What hindered my life just as greatly as my schizophrenia was the mental health trust's attitude towards me and my illness. I could see no future and found little cause to stay alive. Because of depression and the lack of proper support from my local mental health trust, suicide began to be a real option for me. With information supplied by Rethink, I immediately related to symptoms such as voices, psychosis, false and irrational beliefs, thought disorder, suicidal thoughts, depression, lack of motivation, the feeling of being controlled by outside forces, and of course the paranoia and fear of persecution.īefore I received the diagnosis I had slipped into depression, which lasted for years. Straight away, I researched paranoid schizophrenia and used information provided by the British mental health charity Rethink to start to learn about my illness. I remember feeling relief, as though I had finally met with my enemy. In 1996, four years after leaving London and having moved away from Devon, I was finally diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia. It took me many years to understand that it was, in fact, a strength to admit my illness and seek help and more of a weakness to hide away from it. In retrospect, I think I was also hiding my state of mind from the public and my friends, ashamed that I might have a mental illness. It was a perfect place to hide away and try to cope with my illness. I found a suitable flat on the edge of Exmoor.
#PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIC FULL#
I was now at the beginning of my full blown illness, and I decided to leave London and move to Devon, where I thought it would be harder for the KGB to find me. I was immediately signed off from work and referred for assessment with a psychiatrist in London. It was this type of experience that finally gave me the courage to approach a doctor. It was as though I was sucked into my own dark mind away from any life or reality. I screamed to be let out, and as I screamed I found myself back on my bed with a strange sensation around my head. I cannot truly explain what went on, but the feeling of it still terrifies me. I had the experience of being physically vortexed into my own dark mind. As I lay on my bed trying to relax, I suddenly found myself in complete darkness. It was an extremely frightening time and still scares me now as I think of it. Anxiety and paranoia were now quickly and devastatingly beginning to run my life, and a deep rooted illness was setting in.ĭuring this time I had my first and worst psychotic experience. Often, when I got back to my bedsit after work I would huddle in the corner of the room in fear.Īs the weeks passed and pressure took its toll, I had to take time off work. I quickly became confused in my thinking and obsessed that I was being followed. Stress and paranoia began to take their toll. I had no idea that I could have paranoid schizophrenia I did not even know what schizophrenia was. I tried to convince myself that I was under no threat and that my fears were unjustified, but I quickly began to be afraid of everyone and feared that my life was in danger. As I write these words, I can recall my paranoia and fear building up on a daily basis. The worry of the phone call in Moscow and fear of the KGB began to take a hold on my life. I was panicking about the situation I had just returned from and became concerned about possible persecution by the KGB, being a foreigner involving myself in their country's business.Īs I look back now, I feared the KGB not from any personal experience but from reputation and the negativity planted in my mind by “home beliefs” about the Soviet Union.
On my return to London I felt sick with worry. Within a few minutes I found myself feeling very anxious about being in Moscow alone and began to regret my involvement in the marching. I was extremely worried, and my heart began to pound heavily. To my surprise, a man on the other end was shouting and swearing at me in Russian. One night after I had marched on the streets I was woken by a telephone call in my hotel room. I can clearly remember the moment paranoia took its grip on me for the first time. I marched with the people not because of any political beliefs but because of the vast importance and history of the occasion. During my stay I began to feel very stressed because of the political unrest and uncertainty. During my visit I took part in the marching on the streets of Moscow against communism and against the communist hardliners who attempted a coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. Paranoid schizophrenia took its strongest grip on me after I had visited the former Soviet Union in August 1991.
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