My Worst episode

Delusions, hallucinations among other symptoms make schizophrenia something unlike anything I’ve ever heard, seen or dealt with myself. I’ve had delusions that I was a soldier of god, sent to fight demons. My mind has created my own version of hell. One which I could physically see. I’ve talked to people, trying to have a normal conversation but heard an underlying conversation going on. I’ve heard noises that weren’t there and felt things touch me, when there wasn’t something there.

I’m about to tell you about my worst episode I’ve ever experienced. Putting these into words couldn’t possibly do it justice. While reading this, try to image that through my eyes it was completely real. I could see, hear, feel, and I believed every second of it.

It starts off at a campsite that I worked at. I was the janitor of the dinning hall. I had been there a little under a year and I was pretty good at my job. this being a year round campsite, summertime was the busiest. During the summer, I had a lot of responsibility. Some might think that it would have been a two person job during the summer, myself being one of them. The stress of this job pushed me over the edge. My illness flared up, and it was all down hill from there.

It started out as it always did, fading away from reality. Sort of like a slow detaching from reality. Pulling away or slipping slowly into darkness. Even though I feel these symptoms coming on, it’s very difficult for me to, connect the dots if you will, that I am getting sick. It gets hard to think, hard to feel, hard to understand what is happening.

The paranoia set in quickly. Thoughts that people were scheming behind my back. I thought my wife was planning on leaving me. I had a constant thought that my job was trying to get rid of me. One paranoid delusion I had been that the animals, were trying to taking my hearing.

I remember walking to the dinning hall, walking by these owl looking birds. Its hard from me to tell what was real about them. As when I remember a time when I’m having an episode, I remember how I perceived it, delusions and all. These owls, they had this loud shriek. So loud that it hurt my ears. It made me think that it was so loud that they were making me go deaf, and they were doing it on purpose.

I lived on the campsite, it was nice, quiet and beautiful. The problem was I believed there were two buried Indians under the cabin. One, the male, was buried under the porch. The other, his wife, was buried under my bedroom. These two Indians told me that smoking cigarettes connected me with ghosts. not just any ghosts, my grandmother. They also told me that if I ate a pine cone, that I would be closer to the spiritual side of nature. Unfortunately I did eat one and I am amazed I didn’t get sick.

After I was led to my grandmother, I quickly and unfortunately found out that she was in hell. She was trying to reach out to me, wondering why she was there. While smoking cigarettes I would hear what she had to say. I smoked way to many. while walking back from the dinning hall one night, I noticed a tree with a huge knot in it. This tree led to hell. I quickly walked passed it and went home. The tree called to me during all hours. I was told by the Indians that I had to go to it in order to get my grandmother into heaven.

After a while, this delusion changed slightly. I was no longer focused on the Indians and my grandmother, but hell was still at the forefront of the episode. I began hearing a bus, seeing a city bus. idling engine. The bus was waiting for me, waiting to take me to hell. Time was running out I’d think. The bus was going to leave soon and I would be left with nothing. An eternal abyss that was neither something or nothing.

Eventually the episode changed again. It was now centered around my grandfather, a WW2 veteran. He was the soldier in the bomber that fed ammunition but in my episode, he was a sniper. He was a sniper that had killed many and now the men he killed were haunting me. My cats were now the messengers of the dead. They told me that the bus was still waiting. That I was to now go with the men he killed. Where ever they wanted to take me. This delusion was toward the, as I was reaching the point where I couldn’t take it anymore.

The last clear memory of my episode was a mostly new delusion. My wife, with whom I was newly married to, had been pregnant. Only in my delusion was she pregnant. She miscarried this imaginary child but didn’t tell me. I found out because I seen the spirit, which is hard to explain. It was like a form of electricity than moved across the ground. Until it resided in a flower and started its new life. This being too much to bare, I blacked out. I blacked out for months with only fragments of reality that I can remember. I remember being fired from the campsite. I remember bits and pieces of moving out. Then I remember driving to Maine. The long ride was riddled with new, smaller delusions. Yes I am aware that I shouldn’t have been driving

While going down the highway, the sun was rising. I seen a lot of crows. More crows than I have ever seen. It seemed like they were following me. That they were the bringer of death. Another delusion which is harder to explain, was about what I can only think to be the heat coming off the road. This being summer, it was hot. The heat coming of road was to me, the spirits of people who were embalmed. The embalming method trapped their spirits in the ground. They were not able to move freely and they were calling to me because I was the only person who could see them. They were led to me by my grandmother. They were only able to get a couple of feet off the ground. I don’t remember much more after that.

So finally, I was put on the correct medication. It took about a month for it to reach me from deep in my episode. I’ve made a full recovery and so far have been good for almost two years.