Crazy (BoyxBoy)

Diagnosis

Let me tell you about what it feels like to have schizophrenia, but not know about it yet. Because I wasn't actually diagnosed until my late teen years and all throughout my teenage years, I had the absolute worst time of my life.

It felt like the life was being sucked out of me little by little. Like someone was cleaning the carpet in my head and all the dirt particles being sucked into the vacuum were pieces of my happiness. It doesn't sound so bad, just like regular old depression. But it was. It was that bad, and even worse.

I used to like things. Like, actual things. My dad used to take me to baseball games during the season and that was our favorite thing. Sitting there with hot dogs and fountain drinks, having a good time while watching a great game. I used to paint, too. I used to be obsessed with it. I also liked to read at one point in time and I was a damn good shot in archery.

But then it hit. Like a shit storm of depression. I just lost interest in everything. All at once, too. I lost it all. I hated myself for it. I hated myself for hating everything. It just sucked being so bitter all the time. My family can tell you themselves. In every single photo taken during those years, my face was in this permanent scowl, like I was half in pain and half taking a shit.

It was worse than depression because at least then you can go to the hospital and they can patch you right up. Give you some vitamins, stick you in therapy and you'll be better in no time. In the more extreme cases, you'll never leave that hospital and they'll put you on antidepressants and up your therapy to once a week. Believe me, I've lived through it.

Schizophrenia isn't like that at all. They hesitate to diagnose you. Like once they do it, they're in charge of your well-being for the rest of your life. They can't do it when you're young, because you might just be bipolar or have a split personality disorder. Diagnosing you when you're young means no treatment until you're at least older than 7 because the pills have the effect of a damn elephant tranquilizer.

What makes that even worse is the fact that nobody knows just what the hell is wrong with you. My parents used to ignore the fact that I'd question my surroundings. I'd say, "What's that, mommy?" About the hallucination only I could see and she'd only shake her head, touch my cheek and tell me not to worry about it. She didn't know any better, it's not like I'm blaming her, but god, did it mess me up.

I saw stuff for years, and held my tongue. I didn't know it wasn't normal!

It was like I was walking in a world all my own and once I got a little older and realized that I wasn't having the normal human experience, I got even worse.

Hospitals diagnosed me with depression, bipolar disorder, and multiple dissociative disorders. They didn't know what was wrong with me and neither did I. It only depressed me further to learn that I wasn't normal, but there was no name for me either.

It's hard enough being a freak. It's sucks being a teenager during all of it, because it only made me hate myself more. I was pulled out of school in around 3rd grade. My mom, who has health problems of her own, quit her job as a daycare worker to become a full time stay at home mom. She has been my rock; so strong that most times she carries the entire family.

It's because of her quick thinking that I never had to endure those dreaded high school days. I was never bullied or told I was stupid by other students, but teachers? I guess they don't care as much as they should.

In second grade I had a teacher tell me I was going to grow up to be a drug dealer just because I was hallucinating during class and couldn't finish my spelling test. The kids were never that harsh to me. I recall even having friends. Of course I never maintained those friendships, but it felt good to have some, even if I was only 8 years old.

I did go back to school for a spell when I was 12. Mom found out she was pregnant with Farrah and dad got his new promotion with his job. Between his extended hours at work and my mom needing rest, it only seemed fair that I get sent to public school.

That's when I completely lost my shit. I couldn't care to learn a thing. It's not that I was rebelling against the system, it was just that every time I tried, I'd get the feeling that it probably wasn't going to apply to my life because I was probably going to die young because I was sick in the head.

I didn't care that I was failing classes, because I couldn't bring myself to. All I could do was lay my head down in class and try to catch up on some much needed sleep. Sometimes I even walked out of school and spent my days at the arcade down the street from the school. Mom wasn't too happy about finding out that minor detail.

I didn't end up making a single friend that year; everybody thought I was a freak who didn't shower or own deodorant. It was true, for the most part. I didn't shower that often. It's something about my illness, I think, that just made cleanliness just such a task for me. I didn't feel like standing in the shower for even five minutes a day. It felt like a useless thing to do, so I went without.

Mom helped me with that, though. For about three years straight she would come knock on my door and force me to get up and take a shower. She'd sit on the counter reading and hand me a toothbrush and floss when I was ready, reminding me that hygiene was very important. That stuck, thankfully, but for those few years, I couldn't be bothered.

It was like a repellent to all the kids in middle school.

It's hard making friends, let alone ever having a boyfriend. I remember going through a deep depression over the fact that I was 17 and had never been kissed. I told myself I was going to die alone because I was so messed up. It wasn't the prettiest thing in the world to see, but my therapist told me about a group I could go to.

It was for making friends, meeting people like me whom I could relate to. I popped an anxiety pill and went every week. There were a lot of teens there, like me, who were all sad in a sort of way. We all tried to cheer each other up, but you know how that goes, right?

One sad person would pat another sad person on the back and tell them it got better, when it clearly hadn't gotten better for themselves. It was technically a liar's club.

There was a boy, though, who I had a massive crush on. His name was Matthew. He also suffered from schizophrenia, but his was an early onset. He was just discovering how shitty life could be, and we got into deep conversations about the sickness and what we went through. Unlike me, he had drug addict parents. He told me he found out he was schizophrenic while he was smoking with his friends one day.

He'd taken a hit like normal, and right away he started hallucinating and it got so bad, his friends called an ambulance. They diagnosed him the very next week, which was frustrating to hear. My symptoms had been bad for years before they diagnosed me. I was a little jealous that he'd gotten treated right away and didn't have to go through half the stuff I did. That made me want to hate him, but I didn't.

Instead, we made out a lot and played a lot of video games together. We were never dating, we never put a label on it. He was just a friend that came over that I just happened to kiss. It was great fun, until he moved away.

His parents got arrested for possession and he got sent to live with his aunt in New Mexico. I didn't mind it when he moved away. I didn't have an emotional attachment to him. The concept of love escaped me when I was younger. It didn't even bother me that we didn't keep in touch. I never missed him, and the truth is, I still don't. I can go the rest of my life without knowing what happened to him and I'd sleep just fine if it wasn't for my crippling insomnia.

It's hard dealing with this illness, but it's even harder dealing with the symptoms of it before you know what it really is. I'm lucky I survived it. Hopefully, I'll survive post-diagnosis life as well. 

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I like going back and forth with him because I think it explains so much more than he could in the present. 

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