Archives: Symptoms

Existential questions created a fear in me, and I felt guilty for having them, told me normal people don't have these disturbing ideas, I felt that it was my fault that I suffered from these ideas that I should not have. For example, to say that life has no purpose, no meaning. And to think that it's not normal that I can't feel that my life has a meaning. That it was serious to feel that way.

In fact I think that the way I describe it there is poorly explained, I had the impression of being sickly mentally serious to dare to think that life had no purpose, no meaning, and at every moment then I tried to find a goal, a meaning to reassure myself. Except that everywhere around me I saw a future filled with psychic suffering and anguish (all the contacts with people created anxiety in me, any effort to do a job created anxiety, I could only very hardly work like this and I would risk ending up a tramp and dying like this, I would be ashamed to be a burden to my parents if they talked to me and if they ever saw that I was sick not being able to work, I would have been embarrassed that they also knew that I was crazy), so I could not understand how people could do to have a purpose in life, it made me suffer terribly to see that I couldn't do it and that I would have to live the rest of my life in absurdity.

I had existential questions like:

• "Why am I living the life of a human rather than that of an ant, when ants are much more numerous on earth? but yes, why then?"
• or "why does the universe exist and not nothing instead? indeed if I look for a reason for everything, we can not find a reason why the universe exists, so is all this, the universe, the world only in my head?"
• or "How can we feel things when the current time in which we live is infinite end compared to past or future time?"

In fact, behind the intense existential questions there is, I think, often the impression of the person to think that it is not normal to have them, that it is frowned upon to have them, and to feel guilty about it, that these questions actually reveal concerns that I have trouble explaining!

Realizing that I had these not normal ideas in mind was proof for me, that I was someone deeply serious and not normal and that I did not deserve to be equal to others, that my ideas sucked, that I sucked.

… because it sucks not to have confidence in itself, but I found it unthinkable that one day I really have confidence in myself. I imagined that if I told my thoughts, I would be ashamed of them, so much so that if I had been forced in some way to tell them, I could not and I would have blushed. I felt that I was not allowed to assert my ideas because it was silly and null what I could say or think. At the same time I had the intense desire to make megalo projects and assert my ideas, but I could not do it blocked by this feeling, it was frustrating and despairing, but I had the hope that one day it would get better, that I would find the solution, at the very bottom of a very deep malaise and continuous anxieties.

I was also afraid to broach the subject of depression, because I had heard the story of this great depressive aunt who missed her life, this kind of story particularly scared me and that's why I tried to imagine that I was not depressed, not schizophrenic, the idea of being mentally tortured for life by my illness created me dread so I twisted reality a little to tell myself that depression was not my symptoms (which sometimes was during periods of crisis).

fear of being exposed

… for example, every time in a conversation we talked about schizophrenia (because I understood that there was a chance that I was schizophrenic), I felt targeted and afraid of being exposed, that I was on the point. My heart was beating fast, I felt trapped, because I imagined that a person in the conversation was going to ask me a question that would put me in default, and that would reveal a secret about my unhealthy thoughts or showing that I was sick, and that I could not answer, stunned by shame. Because I was intimately convinced that it was going to happen, it bothered me crazy, these impressions, I knew they were abnormal, but I had no way to prevent them, I told myself that they were proof that I was sick, and it was a reason intimately, in my feelings, to be even more ashamed of myself, it was a vicious circle.

Kind of like it's extremely serious, extremely shocking, extremely not normal for someone to have these ideas.

I felt in conversations that if people knew I was in a group (e.g. homosexuals, homophobes, racists, anti-racists, intolerants, believers, non-believers, those who love the president, those who don't like him etc.) then they will judge me: "What do you think that, it's not possible to think that! you can't really think that" because they wouldn't find it unthinkable to be like that, so I felt feverish and hesitant. In these situations I didn't know where to put myself. I give you the example in a conversation about homosexuality, if I specified that I am not homosexual to reassure people who might think so, then I felt obliged to specify right after that I am not homophobic because I would imagine that they would think that I am homophobic, it's shocking to be homophobic.

For me they saw me in a group of people to banish, who basically don't really deserve to be considered their equal, that it was really shocking to be like that, that I had to justify myself.

With the caregivers I sometimes have the same feeling that they look at me as if I am not their equal from the moment I tell them that I am schizophrenic. Is it a total impression, a partial impression or a reality? I don't know.

This impression could perhaps have gone away by increasing my neuroleptic treatment, but I did not want to increase it since it is not good for health certainly.

So following documentary research on medical publications on schizophrenia, I asked one of my doctors for Bactrim (an antibiotic that can be taken in the long term) because I saw that it could be due to an infection, and it is after taking this antibiotic continuously that this kind of symptoms has decreased a lot in me.

Knowing that Bactrim fights against toxoplasmosis present in me and in 70% of people with schizophrenia, while only 50% of people without schizophrenia have it and that this parasite is suspected of playing a role in schizophrenia, I wonder if it is not toxoplasmosis that created these symptoms in me.

I wonder if these symptoms (justifying themselves all the time by apologizing, being very timid etc.), are related to toxoplasmosis also in other people.

