It’s really hard to wrap my head around things when I don’t remember much.

I can’t recall much at all about anything.

Why things went sour with someone.

What I was thinking.

Why this, that, or the other happened.

I know the bulk of that has to do with my psychotic episodes.

My mental illness has run rampant for forever.

I was not in my right mind for a very, very long time.

All of my life I feel like I was just kinda being dragged along for the ride.

Dragged around by my psychotic symptoms, and completely unable to see my true self.

I held people captive because I was being held captive and I couldn’t see an escape route.

I wasn’t able to.

There wasn’t one for a very, very long time.

I didn’t know a life outside of what I was trudging through was possible with medication, and antipsychotics specifically.

And I haven’t had that many life experiences while on antipsychotics yet.

I know that I have my entire life ahead of me on this more lucid path than I ever have been though.

And I know that I’ll meet other people that fit into my life better.

They’ll be healthier because I’m healthier.

That doesn’t take away the sting of all the times I fucked up with friends and loved ones.

I feel like I was a bad friend.

Maybe that’s a bit harsh, but I feel like it.

I just couldn’t comprehend much outside of my world.

I couldn’t see that I was acting shitty.

I was trying to survive.

And sometimes I think of the people that could still be in my life if I wouldn’t have done something, that I now can’t even remember.

I’ve reached out to some people to apologize for my shit behavior, but no one really wants anything to do with me anymore.

I get it.

I was absolutely out of control.

I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to be in my life anymore.

It just hurts.

I have to remember that the people who are no longer in my life, wouldn’t even recognize me now because of how much I’ve changed.

I’m not the same person.

I remember telling my ex husband that I was hearing voices and blacking out back in 2018.

He just chuckled at me and told me that I was making it up in order to act out.

But things were actually getting scary for me.

I was having even bigger gaps in my memory.

I was dissociating constantly.

My mental health was failing.

Things were starting to get bad all around.

At least I realized then that I couldn’t stay with someone who was not going to be supportive of me and my mental illness recovery attempts.

I couldn’t be with someone who didn’t believe what was happening to me.

Because I was getting much, much, much worse by the end of my marriage – around that same time frame of 2018.

I realize now that the mindset of my ex is probably the mindset of a lot of people that have left my life – they don’t get it.

Shit, I barely get it.

But people aren’t terribly familiar with real psychosis and the memory issues and cognitive function problems that come with it.

I mean, I used to just assume that being psychotic was what you see on tv, and people that deal with that are violent and out of control.

Thing is, I was violent and out of control.

Just not like on the television shows, it showed up in different ways.

I just didn’t see it all, partially because I couldn’t remember anything.

I couldn’t piece anything together.

I couldn’t make the connections that I can now.

But people don’t understand what they don’t know.

I feel like everyone is like that.

Some can empathize and be supportive, while others just don’t believe the issue at hand.

Or maybe they just can’t understand.

I feel like people didn’t think or know it was my mental illness that was perpetuating my behaviors.

I didn’t know that that was the case.

I knew I couldn’t control myself, but I didn’t know why.

Sometimes I get angry at the people I used to surround myself with.

How could they not tell that something was off, that something was fucking wrong on a deeper level?

I would constantly talk about spirits trying to talk to me.

I was irrational and beyond random with my reactions, and I didn’t respond, I reacted to everything and no one caught it.

I didn’t even catch it.

I would tell someone close to me that I was having problems and hearing or seeing things and they would just brush it off, just like my ex.

Chalk it up to my “psychic abilities”.

I feel like the stigma of what someone with schizophrenia or schizoaffective looks like really hinders people’s ability to comprehend what the actual symptoms are.

I would interrupt conversations to say that ghosts were talking to me and giving me a message for the person I was talking to.

And everyone just went along with it.

No one was concerned.

In fact, they were more intrigued and would ask questions regarding my “abilities”.

I’m not saying that I blame anyone for not helping me.

It’s just odd to look back at what I can remember to see people encouraging my psychotic symptoms.

Because people don’t understand.

Fuck, I didn’t understand.

I just wish someone was concerned about me before my life hit deep psychotic episodes where I lost everything.

Because when I came to, no one was around me but my family.

Everyone had bolted because they couldn’t understand why I couldn’t remember to text or call, and when I did, I would be emotionally out of control.

From what I can remember, as I look back my diagnosis, everything seems so fucking obvious.

And I’m more mad at myself for not noticing than anyone else.

I first wrote this entry really angry.

Pissed off that I don’t have any friends.

But I push people away because I have a hard time communicating properly.

I have a hard time remembering to call or text folks, and I need people in my life that comprehend and/or empathize with that and with what I’m going through.

Maybe I just haven’t met the right people yet.

Maybe I’m in the process of meeting some now.

– Keren