ZAPHOD's STORY
 
 
 

Hello, I am using my handle from the schizophrenia.com site as some people know me by it and also to somewhat protect my privacy. My story began about 1984 or 1985 when I first moved from what had been my home town for most of my life to a city a hundred miles away. The reason for the move was to take a job which was better than what I seemed to be able to find locally.

Some of my family(my Father and a couple of Brothers) had moved up ahead of me to the same place. The move to the new city and better job gave me a feeling of self worth that I had been lacking for a time.All of a sudden, even though the job was going well, things seemed to get a bit strange for me.

The strangeness part started when my one brother who was attending University here introduced me to the "Thomas Covenent" series of novels. The stories were pure fantasy and good escapism for me. The thing was that the story was about a man who had leprosy and how he travelled to this other realm when he would become injured or unconscious. The story stuck in my mind. I began to suspect that I too had leprosy. I could actually see my fingers turning purple. As strange as this was I had no idea what was to come.

About two years after I moved here my job as customer service manger was lost due to the company declaring bankruptsy. At this time I  ended up collecting unemployment insurance for the better part of a year. Things had changed, my job was gone and I had to sell my van because I could not make payments on it or pay the insurance on it. This was another blow to me as now I had no way to look for work. I took a resume writing course and some job counselling and was very depressed for a couple of months. It felt like I had no future and I was left feeling lazy and worthless.

After a while I began drinking heavily and I realized that I had no friends at all in this city. My family was now here but I still felt very alone and isolated. One day I received a call from the local post office where I had earlier put in an application for work. They gave me some dexterity tests and told me I would be added to a list of potential employess providing my test results were good.

Christmas time came up fast that year. I believe it was the end of 1986 and I was actually called in for a shift of work at the post office plant in town here. I thought I was in. As it turned out this was just a first step towards eventual employment there. It seems I had to remain as a casual worker there until I had satisfied some of their criteria for being hired.

Fast forward now to a couple of years later and I went for a series of tests and personal intervierws and was hired on as a permanent staff member. It was part time and flex hours but I could work as much as I wanted to, hours were plentiful.
I made some friends there too and worked my tail off and things were good. Then "it" started.

There is no actual way to pinpoint when "it" happened, but I remember one day thinking that people were talking about me just out of my line of sight. This became worse as the days went by. On top of this I had romantic designs on a female coworker. I was sure she was interested in me as I could hear her discusssing me in a complimentary fashion. When I finally got up the nerve to ask her out one day, she declined and said to me "I do not date people who I work with". To say the least I was now confused

We remained friends, even though I probably for a time took it hard and made a total ass out of myself. Things were getting strange though. People around me seemed now to be discussing me and my life as if they knew everything that went on with me. Facts and things that they could not possibly know, they seemed to know. My very thoughts were up for public discussion and I began to withdraw and become very introverted.

One of my brothers during this time had moved into my apartment to live in my spare room as he and his wife had separated and he had no where else to go. It was great to have the company and I discussed a lot of things with him. We got along really well. Problems were happening though, the dentist had put a transmitter in my tooth so I could be tracked and I believed my apartment was bugged. How else could people know me wherever I went.

I took a weeks vacation in the spring of 1990 and I was finding myself losing track of time and things would seem to be very fast sometimes and then frozen in time at others. My brother noticed my strange behaviour and tried to get me to a hospital to be checked out. I was now in a world I did not understand. I went to the hospital with him and someone came to speak to me. I could not hear what they said but I looked at the chair next to me and said "There is no one there" and then I ran out of there.

My brother was not pleased, he seemed angry with me and I did not want anyone to be angry with me. He took me home and I had the strangest night. I was sure at this point that I was being followed so I sneaked out late at night and got in my car and drove around trying to lose these people that were following me. I went to the gas station and the guy there was in on it, so I hurriedly paid and left. I drove out of the city and got lost on some backroads and do not really remember much. By morning light, however, I was pulling back into town and I was exhausted. I went home and slept for I don't know how long.

When I got up I realized it was time to go back to work, my vacation was over. I found  that I could not remember how to drive my car so I walked the 8 or so miles to work. I got there and things started to get weird again. I could now hear voices wherever I went and deep down inside I knew something was wrong with me but my mind would not consciously accept it, so I kept trying to get by.