If I had been asked why I justified myself for not being homosexual and then not being homophobic, I would have been afraid of passing for someone who is afraid of being frowned upon, who justifies himself all the time, so I would have tried to hide that I was justifying myself because I was afraid of being bad. I was able to twist my ideas, pretend I didn't have certain ideas, deny them to myself, I felt like people were judging me on stuff, when in fact I wasn't. I felt, convinced that I was being judged on the fact that I had certain ideas that in reality I had not had either, but I still felt guilty. I have a hard time remembering and explaining that well.

Timoré I was afraid to say what I thought for fear of hurting the person and making a serious conflict, of being frowned upon. So, it really annoyed me to get out of a conversation by crushing myself, when I had deep down ideas that could be interesting.

It helped me a lot and it freed me from not having that anymore because it was very painful to always go in the direction of people for fear of embarrassing or getting angry, while I thought differently.

I believe these symptoms are those of dependent personality disorder.

And it was very difficult for me to say no when someone asked me for help, even if part of this problem comes from the fact that I worry about the difficulties of others, which is still the case today and so much the better.

… Each time we think that the idea we have is very important to take into account and the ideas older than two ideas back, we forget them because hidden by the new idea that comes to mind, we realize that we forget something but we do not know what, it's annoying because it was important! At least that was my feeling. The mind is invaded by ideas that fuse.

Obviously it's exhausting and I think it can manifest itself in the fact that the patient speaks a lot and very quickly.

My psychiatrist had noted that I had this symptom in the consultation report, I know it because my previous psychiatrist had read me this report, it must be admitted that this term of "morbid rationalism" had hurt me, because I was afraid of passing for a madman.

… and to show that I knew that my behavior was not necessarily normal but that I was aware of it and therefore that it was not that bad in the end since I was aware of it (because I feared that I would be judged negatively like crazy to do weird things, without being aware of it). I was trying to understand in which case the behaviors are normal or not, to reassure me a little, because deep down I questioned myself, I strongly felt that my ideas or my questioning were in quotation marks illegal, stupid, abnormal. That I am frowned upon. And that's what, at that moment, pushed me to have this strange answer explaining why I had this reaction before, this answer having passed for a morbid rationalism with my psychiatrist.

I give an example that isn't really one of those weird ideas pushing me to act weird that I had, but it could have been:

I remember that during a small conversation with a girl waiting in line at a supermarket, I asked this girl, where she worked in this small village, she then diverted the conversation not wanting to answer me (I often talk for a few seconds to strangers talking about the time or the shopping we are doing, in the queue or in many situations, I like to chat, people in general answer me and seem to appreciate).

I foolishly imagined that she didn't want me to know her place of work either because she was doing prostitution at home, or because she didn't want to give too personal information allowing her to find her when she had just met me… So far this kind of idea makes sense, although I imagine it is unlikely that she will prostitute herself.

But a weird idea followed by a weird behavior in me could have been this: I could have had the strong intuition that she was indeed a prostitute and that's why she didn't want to tell me where she works (what could happen when I was going badly and I had weird ideas), I would have put this idea in mind, acting according to this principle for the rest of the conversation. So, for example, if the friend I was with during this wait at the tail had told me: "by the way the girls who prostitute themselves on the side of the road in Perpignan behave badly like all the prostitutes in the area that I have seen", I would have been led to think that it could have hurt the girl who queues with us with us who I discussed, because precisely she prostitutes herself (it's hard to explain but in these situations, although I know that it is not sure that she prostitutes herself, I tended to think and therefore act as if my belief about her prostitution was true, in case it is true) so I could have answered outraged a sentence like: "Finally! we must not speak ill of the prostitutes around, it is wrong to say that, prostitutes can be good girls". to reassure the girl in the queue that I would have thought she was a prostitute… So, following an idea that I have, a particular interpretation of what I saw, I will have a sentence a little offbeat of which we will not necessarily understand why I said this in this tone. And I think it's often this kind of idea, intuition that sometimes pushed me to say stuff beside the point, but I had a real reason to say it.

I would have done that too because I felt it was silly to think that.

Also, I would have given another reason than the real reason for my reaction, because I would have considered the reason as obvious (here it was obvious to me that she was certainly a prostitute, so somewhere it was useless to say it), and also because at these times the mind is invaded by ideas and it is difficult to see clearly.

Sexuality was something really disturbing, even though my sexual fantasies were super intense. I dreaded approaching the girls, and I felt guilty about it as if I had to force myself to approach them when deep down I was really stunned by their presence and their judgment that I imagined on me.

Afterwards, anyway I would have been uncomfortable in the presence of a girl, but I felt guilty for not approaching the girls anyway, that it was the big dummies, the poor guys who did not have a girlfriend, except at 19 years old and for a few months, otherwise I did not have girlfriends, and I felt it as a serious shame, a weight. It was something that I felt for a very long time, long after the beginning of my treatment, having seen this in other boys, I think it's quite widespread, even if it's less intense than it was in my home.

