Living With Schizophrenia

I consider myself to be a spiritual person, not a religious person. I have a real problem with dogma. I don't believe in Genesis, I don't believe God/dess told Moses it was okay to conquer people and take all the girl children who had never known a man for themselves much less to kill all the girl children who had known a man, I don't believe God/dess turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. I'm not sure I believe there ever was a Sodom and Gomorah. I don't believe in the Great Flood, or that Noah's descendants populated the Earth. (After all, who would his sons have mated with?) Personally, I believe that Moses wrote the ten commandments himself. Not that that makes them bad laws to live by, it's just that there is no commandment against lying, slavery or rape. Which, it seems like to me, that there would be, had they come from God/dess.

I believe that God/dess has a male and female aspect. The only God/dess I worship is love. I do believe God/dess is Love. The Spirit is Love.

I think the Bible is full of fiction. I believe sometimes people hallucinated God or heard the devil instead of God. I do believe in the devil. I do believe I heard him call me a "sh*thead" and "sh*t for brains." I don't believe he's capable of doing more then talking to people inside their heads, but still he orchestrates wars, racism, and rape. All of those things are anathema to my God/dess. I don't understand why people would worship the devil. He doesn't create; he only destroys through others. I don't understand the romanticized notion that he's a gambler who makes bets. I don't believe he's in charge of Hell, like most people do.

I read an interesting anecdote once that described Hell as a vast desert. In charge of the water was a ten foot tall black angel who wouldn't give water to anyone in Hell unless they asked, nicely, for water. I believe that rapists, child molesters and serial murderers end up there. I believe you have to do something seriously evil to end up there. I believe that angel is God. I don't believe that people who commit suicide or refuse to atone for their "sins" end up there. Rape and child molestation is a more serious offense than a "sin." I honestly believe that God/dess hates rape and sexual abuse. There is no rape in Heaven, or the Summerland, as the Wiccans refer to it. I firmly believe that child abuse is a sin. I don't think God meant for us to hit our kids. If you look at what Solomon said more objectively then just believing it because it is in the Bible, you'll see that most of it is nonsense. Jesus never hit kids.

I believe God/dess has helped build all the great societies in the world today. Our leaders no longer kill their subjects (with certain rare exceptions). Christianity made murder wrong. Wicca is trying to outlaw violence in any form, and if you think about it Jesus was a pacifist. He never struck anyone. Not even Peter, whom He referred to as "Satan." I also like shamanism. Jesus followed a classic shamanic path to enlightenment. In my humble opinion, the only thing worth listening to in the Bible is what Jesus said, and anything that promotes civil rights and respect for the Earth.

I believe God/dess has many names. God/dess has been there for people since the dawn of time. I believe God/dess will answer to any name you give him or her. That's why it seems like there are so many different gods. God/dess has communicated with people in various ways. I respect people that talk to their ancestors. I believe firmly in life after death, and that the dead can hear the thoughts of the living. I believe they can even communicate with the living if God/dess allows it. I believe those ancestors are what the Christians call angels. Most people become angels when they die.

I believe love is everywhere.

I don't understand all the conflict, really. I don't understand rigid dogma. I don't understand why certain religions believe they have all the answers. There are many paths to finding love.
In my opinion, friendship is peace. They are one and the same. We have to appreciate the love and peace in our lives. In spite of all the violence today, it is still a less violent world then it used to be. I don't believe in Revelations. I don't believe the world is going to end like that. I believe science, that the world is going end when the sun novas. I don't really understand the conflict between science and religion. Science proved the concept of sacred spirals. We have them in our DNA, in our solar systems, in our molecules and atoms. Scientists wonder what dark matter is. I say it is Spirit. We have miracle drugs now because of science. God/dess even works through scientists.

Many people base their religion on the premise that God/dess is perfect. I don't believe this either. I believe God/dess makes mistakes. Our genes have defects. Only an imperfect God could create defective genes, like those that cause schizophrenia and other diseases. I think it's amazing a living being could create genes in the first place. Why does God/dess have to be perfect to create life? I think God/dess is like us in that way, S/he strives for progress not perfection. Life is amazing enough, why should life be perfect? There is no doubt in my mind that there is a living God/dess in our universe.

I swear I heard God/dess tell me "We miss you up in Heaven." It was the most beautiful, gender-neutral voice I've ever heard. It might have been a hallucination, but I doubt it. To me, this is proof that God/dess can talk to people, if S/he wants to.

I find myself wondering about demons and casting them out. Is it true that Jesus worked with the mythology of the day when He healed people? Are demons and bacteria or viruses the same thing? The truth will prevail. People did not and would not have believed in tiny "bugs" back then. If the devil himself was talking, people would have heard demons talking. I don't believe that the devil has an army of "spirits" at his command.

I am an ordained priestess. I refer to myself as a bard, as I sing, write poetry and occasionally song lyrics, and play the drum. I'm rather fond of shamanism, or more specifically Celtic Shamanism or druidry. I follow Martin Luther King Jr.'s example. I use my spirituality to promote civil rights for kids and adults alike. I believe that God's will is for a more civil world without so much oppression. Racism is not only practiced by white people (in other countries, it's different). White people are people of color, too. Me personally, I consider myself to be red, white, and blue. I have red lips, blue eyes and "white" skin. I am very colorful. So, in my opinion, referring to non-caucasian people as people of color is not very politically correct. I think that people need to keep in mind that caucasians have tribes too. Certain tribes are more warlike and more responsible, in ancient history, for wars between races. I'm not Anglo-Saxon, and it isn't my tribe who is trying to make every country a piece of the UK. I'm not Spanish, whatever tribe they are, and it wasn't my tribe that conquered the modern day U.S.. I'm predominantly Celtic American, to be p.c. about it, and about one quarter Frank.

