“Our brains are doing gymnastics just to get to the starting line with everybody else.”

I started noticing I was a bit different around the age of nine, which marked the start of my childhood onset schizophrenia. The things I was afraid of, my friends weren’t. For example I’d walk into a room and everyone there would be plotting against me and watching me closely, and I would mention it to my friends and they would sort of look at me strangely. I started to realize that, “Oh okay, my experience is different.”

At first I thought it was super powers, honestly- sometimes I still do. But I didn’t start thinking something was ‘wrong’ with me, as opposed to the rest of the world, until I was 11. I would say my most intense symptoms are paranoia/ delusions and avolition.

Then there’s my mood swings. I can go from being on top of the world and doing all the things, to extremely depressed and doing nothing multiple times a day. It’s exhausting and the hypomania often ends up making me feel bad about myself when I’m ‘stable’ because I’m not getting as much done, even though I know when I’m hypomanic I feel so absolutely chaotic.

I was terrified of school, but at a young age I didn’t really know how to express it. I ended up having a lot of melt downs and I stayed home a lot. This put a lot of stress onto my parents, particularly my mom. She always felt like something was wrong but when she took me to professionals they would all say I was being manipulative or that it was just anxiety and I would get over it. They strongly advised her to ignore my stress response and drag me out of the house.

This obviously put a lot of strain on our relationship. It wasn’t until my later teens that I got diagnosed and started treatment, that we as a family started healing. As for friends, I had two close friends growing up but it was hard for me socially, especially because I was always disappearing from school for days on end. I graduated from high school two years late, and haven’t been able to pursue higher education. I can’t really hold down a regular job, so I rely on pet-sitting gigs.

I went through years of therapy before I found a therapist I trusted and who didn’t verbally abuse me. They referred me eventually to a trusted psychiatrist who gave me the diagnosis. When I found out, I actually felt relieved- someone was validating my experience for the first time.

I then went to a renowned specialized clinic and they emotionally and verbally abused me for a year. They said I couldn’t have childhood onset schizophrenia because it’s rare and they had never seen it before, or that I was too smart to have schizophrenia, asking why I say I have it and why I want it. I burnt out after that and took two years off of therapy but am now seeing a new specialist.

So far they’ve been very knowledgeable and understanding. This new therapist is actually the one who diagnosed cyclothymia in addition to my prior schizophrenia diagnosis.

I’m pretty open about my diagnoses. My circle has always been- and is currently- very small. My two friends and my partner all knew something was wrong, so when I told them they were all like, “Yeah, that adds up.”

Due to my paranoia, I intentionally keep my symptoms very inward so I can ‘keep up appearances’. It’s to my detriment a lot of the time, since people don’t take me seriously when I tell them because of my outward appearance, or they’re shocked because I’m not what they thought those disorders would look like.

I think in mainstream media I’ve only ever really heard about schizophrenia when it pertains to, and is the scapegoat for, violence, and I think it’s a gross and dangerous mischaracterization. I never hear about specifically cyclothymia, but when I hear about bipolar, it’s kind of always used as a joke. It makes me sad. I wish people had more of a genuine interest in getting know about these disorders instead of just focusing on what sells.

I think schizophrenia is a very challenging disorder, but there’s often this sentiment of grief due to the before and after nature of it. Because mine is child onset, I don’t really know anything else, so I personally haven’t had to experience that.

Sometimes in the beginning of my hypomania, I’m able to harness that energy to get things done, like laundry, before it starts to spiral. I guess- and I’m not sure if this counts as advice- it’s really easy to feel like a failure, but I think it’s important to remember our brains are doing gymnastics just to get to the starting line with everybody else, so we should be compassionate with ourselves when we don’t have the capacity to do the same amount of things.