I am often asked (not really, but let's pretend it is), "What is it like to be schizophrenic?" In short, it sucks, but the features of the schizophrenic's brain allow you to ignore it, or even enjoy it. For me, being a schizophrenic seems to be a choice of 2 chairs, only without an alternative solution, I have to sit on 1 of them and accept all its consequences and, before changing to the one on which I am now (the chair of emptiness and meaninglessness) I was sitting on the chair of madness, euphoria and meaning in every little thing. So I will tell you about them, keep in mind that I am not a doctor, but a sick (even now) person and I will tell you the way I remember / feel / understand it.
To understand what the brain of a schizophrenic is, I offer you an analogy: imagine the human psyche, its essence, in the form of a puzzle - each part of it is something: emotions, value system, attachments, beliefs, cause-and-effect relationships, and so on. So, a sick person's puzzle is an incorrectly assembled picture, some parts are correctly fastened together, and some do not fit; for example, a person can attach great importance to some garbage that will occupy his thoughts and be key in his worldview - be it some kind of film, cartoon, book (on which he will pull and sum up everything that happens), or an action, be it then watching ren-tv or writing poetry every day,while the really important things for life will be considered insignificant or completely despised (for example, I hated money and saw the root of all troubles in it, and when I say hated, this is what I mean, the attitude was not restrained by contempt, but by violent hatred). There will be things that will trigger a person (again, this can be anything from being a banker, for example, to the fact that you are a white man in 2019 and you have too much privilege) and he will violently oppose them when every opportunity, so from my point of view the entire SJW movement is people of varying degrees of ill health. And such a person will also seek and see the deep meaning in various completely random things and frantically produce essences in his mind. And surprisingly, such a person will often be either very happy,not noticing their position and believing that everything is fine, or vice versa deeply suffering, when reality grossly violates the inner picture of the individual's world. Of course, there are still hallucinations in this state, but in the end it is only important how a person treats them - as the products of his sick mind, or as with contact with some higher power and messages from heaven, for example. So the most important and bad thing about schiza is the cognitive impairment that it entails. Now no one knows why people become schizophrenics, it is only known that this happens due to a mutation of a certain gene in DNA (correct, if not right), but what leads to this mutation? I am not authorized to make any statements, but if you want my opinion, then I believe that at some point in life a person is faced with some completely new one,information that he has never heard before, which evokes a huge emotional response in him and is immediately accepted as a whole, without critical analysis, breaking and disrupting his habitual thinking. Then he begins to rebuild his thought processes for a new concept, thereby moving the pieces of the puzzle, and this leads to illness. Again - I'm crazy, I judge by myself, I don't say anything.
If schizophrenia is not diagnosed and treated, then it can lead to psychosis, and psychosis is a terrifying thing, in which a person is dangerous both for himself and for others, I was in this state twice and twice he was filmed in a psychiatric hospital. After getting there 2 times, I became thoughtful and decided to start taking pills, especially since without them I could no longer sleep normally (and even now, after 7 years, I still cannot), then the circumstances developed in such a way that I began to walk to the day hospital group, where they conducted classes and conversations with people, they talked about depression and schizophrenia, and when they listed its symptoms, I really noticed them in myself. Then I was smart enough to listen to a person with knowledge and believe in her words, I began to be critical of myself, my condition and those things in which I believed, so I moved to chair 2 - treatment.
At the beginning of 2014, I felt an acute need to understand what is actually right and what is wrong, what is right and what is not, I realized that I don’t understand anything in this life and I just began to carefully read discussions of various issues on the Internet, in including the pick-up. I wanted to learn to treat information and my beliefs critically, I wanted to get closer to the norm and understand what it is. So I started to rebuild my puzzle into a more streamlined form, but it wasn't quite that simple. Schizophrenia cannot be cured today, it can only be suppressed, and drugs that suppress the delusions that occur in the brain of a schizophrenic have a downside, suppressing certain receptors of neurons in the brain, which cuts off some of its functions. As a result, I have
1) There is no sex drive.
2) The most important personality emotions are missing.