People with schizophrenia often have symptoms that bring them closer to autism, and indeed I find myself in the description of asperger's autism on wikipedia: Autism Asperger

I felt like people were violently mocking each other and that it was the norm to be accepted by society, yet I felt that it wasn't the case either, and that it was more my brain that was bothering to think that, but I felt it frankly in periods.

I could get this feeling that I was being mocked badly and that if I try to explain why when people joke about me, it's not justified, then I'll pass for a quilt. Which is surely a little true because often if I was sent spades it was to joke, to tease but not to be mean, being a little autistic, I did not understand well, I felt that what I felt was wrong.

I also had a little peculiar behaviors such as blocking myself on objects, manipulating them long, obsessively, to reassure me, or in exploration video games, I used to look at the details, the small objects that I found very well done, and I wasted a hell of time on it compared to the normal player.

My voice was monotonous, without intonation, although I really felt like I was putting intonations, if I listened to a recording of my voice, no there was no intonation! 🙁

As described on the comics of the wikipedia page: Autism AspergerI did a lot of big blunders when talking to others.

It started a lot following the introduction of bactrim, I think that bactrim really helped because following bactrim I went from 7.5mg of abilify to 5mg, while many things improved, and it had been years that I was at 7.5mg of abilify. I don't know if it would work for others but it's an important track to try.

(Bactrim is an antibiotic that can be taken long-term, which fights against a brain parasite: toxoplasmosis present in me and in 70% of people with schizophrenia, while only 50% of people without schizophrenia have it. This parasite is suspected of playing a role in schizophrenia)

I was also afraid of looking weird in conversations and that it would be very serious that I would look weird. For example, if I feel that if I said hello or goodbye to a person at the wrong time, that person would think I was crazy, someone weird and dangerous. So my thinking was focused on it rather than on a warm relationship and finally my behavior was really weird.

What made me fear that people would see what I thought and what made me look weird was the same thing: the fear of being serious, very serious, sick, weird, in the eyes of others, whether by my thought, or by my attitude that betrayed my thought. This fear, stronger than my will not to think about it, took over at these moments.

A little similarly, with this extremely fear of the gaze and this paranoia, I told myself at times when I began to be treated, when I still had a lot of phobia of impulses, that if I held a knife upside down in the street people would think that I am dangerous, they would call the police, I would have a hard time explaining to them that I am not dangerous, they would not believe me etc. These two aspects of my reasoning: being afraid of the gaze of others, while not wanting to be afraid of it and fears of persecution scenarios took over.

I often had the impression, the fear that people would perceive what I think just by observing my behavior, that my behavior would betray me.

I felt like it was obvious that people understood that I had this kind of problem in mind, when in fact, no.

I blamed myself for hurting them, for creating a deep malaise in them. Yes it happened especially in the 1st year of medicine just before I treated myself, as I was not in my place in medicine, I felt that I was in the permanent lie to force me to continue medicine, I kept the crazy secret that I did not really want to do medicine but that I was there anyway, a lot of the reasons why at that time I wanted to continue medicine were really crazy. I constantly feared that others could read into me these crazy ideas that pushed me to continue. I was in the lie permanently, I had the impression of betraying people, and that it would make them sick because I will be able to unconsciously transmit to them my problems, and inner conflicts, the unconscious unspoken that create my discomfort, for example when I forced myself too much to learn in the library with friends until total psychic exhaustion, I feared that they would do the same thing and make themselves definitely mentally ill like me.

This extreme fear almost made me feel like people could read the content of my thoughts by my attitude.

As the content of my thoughts was unhealthy, that is why there were taboos, misunderstandings in conversations, and I did not talk about the content of my thoughts, I told myself that it would create psychic knots in my friends and that I would be responsible for contaminating them by creating this malaise.

And so if I thought something unhealthy like the idea that if the person I was talking to gets hit by a car right after the conversation, I felt that this person could realize that I was thinking that. And so it kind of judged that what I thought was frankly unhealthy, it must have bothered him to feel that, and I it bothered me to see that he had to think that.

Same with inappropriate sexual fantasies or unwelcome ideas like thinking that one is demonic in catechism. It was serious to think that in my mind. I was afraid during the catechism of being someone demonic in the eyes of the other students of the cate, as I had this impression, I told myself that it was proof that I really was, indeed when we are told about God, we must be reassured, carried, and not to be afraid of being demonic, if people are afraid of being demonic when we talk about god it is because they are really demonic. I imagined others thinking for themselves this.

I had the idea that I had become ill because of a trauma, like being raped as a child without remembering it or anything else. It might seem consistent because there is no reason for me to be sick like that, and then it's reassuring, it means that I'm normal, it's just that there was a trauma happened to me, and that contrary to my constant feeling, it's not me the culprit. And then there's a bad/serious thing and there's a culprit so it's consistent, and it gives hope that we can find the trauma and that we can heal by finding that trauma. I had a period with this idea.

Today I think that it is just a disorder of biological origin of neurons, and that if researchers find the origin of this disorder, it could perhaps come back in order, it also has something reassuring, but I think it can be true because for me the ideas of schizophrenics and other psychiatric diseases are just from an exacerbation of phenomena normal in the brain.

I was often afraid that the serious disruption of my brain could only get worse.