Hi folks, I have been having health problems for the past 3 or 4 years. More specifically mental health problems. I did not crack under the pressure of work or life in general. I did not suffer a nervous breakdown (whatever that is). I was not simply stressed out, tired or overworked. It was the onset of schizophrenia that caused my illness.

I have schizophrenia (pronounced skits-o-freen-e-a). Or maybe more specifically paranoid schizophrenia. My psychiatrist refuses to label me as schizophrenic. I think she is trying to shelter me from the stigma that goes along with that label. She prefers instead to say that I suffer from psychosis. Psychotic episodes or psychosis is what someone suffering from schizophrenia experiences during acute periods of the illness. Schizophrenia is not when a person has a split personality. This is a commonly held myth. That condition is known as multiple personality disorder or MPD. From what I have read it seems to be commonly accepted that schizophrenia is a brain disorder in which the chemical processes of the brain do not function properly. If I remember correctly one theory states that it occurs when too much of certain neurotransmitters are present. Schizophrenia tends to come and go in cycles of remission and relapse. Most of my positive symptoms centered on fears or paranoid thoughts that I had which is why I refer to myself as a paranoid schizophrenic. Some schizophrenics have no paranoid thoughts whatsoever but have other types of delusions or hallucinations such as the belief that they are God or that God is talking directly to them.

My positive symptoms started innocently enough. They began with a concern over job security and personal finances for my wife and I. We had recently bought a new house and I was concerned (unnecessarily) that we had overextended ourselves. This gradually worsened until I thought I was going to lose my job and we were going to go bankrupt. There was a period of time where every day I truly expected my bosses to come into my office to tell me that I was fired. When it didn't happen on a particular day, the next day I would be sure it would happen that day and so on, day after day. Gradually I became increasingly more psychotic and began to experience very powerful delusions and hallucinations. I thought our neighbors were spying on us. I thought one neighbor in particular had been breaking into our house on a regular basis and that one night he was going to break in and mutilate or kill me. I believed my wife was having an affair and was going to leave me. I believed I was going to be arrested by the police for some heinous crime and that my name would be publicly ridiculed. Much of my paranoia and hallucinations occurred at my workplace. I thought that there was a conspiracy against me at work and that my boss was the leader of the conspiracy. I believed he was trying to turn the rest of my co-workers against me. At first I thought the conspiracy was to have me found incompetent, fired and banned from practicing engineering ever again. Later I thought the conspiracy was to kill or harm me in some way. I thought the police or my co-workers had set up surveillance cameras throughout our house and in my office at work. I thought that people at work were putting chemicals into my coffee or drinking water. Chemicals such as toxins that would harm my brain or my heart and cause me to die a slow, painful death or exist in a vegetative state. The hallucinations I had came in the form of the voices of my co-workers whispering in the halls plotting my demise or arguing whether or not they should go through with their plan for me. At first I think I overheard muffled conversations at a distance and my brain thought I could hear what they were saying when in fact they were too far away. My mind in its paranoid state thought the worst of what they might be saying and eventually this became a steadfast belief. Later I believe I heard conversations that did not even exist. I want to stress that all of these beliefs were completely unfounded. At no time did anyone speak badly of me or carry out any of the actions I thought they did. I, however, was completely convinced that everything I believed was true. My paranoid thoughts seemed as real and as frightening to me as is humanly possible. It was by far the most stressful and terrifying time of my life. I remember sitting with my pulse racing and the adrenaline pumping after hearing voices plotting to kill me or worse. This went on day after day. My mind was constantly bombarded with one paranoid thought after the next. It was like my mind was racing with paranoid thoughts. At night I would try to watch TV or have a conversation with my wife but I kept being pulled back to and absorbed by my paranoid thoughts.

At first I kept most of these thoughts to myself or only spoke about the less bizarre ones with my wife. At first she believed what I was saying to be true and felt concerned that I might lose my job. As I began to let her in on more and more of my bizarre beliefs she began to become concerned for me and eventually realized that I was having a problem and convinced me to seek help. We arranged for an appointment with her family doctor who in turn arranged for me to be seen at the local mental hospital. As I related my story to the intake person at the hospital I thought my co-workers were in the next room listening to what I was saying. I could overhear them talking about what they were going to do to me for talking about them. I thought that they were going to "arrange" for the people at the hospital to kill me if I was admitted. After relating my story to hospital personnel it was decided that I should be admitted. I did not feel that I needed to be admitted but rather that the police should be contacted about the conspiracy to kill me.