I believe dogma has done more harm then good. Some people hate the "perfect" vengeful creature that the Bible has made God out to be. In my experience, God/dess is very forgiving except of sexual predators. I believe that God/dess particularly hates those who prey on children. Hate is a natural emotion. Many people believe hate and love to be opposites, yet they can coexist. To me, therefore, they can't be opposites. This would explain the vengeance that Goddesses like Kali and Hecate show. There are some things that God finds intolerable.

Spirit does not look like us, either, so saying that we were created in God's image has to be false. Spirit is pure energy.

Many people like me don't believe in God/dess. To me atheists are as hard to hang around with as fundamentalist Christians. If you look around, you'll find that life is just too abundant and varied just to have happened out of nothing. The universe is just too orderly. I think the premise that God/dess is perfect has driven more people away from God/dess and love, then any other premise. Obviously, the creation is not perfect. Wouldn't perfection create more perfection? "Nobody is perfect" comes from God/dess and S/he includes him or herself. That doesn't mean that love should not rule. Why do we constantly seek perfection in our leaders. Love is a process and a state of mind. It can save your life. Love is about civil rights and respect, including respect for our environment.

One should not just assume the world is going to end, therefore we don't have to try to make it a better place. Revelations was not written in stone.

I am on 15 mg Abilify and 100 mg Zoloft.

After several unpleasant experiences with meds, I have to say that these are the best meds I've ever been on. The first antipsychotic I ever tried was Haldol. That was an evil drug, imho. It did make the voices go away, but it also made my whole body seize up. I could barely move. When I was in St. Patrick's hospital in Missoula, MT, after the social workers took my baby away from me, they put me on Haldol. Before I was discharged, they injected me with Haldol. I put up with being really stiff (I could barely walk -- I was shuffling around and I felt like a zombie) for a couple of weeks.

After I was discharged from St. Patrick's (they bought me a bus ticket back to Washington state), I was put on Seroquel. This made me sedated. I didn't like it at all. I slept ten hours a night.

They tried Zyprexa after that. I got scared I was going to get fat on it. By this time, I was paranoid about the meds, getting fat, and not getting my daughter back, so I gave up. My depression, which had been going on longer then the active psychosis, was still untreated and I still felt bad, even though I was not hearing voices anymore. I've never liked pills or any other manufactured drugs (which has probably kept me safely off manufactured street drugs.) So the depression and the paranoia led to me giving up my daughter to the foster family for adoption, going off of meds, getting kicked out of my apartment, and leaving town.

I lost everything I had in that apartment, except what I could carry with me. My housing, at the time, was contingent upon me having a child. So after I signed the adoption papers, they took away my housing. I had nobody to help me move my stuff, and I was too paranoid to ask anyone. Besides, I didn't know where I would have moved it to. In essence, I lost everything. I did put some papers in storage and into a safety deposit box at my bank, but after I ran out of money (my disability ended several years later) I could no longer pay the storage or the safety deposit box.

I went without meds for three full years. I thought the marijuana I was smoking would help. It did help me take the paranoia less seriously, but it increased my anxiety. It masked the depression, which I thought was helping me at the time. It did not help with the tactile hallucinations though. I think it was those hallucinations which drove me over the edge.

When I was institutionalized, they put me on Risperdal. This also stopped the voices, but I'd find myself having anxiety attacks on it, and having little psychotic attacks where I'd find myself searching for messages and letters on the floor and walls. I'd also have thoughts that would repeat themselves over and over for about an hour at a time, especially when I'd try to go to sleep at night. I'd find myself repeating a word over and over in my head, without being able to stop it.

I researched PTSD when I first was institutionalized, because I knew I had that. I found out that Zoloft can be used to treat that. So I asked them to put me on it. I'm happy I did that. I did finally find relief from a lot of PTSD symptoms, and also from the depression that had been plaguing me since I was a little girl.

Everntually, my psychiatrist, for some reason decided to try Abilify on me. At first I was on Risperdal, Abilify and Zoloft. But, I asked them to switch me to solely Abilify. I have not been plagued by any psychotic symptoms or side effects since. (Risperdal had stopped my periods) I also believe that Risperdal can cause incontinence because I never had a problem with it before or after I was on it. But I did have a problem with leakage during my three year stint on Risperdal. I heard someone mention that her son was on Risperdal and also had a problem with that while he was on it. Risperdal also caused me to gain 80 pounds. I've lost 20 of them since I quit taking it.

These are truly miracle drugs. I am very thankful to the scientists who created them. Perhaps we will have even better and more effective medications in the future.

To me, compassion and empathy are the same thing. It means that a person is willing to walk a mile in another person's shoes. Compassion means to feel passionately another person's feelings, or as closely as possible. It's not sympathy, which is more like pity. It's feeling another person's pain and/or respecting it. Compassion towards the self means seeing both sides of an issue. It means not putting yourself down or beating yourself up. It's like not assuming you're stupid, just because you did something stupid, or that you're a bad person just because you did something wrong. Admitting powerlessness of an addiction is a form of compassion. It means acception that we are limited, fallible, and human, and not putting ourselves down for being human. My life would have been different had I been more compassionate towards myself in the past when I refused to accept my limitations with other's behavior. I am now more compassionate towards myself, which means I am more forgiving of the things I did and accepting that I just can't control certain things or behaviors in others. I probably would have found peace and serenity sooner had I been different.

