"Schizophrenia Story" by elph (revised by ps)
I was diagnosed with schizophrenia probably in 2015, I can't remember most of the dates correctly. Before that I was already living with psychosis for a year - completely in my own world with hallucinatory persons around me. I had my first symptoms a couple of years earlier but didn't pay much attention to them.
They started as voices of known people in my head from time to time, once telling me that they will make me kill myself, and in the last pre-psychosis year from time to time I started to see things that were not there - like people or objects. Also, as I can tell now, I felt completely lost from reality - not quite understanding how to live, what to strive for, etc. Just existing day by day.
I tried to travel and live in various places in Ukraine and then in Moscow, but that feeling never ceased to exist. So, when hallucinations once started and didn't seem to go away I was kind of prepared. New thing for me was their influence on my physical sensations, like touches, subjective body temperature, smells.
During the first three days of those new symptoms, despite feeling like i was "prepared" for the psychosis I still had panic and thought I would die. I was living in the countryside near our city at the time, I moved out of this place fast because voices told me to do so, and I stayed at my sister's place just to sleep and eat. She advised me to go to psychiatrist, but I did not listen. Then I moved to my friend's empty flat and while living alone I indulged in alcohol because it calmed me.
From time to time I spent hours just talking to the voices in my head, watching and perceiving what was happening and this could go on for hours since they never stopped. I also decided to continue to do music and video to stay rooted in reality. Anyway, this detachment from reality prevailed and I did some inadequate thing - ordered 5 doses of LSD by mail from the Netherlands. Of course the drugs were noticed through customs and I was arrested by the police in the post office. My sister payed for the lawyer who said that any bad health condition could help me not go to jail. I already knew that I had undiagnosed schizophrenia, so I went to state psych facility to be officially diagnosed and avoid going to jail. After getting my diagnosis and staying in hospital for a couple of times, 3 and 2 months respectively, I started taking antipsychotics to be sure I would never be in that place again. Life became dull and I thought that my active years were almost over - probably pills influenced that a lot.
4 years later my condition became much worse - first it was pain in some parts of my body, then I got all of my left side in pain - from head to toe. It was unbearable, at one point I couldn't even move my leg. I started to visit a neurologist pretty quickly once it happened, but anything she gave me barely worked. At some point she gave me antidepressants and said that I should take them for a year no matter what. They were awful, didn't help. Psych doctors said they would not deal with this condition and so I started to visit other doctors to try to find what could possibly be wrong with me. At the same time I was reading pubmed and english wikipedia to learn more about what could be happening with me. During that year, when state clinic neurologist pulled me off, I tried various meds and did several tests recommended by doctors but they found nothing and meds almost didn't work. As I've read more on various pain conditions, I already had my own plan what to try, but I always needed doctors to give me the prescriptions. All doctors I visited threw me out, because they didn't know what to do and they didn't want to listen to my knowledge and ideas.
Being desperate I decided to visit that state clinic neurologist again and what she did was just writing official papers to psych department, so they will try to find medicine for me. That changed everything - I was put to day care hospital and two psychs started to try some treatments on me, asking me every day how I felt. After about a month and a half they found a couple of meds - one antipsychotic and one antidepressant, which almost removed pain from me. Even if I became not completely pain free it was a huge relief and some days I had no pain at all. All this happened just this winter - 2021. They said that now if I have problems like this again I can always ask my doctors to visit that place again.
I am living on disability and of course, without financial help from relatives and other people I couldn't pay these tests and meds that I was prescribed. Once I asked for money on Facebook and VK, and some people donated, for that I am very grateful.
And just recently I started making music again and ps/enough also organized a fundraiser for my album to support my cause, he posted on demoscene forums and more people donated - that really helped and I am grateful too. I never knew demoscene can give me such help.
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