Overcoming Schizophrenia

For me, experiencing psychosis is an experience I will never forget. In short, psychosis is when an individual cannot distinguish reality. I endured a psychotic experience at the age of 20, almost five years ago, and still remember the terrors of the illness- officially diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenia in 2007. The manifestation of the illness dominated my livelihood whenever I was extremely suspicious, confused, forgetful, irritable, distant, irrational, and hearing criticizing voices when nobody was around. In my mind, everyone was envious of me because I had godly talents. I thought I could read people's minds and understand them, and sometimes they could read my mind as well. I rationalized these strange beliefs by my faith in God and the miracles of the Bible. I believed I was on a mission for God and eventually thought I was Jesus Christ being persecuted again when I was arrested for a crime I committed while not in the right state of mind. The bizarre thoughts increased....

After a talk, a woman asked me if my faith contributed to my recovery because she noticed that I mentioned it throughout my speech. In addition to that, she told me that she observed people with faith as having a better outcome in their mental health recovery. First, I came from a family with Christian values. My faith in God started to get intense during the latter years of high school, which in my opinion, is when I started having symptoms. In my experience religion plays a major role in my mental health- its delusions, its coping skills, and in my recovery. In medical terms they call my religious rituals and delusions "religious preoccupation." Before I was diagnosed I was highly religious. In fact, I wanted to be an evangelist and to go to a Christian college. I would read my Bible for several hours a day throughout the day, listen to hymns, and meditate. Sometimes I would ignore people if they wanted my attention while I was meditating I was in such deep thought. Also, I...