recovery

I am a real hip hop fan and was influenced by the rappers smoking marijuana. i started smoking the stuff through waterpipes every day and this lead to a mental illness called schizofrenia. The only thing is that i didn't know i had schizofrenia for many years.

i was having thoughts of suicide and self loathing for a long time. i just kept going with my butcher apprenticeship and kept these thoughts to myself. these thoughts soon turned homicidal. I wanted to commit suicide with a monsterous passion and these sick thoughts put me right on edge.

i was sure that people were trying to bring my mood down and therefore personally messing with me. I thought that i was the wrong person to mess with and wanted to physically hurt these people. these thoughts turned murderous and i literally wanted to kill these people who weren't even messing with me. it was part of my shizofrenia.

i was thinking about killing myself every single day and therefore my whole world was surrounded by black. my problem was not the guts to actually take the final step and kill myself, it was that i didn't have a method that i was comfortable with. i didn't want to attempt to kill myself and live therefore making me into what i thought would be a social outcast and a weak sort of person or physically disformed. i wanted the death to be final. on many occasions if i had a gun i would have definatrly shot myself in the head. guatrenteed death and also painless. i was scared of the pain associated with slicing my wrists.

I refused to get help by telling people of these dangerous thoughts and thought i had to man up and get on with me life by going to work even though i was going through absolute hell.

as my schizofrenia got worse i started believing really strange concepts and still had a violent urge to kill people. i had formed a conception that i was a laughing stock not only at my workplace and family but also in my social circles and the more i thought of this the more i wanted to kill.

i started thinking that people at my work were talking in code about me and that all of these words were going over my head but that they were all laughing at me. i was thinking they didn't know who they were fuc*ing with and fantisized about killing them for most of the day.

i came soooo close to taking over the butchershop with a knife, taking the workers as hostage and charging the cops with a knife when they came so that i could be killed with their guns. i fantisized about this alot and was completely ready to flip out at them if they pushed me in any way.

i found myself getting incredibly angry at work to the point where i desperatly wanted to kill and maim. the only thing stopping me was prison.

i wanted out of my job but didn't want to look weak infront of my family by quitting.

i was finally suspended when i had a run in with my boss and decided i wasn't going back. i was given alot of crap from my family for not working and constantly abused by my older brother for being lazy and living off the parents when he had to work even though he knew i was going through suicidal thoughts and had issues. this made me feel like sh*t.

i could have signed up for the australian dole but didn't know how to get it and was in no mindframe to deal with office people and the like. my parents didn't help me get the dole and i found myself dirt poor.

my family were never very well off and couldn't afford a stocked cupboard and drink other then water. i found myself hungry, cold (no heating, middle of winter) suicidal and homicidal. i was literally going through mental hell. i always had a great, large plate for tea but not long after shopping day the noodles that were there for lunches were gone. cerial was always there but i just did not feel like eating the low end cerials that were in the cupboard

my condition worsened.

i started beliveing that i was trapped into an incredible conspiracy where i was some kind of messiah and the evil people of the world were trying to eliminate me. i started questioning wether my parents were my real parents and deeply belived my father was trying to make me commit suicide and this was the course of my suicidal thougths. i was deeply deeply hurt by this delusion and desperattly wanted to get him back for the pain i imagined he caused me.
 schizofenia is a terrible, terrible thing.

My brother was pissed off that he had to work and i didn't so wouldn't even give me fifty cents.

he would drink and eat infront of me without giving me a single thing. this messed with me deeply. i was now sure that he wanted me to commit suicide.

i started staying up all night and fantasizing about killing my father and brother. i would think myself into a rage and be ready to stab them but the fear of prison would always stop me from going through with it. if i had a gun i would have shot them and then i could have escaped the consequences by killing myself.

I ended up assulting my brother and father and found my self on the streets with little suppirt from mates as i had become to strange to be around them.

(i punched my dad and brother in the stomach and on another occasion fought my brother resulying in punching him in the face several times when he was on the ground) this messed him up.

i was quite a drinker like most teenagers are and feeling as terrible as i did i wanted more then anything to get drunk. my brother would get drunk infront of me and wouldn't give me a single beer. i hadn't had a single beer for months and when he finally gave me a beer one day i was over the moon. i thought we would drink up together. he refused to give me any more and this taste made me want to get drunk more then ever. i chucked something at him swore at him and called him names. he wanted to fight from my provoking. i said "lets fight then). he worked himself into a rage and went out side smaking his fist into his palms, really worked up. i didn't like my chances and locked him outside. when he got back inside we started pushing and i headbutted him. i was quick with the fists and let out my anger into his face.

