I am suffering from schizophrenia. Before you jump to any conclusions about me... Before the word "schizophrenia" shows its stigma and makes you think of serial killers, mass shooters, and the like, let me clear a few things up. I am not Norman Bates. I'm not Ted Bundy. In fact, most victims of this disease shy away from violence. I don't have multiple personalities. Dissociative Identity Disorder is a completely different condition than I have.
Most of the time I am just like you. I go to work, I watch television, read books, listen to music, pursue my hobbies and spend time with the people I love. I just occasionally... see and hear things that aren't really there.
When this happens... I refer to these episodes as experiencing "interference" when I have hallucinations or hear voices, because that's how I feel. They are obstacles in my daily life. It's also a good way for me to signal to someone I trust, who is aware of my situation, that I'm in the middle of an episode without having to use that word. I just tell them, "I'm sorry... there's some interference going on," and they understand.
Not everyone is understanding. My father was one of those people.
I was diagnosed at a very young age. I was only six years old when a child psychiatrist reluctantly wrote "schizophrenia" on my diagnostic chart. It is not a diagnosis assigned lightly, especially to children. Most people with this disease do not start showing symptoms until their late teens or early twenties. I was six years old. Although, in a strange way, I consider it a blessing. Never before had I experienced the shocking phenomenon of living a normal life, suddenly the carpet was pulled under my feet. It is better to be born blind than to lose your sight later in life. I've never known anything else.
This has also given me a long time to come to terms with my illness and to learn to live with it. I take medication, and as long as I stay on them most of my days are just as boring and mundane as everyone else's. Mild episodes will always happen, but the big ones, the ones ranging on the scale 8 or above, are few and far between.
The hardest thing about living with schizophrenia is that it can't always be told what's real from what isn't. Sometimes, it's too obvious. If I see a purple elephant riding a tricycle in my living room, I can pretty much assume that it's not real and shouldn't be given much thought. The ones that come to me are more subtle... answering a phone that wasn't ringing... answering to call someone's name when no one was there... attempting to sit in a chair that didn't really is not there. Things like this can be extremely embarrassing when they happen in public, so I stay away from most people. I know I'm creepy to some. Unique. It's like they know something is "off" about me, but can't tell what it is.
Another annoying thing about this disease is confusion. However, I have been lucky. The way some schizophrenics are, I am not prone to delusions. I don't think the government has chipped in my brain or that I have been kidnapped by aliens. I don't buy conspiracy theories or anything like that. However, such a danger always remains. I'm always afraid to walk away from the deep end like this, so I avoid anything that might trigger it. Sometimes it takes all it takes to root out a simple idea. Word. a saying. It's not always a purple elephant. Sometimes, it's a little worse.
The one thing I avoid above all is religion. I don't mean to be disrespectful to anyone who is religious. A common fallacy for schizophrenics to fall into is the belief that they are hearing the voice of God, or that their hallucinations are actually angels or demons trying to show them visions. I also have well-meaning people who tell me that I am not mentally ill at all—that I am gifted. I can see in the spiritual realm while others cannot.
Of course it's funny. This is not a gift. Still, I'm afraid to believe it someday. Who doesn't want to believe they are special like this? I guess that's why it's such a common thing. Still, this is a very dangerous thought. As tempting as the notion of being chosen by God is, the reality is that I have a disease. It's not beautiful. It's not romantic. That's it. Also... I don't have such a good track record with religion.
My father...I mentioned him earlier...was a devout Christian preacher in Goa, where I grew up. He was a devout Christian and held his family, which included me, to strict standards. We were an example to the community, and they took that situation very seriously.
In public anyway. Things were quite different behind closed doors. My father drank a lot and had the nature of hellfire and brimstone. However, it went further than that. There was a pettiness to it—a side that the rest of the congregation never saw. He rejoiced in his position of power over his followers, and it flowed heavily into our home life. We were not his family. We were his flock.
You see this mark in the corner of my mouth? He was given with a strip of barbed wire. I could show you my arms and my back too, but I keep them covered. Whatever the weather, I always wear long sleeves.
There was no news of having a schizophrenic son, my father did just fine. At first he didn't believe there was anything like this. He was convinced that I was behaving this way to get attention—a claim to see things that weren't real. Then it got more frightening. My father became obsessed with the idea that he actually had. My hallucinations were satanic visions. I was listening to the voice of the devil. That's when I stopped being a human being in the eyes of my father. I was no longer his son. Whenever he saw fit, I was subject to persecution.
He found a sick pleasure not only in physical torture - beatings, burnings, strangulations, cuts - but also in psychological torture. He stopped calling me by my name and instead used nicknames like "Schizo", or "his personal favorite, "Hellspawn." He enjoyed taking advantage of my fragile psychological state. He would say or do what he knew. That would trigger an episode, and then use that as further evidence that I was filled with Satan.
One day, when I was about 7 years old, he came home as drunk as ever, but this time he held something in his left hand as he staggered through the front door. At first I thought it was some kind of dead rodent, but when he brought it to light it was obvious. It was a teddy bear, torn somewhere with matted fur and bald spots. In his hoarse, slurred voice he tossed it in my face and said, "Here, then go, Hellspawn. Take it out of the trash for you. Mind you, take care. It has a mind of its own." Saying this he lay down on the sofa and fainted.
Mind's own That's all it took. That simple phrase. A seed was sown. My father noticed the disgusting thing that was thrown at me. It stinks. I believed him when he said he took it out of the trash. My first inclination was to throw it away. Within a few hours my father may not even remember what he gave me and will never miss. But what if he did? What if he got annoyed that I threw him? Hanging a smelly, rotten, stuffed animal seemed more appealing than the punishment my father had imposed on me, so I took him to my room.