After the work hours commenced I went and started working in the wrong area. I had no idea where I was suppossed to be. All the rules had changed and the plant was full of witches torturing people in the back of the place. I went to my boss and complained of chest pains as I guess looking back on it, I was having an anxiety attack. She sent me to the hospital where they did something with some "thing" with wires on it and checked me out. I sat in that room for what seemed like hours and finally I left it and asked to use the phone. I picked up the phone and called my brother at work and I guess I was not making much sense because one of the nurses there took the phone away from me and ushered me into a quiet room.

What happened over the next few hours I will never know but I remember coming in and out of reality like I was passing out and waking up over and over. There were people(doctors I guess) coming in and out and each time I once again became aware of my surroundings someone was there trying to talk to me. I could not understand them. After what seemd like an eternity of going in and out of awareness, I said as best as I can recollect "Please admit me and find out what is wrong with me as I cannot stand this anymore". It seemed to be hours before I was taken to a room and given some pills to take and then I passed out and never woke up until morning. As I was fading off I could hear angels crying and singing for me.

This is a very short version of what it was like for me to become ill and as I found out after a week or so my diagnosis was schizophrenia and I believe my life was changed forever.
 
 
 
 

                                                       Part two

After I was in the hospital a couple of weeks I begged the doctors to let me go home and go back to my job. They let me do so after a few days of asking. The labelled me as  high functioning person with schizophrenia and I felt kind of lucky to have gotten off so easy. I thought for sure when I went in there that I was going to be locked in a room in a straight jacket and given electroshock therapy. This never happened though. It was actually relieved to have a name for my illness.

I went back to work and assumed my duties after a long weekend. I even told a few people what my diagnosis was. This may have been a mistake but to this day not many people seem to notice anything abnormal about me so maybe I got lucky.

As I said though, I went back to work and things seemed like for a change more normal than I had experienced in many years. After a time I even forgot I ever was ill and although I was on medications to stay well, I felt lucky and glad to be alive.

After a month back at work I went out and with my new found wealth from working a lot of hours and my now good credit rating I took out a loan and bought a brand new 1990 pickup truck. I felt like I was on top of the world. I started to make some friends at work and we would go out and do things like golfing and such.

After about a year or so my psychiatrist told me he was moving away and that since I was considered to be such a well functioning patient that I could simply go and get my meds from my Gp and that would be that.

The thing was is that I had read by now a lot of books on my illness and many of them said that some people never have a second episode. So I did not see my Gp and did not get meds. This was as it turned out a mistake on my part.

A few months after my psychiatrist moved away I started once again to have strange thoughts like before.
I began to hear voices whispering to me and began to hear people calling my name. When I would turn around, no one would be there. I decided that before it got worse that I should see someone. So I called up the only person I trusted at this time to keep it to himself. My second youngest brother.

He worked for one of the hospitals in town here. He is not a doctor but I trusted his judgement.The funny thing was I drove and picked him up at work and then we went to the hospital. I asked to get a refill on my prescription(I had brought and old empty bottle with me).

The nurse asked if we could speak alone. I said sure. Then my brother left and the nurse said to me "Do you feel like killing yourself?". I said no! She said " Would you like to be admitted?". I said no, I just want my presciption refilled. So we went back and forth like this for a while. Eventually I was allowed to leave with a presciption for my medication.

The medication when I took it made me feel really tired. But the edge was coming off the delusions I was having and the voices I heard were diminished. I had a 5 day weekend courtesy of my work schedule to get myself together. I needed it too.
 

The medication was not working as well as before and I did not know what to do about this. I had to see a juniour psychiatrist for the first few months until a specialist was available. He kept asking me those same old questions the nurse had asked me. I was not impressed.

After a few months I got to see someone who knew more about my illness and found out that my meds were not as effective at the dose I had been taking before. They needed an upward adjustment and this adjustment changed me forever.
 
 
 

                                                Part Three

As my relationship developed with my new psychiatrist, I found my medication had to be increased. As I was now on my second episode I needed more to control the symptoms. They symptoms were mostly auditory and tactile hallucinations. I was originally taking 6 mg of Stelazine a day and had to increase over a year or so to 15 mg. I started to feel very empty inside and seemed to lack the motivation to go on.

My job also started to take a nosedive as the hours I was able to work were decreased because of lack of work. I started to take sick days and single vacation days and any other type of leave I could get to stay home from work. This left me with a bleak finaicial picture. I was making about 1200 dollars a month and my rent was 500 and my truck payment was 300. I started to think I was going to lose it all.