(the end result is that i didn't leave any marks but he says it messed him up in the head.)

my parents then changed the locks on me and i was sleeping in parks and infront of buildings on cardboard boxes. my parents would give me 50 dollars when i went around there but wouldn't let me sleep on the premise. if i tried they would call the police.

There was a homeless centre that i stayed in for two nights but i was so mentally ill i thought i was under surveilance and that the people there were trying to make me commit sucide. these paranoid thoughts resulted in tears and i vowed to never come back.

one morning i was walking down a city main street named Hinely with all my bags of clothes and i said to a couple of guys "whats up c*nts. they punched me in the jaw and dropped me to the ground. the fight was knocked out of me and i put up the peace sign so they they wouldn't finish me off with their boots. they walked off.

when i finally got my first dole payment (it took me two weeks) i took up residence at a homeless center.

I visited some people i knew one night but my mentally ill mind somehow came to the conclusion that the guys there were abusing one of the girls living there. (delusion). when he rubbed a wet flannel in her face i stuck up for her and threatened to smash the guy if he didn't leave her alone. He told me to step outside where he said he would bash me. I was outnumbered three to one. I punched him in the face and then got him in a headlock. i started punching the hell out of the top of his head and the girl who i thought i stuck up for came at me with a pole. she told me to get the f*ck out of there and i said "alright, I'm leaving" i thought that was the end of that.

as i was walking down the street i heard the three dudes behind me. i ducked into a persons front yard and looked for a weapon. there was nothing except a massive pot. i picked it up and told them that if they came any closer i would kill one of them. they kept coming closer and i through the pot at a guy (dislocated his shoulder) the other two were armed with beer bottles.

they cornered me on a doorstep and threw the bottles at my face. i managed to block each one with each hand and ended up gushing out with blood. the fight was knocked out of me and i told them to "just piss off".

when i got back to the homeless center i took a shower and washed the blood off. i didn't want to make a fuss so i didn't wake anyone up. anyways the fire alarm started going off (someone was smoking in their room) what a stroke of luck this was, now everyone was up i could get them to bandage me up. the worker bandaged me up and sealed the bandage with duck tape. i went to sleep.

i was soon kicked out of their for flipping out at a staff member (an ex boxer) who threatened to smash my head in.

i walked to my grandpa's house and he put me up for the night. it took me alot of courage to go there as i wasn't sure what the parents had told my relatives about the assults on my family. (i even slapped my mother)

i ended up getting my grandpas caravan after spending almost a week in a tents.

i still had a murderous rage building up inside of me and had to hold myself back from killing random strangers i'm sure were fuc*ing with me.

My father tryed to get me help but there wasn't mush he could do as i was top notch at acting normal and keeping my twisted thoughts to myself.

words cannot describe the delusional thoughts i was having and the mental hell i was experienceing but the delusions go deep, very deep (i won't get into them, i could write a book on my twisted thoughts).

my father ended up coaxing me to go to a meeting that he said would get me a house and when i got there, there were three people who were trying to get me to speak my mind. one of the chicks there was hot and i started to tell them of my murderous thoughts. i was kinda tring to impress the blonde.

i was at the point where i knew i needed help but didn't want to get locked up so even though i knew something would happen when i spoke my mind i kind of wanted some sort of help.

I was telling these people that i was on my way to becoming a hitman and would have no problem in killing anyone of them right now. I told them that i was a special kind of person when it came to murder and would have no problem killing a child if i had to. thats the way i felt. filled with a murderous rage and completely menatlly sick and twisted.

the result is that i was locked up in the psyche ward via ambulance and police escort and stayed locked up there untill i was better.

i went back to my caravan and saw completely through every delusional thought i ever had. it must of been the rispiridone medication they put me on. i still held on to the delusions a little bit and wasn't completely sure if my dad was evil or not but over time my mental health improved and i didn't believe any of the delusions that i once suffered even in the slightest.

i am now fully recovered and my old sick self has been bought back to health in the mind.

i have support workers who help with anything and have just stopped regular appointments with the doctor.

i am now a caring and loving person thanks to my spiritual studies and love my parents as much as i now love myself. i have gotten over my suicidal fantasies and no longer have any murderous thoughts at all

the doctors say i am fully recovered and no longer a threat to anyone. i am back to the same healthy happy person that i was before i became mentally ill.

the wonders of medication. and thats my story.

thanx for reading
Casey Gray

My name is Nick and I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1980 at the age of 19. When I was 22 years old my mom told me she had thought something was wrong with me when I was in high school but she didn't know what it was. I had gradual onset schizophrenia but a bad LSD trip is what triggered my psychosis. I had smoked pot daily for my last two years of high school, drank every weekend and occasionally took acid.