It was most likely some kind of mind game. He wanted to see how long he could force me to keep this thing. put me to sleep with it take me to school feed me with it. As her little sores went on, it seemed pretty mild so I thought I could take it. After all it was just an old bear. But those words kept seeping into my mind – in and of itself. I looked at the bear with suspicion. When I was 7 years old, I didn't have the discernment skills to tell when an illusion or an episode overtook me. I'm so grown up now and I've lived with it for years. Now I have coping skills and strategies that I can use to deal with things like this. But back then, I didn't. I looked into the bear's adorable, plastic eyes, and I could feel him staring back. "It has a mind of its own."
I threw the bear across the room. It landed on the wooden floor downwards. I decided then that I wouldn't take it with me to bed. I'll leave it there on the floor. I went to bed and felt like lying down for hours with one eye on the bear, I managed to fall asleep. I'm not sure how long I slept. It may have been a few hours or just a few minutes, but I was woken up by a strange wooden sound. I say "wood" because it looked like twigs and creaking branches. When I opened my eyes, they were already pointing in the direction where the bear lay, still on the floor. But now that was changing.
Its lovely limbs are twisted and unnaturally twisted and elongated. That was the crackling noise I was hearing. Its arms and legs grew like the legs of a spider and became long and slender, twisting. Finally, it lifted its head off the floor, it was swollen to several times its original size, and had a row of fangs from a fluffy ear to a fluffy ear that dripped with saliva. He opened his jaw and let out a roar that shook the room. I felt his hot breath hit my face, and I jumped out of bed.
I ran into the hall and walked towards the stairs. Behind me I could hear the sound of wood cracking as the thing automatically stood on its feet. I turned to look and it scrambled behind me, walking on fangs and using its spider-like arms to propel itself forward by digging its claws into opposite walls of the hallway. The house trembled with its roar. As soon as I reached the stairs, I slipped on the top ladder and fell on the floor below. I twisted my ankle in the process and couldn't get back on my feet. I looked up the stairs and staggered downstairs it was monstrous—no longer a teddy bear, but a scarecrow-like thing with a teddy bear skin stretched across a wooden skeleton. He opened his mouth again and said. "Today is good in the woods, but it is safe to stay at home. For every bear that ever was there, will surely gather there because today is a teddy bear picnic..."
I nodded and closed my eyes, sliding myself back to the floor like a slug. I started reciting a nursery rhyme that would sometimes comfort me when I had an episode. I tried to remind myself that it wasn't real. "As I was climbing the stairs, I met a man who was not there. He was not there again today. I wish he could go. As I was going up the stairs, I met a man who wasn't there, he wasn't there again today, I wish he could go..." I whispered this to myself over and over again.
When I opened my eyes, I was in my mother's lap. She was shaking me and calling my name. I crossed his worried face and looked towards the stairs. My father was standing at the top with a bear in his hand. "What's wrong with him now?" he said. "I'm not sure," she said. "I think he had another night terror." "The figures," said my father in that familiar, dismissive tone. "If you don't cut this shit, you're chained to the bed." He threw the bear at me again and disappeared into the hallway.
My mother took me back to bed.
This happened over and over again for the next few nights. The bear would follow me into a monster, and my mother would find me in various places in the house—hiding in closets or cabinets, shaking and reciting nursery rhymes. After the sixth night my mother begged my father to get rid of the bear. He offered to burn her, bury her, whatever she took. My father smiled and said, "You will burn a gift that a father gave to his son? How ungrateful!"
Somehow, my father was still more terrifying than the invention of my broken mind.
Yet the constant unrest going on during the night was dominating him too. So he kept his promise to put me on my bed. On the seventh night he tied me up with ropes and made the bear square sit on my chest. "Sleep tight," she said, closing the door to my bedroom.
It wasn't long before I felt the vibrations on my chest as the bear began to growl less. Slowly, its mouth began to spread across its face in a jagged, distorted fashion. Immediately, I closed my eyes and started reciting the rhyme. However, on my own voice, I could hear that hoarse voice. It was growing again. Transforming. I dropped the rhyme and started screaming instead. I called my mother. I struggled against the ropes and strained until they cut into my wrist and I felt my arm bleed. I could hear voices in the hall. First my mother. "Let me go to him, please! He's having a nightmare!"
Then my father, "Stop having him kids! He's driving us all crazy like he is! you want to stop it? I'll stop it!"
What happened next is a hazy mix of hallucinations and reality. To this day I am not quite sure what really happened. I remember my father entered my bedroom. I remember the door slamming open and hitting the back wall. I remember that hoarse voice as the bear grew. I remember the bear's voice saying, "Today is Teddy Bear's picnic!"
There was a scream... but not mine this time. My eyes closed tightly and I just kept repeating, "As I was walking up the stairs, I met a man who wasn't there, he wasn't there again today, I wish he had gone." There was growling, roaring, roaring, the sound of flesh cracking and screaming... then silence.
Finally, my mother came in. She saw me tied to the bed and ran to me, pulling the ropes from my bloody wrists. My father was nowhere to be seen. The bear lay face down on the wooden floor, as it was the first night I threw it aside.
After noticing my wounds and making sure I was fine, my mother asked me, "Where is your father?" I looked at him and just shook my head.
That was about thirty years ago. The community assumed that my father must have gone astray after getting drunk and he must have had some kind of accident. A lot of search was done in the surrounding forest, but nothing was found.
I still have the teddy bear. Since that night it never changed again. It's just a bear. Just an old, worn-out teddy with dead plastic eyes and bald fur. When I first saw it, it scared me. But I was just a child then, and now I understand it was all an illusion caused by my illness. However, for reasons I cannot fully describe, he has a certain respect for this old thing. Sometimes, the scariest things in this world are misunderstood. Just like me
after all. We all have our own mind.