[mdberk22]

Hello, firstly excuse this post for being a little disjointed. I was first hospitalized 5 years ago for a major psychotic episode. I’ve been hospitalized several times since then and diagnosed from schizoaffective down to bipolar with psychotic symptoms. Even if I don’t want others to know and will never admit my diagnoses, I know I am both schizophrenic and bipolar II, I have the symtomology of both as well as a mood disorder.

But before you think I’m feeling sorry for myself for any of these conditions, I do not. They are my circumstance, and I believe I have it in my power to conquer this fate. So I went into the hospital the first time thinking I could see good and evil in the colors around peoples eyes and that I was being visited by gods and angels, that I was of course some sort or messianic character, and that I had a variety of powers . It was a really confusing and destructive time while I was experiencing the worst of the symptoms, with new delusions forming and paranoias daily. Reality was in constant flux.

The worst thing I have dealt with is the auditory hallucinations, the voices, and the crippling anxiety and paranoia resulting from how uncomfortable they made me. Voices usually of people I know trying to talk to me convincing me of delusions on the nature of reality. I still can completey shake the feeling of being on some kind of show for aliens. l sPent several nights driving around without my contacts negotiating my contact with the aliens or watever they were who watch and con trying l us to join the reality show my family members, who I believed were wizards and would just not tell me cause I was a squib ( Harry Potter term) and that they were not happy that I was gett By my powers, in the real world no one was aple r to talk about this stuff, it was part of the game.

Anyways, back to the voices, sorry I said I was a little disjointed. I’m writing down things I never thought I would share. Some are benign others have a negative shade indeed and are intrusive ones trying to play on insecurities or things that are inappropriate to think. All come with emotional shades that seem to be cast at me from outside. Never commands. I wouldn’t listen anyways lol (maybe they knew that)

I went to the hospital for the first time three weeks prior to leaving for a top 25 law school. I tried to maintain the mentality of being normal and not letting anyone find out that I was “special,” but I admit I fell to pieces, pretty fast. I was convinced I was having conversations with everyone I encountered and that no one was allowed to talk about it out loud.

That I had figured out some secret element of society and reality that I just hadn’t been privy to before. I had unlocked it.

But, truly I didn’t know who I was or where I was and went from moments of revelation and joy that I was having contact with the Divine and falling into a panicked frenzy where my mind was in a million threads at once, where It felt like the whole world was trying to call me in my head and once, and yet again to a dark terrifying place where my life was at risk from my own hand.

The hallucinations and delusions have been so varied .l, but I’m not sure if fixating on them anymore instead of leaving the experience in the past and rehashing it to myself is entirely non productive or if it’s important to recognize the states I was in to have a perspective of just how well I am doing now. I worry that thinking about them can cause them to resurface.

I have on some level overcome or learned to control and manage much of psychosis, the voices still are there but I can really ignore them most of the time and they do not bring up a response of agitation, fear, and anger. Some just won’t go away and I’ve accepted that.

I of course had to leave law school, which is for the best side I thought it was like Hogwarts and was training me to be a psychic. It kinda goes without saying and it took couple years of being in the Step program at Yale, a really amazing program that is ahead of its time in dealing with new psychosis, before I was able to gain any control back in my mind.

Medication, therapy, and research into anything that could help mentally led me back into a more sane time plane. I don’t like to use the diagnosis schizophrenic. If anyone talks about it I say that I am bipolar. But I realized over time that with a certain effort of studying and putting ideas into practice that I gained new perspective and mentality that gave me strength in dealings by with symptoms.

Many of these ideas were and are weird and strange from books I have read in fiction, but efficacious . Like setting your mind and body into the “heart of stone,” from Name of the Wind. Or cycling my madra from Cradle. The regimen of various antipsychotic medication really took the power out of a lot of the symptoms, but of course the medication is not a cure it only makes the things more manageable through your own mentality and perspective and will.

I have done a lot of reading since this happened to try and understand what was going on with me. For a while I was certain that I was a wizard psychic and was getting into the occult. But it didn’t explain what was really happening and didn’t offer me many tools that helped only reinforced delusions.

I was super religious and explored a myriad of faiths. Buddhism though was the most helpful for me. I’ve been in search of things that help and work to help me lead the most functional and best life I can.

And then I found Stoicism. In the book series Cradle, the sacred artists use Path Manuals to teach them martial techniques. Finding stoicism, something I misunderstood as being non emotional and serious, felt like finding this kind of manual. The fact that Epictetus “The Manual,” is literally called that added weight to me wanting to find out everything I can.

l bought a book Daily Stoic and started working on the things each day and reflecting and noticing so many things aboUt how my mind was functioning. I furthered my exploration into Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca the younger, Plutarch, Montaigne and more.

The stuff I am learning to practice is some of the most effective things I have encountered in my attempt to fight against my mental illness. Developing not just the words but the praxis behind being a virtuous person, gave me direction.

Quotations and passages on the virtue of courage and how it is developed and fostered, was a particularly useful discourse to follow.

I want to continue to explore the power and limitations of stoicism in managing schizophrenia. Stoicism says the mind is the ultimate refuge for a man and a stable constant thing. This is not the case for me. But Ithe challenge of reconciling certain things the stoic stake for granted that I have to struggle to control seems like a worthy pursuit.

I have not been to the hospital in two years. I am about to graduate nursing school this August. Of course I can never divulge my illness to anyone in my career. I would like to think I am very high functioning. I wanted to see who else out there is also high functioning and had the same illness and was working on tools to combat it.

I joined a facebook group but the next day I had to leave, the posts from people reflected a place I had already moved from past mentally and the things I was working on were not there at all.

I searched google on a whim for stoicIsm and schizophrenia and in one of the only two relevant responses this site was mentioned in the article. I would like to join the conversations here and community and try and learn more things that help while developing a Stoic philosophical perspective and toolkit.

I hope you will have me here, and I look forward to reflecting on the wisdom of the Stoics with you.