I got my first job as a dishwasher in a local restaurant when I was 17 and in the next two years I had about 15 other jobs none of which lasted more than three months. It was said half-jokingly in my family I had no problem finding jobs it was just keeping them was the problem. I moved out of my parents apartment a month after I turned 18 years old but after the bad acid trip I moved back in my with my parents when I was stil 19 and eventually started seeing a therapist. The amazing thing was how I took this in stride. This was my normal for me. Looking back the drugs probably contributed to my decline, but anyway after 6 months of weekly therapy a psychiatrist from the clinic I was going to reccomended to my parents to put me in my first psych ward.

I remember my therapist who was this nice, cheery young woman cried when this happend; I had put on a good face with her and she had no idea I was this bad off. In the hospital I decompensated and for the next two years I was psychotic without literally no relief from symptoms for even a minute and I think other schizophrenics know what I'm talking about.

I will say what my illness was NOT before I explain what it was. I DID NOT have any religious delusions, I did not have delusions about aliens, the FBI, the CIA, or about cameras following me or people plotting against me, or microchips planted in me, all of which are common in people with my diagnosis. My disease took the form of feeling I was going to go crazy at any moment. In my case this meant I was afraid I would go stark, screaming mad and lose control and not be aware of anything around me and totally disappear into my own world and have no grip on reality.

I spent my time in those days by myself at a place called Soteria House fighting to not go crazy. I was always on edge, I was always scared, and I could not relax and my thoughts raced constantly until my brain felt like oatmeal. These may not seem serious but believe me I went through hell and suffered. Soteria didn't believe in medication but after I got kicked out of there after a year and a half I was put in a locked psychiatric hospital where I was put on a massive dose of one of the older anti-psychotics and I stayed there for 8 months. I was released to a residential treatment home in a rich college town near Stanford University. I had to have a daytime activity so I went to thier vocational program in which we did yardwork for people in the community and mailing projects. After several small steps anither client and I were given a job at a family owned small business. They knew our story and the deal was that we would work their for 4 months and then another two people would get a chance etc. but they liked us so much we worked their for four years.

Near the end I got addicted to crack and powder cocaine which contributed to three things : I lost this job, I lost my housing and I ended back in a psych ward after not being in one for 6 years. I lived the addict life for three years; clubbing, parties, spending lots of time getting drugs in the town which became the town with the highest murder rate in California. I should insert here that I had been getting SSI and SSDI since my stay in the locked facility.

I got clean in 1990 thanks to AA, CA, and NA and I have not touched drugs except for my meds or drank even one drink to the present day. In 1990 I moved into a board and care home for 5 years then in 1995 I moved out and have lived independently since mainly renting roms in peoples houses. I have had to move three or four times; the shortest stay was 3 years in one and the longest 5 years.

I started driving in 1998 and have driven since, owning my own car. I have worked almost steadily since that first job in the 80's albeit part time. I have now lived by myself for the last 2 1/2 years.

I credit my recovery to my family, my sisters and mom and dad for constantly giving me support and inviting me everywhere. I have many drastic symptoms but I am twenty times better than I was 25 years ago. I have gone to school and I am more than halfway towards an associate degee. In my disease I have flown across the country, been camping, played on a church baseball team, driven 200 miles one way to visit my dad in Sacramento by myself, gone out to eat often and to movies, I was a park ranger for two years, unloaded trucks for 4 years, tried construction work. 

I thank medication and therapy for not being hospitalized since 1990. To sum it up I was incapacitated from the ages 19-22 but now what they say is true, in older schizophrenics the symptoms subside, they go in remission. I just made friends with a fellow sufferer who has many friends and we go out to eat for entertainment. I dated but have never married though I have no interest to. I find it easier to talk to women now, which I wish would have been the case years ago. I have hope things will get better. I have many ups and downs and constantly mis-read situations, I feel like it is chaos driving in the Bay Area where I live, but for someone who has never had confidence , and has low-self esteem I think I have accomplished a lot and I have goals to keep taking college classes in library science to get a job in a library since I can't do physical work forever. I just hope my story inspires someone if they think their future is hopeless.