Schizophrenia

I was completely aware when I entered my psychotic state. I was walking through this crowd of students at my highschool between classes in 2008. I was 17 when I felt like the pressure had been let out of my head. It felt like a gas was escaping my mind as I slowed to a halt in the midst of these moving students. I couldn’t remember anything. I didn’t know where I was or where I was going or what my name was. I felt lost and I started to cry. They called my parents because I was standing in the middle of the quad way into the class period. I went home. I stopped eating, I stopped sleeping, I couldn’t talk or form thoughts but I was very aware of all this as it was going on. It felt like I had lost control of some function.

I started screaming one day and breaking plates in the kitchen after a week of odd behavior.. And my family appeared from their bedrooms as it was midnight. Mom took me to a doctor in Mexicali and he examined me there saying I had suffered a psychotic break. He gave me an anti psychotic and sedative medicine called Zyprexa and I was out for a few days. Only waking to eat and use the bathroom. I effectively felt that my life was over. I would try very hard to motivate myself through this depression when suddenly as I was listening to a song I thought to myself. “Wouldn’t it be great to be part of the art world? I’ve effectively retired from life and had all the time in the world. My mind began to imagine paintings and ideas began to buzz in my head but I was essentially mute and socially regressed after what I’d been through. So I focused on painting first. I wanted to do black and white since I thought tones would be easier. My mother wandered into my room and said “in this house we do color” So I took a class in painting at the college. My Psych doctor had switched me over to abilify and I felt more energized and balanced (thought I still had my moments) I realized I didn’t really have much of an education in anything outside of high school. And that the only thing that interested me was Art in this world. It was the only thing keeping me tethered besides meds and therapy.

I began doing portraits at a coffeehouse in town. The manager had asked if I wanted to I could charge money. It was my first Gig. I was doing Amazing at this point. I had Graduated From high school in 2012 I had started and failed in college various times before taking the painting class in 2016 and from there I began making headlines because the people around me believed in me though there were tangible times I failed to meet my own quota when painting or showing up to events. My illness still follows me in lethargy and in depleted energy. I haven’t stopped taking depression medicine since I began my journey. Yet my accolades are as follows.