u/schizophrenicanger

So a little bit about me,

I developed schizophrenia when I was in college. It was at the end of my sophomore year at Cornell University. I guess I was hearing whispers at bedtime for a while before I started hearing audible voices, but I thought those voices were God because I was delusional. At first when I started taking medication I thought it was poison too.

Eventually I gained insight into my condition and stopped being delusional about the voices and medication, but it took me around 5 months to reach that conclusion. At the beginning, my schizophrenia wasn't very severe and I only needed 2mg haloperidol for like 2 years. Then it became much more severe because of some stupid things I did like taking edibles. Now I take 700mg seroquel and 12mg paliperidone but I'm trying to swap out the paliperidone for vraylar. I do not hear voices usually but some days I have mild episodes.

As a schizophrenic, I've held many jobs, gotten decent grades in college (graduated with a 3.4 GPA), and was in professional clubs in college. I did more as a schizophrenic than I did when I was neurotypical.

I've also had a long list of boyfriends, and honestly, they never even cared that I was schizophrenic. I have a boyfriend now too.

Generally speaking, my life is good. I don't let my illness define me and I try my best to move forward with it. I've lived a rough childhood full of severe bullying and abuse so I'm kinda used to managing stress in difficult situations. I'm also southasian and my bloodline has a long history of surviving adverse situations like the partition of India and the Bangladeshi genocide perpetuated by Pakistan. But sometimes I wonder if I'm a psychopath for not letting these things affect me that severely. IDK. I mean I have low self esteem because of my schizophrenia in certain circumstances but otherwise I'm fine.

So when I ask this question, I'm not directing this to people who are treatment resistant or can't tolerate medicine. They live a completely different life full of hardship and that is understandable because they don't have anything to help them cope and live normal lives. I'm directing this to those who are on medication and in remission, which is a good number of schizophrenics.

Please let me know about your personal experience with schizophrenia and why you are struggling, if you are on medicine. That's all i wanted to say so thank you for reading this