...Is better then to have never loved at all.

I've fallen in love several times. Even though my love is always unrequited (so far), I've learned from each experience.

In high school, I was in love with two of the boys in my class, Nathan K. and Mike K. Nathan was something of a geek. He was smart, but quiet. I never told him that I had a crush on him. He'd probably be surprised if he knew. I didn't know that much about him, and have no idea where he is now. Mike was something of a class clown. He was voted "worst dressed" along with me at the end of senior year. He was one of the few popular boys who did not make fun of me. He'd probably be surprised if he knew I'd had a crush on him too.

After high school, I worked at an Easter Seals Camp as a counselor. It was there I met Mike S.. He was also a counselor. He was a good looking man, rippling with muscles, and eyes the same color as mine. I instantly fell in love with him. We partied together a few times when the campers weren't at the camp. I found out later that he was quite the piano player. Even though we were underage, we still drank quantities of beer. He finally confessed to me that he was gay. After drinking quite a few, I cornered him in the bathroom and ripped my shirt off. I had to test the waters. He politely turned me down and began distancing himself from me. I did see him again years later, and he had moved in with a blonde man. Perhaps spitefully, I told him to "grow up." I haven't seen him since.

I joined the Navy, and met my ex-husband, Donald N. who I used to love. He was artistic, imaginative, creative and also a writer. He seemed to know something about real magic, and I wanted to learn from him. He ran D&D games. I joined his game and showed him my poetry. We went on one date. After that he pushed sex on me. He said he loved me. I figured, at the time, he was only a man and couldn't help himself. I was only eighteen and he was 22. So, I figured I'd take the good with the bad. He sure wasn't much to look at. He was pretty fat and had an ugly baby-face. I put up with his jealousy, threats, delusional ideation about God and magic, and sexual abuse for a little over three years. We had a baby girl, that we placed for adoption. It was my idea. I strongly suggested he go along with the idea. I don't think he trusted himself with a baby girl, or wanted the responsibility, so he went along with the adoption. I later learned he was a liar, and a thief. I also ended up in the hospital with some mysterious STD that cleared up, so he was a cheat as well. Eventually, after we got married, and broke up three months after the marriage, I fell out of love with him. It took years for me to come to terms with the abuse I'd suffered, and some education from the local crisis center about sexual abuse, and fall out of love with him. I think I was codependent, because he was a drug addict and I wasn't, at the time.

I met Dan G. near the end of my marriage. He was muscular whereas my ex-husband was fat. He was spiritual, or at least he seemed to be. He knew how to kiss, whereas my ex-husband did not. But, he had a girlfriend. He seemed to be a good friend and listener. Later I learned he was a marijuana addict. He also drank quite a bit. We slept together once and he began playing games with me. He no longer listened to me after that preferring to argue with everything I said. He also seduced me when I was crying over the break-up with my ex-husband. And he cornered me once by the bathrooms in the Bellingham south side Denny's and began feeling me up. It hurt. He was still going out with his girlfriend. I learned to hate him. I figured it was the only cure for being in love with him. Hating him worked, and I fell out of love.

My next love was J.P. Falcon G. He was a full-blooded Blackfoot man. He was the same age as me. He sang like an angel, wrote obscure songs about the Southwest and other women, and played the guitar. I felt for him, because when he was a teenager, one of his best friends was shot right in front of him. The boy who was shot was also Native American and an activist. I also felt for him because he'd been victimized by a particualarily nasty hazing in college. I knew him as a friend for seven years before I got tired of waiting. I did a portrait of him and told him he could have it if he took me home with him one July evening in 1997. He had the face and voice of an angel, but he was really more like the devil. I had seen him push down his girlfriend once, but I figured sleeping with him one time wouldn't hurt anything. On the way to his friend's house, where we spent the night, he put his hands on me and it hurt. That night he got as drunk as a skunk, took me to bed, and immediately tried for anal sex with me. I let him do that, even though it wasn't very much fun. That sexual experience cured me of being in love with him. I knew he was abusive after that.

My next love was Aaron, aka Freedom. He too was in a relationship. He had long blonde dreadlocks, and sang about love and Spirit. We never slept together. I tried getting to know him as a friend. But I got disgusted with people setting up altars to him and him putting up with it. He liked marijuana a lot. (By this time, I was rather fond of marijuana myself.) I also got disgusted with the way he treated his ex-girlfriend who was from Hawaii. He dumped her because she had an abortion, and she no longer was going to pay for his living expenses. I followed him down to California and went to a few of his shows. His music had deteriorated, as it often does when drugs are involved. My mental illness was active and I must've said some bizarre things to him, because he told me to stay away from him. So I did. I don't need any judgmental deceivers in my life anyway.

