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People want, crave, and anticipate pleasure. To that end, dopamine is an excellent ingredient in a complex reward system. But dopamine as a “happiness hormone” sells the story short. In the right conditions, it can be a hellish molecule that causes hallucinations, delusions, and tremors or psychomotor dysfunction.

By nature, light consumes all exposed into its senseless gullet, but most go undisturbed when light comes or goes. In schizophrenia, depression, delusion, and insomnia can pervade, stretching the dark into long nights.

There are periods when the space around me takes on an aura of jagged shapes and sharp, searing colors. I walk around, and the buildings, concrete, green grass, and sky cause a feeling deep in my chest, telling me I don't belong. My surroundings feel like they've been replaced by a replica or an unsettling and uncanny false model. The Earth I'm thrust into is like serenity inverted—and in great disarray.

My life as I see it has been an odyssey compared to what I had known as a sixteen-year-old, given the impossible diagnosis of schizophrenia. I never envisioned being as old as I am, and I've learned that even though memories fade, my past will unfold in a continuous push into the future if I let it.

Thought disorder disrupts the flow of regular thinking and communication processes, causing widespread dysfunction that extends to emotions, behavior, and a developing a sense of self. Read more about how thought disorder affects those with schizophrenia.

Yes, schizophrenia can be on a spectrum. As a matter of fact, a set of related disorders to schizophrenia make up the spectrum developed by the current medical community.

I'm doomed here as it is to suffer and vacillate in anguish. My body is being pulled apart in a chair that tightens if I rest. A clutter of voices fills my hearing and mind as I sit, struggling against shards pushing around my body, attempting to break free.