Can you imagine a world of a thousand voices all speaking at once; imagine your brain open to the earth and everything in it, much like a radio broadcast for everyone to hear what you are thinking. Imagine voices in your head or God speaking to you directly and telling you what to do. This is the reality of a schizophrenic.
Ever seen that homeless guy strolling down the street or standing on the train station taking to ghosts that don’t exist? , with his ragged torn clothes and wild unkempt hair, if not…Take a look around the street, you’re guaranteed to see him one of these days.
The type of person you walk around as far as possible as you pass, the guy you and your friends laugh at when you see him talking to his sandwich.

Now from the outside this scene can be undisputedly quite hysterical…but now let me take you into the mind of such a person for I am one myself. Often the mind of a schizophrenic is a very intelligent one, often a deep and enquiring mind searching for answers to life’s many peculiarities. Schizophrenia is most usually an inherited illness, though now more and more proof that drug abuse can also trigger underlying symptoms of the illness. For me, having no history of schizophrenia in my family, it was a foreign ailment that only happened to crazy people. The Irony of it is that many schizophrenics started their lives off completely sane. Many people are also deluded into thinking that schizophrenia is a multiple personality disorder. This in fact is very different.

I was a user of marijuana for three years; I started in my early youth at the age of fourteen.
There appears to be so much controversy over the reasons kids use drugs, lets hear some of them you say. The kids are emotionally disturbed, society and peer pressure cause them to make bad decisions, they’re running from the pain of their parents divorce or whatever…The truth is, Kids do drugs because they’re fun. I loved smoking pot. I loved feeling like a slow robot with the wind blowing in my glazed and puffy eyes as I rolled down the street with my stoner buddies eating the delicious chocolate that disabled your speech, the munchies we had borrowed from the local café. I loved the feeling of being in my own little bubble and laughing till my sides split at one of my idiot friends who had just done nothing really strange in particular but was hilarious none the less. They were great times! Yup they were…

But as time passed, I started to feel rather strange; I began discovering truths or what seemed to be truths or theories that no one else could apparently see. I gradually began to think I had some sort of spiritual gift from God as I had become able to see and hear what other people were thinking, not only that, others could also hear and see what I was thinking. This is where life started to become a perfect dream yet a horrendous nightmare. I believed Satanists were trying to kill me and Oprah was talking to me through the television screen. I blurted out answers to unheard questions in class. I gradually became less functional and more immersed in a world devoid of rationality. And all this I thought was just a gift of the divine and to me all reality…sadly it was not. People had begun to talk though funnily enough it had gone somewhat unnoticed by many , probably due much to my withdrawal to any social activity for I had developed an utter and ultimately debilitating fear of people, of which I still struggle with to this day. I had begun to see the devil physically in people’s faces; I watched demons swimming through the air around me as I fought them off with my magical mind powers. My family had no doubt cottoned on that something was fishy after I repeatedly had told them to shut up because they were just walking dead people and I didn’t need old stiffs telling me what to do.

I was then heavily medicated on anti psychotics after my parents had consulted a psychiatrist. Luckily after a period of de-tox and re-tox at Kenilworth clinic I was found to be more stable, I was suddenly brought back to this mental state we call reality and I thank God I was able to find my way back, There are many who don’t. I now lead a pretty average life despite some minor anxiety issues; I will most likely have to take medication for the rest of my life to maintain the stability of my mind. Something I will gladly take upon in return for sanity…the sad thing is that this may never have happened if I hadn’t chosen to take part in the false and temporary pleasures of weed, though I firmly believe some only learn the hard way.

New medications are on the market and once treated a schizophrenic patient may live a presumably normal life. I was one of the lucky ones. Often medication stops working over a period of time and the patient becomes psychotic again or even worse, the medication just doesn’t manage to keep the patient sustained in rational thought.

Schizophrenia is no laughing matter; it is a torment and place of complete darkness and loneliness for those who suffer from it. So when you see that homeless guy on the street talking to the sun or an ant on the ground, it is likely he is an untreated schizophrenic. There seems so little hope for people like these unless someone with enough courage to help a loony on the street to get some mental medical attention makes an effort. I honestly don’t have an answer on how to deal with this problem but perhaps just making readers more aware of it is a start. Think of someone who is suffering. Someone once said a crazy person has experienced hell and heaven all before he dies.