My next and last great love was Joshua M. I met him in drug treatment. He was recovering from a cocaine addiction. He was one of the smartest paople I've ever met. He had an unbeaten track record at Scrabble, and was a whiz at chess. He was a good friend up until we slept together. After that, he began avoiding me and hiding in his room all the time. He was bipolar and it was probably depression. He looked the part of a nerd, but like all my ex loves was a bad boy. At least he wasn't a fatso. I got mad about him avoiding me, and then him hanging out exclusively with a notorious racist at the treatment center. He had insisted that he loved me as a friend. We had childhood sexual abuse in common. He had been sexually abused by his older stepbrother for years. I'd finally had enough when he accused me of writing a nasty letter as well as him refusing to hug me the day he left the treatment center. He hung up on me when I called him, and I haven't talked to him since. Maybe I'm not being very understanding, but those are warning signs.

Maybe next time I fall in love it will be mutual. I would like that.

I've been diagnosed with four illnesses (that I agree with.) PTSD, chronic depression, paranoid schizophrenia, and chemical dependency. For some reason, I keep trying to sort out what symptoms went with which illness. Maybe I do this so I understand each one better.

I believe the depression started with the rapes that happened to me when I was eight years old. I had many incidents that happened in childhood that fed the depression. When I was raped by my adopted uncle, Jim, I was still in mourning for my mother. She died when I was almost four. My depression went untreated from 1978 to 2002. It was also undiagnosed until 1998. I spent most of my childhood crying. I rationalized this. I blamed my stepmother, who was mean, but still should not have caused so much crying. She used to make fun of me for crying so much. I believe she is a drug addict, and that's why she was so out of touch with compassion and her own feelings.

No matter what I did to feel better, nothing worked. I tried Buddhism, Wicca, Native American and Celtic Shamanism, and Christianity. I tried herbs, and the only combination of herbs that worked temporarily was Bach's Rescue Remedy. The Rescue Remedy, unfortunately, was out of my budget most of the time. It's a little bit expensive. I tried serving others as selflessly as I could, doing as many good deeds as I could. I graduated from community college. I even tried a few drugs, like marijuana, acid, mushrooms, and alcohol. The alcohol just made me sick, and tripping on mushrooms and acid led to some scary places. Up until 1995, marijuana only made me really quiet and withdrawn. None of these relieved my depression. I did stop crying all the time after I left my parents house, but I had the other symptoms of depression: low energy, sleeping too much, suicidal ideation, and feeling sad all the time.

I thought about suicide constantly, but never tried until the state of Montana took my daughter from me in 1998. I knew I was depressed, but had no faith in pills, so it went untreated. I wasn't even sure how to access the mental health system, lacked the motivation to look into it, and had no intention of confessing my "secret" desire to kill myself. I had been suffering from low grade paranoia most of the time too. I felt persecuted, which did not help my depression.

I'm not sure when the PTSD finally settled in. I think my marraige is where my breaking point was. The depression kept me in the relationship against all better judgment. When we first started dating, I was impressed with his imagination and ability to weave stories and poetry. That shouldn't have been enough to keep us together. He pushed sex on me from the very beginning, refusing to allow me the room to say no. He was grabby, like an octopus and he kissed like a fish. He was also fat and kind of ugly. He lied about ridiculous things. He also turned out to be a thief and a drug addict. Because of the sexual abuse that happened to me growing up, I believed that men just couldn't help themselves. I believed they all were rapists, or at the very least, pushy. The low grade paranoia that was going on with me did not help. This sexual abuse went on for three years. He pushed me into anal sex quite often, woke me up with his grabbiness when I had to work the next day often, and would not take no for an answer. I rationalized his behavior, telling myself that it was not as bad as the rapes that happened when I was a little girl. I tried communicating what I wanted in bed, compassion, and doing things to please him. Nothing improved the situation, of course. Boy, he really flipped out when I told him I didn't want to be in his D&D games anymore. This was due to the fact he kept calling me stupid.

I married him to chase him off. I figured he was obsessed. People who are obsessed tend not to want what they get when they finally get it. I was lucky; my ploy worked. He divorced me. First he left me a year and a day after our daughter's first birthday. He finally divorced me in 1995. He did try to get back together after he asked for the divorce, but I stood my ground and told him I thought I should try living on my own. He left me alone after that.

My relationships for years after the separation were a reenactment of the sexual abuse I had suffered. I kept seeing my ex husband in every man I dated. Some of them were actually sexually abusive to me, some of them weren't. Many of them pushed anal sex on me. It was when I started smoking pot all the time that I stopped getting in relationships. By then, I was too paranoid to establish any kind of relationship with anyone, and after my schizophrenia became full-blown, even maintain the ones I had. Some of the paranoia was due to my mental illness, some of it was due to the marijuana.

Schizophrenia was like a constant waking nightmare. I'm sure there's some connection between schizophrenia and dreams. We all see things and hear things that aren't really there, except most people only do this at night while sleeping. I had vivid nightmares. One in particular stands out. It was like War of The Worlds. I was being shot at by spaceships. It was a vivid nightmare.

Now I don't have that many nightmares, and being the kind of person I am, I went to the opposite end of the fear spectrum, and am not afraid of much any more. I kill rapists in my dreams now, and stand my ground if I'm being persecuted in my dreams. Bad dreams often turn out good, now. God/dess helps me in nightmares too, often He or She destroys rapists for me. I often have dreams about Jesus and the Goddess.

It took me a long time to realize that sexual abuse is unforgivable. It's the exception, not the rule, I realize now. The evidence was all around me, in the many male teachers I've had, and many professional men. I just did not see it. To me, it isn't love that makes you blind; it's fear. Love has saved my life.

