#and also like becoming more disabled over the years too. this shit SUX. but we move.

[carmenpeach]

hm okay something thats been on my mind for like over a year now. sometime last year? or maybe closer to almost 2 years(!?) i started taking antipsychotics cause i just couldnt stand the paranoia anymore it had been ruining my life and i just could not function as a person and i was sick of the daily panic attacks. but like i thought "if i dont like how this makes me feel, i can stop and just go back to being crazy" and obviously i wasnt enjoying it- mostly it made me feel really numb to enjoyment and i found that my special interests were just becoming background noise for me at most and it was really hard like i didnt wanna draw or even play games it was like "wake up go to work come home smoke weed go to bed repeat"

and it was like my stuffed animals quit feeling like sentient and started to feel like just objects and it made me feel sick. like my toys had always been alive in a way and then suddenly they werent, but thats definitly not the reason i was so distressed being sane, since i know that special objects are bound to over the years not feel like friends etc etc <- mentally ill whatever. it was like there was a sudden wash of clarity over me and i hated it.

like it was like i was split in two in a way, and this is the part thats hard to explain unless you personally know the feeling. a lot of schizophrenic people have this feeling of like another person/ self residing in the back of the head or spine. and it gives this sense of paranoia, of being over your shoulders or under your skin just beneath you. and until a few years ago i didnt know this was something other people felt sometimes, and it was terrifying just feeling this entity of sorts possessing me in a way. i had felt it ever since i was a kid (maybe 9? for sure became a hard issue by the time i was 12 though so you know. early schizophrenia if not life long) but i never mentioned it to anyone for a variety of reasons, primarily because there was this feeling that if i outwardly acknowledged it, then it would know that i knew about it, and it would get me. whether that was killing me, torturing me, pulling me into another dimension, or taking over my body. and after 2 decades it just became part of my every day life, this thing within me that would always look for an opportunity to torment me in some unknown but inhumane way. and it was just this all consuming feeling, even feeling its thoughts inside my head, and not being sure where i ended and it began, and i accepted it as just a part of me for better or for worse.

and so starting antipychotics, they did their job and i felt "normal" and i was sleeping regularily for the first time in my life (would lay awake for hours and hours ever sinde like idk 3rd grade. 5 hours a night max usually and then that was plagued by nightmares. and of course the constant hallucinations and delusions in the meantime made sleep even harder) and i even felt less of that endless anger inside of me. and i hated it. it was like after being on it for idk maybe 2 weeks or a month or something i just suddenly in the day felt this clarity wash over me and just like that, the spine creature was gone. it was quiet upstairs. and ive felt hollow ever since. i quit the medication not long after but ive felt the same. its like it got mad at me and left to teach me a lesson for trying to toy with it. and ive been a half human ever since. its spacious in my body and in my mind, used to holding two people and now its just one. and ive spent so much time trying to induce epiosdes and just hoping(?) it comes back, but it hasnt.

its like im being forced to live as a human when im not. "being human" is this like aspect ive always struggled with, like im not gonna go into it but ive been forced to live as a non human my whole life, and every time i start to feel that feeling of "maybe i could be a person" something fucking outlandish happens and kicks me back down. i feel like a cartoon character the way everything is such a "yeah this sort of shit would happen to me" moments all the time. and like in a weird way, i always had this "evidence" i was a non human, with this otherworldly thing living inside of me and it was me.

for a long time i thought of it as the "original" me before all the events in my life forced me to create a new version of myself, and that it hated me. like i was one person ripped in two, and the part you have now (carmen) is the "active" "half" but its only half of a full person. but the other half certainly wasnt a person either. ive had many theories of what it is/ was, but knew i would never know, all i knew was that i could never acknowledge it. and its funny cause knowing that "its just schizophrenia" doesnt ease that feeling. its hard to explain. but what im getting at is that ive spent the last two years learning to navigate myself as only a fraction of what i was before.

its interesting cause i wouldnt say the insanity is gone, every now and then paranoia rears its head and certain topics that would make me have an episode will still freak me out. but i can walk past mirrors now (mirrors were always a 100% episode inducing thing) and i still sleep regularily and ive been eating stable too. but its still with this feeling of hollowness. im used to there being two people inside my body and now its just one, and its too spacious and its almost like i get lost in there. only one set of thoughts in my head, only one person looking through my eyes, only one person controlling my arms. i always felt like an alien and thought i always would. and i found great joy in embracing my schizophrenia rather than hiding it as some terrible secret. and it was the best thing i ever did for myself, was finally being open about my psychosis. ive made so many meaningful connections to other psychotic people, and im so happy ive met ppl that helped me understand myself and that im not the only one that feels this, and also that ive helped other people realize their own psychosis too.

i thought i could play pretend at being a normal person and go back to myself if i didnt like it, but i ended up staying this way. i know its not impossible for that feeling to come back maybe, but my god its horrifying to lose it the way i did. it feels only the more recent months ive started to adapt to being the only me in my body, and to feel like i could maybe be human too. yeah it was scary, but on the other hand now its kind of lonely in a really weird way, and not something i thought was possible either, i can still feel the impression where it was even as it fills in with my own shape now.