Just Another Schizo Day

People tend to tell me that had I never told them I had schizoaffective disorder, they would never have known, which is unfortunate, because I tend to tell everyone I meet. I don't tell them because I want them to feel sympathy or pity for me, or even so they are more likely to understand or accept me, but so that they would forgive me if I seemed to act weird, or have an odd expression on my face, one of a certain pained concentration. It takes effort at times to focus on what people say to me around the constant auditory hallucinations, to pretend like I don't hear them and am not affected by what they are saying, which I certainly am.

In the book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck," Mark Manson writes that what people people fear most to hear from others is the bad aspects of themselves that they don't care for or accept, the "shitty" parts of themselves that they are insecure about, so I assume that's what I'm hearing all the time. But I hear them and perceive them as coming from an outside source, and for some reason I am unable to accept the fact that they are completely in my head. I literally just came inside from shouting at a window of my apartment complex: "What?? What did you say??" I hear them now. A woman is asking the man to go knock on my door and confront me, while the man is angrily saying that no one is talking about me. My downstairs neighbors are making fun of me right now because of the typing: "Ooohhh look at me I'm some sort of writer now or something..." What sucks is that this all could literally be completely true, although friends and family assure me it's not. They say people just don't care about others peoples' lives that much; they're more concerned about they're own, and of course that makes total sense. It's a strange juxtaposition of narcissism and lack of confidence. I think I'm both the constant center of everyone's attention, and also the biggest piece of shit at the same time.

Again, this is not to garner sympathy or pity. I was just bored (and I don't do well with boredom) and I wanted to write something about mental health and schizoid disorders. A lot of people say, "Hey, you just need to get a job, then you'd be too busy to think so much about others." Truth is, I've always had a job, sometimes several, although I can't manage to hold them for more than a few weeks to a few months, and typically end up back in a crisis rehabilitation facility when the stress of dealing with my symptoms becomes too much for me to tolerate. But I will not stop working, even though there are times when I really think I should. When I should stop everything and put all focus on myself for a time. Because I value the opinions of these voices, what they think and what they say. I agree with them that I need to work.

Seems like my meds aren't working too well. It's everywhere, all the time. Every car the passes me on the road, every person I pass on the street or in the grocery store. Every window in the courtyard through which eyes are peering through parted blinds. I've learned to smoke a cigarette very fast. This only adds to it though. "Look at that crackhead, see how fast he just smoked that cigarette? I think I'd throw up."

Nights have been rough lately, pretty much a constant panic attack all night long while I struggle to breathe as quietly as possible while listening to my neighbors talk about how loud I'm breathing and how much I'm rolling over in bed and how much noise I'm making and how they know I'm listening to them and what a freaking weirdo I am. Which is true, I am a weirdo, I can accept that. I finally pulled my blinds down because having them up was triggering me at night, I thought I could hear the people across the way talking about how they thought I was masturbating to porn every time I checked the time on my cellphone, but now they're wondering about why I pulled my blinds down. Probably because I'm masturbating to porn.

A therapist at one of the crisis rehabs told me once that things were really only as bad as I made them. This was years ago, and it blew me away at the time, but I believe now he was right. Things are never really as bad as they seem to me. It's just hard most of the time keeping that truth in my mind. I've got some appointments coming up this week, and a whole new slew of meds in store for me, and I'm hopeful for a brighter future for myself here shortly. Med maintenance is really a constant thing for those with psychotic disorders, you're constantly having to make adjustments, but that's just life, and it could be far worse. I could have no friends or family that care for me. I could have no job to start next week. I could have no apartment complex to live in or car to drive down the street. And I still choose to believe there are people that do care.