I still have some symptoms of PTSD. I have a hard time seeing myself in a relationship, especially a healthy one or believing I'll ever have a family again. But I have hope.

After my marriage from hell broke up, I spent a lot of time with my best friend and her kids. I also attended college full time.

I really miss the kids. Her oldest child, a daughter named Samantha will be 18 next month. The last time I saw her, she was about 9 years old. I helped raise them, since their mother is a drug addict, and I was not at the time. If anything, I consider myself to have been codependent at the time. Aside from school, most of my adult life was occupied with caring for, and, I have to admit it, enabling drug addicts. My ex husband was a drug addict and an alcoholic. And the three women I spent a lot of time around were all drug addicts. All of them had children.

Bonnie, my old best friend, can best be described as Cajun. She's from New Orleans. She was with a real loser named Patrick when I met her. He used to beat Samantha for wetting her pants when she was three or so. I was avidly opposed to their marriage, and tried for years to convince Bonnie to leave Patrick. I offered her a room in the house that me and my ex husband were renting to get her out of her mother's place and away from Patrick. I never liked Pat. He hit on me several times. I told Bonnie about it. She did not believe me. He is an alcoholic and a marijuana addict. Bonnie's mom is convinced he is a child molester. But the kids never said anything to indicate that he is one. I know he is violent, a philanderer and white. I have no doubt, with the verbal abuse he heaped upon Bonnie that he would have eventually hit her.

When the marriage finally broke up, Pat put up quite a fight for the kids. Some of Bonnie's old friends exaggerated her parental faults and filled out statements against her. Bonnie didn't want to say anything bad about Patrick in court or in front of her kids.

Quite often, I stayed over at her place, when she had one. In the mornings, she'd refuse to get up with her kids, so I'd have to feed them and supervise them, so they wouldn't run out in the street or cause too much mischief. Bonnie would often talk over Samantha or ignore her, I would try to pay attention to Samantha, because she often had interesting things to say. I haven't seen Samantha in over nine years. I have no idea what her interests are now. I spent a lot of time with her and Danny, her little brother. Danny was about four the last time I saw him.

It was shortly before I left that Danny told me that he was going to buy me a truck when he grew up.

The whole family was poor. Bonnie could barely afford to clothe her kids. Bonnie has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because her blood father raped her for the first thirteen years of her life. She relives the nightmare in her sleep and through flashbacks. She didn't have anybody to teach her how to live on her own properly growing up. Of course, the drugs didn't help. She graduated from taking speed and smoking a lot of pot when she was a teenager to drinking and taking lots of perscription pain pills she'd get for a cough she never had.

I had a feeling if I called CPS they'd do to her what they do to most Native Americans, take her children away and give them to white foster or adoptive parents that conform to white societies norms. So, I thought, if I was available and able, I'd take care of the kids when she couldn't or wouldn't. Besides, I missed my oldest daughter, who I had given up for adoption a few months before I met Bonnie. So, in a way, Samantha took Chelsey's place in my life. I defended them from racists and various other predators, too.

I did get tired of never getting a thank you for taking care of the kids, much less any kind of payment for the free babysitting, or, if you prefer, being a nanny to Danny and Samantha. So, when I'd run out of cigarettes, sometimes I'd take one or two out of her pack. She did feed me quite often, and donated some half and half to me. She also loaned me a crib and some other things for the baby I had in 1997. I guess I felt, at first, no thanks was needed, but I got fed up with it.

Bonnie can't hold down any kind of job. She's never coped real well with the demands of being employed. She can't seem to cope with the system. She can't cope with college. She's tried to cope with all of those things, but what her father did to her affects her too much. She did complete two quarters of a community college even though she never completed high school and got decent grades. We started a liberal's club together when we were at the community college together. I had to tutor her in Algebra and precalculus. I am a trained tutor in both Math and English. She never said thanks for that either.

She's been with a man named Randy, who is an alcoholic and a marijuana addict, for almost thirteen years now. He helps her out financially. He's never been violent to either her or the kids that I know of. They live together. They were hand fasted but never married. Bonnie's tubes are tied, which she ordered done after her last high risk pregnancy. Later, she claimed the doctors tied her tubes without her permission. She claims he's been a good father to the kids, but I doubt he's been there emotionally for them. Randy didn't want kids. So it worked out good for him. He has someone to cook and clean up after him. He seemed pretty sexist to me.

Bonnie isn't speaking to me now. When I became actively psychotic, I had visions of her children being molested by both Randy and Pat. I published my "theory" about Randy on the internet. I also accused Randy of rape. The website has since been removed from the internet. She never forgave me for my false accusations. I had delusions that every man was a rapist. I honestly believed Randy raped Bonnie, because he didn't ask permission to touch Bonnie even though she invited it. It was all very black and white in my mind. All the things I did for her and the kids don't count for much since I accused the man she's dependent upon of rape. She also got upset about my accusations of some other men we knew. Some of whom were guilty of sexual abuse.

Relationships should be a two way street. I learned that from Bonnie and her kids, who loved me very much, and were dependent on me when I flipped out. It was the closest relationship I had to a two way street. Although, I have to honestly say I was doing most of the giving. I know Bonnie loved me in her own way.

