I do not really have any friends to speak of. There is no one to visit, have fun with, or spend time with, and I have a lot of time on my hands. Sometimes I take a college class or two. I really can only handle one class at a time, but I usually get a good grade. I even recently finished a bachelor's degree this way, at a turtle's slow pace. The progress was never steady; it was filled with periods of no scholarship and classes that had to be dropped—in my whole college career, I have dropped as many classes as I have completed. My completed degree is practically useless because, as I like to say, it is a "B.A. in B.S.," but at least I have something to show for my efforts. I am almost never bored because I find things to do, but I wish I had better activities and some friends with whom to spend my time. Right now, I am in my little apartment, which I have taken to calling my "cave," almost constantly.
You are probably seeing that I do not find my life very satisfactory, but at least, it is a step or two above just surviving. People like to remind me how lucky I am to not be homeless, and I realize it is great not to be in a group home. Perhaps I just whine too much. The thing is, though, I am still not very happy. The antidepressants help me manage feelings of hopelessness and despair. From what I can tell most people who are being treated for schizophrenia—the ones I have met anyhow—are taking antidepressants, so I know I am not alone.
I really am a loser and a nerd, but lately I tend to think that, if I had not started having my schizophrenic symptoms so early in life, then I might be much better adjusted socially today. I never would have been very popular, but I might have had more friends and had better self-esteem. On the other hand, I might still have been terribly maladjusted socially but at least have had a successful career. This is all another "What if…?" because I have no way of separating the schizophrenia from my life history. All of my experiences since childhood have been steeped in paranoia.
I really wonder if most Normal people can really feel any empathy with me today or in my teenage years unless it is by them thinking about those times in school when they may have felt so completely out of place, so misfit, so alone, so degraded and worthless, so loathsome and hated—assuming they ever did feel any of this, because I know some people really had a ball during their teenage years—and then try to imagine these feelings going on most days for years. (Someone just called me a loser in a chat room, which helped me to compose this paragraph, since it made me feel so good about myself.)
I really wish I could have had a few years of happiness before the schizophrenia moved in to stay. In a way I did; I remember being very happy for a while when I was about four or five years old. I laughed and played. I did not worry or feel bad about myself. I did not see people as enemies and was open and friendly. I was not afraid. Right before my sixth birthday I started first grade, and things have gone downhill ever since then.
But when I think about the kind of taste of happiness and normalcy that I would like to have experienced as a teenager, it is the good years enjoyed by so many people to whom I have talked, online and in real life, who have schizophrenia today but did not become sick at all until they were in their late teens or even their late twenties. They were all more or less well adjusted, before they became ill with schizophrenia, with circles of friends and boyfriends and girlfriends—some were even married before they got sick. They went to parties. They were not always alone. Most of all, they were able to learn the social skills that I lack and to practice them in sane times. For the most part, they still have that ability to deal with people that I have never had.
Recently, I learned about another mental illness called Asperger's Syndrome that is related to autism and in many ways like a learning disability for social skills, even as some people have problems with reading such as dyslexia. One day I would like to meet some people who have Asperger's because I think the early onset of my symptoms has made me somewhat like them. I don't know this, and yet another "What if…?" question I ask is whether, in the case that some very good treatment for my schizophrenia becomes available to me, I will be able to learn to not be a loser. Maybe you can see that this might be just another thing schizophrenia has taken from me, another unfulfilled possibility and potential. You may glimpse some of my self-loathing. Not only am I unhappy with my circumstances; I do not like myself much either. One of my worst fears is that, even if my schizophrenia went away tomorrow forever, I would still be left in horror with a self that I did not want to live with, the same loser I always was.
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