My stay in the hospital was also very stressful. During a routine blood test I believed that the nurse was using an HIV infected needle to purposely give me the virus. The staff at the hospital enter your room several times a night to check on you while you are supposed to be sleeping. I thought they were sneaking into my room to kill me or harm me and, upon seeing me awake, would leave to return and try again later. As a result I slept very little and became agitated and wide-awake whenever they entered my room. I thought they were putting chemicals into my food and was very cautious and nervous about eating. I thought at one point that someone had put a chemical into my contact lens case while my contact lenses were soaking overnight. I thought when I put my contacts into my eyes the next morning I would be stricken blind by the chemical. As a result I washed my contact lenses with soap and water the next morning before I put them into my eyes. Believe me soap and water is not recommended for contact lenses but I felt I had no choice. This incident is interesting to me as it is one of the few examples I can think of where I actually acted on my delusions. I thought there was a chemical on my contact lenses so I washed them. In many other cases I had beliefs that were equally or more frightening yet did absolutely nothing about them. For example, if you thought your co-workers were plotting to kill you wouldn't you quit your job or take some other action. If you thought they were putting toxins in your coffee or drinking water wouldn't you stop drinking coffee and water or bring some from home. The really bizarre thing is that I firmly believed all of these things to be true, yet I was powerless to do anything about them.

As soon as I was admitted to the hospital I was placed on Risperidone (an anti-psychotic) and Lorazapam (an anxiety reducer). The voices I was hearing and the paranoia diminished shortly after being placed on medication but did not disappear. They carried on throughout my hospital stay and beyond. I was in the hospital for the work week (Monday to Friday) and was doing well enough to be allowed to go home for the weekend. What a relief it was to be home in familiar surroundings. After the weekend I returned for 1 night and was released the next day. During my initial stay I had been in a private room. When I returned after the weekend for 1 final night I shared a room with an older man. I was convinced that he was going to harm me in my sleep and again slept very little. I also was suspicious of the medication I was taking. Not so much while I was in the hospital but later, after I was discharged and was getting my prescriptions filled at the local pharmacy. I thought the pharmacists were wrapped up in the conspiracy against me and were mixing harmful pills in my medication vials. As a result I would examine each pill before taking it to insure that it had the proper stamp on it. While in the hospital I was introduced to a psychiatrist and an expert in the area of psychosis. She followed me after I was released; meeting at first on a weekly basis and later as my positive symptoms diminished every two weeks and eventually every couple of months. Today I no longer have regular appointments with her but keep her number handy in case I run into any problems. Usually I only need to contact her to have my prescription refilled or if I feel a change in my medication (increase or decrease) is warranted. By the way, the need for Lorazapam (the anxiety reducing drug) disappeared a few weeks after getting out of the hospital. I still take Risperidone although I started on 3 mg./day and am now down to 1 mg./day. The idea is to take as small a dose of anti-psychotic medication as possible to control your positive symptoms. The medication has several undesirable side effects (including weight gain, a sedative effect and sexual side-affects) that are reduced at lower dosages. I am in a process of very slowly and carefully reducing the amount of Risperidone I am on. If everything continues to go well I will be contacting my psychiatrist sometime in the next couple of months to request to reduce my dose to 0.5 mg./day. Eventually I hope to get off of the medication all together, but only time will tell if this is possible. As I mentioned earlier schizophrenia tends to go in cycles of remission and relapse. I could have a relapse at any time but so far I have been lucky.

After being released from the hospital I recovered at home for a couple of weeks before returning to work. This was quite scary as I was still experiencing some of the paranoia surrounding work. My paranoia continued for quite some time to a lessening degree. I would estimate it probably took a year to a year and a half to disappear completely. Today I am completely delusion and hallucination free. I am constantly watching for any little signs of paranoia that might tell me that I am headed for a relapse and that it is time to increase my medication. Once my positive symptoms disappeared and I went into "remission" I began to experience the negative symptoms. The most extreme of these for me is the apathy and lack of motivation. I have a very tough time getting up and getting going in the morning. My employers have kindly helped me with this by allowing me to shift my schedule from working 9:00 to 5:00 to 11:00 to 7:00 instead. This gives me more time to sleep in the morning and more time to get used to the idea of getting up and going to work. Even these negative symptoms seem to be diminishing somewhat. I can remember when it was all I could do get myself into the shower in the morning or to bear to shave or brush my teeth. A few days I even went to work without showering as I thought 15 minutes of additional rest was more important. Many days I would get up to go to work, be overwhelmed by the task of getting ready, and go back to bed. I am lucky that I am still able to work full time, although I did miss over 200 hours of sick time last year. I am determined to improve in this respect this year as I do not want to be such a burden to my very understanding employers. After all they have a business to run. Because I feel badly about the large amount of sick time I have taken I have been using vacation days instead of sick days when I can't get motivated or simply can't face another day of work. As a result my limited vacation time tends to get used up rather quickly. Again my employers have helped me out by allowing me to take a few days without pay so I could enjoy a Christmas holiday break both this year and last when all of my vacation time was gone.