In a way, the kids gave me the chance to feel like a mommy again. I didn't feel like one when I gave my eldest daughter up for adoption. I had another little girl to love and give to. I don't know how I did as a "nanny," maybe I really screwed things up for Samantha. Or maybe I showed her when it was time to leave bad relationships. In any case, it's impossible to find out since I don't know where Bonnie or her kids are living. I have Bonnie's email address, but not her snail mail address or phone number.

I did a lot of service work before I became sick. Now, it seems, nobody wants my services because of my illness. It was very rewarding, like school, which I also miss. I allowed my loans to go into default after I became actively psychotic. After four years of school, that's a lot of loan money. They want a really high monthly payment from me and aren't the least bit understanding of my illness. I have to pay that high monthly amount if I want them out of default. Maybe someday I'll be able to get them out of default, and become eligible again for financial aid. I'd love to go back to school.

My various odd jobs weren't my real job. My real job was defending my "adopted family" from prejudice and racism, taking care of kids and going to school. I miss my job.

I didn't start using drugs regularly until I was 25. Before that, I occasionally smoked pot, drank and did acid. I actually tried pot for the first time after I found my father's stash and stole a couple of buds when I was 16. I did drink a little while I was a teenager. Once I got drunk on a babysitting job. I found their liquor, and drank myself into a stupor. They came home to me passed out on the couch and never invited me back to babysit. Big surprise, huh?

I got married to a real winner, after we gave up our daughter for adoption. He pushed LSD on me. So I did LSD with him. I stopped liking it though, and quit. I kept feeling this "darkness" overtaking me every time I did it. It would give me anxiety attacks, too. He really liked to drink, smoke pot and be controlling. He threatened to hit me a couple of times, and pushed me up against the stove once. We got happily divorced in 1995 after separating a year and a day after our daughter's first birthday.

When I started smoking pot regularly, it seemed to be the perfect solution to the depression I had suffered from since I had been a kid. I was volunteering at an illegal coffee house, mixing espressos and lattes and making Belgian waffles. Everyone who worked there smoked marijuana. That was how the owner paid the people who worked there. I got tired of feeling left out and started smoking pot when they all did.

I've never liked manufactured drugs and didn't want any pills for my depression, so I never went and saw anyone about it. I tried a couple of St. John's Wort capsules, but that, of course, didn't help. I didn't know that you have to take it on a regular basis. "Herb" seemed the perfect solution, and at first, it seemed to help me have a good time as well. It seemed to make me happier, but it increased my anxiety to the point where I couldn't handle being around people when I was high.

At first, I'd clean like crazy when I was high. It seemed to help me get more work done. Later, I didn't feel like doing much of anything while I was high. It stopped making me happier, too.

I began to have tactile hallucinations that same year. I thought it was the marijuana. It felt like someone was touching my genitals. At first this was pleasurable but soon became annoying, and then unwelcome. It didn't occur to me to tell a doctor about these hallucinations, first of all, because they were embarrassing, secondly, I didn't know how to tell anyone. The hallucinations happened whether I was high or not. Many explanations for these hallucinations occurred to me, including demons and ghosts. They'd happen regularly.

I kept smoking pot. I thought it was helping me cope. I associated with people who I knew better then to associate with. One of them was a child molester who began stalking me. I'd smoke in front of children, which I never thought was right. I ended up getting pregnant with a convicted rapist's child. He'd been a friend before he was convicted of date rape, and he continued to hang around after he got out of jail.
While pregnant, I moved in with a man I'd met in a bar, as a roommate. He was a gypsy. He didn't seem to care that I was pregnant. He kept pressuring me to take acid. Finally I gave in and took a half a hit. My cat killed his gerbil and he made me get rid of her. Finally he kicked me out for not keeping the house clean enough. Before that, I was driving his minivan while stoned, without a license. I'd pick up my pot smoking buddies and go get stoned.

My best friend stopped hanging out with me, because her drugs were "better" then mine. Hers are legal. She takes perscription painkillers. She's never without them. She's always telling the doctor she has bronchitis, but she never coughs. Her boyfriend and one of her other best friends are regular marijuana smokers. She used to be addicted to speed when she was a teenager.

After the birth of my daughter, the whole world went wacky. I started hearing voices, jumping at shadows and having other tactile, visual and audio hallucinations. I thought it was black magic, the devil, that I was in Hell, and that it could all be blamed on the marijuana. But, still I didn't quit smoking it. I had my daughter for about four months before they took her away from me. It was an extremely stressful situation. When I'd breast feed her, the tactile hallucinations would get worse. It was absolutely intolerable. It felt like rape. I'd get in a rage and shake her while breastfeeding.

I began to believe that vampires were after me, and that all my former friends had turned into vampires. Everything seemed to feed the delusion that I was being stalked by telepathic vampires. It didn't help that her father was stalking me and the child molester was stalking me. I could not handle being around anyone for very long, and even refused to let others into my house.

Finally, I decided that my daughter needed her family. I didn't know which family members to trust, so I started hitchiking in the middle of the night from Washington with the baby. I did not smoke pot during the few days I was on the road. I was heading towards Wisconsin or Minnesota. I got as far as Missoula, MT before I mentioned the vampires and had the cops called on me. They put my daughter in foster care. Convinced I'd never get her back I took a small bottle of sleeping pills. About an hour after that, I went to the hospital. They shoved tubes down my nose. At the time I believed the charcoal they were going to give me was vampire blood and that if I took it willingly, I would turn into a vampire. So I kept running away. Finally they strapped me down and forced me to take the charcoal.

