My experience of schizophrenia

I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in my early teens and hospitalised for the first time aged 18. I became extremely paranoid and believed everyone knew my face, and extremely deluded because I believed the whole country knew me.

When things got hard

I began to hear voices and hallucinate, something I never experienced before, and it was scary. During this time, I dropped out of a college course and gave up playing soccer, which I loved. I lost interest in everything as I couldn’t cope with the voices and the hallucinations. I became severely depressed, too, as a result.

How symptoms affect me

I became paranoid when watching live TV broadcasts from Ireland. For example, the coverage of the Champions League on RTE 2 with a panel of guests. I truly believe they knew I was looking at them and, therefore, trying to direct things at me on purpose. I also started to believe people could read my mind and knew what I was thinking.

It was around this time that I was hospitalised and spent the next few months in and out of the hospital. I thought the vicious voices and hallucinations would never go but thankfully I started taking medication that helps quieten them down.

What helps me cope

There is a huge stigma attached to mental health. When people hear that someone has schizophrenia, straight away they jump to conclusions and think that person is dangerous, but that is not the case. I know other people with schizophrenia, and they wouldn’t hurt a fly. You can ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you that I am harmless.

The paranoia affects me more now than the voices. The voices are manageable enough, but they still annoy, but not as much as they used to. One of the main problems with schizophrenia is that you don’t know what’s real and what’s not real. Take me for example, I truly believe that everyone in Ireland and England knows my face from somewhere, but psychiatrists and my family have told me that’s not possible, and I’m just paranoid.

Sometimes a change in environment makes the voices worse and can cause me to hallucinate, but I have only hallucinated once since I have been on medication. Listening to music helps me too, as it drowns out the voices. I find going for long walks while listening to music is very beneficial to me, as it helps to relax me.

Throughout my hospital stays, I have met some extraordinary people, and they said that telling them my story helped them because they realised they weren’t on their own and they had someone who could understand. I have made lifelong friendships with these people.

What I want you to know

I hope that by telling my story, it will help other people because if I can do it, anyone can. Although I’m still on my journey with this, I have progressed a lot since last year, as I am looking into college courses, and I am playing soccer every week. I hope to go back to playing hurling this year, too.

If anyone is reading this and is experiencing voice hearing and hallucinations and feels they can’t tell anyone, I would say that they should tell someone. It really helps.

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