Just what is it?

I have been caught on all this illness stuff; ticking off the symptoms of schizophrenia and depression and anxiety and now. Now that I am aware some people think I am also autistic; trying to see if that resonates too. But if I were to really look at it all I am not sure what I would see. Wendy says I have a condition that is specific to Graham’s, which mixes elements from all these different definitions.

I have always felt different; alien, alone on the edge of things. I have always struggled to speak, to do the small talk, to make friends, to trust people. It is not as if I am frightened of it; I love being around people; I love having friends. But I struggle to think of anything to say, to ask the right questions. Wendy says she is always thinking, always coming up with ideas and questions and so on but sometimes I worry that I am not quite there at all. I am not really aware of many thoughts at all; they just aren’t there. I do not have spontaneity or creativity. Given the choice of doing anything at all I would probably read a book rather than do anything new or exciting. Asked to entertain guests or children; I wouldn’t have a clue.

I do get incredibly anxious but usually about something new or about worries that people don’t like me or disapprove of my views. I do get sad, but often it feels more like I am empty; a void with no feeling at all.

I twitch a lot, especially when I am stressed. I am not aware of how I come across to other people and in some ways don’t care. I know people consider me to be ‘odd.’

I don’t recognize people; there are so many people in the village I must have ignored. I don’t know their names. I don’t recognize their faces. I wish I could carry round a card apologizing, saying I am certain I like them but I just don’t know if I have met them before.

And yes there is all that background of evil and stuff but now that I think of it what I would like more than anything. It would be the ability to mix and socialize, to find ideas and that buzz when you are excited about an idea. I want to dance with the possibilities of the new and undiscovered. That is what I would like so much: to feel that sense of being alive. To be vibrant enough to make my partner and the children laugh.

That is the crux of it. I really am losing interest in my diagnosis or my treatment, but if I could dance, if I could really laugh! If I could feel at ease with myself that would be wonderful.

The strange thing is, is that when I am at work I often am like that, when I am performing, not being me, I can almost do that but I would like to do it when I am genuinely being the Graham my friends and family know. How on earth will I ever manage that?

And maybe this time in my life where my Dad has recently died and I have found my drinking shoot up again might explain why I now have an almost visceral dislike of my medication, I know the absence in me might be the negative symptoms of Schizohrenia, and I know that they could also be a sign of the depression I am treated for but to have my CPN confirm that it could also be a result of the medication, that sometimes with the choice between those experiences that make me determined to die is the need to accept the half life I live; to come to terms that for all the love that Wendy and her family give me, all that energy and joy that I may never be able to return it as I would wish, never reach into my soul for spontaneity and the confidence and ability to be as present in their life as they are in mine.

I found out recently that my two weekly jag may also have a bad effect on my fertility and remember, with some sadness, those times some years ago, when we stopped using contraception, how we thought; well if a baby appeared that would be no bad thing!

I had an interview just a few days ago by an independent psychiatrist to decide whether I should continue to be given the medication I don’t willingly take. She was lovely; absolutely lovely and, intellectually, I can understand and be grateful for her decision to continue with the medication but sometimes, when I think how basic our treatment is; what the medication does to us and how, somehow that is preferable to the agony of living without it. I just pause and think

Sometimes I think this schizophrenia thing is horrific. I never used to think that; really, really, couldn’t believe I could have it but now it seems to be reaching me emotionally as well as intellectually and it makes me so sad, makes me wish life could have been different.

I am amazed it has taken me a full 38 years of mental ill health to come to this conclusion and sad that now I think of it; I think of all those years of campaigning and how I still have no clear idea about what might make this experience better.