I’ve been really tired this week.

Worn out.

Part of it is because I was in an episode last week and weekend.

It’s so exhausting to have psychotic symptoms.

I’m constantly trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not.

Fighting off delusions.

And engulfed in paranoia.

It absolutely takes a toll on me.

My symptoms were so thick last week that I became extremely overstimulated from all of the chatter.

I’m trying to remind myself I’m doing all the right things regardless if my symptoms pop up or not.

I’m doing everything I can.

They don’t get to define my progress like I’ve let them in the past.

I am not my symptoms.

Even though it for sure feels like I am sometimes.

Even though at times they’re impossible to ignore and feel like they take over me.

We are still separate.

I was talking in my therapy appointment the other day about how it feels like I’m regressing when I hear the voices when I’m inside my apartment.

Inside my safe zone.

When they’re loud it’s all I can focus on.

They comment and narrate everything that I’m thinking, doing, feeling, the very deepest, darkest thought from years ago, or my old shitty behaviors.

Calling me names.

Telling me I’m disgusting and worthless.

It’s a very familiar chaos that has been my normal for so many years that when it does come on again, I feel like I’m right back under the thumb of another long psychotic episode.

One where I suddenly lose grip of my issues.

One where I am engulfed in my delusions as though they are reality.

One where I can’t tell the differences.

But, I’m grateful that I am aware now. 

I do know that my delusions are irrational.

I know that my hallucinated voices of my neighbors or anyone, aren’t real.

And I know my paranoia will fade again in time.

So I’m not anywhere near where I was even just a year ago.

But these fucking symptoms make me feel like I haven’t been putting in the work.

When I know in the back of my mind that I have been.

It feels uneventful though.

My progress.

I know it’s there, the progress is.

But I know what I’m up against is much bigger and stronger than I could ever imagine.

My life has been an endless rollercoaster.

In and out of reality constantly and randomly.

And it’s difficult – if not impossible for moments, to snap out of the irrational patterns when my symptoms are loud.

Really because it’s been going on for so long.

It was my normal for the bulk of my adult life.

I’ve wanted to change my behavior for years.

Decades even.

But I never understood why I couldn’t.

Why that wasn’t a possibility for me, until I was prescribed antipsychotics.

When I say I’m forever grateful for them, I mean it.

I know I talk about it quite a bit.

But the medications I’m on now have given me my life back.

Even though I struggle with both positive and negative symptoms still, they’re much, much more manageable with the help of antipsychotics.

My moods are stable, and much quicker to stabilize.

I’m not irrationally angry anymore.

Even though I still have a hard time in public, I’m doing my aquatic aerobics class and online schizophrenia spectrum support group to try to dip my toes back into being social.

And it’s overwhelming sometimes, but like my Grandma says, I keep showing up.

I have “determination and courage” she said.

And that’s a big part of the battle sometimes.

Willingness.

Being courageous enough to do the hard work.

And being determined enough to crave and then create a different, better functioning, healthier life.

So I will not let my symptoms define my progress today.

Because I’ve been hearing the voices mimic my neighbors all week again.

They’re just much quieter than last week.

They’re fading quicker, and they’re dulled and muffled.

And just because I hear the voices, and sometimes believe them, doesn’t mean that I’m not doing everything that I can to dismantle and disbelieve their realistic tones when I can.

– Keren