After that, they put me in the hospital, where I was diagnosed with psychosis n.o.s.. They treated me with haldol. When they discharged me, I told them I wanted to go back to Washington. So they sent me back to Washington, and my daughter arrived in Washington a month later.

I picked back up with the marijuana habit when I got back. I continued to take my meds until I adopted out my daughter to the foster family. They would not give my daughter back to me while I was still in denial about my mental illness and still smoking pot. I didn't want to quit smoking pot, and I couldn't accept the fact that I was mentally ill. The foster family offered to adopt her. I told them, finally, that as long as they didn't change her first and middle names, I would adopt her out to them.

I lost my housing, which was conditional on me having a child. I could not deal with the idea of moving, so finally they came to kick me out with the cops and I had to leave all my stuff behind, except what I could carry.

That was the beginning of three years of homelessness. I travelled down to California. I was too paranoid to beg my so called friends to let me stay with them. I smoked pot whenever I could get my hands on it and drank occasionally. I hitchhiked around the country, making sure I went to every one of the continental 48 states. It was a dangerous lifestyle, but it seemed less dangerous then making like a sitting duck sitting in one place. This also enabled me to find more pot, money, and food. I was too paranoid of landlords, etc. to move into a place. I did not feel like, with my mental illness, anyone would let me move in with them.

It all ended when I came back to Wisconsin in 2002. My sobriety date is July 12, 2002, because the day before that date I was arrested for burglary. The night I committed burglary, I had been getting drunk and singing karaoke. I'd been having many conversations with "God" in my head and He "told" me to burn down my dad's house. So I did that after taking a blanket and fishing pole from his garage (burglary). They later charged me with arson.

I spent a year and a half in jail before they let me plead NGI to arson. They sent me to a mental institution where I was committed for twenty years. They gave me ten years probation for the burglary. I'm now out on conditional release. That's where they diagnosed me with paranoid schizophrenia. I've since come to terms with my mental illness, and my need for medication.

I'm thankful I'm back to a sober lifestyle. I'm even more thankful I've got sober people to hang around with. I learned my lesson about hanging out with and associating with drug addicts. Eventually, they'll drag you down with them, if they aren't in recovery.

And, that's my story.

First off, I wish to say that I have made new friends, although none I could call a best friend. I still miss my two best friends, Bonnie and Angie.

The stigma of this illness, I'm sure, is what caused them to cut off all communication with me. Maybe, they just don't trust me to make sense or act "normal." In the past, I've acted very irrationally, and when I was paranoid made accusations that weren't true. Bonnie isn't speaking to me any more. I thought, when I was actively psychotic, that I was receiving clairvoyant and precognitive visions. I also thought I had telepathy. I saw her boyfriend molest her son in my head and assumed it was a real experience for the boy. I saw many children molested in my head. The thoughts were very bothersome. I assume this was caused, in part, by the fact that I was seriously molested when I was eight years old. I actually saw people that could be child molestors when I was travelling around. People who would hold their child by the crotch or set a child on their crotch. At one point I actually believed every man was a rapist and a child molester. I was quite paranoid. It was very scary. I did try to stop these people from possibly molesting children by calling the police on them or talking to firemen about it. I was scared of all cops, too, and believed they were all perpetrators of domestic violence. I did have some violent experiences with several cops which only fed my paranoid delusions.

Anyway, I wrote about what I saw Randy, Bonnie's boyfriend, do to her son in my head and published it on a website, along with the names of several men, some of whom were actually sexually abusive, and some of whom weren't. I also thought that he was raping my best friend. She never forgave me for that.

Actually, she's no saint. I should know better then to expect forgiveness from a drug addict. But, I figured after 9 years of loyal friendship, free babysitting in the mornings when she refused to get up with her children, helping her out in general with her two kids, and other things I did for her, she'd miss me enough to forgive me. But, alas, no, it was not to be. She never did say thank you for the things I did for her kids. If she ever saw me crying, she'd get disgusted with me. But then again, she was there for me after my divorce. Her mother let me stay with them after me and my ex husband separated, because I didn't have anywhere else to go. I was happy to let her do most of the talking, since I've always been the quiet type. She can be quite charming when she wants to be, and is a consummate actress. I was always amazed at all the puns she could come up with. I even tutored her in precalculus when she was in community college.

She expected so much, though. I have to honestly say she took me for granted. As soon as her son was old enough not to run out in the streets in the mornings, I left Bellingham, WA where we lived and went down to California. This was the time I gave my youngest daughter up for adoption. I didn't trust any of the friends and other associates with my daughter, and I was afraid Bonnie would talk me into ignoring my daughter or spanking her, like she used to do with her kids. We spent almost every day together. I really miss her. At one point, I thought she had turned into a vampire. I got my ideas about vampires from the author, Anne Rice. This is when I stopped talking to her or visiting her. I thought she was inside my head.

My other best friend, Angie, was my childhood best friend. As we grew up, we kind of grew apart. We had vastly different philosophies on whether or not to have children, and religion. She's Christian; I'm not. But we managed to preserve the friendship anyway. We were friends from 1980 to 2002 (22 years). She found out that I tried to burn down my dad's house and joined my family in obtaining a no contact order. Her mother died when I was in jail for that crime; she had a massive heart attack. I wish I had been able to comfort her.