Such as sadness and joy. I don't even feel lonely, but I am lonely - I have neither a girlfriend (see item 1) nor friends whom I lost after leaving the institute and plunging into the abyss of madness. Also, I am absolutely sure that I will not be able to love a hypothetical girl, even if she can love me. I could respect and accept her, I could do different things with her, like going to the movies and eating pizza together, giving gifts, but I could not give her feelings. They say that we all deserve to be loved, do you think I deserve too? Even though I can't give love in return? (Well, I also have a lot of autism spectrum disorder, I tend to close in myself and be afraid of new connections, which also increases the chances of being alone in life)
3) In addition, I lost some of my qualities
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And here I do not know if the side effects of drugs or the destructive effect of the disease are involved. I was kind, I was vulnerable, I was compassionate and empathic. Now I cannot say that about myself. I somehow thought what I would do if I was lucky to survive an accident in a minibus with people and came to the conclusion that having got out of there, I would never have pulled out and helped anyone, but on the contrary, I would have gone as far as possible from there, fearing a threat explosion. I don't give a shit on people now, some semblance of an emotional response is caused only by the suffering of animals, so I almost feel sorry for them when I see how bad they are.
Thus, the 2 shiza chair in my analogy looks like a correctly assembled puzzle, with a recognizable understandable picture, but with the absence of some parts of this picture. That is, on the one hand, you are either a complete fool, you think and do shit, but you live, you feel something, you rejoice and suffer, albeit for the wrong reasons (Let me remind you that the brain also suffers and collapses at this time), and on the other - you are no longer a nutcase, but your existence is gray and meaningless, and you try to find and do what you are interested in, but you don’t feel real joy from it. And I would really like to once again experience joy from something, or be sad, or even feel lonely, to feel at least something real and different from the irritation, fear and anger that I can still experience. (But by the way, the sense of humor in schizophrenia,even in my state it is preserved and I can joke and understand it, which is surprising, the disease does not affect him and I can still laugh, only unlike ordinary people, I do not experience the very joy / emotional uplift. This will be difficult for many to understand, and it’s not easy for me either - you seem to laugh (you are happy), but you are not happy - is it like a brain?) While I generally can experience something. I was in the hospital and saw the shells walking there, will I myself also turn into this over time? How long do I have to live in a relatively stable mind, if in a couple of months 30 and 7 years I have already lived with a schiza? One day I will completely forget what it is like to feel and want something? What will I become then?I do not experience that very joy / emotional uplift. This will be difficult for many to understand, and it’s not easy for me either - you seem to laugh (you are happy), but you are not happy - is it like a brain?) While I generally can experience something. I was in the hospital and saw the shells walking there, will I myself also turn into this over time? How long do I have to live in a relatively stable mind, if in a couple of months 30 and 7 years I have already lived with a schiza? One day I will completely forget what it is like to feel and want something? What will I become then?I do not experience that very joy / emotional uplift. This will be difficult for many to understand, and it’s not easy for me either - you seem to laugh (you are happy), but you are not happy - is it like a brain?) While I generally can experience something. I was in the hospital and saw the shells walking there, will I myself also turn into this over time? How long do I have to live in a relatively stable mind, if in a couple of months 30 and 7 years I have already lived with a schiza? One day I will completely forget what it is like to feel and want something? What will I become then?I myself will turn into this too over time? How long do I have to live in a relatively stable mind, if in a couple of months 30 and 7 years I have already lived with a schiza? One day I will completely forget what it is like to feel and want something? What will I become then?I myself will turn into this too over time? How long do I have to live in a relatively stable mind, if in a couple of months 30 and 7 years I have already lived with a schiza? One day I will completely forget what it is like to feel and want something? What will I become then?
In general, it turned out short, superficial and insane, but this is all that I am capable of in my condition. I can relatively understand what is normal and what is not, so I already instinctively feel such things, so when I reread the text I notice moments where I jump from one to another from A to E, but I can’t do anything about it, I can start rewriting to hide these moments, but why? So it is more clearly visible how the patient's brain functions. If you have read up to this point and think that all this is nonsense, then most likely it is. Just do not fill your head with the ravings of a sick mind. If you liked it somehow, then I'm glad to try. If you recognize yourself somewhere in the text, then it is better to check it up, do not delay to a state of psychosis and listen to smart specialists - they do not wish you harm.