Schizophrenia Story Time

Okay so story time about my friend’s schizophrenic dad’s triggers.

There are two that stick in my head the most.

#1
First off I have to explain, if you don’t already know, all schizophrenics have a trigger. It can be anything but his was police. He’s never been in trouble with the law but that was just what his manifested as.

He actually called me after this and it broke my heart because I know that was struggling with the knowledge that his fear, no matter how irrational it was, had complete control.

So he was at Pizza Hut getting dinner. The deal was buy a certain pizza and get a two liter free. So he’s in there paying and a group of officers come in and his fears take over. He said he was shaking so bad he couldn’t hold on to the money in his hand. He got his pizzas and knew he was owed two drinks but he was terrified to ask because his schizophrenia was telling him that if he asked for them the cops were going to hurt him. When I told him they wouldn’t have he told me he knew that but couldn’t do anything about it. It broke my heart cause I could feel his pain.

#2 was probably the worst day I’ve ever had with him. My friend called me and told me that his dad had attempted suicide. I, of course, left school and headed straight to the hospital and when I got there I learned that his schizophrenia had told him that there was things under his skin.

So he hadn’t attempted suicide (even though that’s what it appeared to be) he was trying to get the ‘things’ out. He couldn’t describe them or explain them. He just they were there.

But he had (I’ll try to be as non graphic as possible) taken a razor blade to several parts of his body and had… removed large pieces skin. It was horrid. It was bad enough that the crime scene cleaners were brought in to clean the house. The doctors didn’t know if he had experienced a severe break or if his medicine didn’t work for whatever reason. It was bad enough that he had to move into his mother's basement because he could no longer be trusted to be alone.

So yeah. Schizophrenia is a horrid disease. So many are bad - cancer, diabetes and all those - but those all have a somewhat external cause. With schizophrenia, you find yourself attacked by your own mind. You lose that safe place that so many of us take for granted within our own mind.