Hello, I cannot guarantee that I have an expertise on the subject of schizophrenia. But I do have much experience on the subject due to the fact that I do have schizophrenia.

In 2003 I saw three psychiatrists over the period of a few months. And they all came to the same conclusion with a diagnosis of schizophrenia for me.

For years I wasn’t really convinced I truly had it so I really didn’t take my meds and really didn’t want to take a pharmaceutical based on what some people call a pseudo-science.

In my younger years I would ‘talk to trees’, let me explain, I would have a question in my head and wanted an answer so I would attempt to mentally project my question in the trees direction out my window and then I would wait for an answer and if the wind blew the branches up and down I would accept that as a ‘yes’ and if the wind blew the branches side to side I would accept that as a ‘no’.

I told my older sister this when I was about 13-14 years old and it was apparent to her this was not normal behavior.

Years later after I was diagnosed she commented that my mental illness/schizophrenia was comparable to the fictional movie called ‘A beautiful mind’.

One of the main characteristics/symptoms of a person who has schizophrenia is disorganized thinking and disorganized speech. I am sure that when I was originally diagnosed that it was one of the first things they noticed from their interviews with me. Though at the time I had no knowledge or interest in what the symptoms of schizophrenia are.

Most schizophrenics don’t actually have actual visual or audio hallucinations. Though I had an experience in 2004 that may be equivalent.

There are positive symptoms of schizophrenia and there are negative. Hallucinations and delusions fall under the positive, and by the way that is a classification not an opinion. (There may not really be anything positive about a given positive symptom of schizophrenia). Whereas many of the other symptoms fall under the negative symptoms of schizophrenia and are much more common.

In 2004 I was asked by a nurse if I was seeing or hearing anything abnormal or anything other people couldn’t see or hear.

In my response I told her that when I closed my eyes and pressed my palms against my eyelids with a little bit of force, that I would see repeating patterns in green and purple with black behind it and also sometimes numbers and letters would appear and disappear.

I had a hard time with the doctor treating me at that time. He believed I was possessed and that I needed to be exorcised or have demons exorcised out of me. Later that night I flipped out (but not in a violent way towards any persons), and then they moved me to a different hospital.

At the new psych unit I was on I was treated alot better. There was more freedom for me there. They had day passes and a covered smoking area and the doctors weren’t pushing me to see a priest or an exorcist.

However it was hard for me to want to take the meds given to me as I didn’t believe in them, but eventually I did take them and was allowed more privileges as a result.

As an outpatient I had to go to the clinic where a nurse would watch me take my medication each day. This went on for a week or two.

To be con’t in a part 2.