Experiences of Schizophrenia: Relationships, Schizophrenia, and Akathisia

Living with Schizophrenia: Relationships, Family, and Fitting in

I liked my ex-girlfriend. She had a wicked sense of humor. Her name was Erin, and she had three sisters and a mother named Gayle. Her father had bipolar disorder (so it was reported).

Erin's parents divorced when she was young, but I sensed that she may still have felt a slight heartache and sadness about the divorce, even in her mid-twenties when we were dating. I've seen the hurt and grief people whose parents divorced show as adults, and it seems to be a universal effect I'm not sure can be fully resolved. My father, Bill, spoke of his parents' divorce with the innocence and pained heart he would have had as a child even into his eighties; his grief was so deep.

The two relationships I had were short lived. They ended in ways that difficult, but for the most part I remember as more good than bad. Most of my adult life and energy have gone to simple survival (with the greatest threat to it being my preoccupation with suicide here and there). Avoiding that sense of self-directed danger has become a fear I can feel at the base of my neck if I focus on it. It's like the approach of some beast whose only purpose is to see me gnashed and spat.

I know that suffering can be an ordinary experience that no one is immune to, nor is it one that any may possess solely at once in any given context. I know what it's like to realize that nothing will be the same again, I guess, as people affected by divorce do. I wonder anyway what a lasting relationship is like, even with the potential hazards. Strange.

Experiences of Schizophrenia: What Does Akathisia Feel Like?

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 attempt to rest. A clutter of voices fills my hearing and mind as I sit, struggling against shards pushing around my body, attempting to break free.

I want to be at the center of God, a part of the whole, the appearance of my closed eyes and dark room so black they become radiant. I would surpass my understanding of lifeless things and living things, my breath a far, transparent, echoing cloud.

Note to Self

Be quick to admit you're wrong and forgive others when they do the same. People may see it as nebbish, flimsy, or capricious, but that's a welcome alternative to living with the regret or embarrassment of having been wrong and never admitting it.

Anyone who has a serious mental disorder (or even more so, one who has found themselves in the psych ward) could use a little grace and forgiveness (if not mercy). So, forgive yourself and others quickly as a matter of principle.