Journey to Recovery

I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2007. I was suffering from delusion and paranoia which had driven me to attempt suicide. I believed that if I did not take my own life that people would come and torture me. This of course was not the case. It took me 5 years to realize that this was true. I will tell you in this article of my process in coming to the realization that I was delusional.

I believed myself to be a person of great importance when I was delusional. I had written books, come up with scientific theory and been a humanitarian as well. The delusions I had fed my paranoia. The paranoia would come and go, seemingly with my self-esteem. At times that I felt good about myself, I still believed that people might come after me. However, I was not consumed by this delusion. I was able to function fairly well, only having these thoughts in the back of my mind. In times when I did not feel so good about myself I was totally taken over by my delusion. I could not concentrate well enough to drive or read, and my performance at work suffered as well.

In time, I was able to overcome my false beliefs. This took years of reality testing. I would surf the internet trying to find accounts of my exploits. I would never find anything, and at the time I chalked it up to conspiracy, but this reality testing cast just a little doubt. I looked up a person one time who I thought I'd had interactions with, to find out that he had died prior to my being born. One major step I took in my reality testing was to meet with a girl who I thought I had been married to in my early twenties. Judging by the way she responded to seeing me I realized that I had never been married to her at all.

Eventually I decided to educate myself on schizophrenia. At the time I knew very little about my illness. I had asked psychiatrists about my affliction before, but got very vague, ambiguous answers. I saw in writing things that I identified closely with, and stories of other peoples experiences with schizophrenia that were not so different from mine. At that time, all of the years of reality testing I did built up to one specific time. That exact moment I decided to completely let go of all my beliefs that I was a person of great influence as well as thoughts of those that people intended to harm me.

It took me 5 years from when I was diagnosed to get to the point where I could completely let go of my delusion and maybe 15 years from the on set of my illness. I spent the years from 2002 until 2007 isolating and thinking that I had to be afraid. Those years are now behind me. I am ready to lead a full and productive life without the worry I once had.