I may have drove her away when I was paranoid that she was getting beat up. Songs on the radio suggested to me that she was getting beat up, and I was really worried about it. She actually became a little irked that I grilled her. I met Walter, her live in boyfriend, once a long time ago, but don't remember what he looks like.

She's a vetrinary technician. Apparently she makes enough to buy a house, which I've never seen. I really miss her too. She was a good source of support when I was growing up and going through my awkward teenage years. She and her mother would let me help myself to fruit in their dining room, and provided an empathic ear when I'd go off about my stepmonster's (adoptive mother by law) emotional abuse.

Maybe, someday she'll become better educated about schizophrenia and forgive me for what I did to my father and stepmonster. She doesn't understand that my father is abusive too, since I never complained about him growing up. I think I was trying too hard to love the man.

Anyway, thanks for reading this. I had to get this off my chest.

It's been about three years since I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is an organic brain disease that affects all areas of its victim's lives. Dopamine, a brain chemical, overloads the brain with stimuli. I couldn't believe at first, that I had this disease. It was denial at its finest. It has affected me all my life.

It started with delusions of persecution. I really believed I was being picked on and that my parents and all the kids at school were out to get me. My stepfather's abuse and my father's refusal to communicate didn't help matters any. I had depression and would have fits of crying. Anything said to me could be interpreted as an insult. I would lose my temper as a result of paranoia.

I also had delusions of grandeur, although these didn't develop until later. I believed I was a powerful shaman, clairvoyant and an empath with magical abilities. I went on a spiritual quest that involved hitchhiking. I believed God was talking to me inside my head, and I heard Him say He would provide shelter every night I was away. I did manage to find shelter the entire time I was on my spiritual quest which further strengthened the delusion that God was talking to me.

Madness had its benefits. Convinced I could be a powerful healer, I studied herbs and graphology. I studied Buddhism and considered myself enlightened. I learned a lot about religion and herbs. I always have been smart with a gift for speed reading, math and writing. Knowledge led to greater power. I could predict my friends' emotions, and my knowledge of pop psychology allowed me to help friends. I completed four years of college finally quitting in 1995 because of paranoia.

I truly had a split personality. I had the one who played God inside my head and the one who studied healing. I referred to myself in the third person. Paranoid thoughts were often right about men's intentions toward me. I was afraid of getting beaten up and of manufactured drugs. It kept me out of long term abusive relationships where I could have gotten beat up. Sometimes it paid to be paranoid.

The hallucinations began later. They started occuring in 1997. I had just given birth to my second daughter. I believed ghosts or angels were talking to me out loud. Sometimes I thought it was the devil. It felt like there was somebody touching me in private places and sometimes in other places. The physical hallucinations were terrifying; I was being raped by my own mind.

These hallucinations drove me out of my apartment. I started to believe every man I had ever been with raped me. I believed I was being hunted by telepathic vampires. I also believed at some points in time that Satan or demons were raping me. To protect my newborn daughter from vampires, stalkers and her father, a convicted rapist, I took off hitchhiking with her. In Missoula, Montana they took her away from me because I let it be known that I was running away from vampires. They put me in a homeless shelter where I felt so hopeless and depressed I took sixteen sleeping tablets in an attempt to commit suicide. They put me in the mental ward of St. Patrick's hospital where they diagnosed me with psychosis NOS (Not otherwise specified) and treated me with haldol. Haldol is worse then being paranoid. They put my daughter in foster care.

Shortly after this incident I went down to Navajo country on a bus to save the Navajo with my great shamanic powers. They were being relocated from Black Mesa because of a Peabody coal mine to a nuclear dump site. I wrote about it and sent copies of the article to several newspapers and magazines. Nobody published my article.

I was able to stay on my meds for about a year before paranoia about them took over. I heard they caused weight gain, and I didn't want to gain any weight. I went off them and lost my apartment and everything in it, because I gave my daughter up for adoption and subsequently lost my housing. I was too sick to move out after the state took my housing away, so I became homeless. The hallucinations continued.

I was too paranoid to stay in one place very long. I hitchhiked all over the country convinced I could follow ley lines (lines of power) and heal the Earth. I felt safer outside, by myself, rather then being around people. By this time I had distanced myself from family and friends with my accusations and fears, so I had nobody to stay with. On the positive side, I saw quite a bit of California.

I finally got treatment again after I tried to burn down my father's house because I thought God told me to, and I was convinced he was out to get me. That was in July 2002. They sentenced me to twenty years in a mental institution on October 31, 2003. I spent over a year in jail. All of my hallucinations stopped along with all of my delusions after they put me on Abilify. I was on Risperdal for two and a half years, but I gained too much weight and they changed my medication. The benefits of Risperdal outweighed the disadvantages.

All of these thoughts were out of control, which is why they seemed like they were coming from outside of me. I used to believe all the songs I heard on the radio were songs written to me. I really thought someone was trying to communicate with me. I felt like my thoughts were being broadcast, because I could hear voices responding to them. I felt like unrelated conversations had something to do with me. I was using marijuana for the years 1995 to 2002, but it really only made me more paranoid. I'm glad I got treatment that works now.

I plan to go back to college in the future. All of my knowledge and intelligence as well as my history of helping others as a housekeeper and tutor has been a boon to my self esteem. It has been a long, scary battle with schizophrenia, homelessness, depression, and abuse from stepparents, but I've made it. I finally am finding that all that good advice from self-help books is working.

October 14, 2006

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