This HAS to STOPPPPPPPPPPP!!!
Ahhhhhh!
…but no it won’t. I will have to live with this diagnosis for the rest of my life. This is a rant and meant to be nothing more, so if anyone reading this now doesn’t want to read somebody ranting because they are so frustrated about being permanently diagnosed with a mental illness as serious as schizophrenia, you don’t have to read any further. Nobody is forcing you.
I was not recently diagnosed. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia way back when I was 15. The diagnosis was changed to schizoaffective disorder when I was 18. I have that diagnosis still.
I posted this in the category of Unusual Beliefs because here’s what I believe: I believe that the diagnosis is WRONG because it was a STUNT that I perpetrated when I was 15 (I had begun planning the perpetration when I was 14) that was the reason I ever got diagnosed at all. You may not understand why I would want to perpetrate something that would result in me being viewed by everyone as schizo"affective" eventually, but hear me out. You’ll all think it’s a serious delusion anyway. That’s why I posted it in Unusual Beliefs.
See, ever since I was born, I was cursed, because I am an identical twin, and my twin sister has severe autism to this day. As such, I don’t think anyone had given me the credit that I would grow out of my autism to begin with, and even when I did, I believe that everyone treated me as though I was mentally disabled at first. I was placed in remedial classes until the first grade, when apparently all of the kids in my class were given some sort of standardized test. I believe that the test was the same one that the kids without mental disabilities took. For some reason maybe they had to give the same test to everyone? I don’t think anyone expected anyone in my class to perform well on the test at all. But I guess I scored so well on the test that the next year when I entered second grade, I was mainstreamed. Hooray for me! Right?
I was terribly made fun for my entire miserable elementary school life, by kids and teachers alike. The teachers bullying me could be worse than the kids, because they used their authority over me, a little kid, to intimidate me and bully me even more. Sometimes they even gave me bad or horrible grades for no reason. I was so hurt. I was crying all the time. I kept switching schools every year. I don’t know why.
When I was about to enter the sixth grade, my parents tried private school. That worked out well for me. I went back to public school special ed when I entered 8th grade, but this time it was “Gifted and Talented Special Ed” for kids who might be smart but had their education interrupted by emotional disturbances. Perhaps the school system I was in before did not have this program? I was attending school in 8th grade in a different school system from the one where I lived. When I entered high school, I was mainstreamed again. I got to attend regular classes in a much better school than anyone of the ones I was in in elementary. Nobody made fun of me anymore. I was smart. I did well on tests. Some teachers praised me.
Then my parents got divorced, and I got to choose who I would live with. I chose to live with my mom, but my dad kept the house, so my mom had to scrape together whatever savings she had and leave with me. We lived very poor for a time, but eventually my mom saved enough money so we could get a nice condo in a good neighborhood. So we moved up north. What wound up happening was that I could no longer attend the same school I was in. The new school system would not allow it. My mom tried to fight for me, saying that I needed to be in the other school system because I was in special ed. But they said they could handle it. I didn’t need special ed.
So I was frustrated, I was panicky, because of the stress of my parents getting divorced, and me having to move to a new neighborhood and a new school system yet again. This all happened within a year. So I pulled a stunt. I regret it now, but I can never take it back. I kept telling my therapist that I needed to go to the hospital. I insisted, over and over again. My intention was to go to the hospital and I figured they would never let me out for the rest of my life. I was so depressed. I didn’t want to live in the world anymore. I wanted to go. I wanted to go forever. It didn’t work out that way.
A month from the time I was admitted to the hospital for the first time, I was released. I figured since that plan didn’t work, I would kill myself. That didn’t work out either. I didn’t want to live in this world anymore. Nobody understands me to this day. And adding insult to injury, everybody thinks I’m mentally ill! They don’t think it’s because of what I did. If I hadn’t wanted to go to the hospital I would have never went. I would have never been diagnosed. If I had gone and refused the medication they were forcing me to take, perhaps the diagnosis would not have held water for long, because they would have seen that I could function and think well off the meds. But because I take meds, all people have to say is I can function like this because the meds are helping me. Take away the meds, they say, and Girl Beauty can no longer function.
There is no way for me to prove them wrong. A diagnosis like this stays for life, no matter how well you have recovered from it, just as cancer can only go into remission. Every word I blurt out is a word coming out of the mouth of a schizophrenic (or to be more specific to me, a person who has schizoaffective disorder). This label is an embarrassment and an insult to me, and I acquired it willingly thinking that it would mean I would be hospitalized for life, living in a small room with padded walls in a straight jacket. Now I have to deal with the abuse I suffered in elementary school all over again, but this time it’s not because I am “stupid,” it is because I am “crazy.” If they think I am that crazy, then why don’t they keep me in the hospital for life? It is because they don’t do that anymore. It’s called deinstitutionalization. If I had been born 100 years ago or more, my plan would have worked. But it’s impossible now, unless I was to do drastic things all the time, and do them for at least 6 months, say, and not break character for one second. But such a feat is exhausting if you are not that mentally ill to begin with.
So I guess my rant is over. I am bored. I don’t care what you think. It doesn’t matter because there is nothing that will stop me having this label and you should all be ashamed of yourselves for falling for it. Look beyond, look above, if you can. I am done.
Are you trying to convince me through logic and reason that I’m mentally ill?