So I have come to this point of insight and recovery with this ■■■■■■■■ illness where I have equal parts outside perspective and inside perspective. I am halfway through college majoring in psychology, can’t decide whether I want to concentrate in cognitive science or behavioral neuroscience, I might go with cognitive because behavioral neuro is for people who want to become MD’s one day and I sure as hell wont be doing med school, thats a joke to me.
I know a whole lot from my education and outside reading and lectures and documentaries about paranoid schizophrenia and I also have it and was unmedicated until less than a year ago, I will be 21 in a week and it struck me when I was 18.
I just sometimes feel like I am two different people- the sane, medicated and “incredibly highly functioning and possessing superior intelligence” student and competitive athlete (started that recently) according to my doctors. I also feel like the schizophrenic who is living a lie, that this medicated and relatively stable mind is not me, that the real me is delusional, hallucinating, antisocial, drunk, chain smoking, engaging in self harm, hating life to the fullest but not done with it for unknown reasons.
It just feels absurd to be coming up on a year of meds. It was at this time last year that I was started on a baby dose of Geodon, 20mg twice a day, and then it was slowly amped up to an effective dose and later doubled and two more meds were added.
I just know so much about my condition, but I still have it. I feel like zombie without caffeine. I feel funny when I take my meds late. For some reason I gag and sometimes puke in my mouth in the mornings. I am 90-something percent symptom free. Some days 99% and some days 90%, with a few exceptions every once in a while.
It’s just hard to figure out which side I am on- am I on the outside, looking in on myself rationally and scientifically or am I on the inside, looking out at the world with flawed perception?
Its an uncanny valley for those of us in remission and highly functioning. We start to ask ourselves which one is the real me, the old me who wasnt on meds or the new me, virtually symptom free? Is schizophrenia who we are? Am I just living a lie by taking these meds to dramatically alter my brain chemistry, or is it appropriate because my brain is abnormal compared to everyone else?
I sometimes miss being crazy, there was never a dull moment and I was masochistic and enjoyed suffering half of the time. But when I have occasional episodes, I panic and think its all coming back and just want it to stop, I have grown accustomed to being symptom free most of the time and dont want to go back to how I used to be.
I dunno, its just absurd to have been seriously bonkers and now be pretty normal as long as I take those 6 pills a day. I question who the real me is, the crazy “au naturale” unmedicated me who does ■■■■ like get shitfaced and start masturbating in a room full of people or the sane me who took his meds that day and drove people to the party and takes care of all of the drunks and drinks a super sized bottle of water…and is really muscular and has only good news to share with people…its absurd to have been and still to some degree be both people.
the capsule is 60mg of Geodon, I take two of these day. The Japanese means “truth”