The Emotions I Felt After My Schizophrenia Diagnosis

"I remember my first time being committed to a psychiatric hospital. I had been living homeless and delusional outside for 13 months, and felt life was exciting and free. Unaware that I was suffering, I told myself that it was okay to get caught outside in rainstorms and that looking for food in the garbage to eat every day was an acceptable part of life."

"I felt anger When I was finally hospitalized for my schizophrenia, I couldn't understand what was happening to me. I remembered being an honor student at USC, studying biochemistry and doing research. I thought I was the same person, and nothing had really changed, unaware that everything had changed, and that my mind was failing me. I always thought I was homeless because this was a necessary step in my life and ordained by God."

"I also thought through my life and began to understand what I had missed. I had not finished my bachelor's degree, been married, or ever worked a job for more than a few months. I had nothing to show for my four years homeless (though later in life, in recovery, this experience would help me understand and encourage others). I did not know anything about schizophrenia, beyond the misconceptions that are held by the general public. My diagnosis felt incredibly insulting."

A thirteen-month period of homelessness and delusion was experienced as exciting and acceptable despite deprivation. Hospitalization revealed that those beliefs were delusions, triggering anger, sorrow, hopelessness, and a sense of betrayal and a need for compassion and explanation. Memories of being an honor student studying biochemistry contrasted sharply with the realization that the mind was failing. Expectations of prophetic destiny and ordained homelessness dissolved into grief over missed milestones: no degree completion, no marriage, unstable work, and nothing to show from four homeless years. The diagnosis felt insulting and shocking, and the recovery later enabled understanding and encouraging others.

Read at Psychology Today