I have experienced some degree of social withdrawal and am probably a little quieter at work than I used to be. I still very much enjoy getting together with friends, going to movies, eating out and all of the usual social activities. I am a little more withdrawn with my co-workers and I am not sure why. I am trying to be a little more social and a little more outgoing. Perhaps I am more withdrawn around my co-workers because so much of my paranoia involved them. I don't know. I experienced some depression in the early stages of my recovery but this has all but disappeared. It was mainly when I was trying to get used to the idea of having this illness and the side effects of the medication. I experienced some inability to enjoy myself doing the things that I normally enjoy early in my recovery. This also has disappeared and I seem to enjoy things as much as I ever did. I never did experience the lack of emotion that sometimes comes as part of the negative symptoms. If anything I am more emotional now than I was before I got sick.

The cause of schizophrenia is unknown. I have read several theories including a genetic predisposition, infection of the mother during critical periods of the brain formation, brain structure abnormalities, food allergies, etc. I have had an EEG and several MRIs all of which showed no brain abnormalities. Schizophrenia affects approximately 1 % of the population, which is significant considering how little is generally known about it. It is true that less money is spent on schizophrenia research than on any other major illness. Schizophrenia normally strikes in the late teens or early twenties, which is why it is known as "Youth's Greatest Disabler". My case is unusual in that I first experienced psychotic symptoms in my early thirties. My psychiatrist tells me that as a general rule the later the onset of the illness, the less severe it will be. I am hoping this rule holds true in my case.

I want to set the record straight about psychotics. They are depicted on TV as raving lunatics or murdering madman. While it is true that sometimes the voices that psychotics hear or the delusions that they have drive them to acts that they would not normally commit, it is also true that only a small percentage of psychotics are ever violent. I want to stress very strongly that at no time during my psychosis was I ever a danger to anyone, including myself. Today I would say that I am 90 % recovered and hopeful for further gains in the years ahead. My greatest fear is of another psychotic episode. In my case psychotic symptoms seem to worsen gradually over a long period of time. This should give me the opportunity to catch any relapse before it becomes acute and increase my medication as necessary. In many ways I am the same person I was before I got sick. In some ways I am not. It is not unusual for me to sleep 10 or 12 hours a day on the weekend and 8 to 10 hours during the week. I sleep more than I would like. I find manual labor very difficult which is why we now pay someone to mow our lawn, shovel our driveway, etc. I get bored very easily and sometimes find it hard to enjoy myself when I am alone. I have very few hobbies. Buying a computer has finally given me one. I don't read books anymore. I don't enjoy exercise anymore. I used to exercise regularly and was in pretty good physical shape. I can't remember the last time I exercised. It is because of this lack of exercise and the side effects of the medication that I have developed a weight problem. I've gained 25 to 30 pounds over the past couple of years and am in a constant struggle not to gain more. I swore to myself when I was younger that I wouldn't get overweight when I was older but I couldn't have foreseen this. These are all changes that have come about since my illness.

It is the fact that I see myself as a different person now than before I got sick that bothers me more than anything else about my illness. I see myself as a less useful and productive person than I was before. I miss the promise of what I was to become. Many of my hopes and aspirations have been put aside for more realistic ones. I feel my potential for life has been lessened. I try every day to make changes in the right direction. I try not to feel any shame or embarrassment about my schizophrenia. It is a mental illness but why should I feel any more ashamed than if I had cancer or diabetes. The way I see it I simply drew the short stick in the 1 out of 100 lottery. In some ways I am very lucky. Not lucky to have this illness but lucky that I can work full time and that I have a wife to support and love me. Many people with schizophrenia are alone and do not have the support of family and friends. Many can never work again in their life and are on disability pensions. Many are also homeless and live in the streets because they cannot fit into society or deal with the realities of life. I am also lucky because, despite the horrific experiences I have described, I have a relatively mild case of schizophrenia. Many schizophrenics suffer repeated psychotic episodes or have a difficult or impossible time finding an anti-psychotic medication that will work for them. Many are too suspicious of psychiatrists or pharmacists to be comfortable enough to even take medication.

Please do not think of me as a nut case or a lunatic. Think of me as someone whose brain began malfunctioning quite severely several years ago, and, through the use of the proper medications has returned almost to full functioning. My brain is still malfunctioning slightly but I have made tremendous gains over the past couple of years. Please do not pity me. I want to thank my wife and my employers for their support and patience during my recovery.