Overcoming Schizophrenia

A friend who is a caregiver has a daughter who was in jail. She shared with me how her daughter made requests and wanted to get out of jail. However, my friend was relived because her daughter was getting help. Immediately, I thought she's in a good place, not due to the environment and circumstances, but because she knew she was in jail.      Catatonia. It is a symptom of schizophrenia that may look different for everyone. I just got out of a meeting where someone's relative experienced catatonia, and their testimony brought me back to that detrimental state that I myself experienced some years back, which I'll never forget. It saddened me. For them and for my past.       For me being catatonic was being absent despite being physically present. I was not responding to anything. For me it was different from psychosis and hallucinations and delusions. While in those states of mind, I was responding to something. Unlike those symptoms, catatonia for me, ...

This is difficult to write about. Because I’ve been there… Yesterday, I ran a few errands. After I stopped in the middle of the road for a pedestrian to cross the street I saw a couple of police cars stop ahead of me. Nothing seemed out the norm in spite of the blue lights. And then I turned the corner at the traffic light. As I turned I saw a naked woman sitting on the stones off the side walk. She looked familiar. She had done this before about a month ago, because I frequent the area and saw her before. Now I know why the police were there.  Immediately, a wide range of emotions overwhelmed me—for the woman, the bystanders, but also for myself, because I’ve been there. When I was not present, time did not exist, nor did the understanding of consequences for my actions. I was simply just there. Others say I stared off into the distance for what seemed like hours or laid in bed for days. I did not know my mind was deteriorating, my understanding was fading, and my rea...

Catatonic. Delusional. Psychotic. These are a few symptoms of schizophrenia, which I suffered, lived in, and endured through medication.  Catatonic was a place of immobility, distance, and lack of awareness. I experienced catatonia during my first breakdown at age 20. My breakdown led to my incarceration and hospitalization. My catatonic state of mind left me frozen, vulnerable, and lost. While I was catatonic time did not exist. I did not hold concerns related to hygiene, socialization, nor consequence. A jail nurse, Erwin, expressed my condition, in order, to persuade me into taking medication. Erwin said, “We had to drag you in your chair from the day room back to your cell, because you would not move... We rushed you to the emergency room three times to stick an IV in you, because you stopped eating and drinking... Please stop ignoring me... Would you take your medicine?” I did not move for hours, and maybe even for days. Doctors and nurses visited regularly. ...

The mind is so amazing and powerful it is a terrible thing to lose... Imagine not eating for a week or more. Or even drinking water and being hospitalized several times just to keep you alive. At first, you are hungry, however, as time passes you no longer have an interest in food or drink. You do not even have hunger pains! Eventually you do not have to relieve yourself. You are confined to your bed, not because you are tied down, but because your mind is not functioning properly. You are frozen in time, you do not move a muscle (literally). Your mind is wasted- all the education, memories, and daily functions are not registering; sometimes you hear those around you sometimes you don't- you are catatonic. Imagine going to court and having to be strapped down because you refused to wear shoes. Or even, not noticing your own mother, grandfather, and aunt in the courtroom with you. Or, even noticing you were in court sitting before a room full of people that are deciding your future....

Schizophrenia is a complex mental illness that alters a person's judgment and emotions. It affects one percent of the American population. For males it usually begins around age 15, and for females age 25. However, I showed symptoms at age 20 or under, and I am a female. I had jumbled thoughts, and heard loud voices demanding me to say and to do things. None of what the voices said made any sense. In fact, there were multiple voices. The voices were discouraging, and mean, sometimes they laughed at me. The illness made me intense and hard to follow in conversations. Schizophrenia makes you an ugly person...unless you handle it. The following events happened while I was in jail... "Get up, flush the toilets!" A voice commanded. I woke up one night because I couldn't sleep, the voices were bothering me. To quiet the voices I started flushing all of the toilets. Even though I woke up my fellow inmates, I continued flushing the toilets. An inmate 'Sh" me and grab...