steady, knowing wave. Moving on toward the conscious, awake self, the wave gets faster, and higher-pitched. And fast can be good, but then it starts to get too fast, and staticy. Information starts to collide, bounce, and mergeā¦ and itās crazy from there on. So normal would be steady. Slower. Stable. Knowing. Feeling. Calm. Peaceful. Wholesome. I would recommend white, pink, and brown noise to those who havenāt tried it.