User talk:Rrdericks

                  Psychology Today
              Diary of a schizophrenic

    As a child I recall saying to my mother that Dad talked in circles.  I was about ten years old.  I don't remember much of what happened at home, only trama.  It seemed like every night at the supper table there would be a fight.  The emotional pain pushed me to strike back, and I did it in the only wy I could-- I would stare at my father.
    I don't recall how old I was when I had my first hallucination.  But it occurred when I stared at my father.  I would see white flashes, which I learned how to push away.  But I couldn't I couldn't forget the feelings that raged during the nightly wars, so I learned how to ignore my emotions.  I can even remember a time or two when I realized that what I was feeling was frightening or even irrational.  I had to override those feelings to survive.
    My college career lasted two semesters.  Despite the A's and B's I gotd initially, my lilfe slowly fell apart.  I was 22 years old, in the prime of my life, but I couldn't pull my act together.  I didn't know how to save myself.
    I was 25 years old when I saw my first psychiatrist.  He asked if I wanted to be admitted to the howpital.  I said, "Sure," and the next thing I knew, I was getting indoctrinated into life on a psychiatric ward.  I was diagnosed with schizophrenia.  It would be the first of many visits.  My parents were shocked to learn that I was in the hospital.  But I didn't take it too seriously, and after the Haldol hit me, I wasn't able to react to much of anything.