What schizophrenia feels like?
It's going to be a bit long so don't mind.
You think you've discovered something very important. And it's obvious that it's true. You're a skeptic so you carefully analyze all the evidence looking for any potential bias on your part or alternate explanations for the phenomenon you've observed. Everything. Adds. Up. It all makes perfect sense every time.
Yet when you mention these things to other people, none of the people around you seem to come to the same conclusion as you. Sometimes they say, "I don't know why that happened. So what?" Sometimes they have a mundane explanation for how some pattern might have emerged. Yet it's difficult to believe other people are really expressing what they think, because the obvious thing you have observed is so obvious that it seems inconceivable that the people around you don't see it the way you do.
It's such an obvious thing that it seems more likely to you that everyone around you is lying when they say they don't agree with you. It seems more likely that they are actually conspiring to trick you in some way, because there must be some explanation for why they are claiming nothing extraordinary is going on.
You would just ignore it and go on with your life, but it's not a trivial thing you've been noticing. If everyone was saying the sky is green and you saw it as blue, you could shrug and move on without it affecting your life. But the things everyone around you seems to be pretending to ignore are really important. The songs on the radio are always about what you did recently and contain veiled messages. Sometimes threats. Other times reminders that you are always being watched 24/7. Other times requests for help. The celebrities on TV and youtube talk about you without saying your name. You're afraid to say anything wrong or do anything wrong because you are convinced the people who watch you will punish you for making one wrong move, just as they always do.
Sometimes, you wonder if you're crazy so you disobey the people who watch you.
You always feel like you are on the verge of figuring it all out. You don't know why so many people, including celebrities, chose to obsess over you, or why everyone around you is "in on it" and lying about what they see. But you are always just SO close to understanding why you were chosen and what everyone wants you to do. Somehow, you're going to save the world. You were warned of economic bubbles causing an economic collapse soon, and a violent revolution soon to follow. Do they want you to lead the revolution? Prevent it? What purpose could there be in locking you up in a psych ward every couple weeks? What purpose in the threats or hiding messages in plain sight? Such uncertainty about some things, yet other things there is no doubt whatsoever.
The notebooks you wrote your thoughts in are now easily identified as incomprehensible gibberish. You understand why everyone around you was worried and why they didn't reach the same conclusions, because only now can you see that you were illogical and delusional. You feel safe knowing nobody ever hurt you physically, and the family members who died all died of natural causes as the doctors said, not assassinations. You feel embarrassed at your complete lack of sanity, and ashamed for accusing people around you of lying and conspiring against you. You feel free. Unmonitored. At long last, you have your sanity back. And yet, you know if you ever lose it again, you will be the last to know.
@Brightlynx77
Hey there Bright, I stumbled upon your post, and just wanted to say thank you. You really explained what it is like, to be in your own world, until something snaps you out of it. From the way it feels when you are in it, to the emotions you get when you finally get it wasn't real.
Thank you! 💜
Thank you so much for this very informative piece. My brother is diagnosed and it has been so hard for us to learn to relate to him because he also suffers from a drug addiction. But the way you explain this is quite exactly the way he makes things out to be.
@Brightlynx77
This happens to me, but it comes in waves. Or wrecking balls, I should say. I attribute these "episodes" to bipolar mania (because I also don't sleep much during these times) but maybe they're something else! Thank you for sharing. I'm sending air hugs your way.