Shorter Journaling (Updated)

One day I was driving…somewhere.  Some time before that I had accidentally killed my cat, Stripey, by rolling all the windows in my car up before a storm in the summer and then I did not drive for several days.  I had thought that he wasn’t coming inside every morning like he usually did because we had just brought some kittens and he had shown his unhappiness about the situation before he went outside that last time.  I simply hadn’t needed to drive for about four very hot days.  My brother found him under the seat, dead.  I still hold onto the guilt for not checking if Stripey was in the car before rolling up the windows.  My family tried to lie to me and tell me they found him hit by a car in the street.  Then they tried to convince me to take another one of our cars to…wherever.  When I insisted on knowing why, they told me the truth.  I had to live with the smell of my dead cat in my car until it broke down a month later.

Back to my story…one day I was driving…somewhere.  I was calm and the drive was going well, no problems.  I didn’t realize until after I had put my hand in my lap to pet my cat what was really going on.  It was a psychotic episode.  I physically felt the pressure of my cat laying in my lap, the warmth on my legs, and my mind actually believed it was there, until I put my hand down, to find it all an illusion.  Until that moment, the moment I realized he wasn’t really there, I had been content, even comforted by the psychotic tricks my mind was playing on me.  I started to cry when I fully understood what was going on.  This happened several times in the following weeks.  Sometimes I was even able to catch myself before I reached my hand down to pet…air.

Some people may see this as a religious experience in that it was the ghost of my poor cat riding along with me in the car.  That’s great for people who believe in such things, and especially for those of sound mental health.  I do not see, hear, feel, or believe in ghosts or spirits.  God does not speak to me.  I have schizoaffective disorder and I have hallucinations and delusions.  As unfortunate as it is, it is reality.  When people ask me if I think maybe I have a connection with “the other side” or aliens, I usually inadvertently laugh at them.  I don’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings, but, to me, they sound as absurd as some of my delusions.

While I have had my share of delusions and hallucinations, there are some that are recurring.  I tend to suffer from the delusion that people find me annoying and that I am bothering, well, everyone.  This usually leads me to say "I'm sorry for bothering you," repeatedly, which of course causes people to actually be annoyed by me.

When I am symptomatic I usually fixate on the floor or the walls of wherever I am.  I hallucinate that the surfaces are constricting and expanding, almost in a way similar to your lungs rising and falling.  I also often hallucinate in a strange way that I see wherever my eyes are looking to be brighter than my peripheral vision.  It's like a spotlight is shining right where I'm looking and moves as my eyes focus on different places.

Psychiatrists and therapists frequently ask schizophrenics if they are "hearing voices".  I will admit that perhaps half a dozen times over the years I have actually heard an unfamiliar voice speaking to me that was not there.  Mostly, however, I hear people talking to me or music that is familiar when there is none.  I hear voices or music in other noises such as water running or a heavy wind blowing.  It's not an easy thing to understand.  I can best describe it by explaining it this way; when I hear the shower running (when I'm symptomatic) I sometimes hear people talking as real as I hear the water running down.  I turn the water off and realize it's not real, just to start it again, with the same result.  Another example is hearing my cell phone ring or vibrate in the middle of the night, when in actuality it's not even on.