As luck would have it, a friend of mine from work started to feel the financial crunch too and suggested that we split an apartment. So I moved from the security of a place I had lived in for 9 years or so and moved in with my work buddy.

It worked out good for me in the short term, but we did not always get along and we did not always agree on things. Sure we had split up the chores and the rent but it was hard to live with someone you do not know too well.

I continued to duck out of work anyway I could and got into a lot of trouble with my boss for using too much sick time but I kept my job somehow. The job seemed to get so boring I could not stand it anymore but I kept going in. Even though I was splitting the rent I was broke all the time. I could not see how this could go on.

One day my room mate sold me his old computer and I got a modem and signed onto the web. That is when I found out I was not alone with this illness and there were others like me struggling to work or educate themselves or just to live. I felt not so alone but I was still struggling.

After 4 or 5 years went by like this just sort of going through the motions of living, my room mate indicated that he wanted to move out. The hours had returned at work. I was not really taking advantage of that myself though and so wondered what to do. I contacted my father who was retired and living alone. He was not too well off financially either. I told him that if he considered moving in to my apartment that life would be better for both of us, he accepted. That was the beginning and the end of a chapter in my life.
 
 
 
 

                                                                                 Part Four
 

After my father moved in things seemd to start going better for me. My symptoms became fully negated, at least the positive ones. I still had a nasty lack of motivation. I was on a new shift which seemd to coincide with my internal clock a bit more and I did well for the next year. My father and I helped each other out when needed and we seemed to get along well. I got to know him better that I ever had before.

Things got bad though when my father was diagnosed with cancer. He had an operation and recovered from it but the doctor said he was not sure he got all the cancer. But we lived well and after a year of living with my father I was offered a full time position at work. I had been working for 9 years or so on part time flex hours and a couple years before that as "on call" , so I accepted the position.

Things went well for me for the first few months and I adapted to working more hours on a regular basis.
The thing was though that as I began to do well my father took a turn for the worse. He needed constant care and I seemed to be the only one who would give it to him. I had 4 siblings but they did not help me a lot even though they knew some of my limitations.

As my father got sicker and sicker I had to beg, borrow and steal time off from work to deal with his care.
This began to threaten my job. I also became worn down and got sick a lot myself over that year. So I was always being questioned by my bosses as to when my attendance would approve. It did not help my situation.

I hoped my father would get well again and I even began proceedings to but a condo where we could live well. But my father passed away in June Of 2000. I took this really hard but decided that I had to move forward. I needed to get out of the place we had shared because it made me feel bad. So I bought the condo I had looked at. I was now an owner instead of a renter with new responsibilities such as utility bills and tax bills. But I wanted, ever so much always as long as I can remember to own my own place. Now I do.

I still have problems with attendance and am forever negotiating with my boss for time off. But you know what? I am happy for the first time in many years. I guess the only thing I have not done so far is to find a mate or soulmate if you will. Until that happens I have to be happy with the fact that I am alive and living a life I enjoy.

Oh, I am still driving that 1990 pickup truck.
 
 
 

                                                                          Part Five
 
 
 

It has been almost 2 years since Part four above. I am still working full time and the last half of a year my attendance has improved.  I think this is because I have changed from my old medication "Stelazine" to a newer drug called "Zyprexa". It seems to have given me back some of the motivation I had lost after my second episode. At least it seems that way.

I have in the past two years seen a therapist for a while to work out some of my grief after my father's passing. And also to learn some techniques on getting myself into work more often.

I am going to be 43 years old in a couple of months and it has been a long journey.

I have over the years made some friends to hang out with. Most of them I met where I work. I do though it seems sometimes have to force myself to go out anywhere. It seems that if I do not have to go out I will not. I have made my home a comfortable place to escape to when stressed.

I do though try to go out at least a few times a week. I do not want to become a hermit. Things are going well enough, but it seems I am developing other health problems, most of which are from being over weight. I do try to watch what I eat but can never find enough time or energy to get much exercise.

I was 30 years old at the time of my original diagnosis and in pretty good shape at the time. I do not know if I can ever get back to that condition. I do not have much more to say at this time, however, this page is a work in progress and I will keep adding to it as things progress.
 
 

comments are welcome at zaphod38douglas@netscape.net