Where It All Started

 

I have spent a good deal of time trying to piece together in my mind the timeline of my mental illness and narrowing down where it all started.  Then just the other night I went for a night walk and a new piece of the information puzzle struck me.  I have never been confident to say that I started hearing voices or seeing things earlier than my high school years.  I do know that I had at least two distinct and strong visual hallucinations during high school.  I also know that I experienced clear cycles of depression both in junior high and high school.  But also, having experienced depression cycles throughout my life so many times, I am certain I felt real depression starting in second grade, despite what the childhood experts will say.  

When I was in eighth grade I remember standing in my bedroom, crying uncontrollably, and staring at myself in the mirror and feeling disconnected somehow.  I audibly voiced the words, "I think I am mentally ill," and being completely serious but not really knowing how or being able to explain why I thought so, just knowing I felt very different and separate from my peers and family members.  I remember reading a book in English about a girl who experienced mental illness and heard voices or had hallucinations or distress of some kind and she struggled with suicidal thoughts and self harm.  As we discussed the book in class I remember wanting to scream because I felt so much like the character and could relate so well to her feelings, while the things that were shared by my peers reflected that they did not think in the same way as I did.  At the time I was not actually having those psychotic experiences but her way of thinking and feeling just fit me perfectly while the other kids in the class and the teacher talked in such a way as to seem to pass judgement on her for feeling and thinking the way she did and they couldn't understand it.  I instantly knew I must never let my feelings and thoughts out of the bag.  I must always keep them tightly guarded and suppressed.  I knew I was not acceptable, I was flawed and broken, and no one could ever relate or understand me and everyone would surely see me with disgust if they knew. That would become the identity blanket I would carry with me from then on.  I spent every energy to cover up and appear "normal" and functional and to stay silent.  

Walking the other night I remembered something else.  There was a record I listened to when I was a young child called My Turn On Earth.   In it there is a girl who lives in heaven and learns about God's plan for his children to come to Earth and then what happens when they die and return to him in Heaven.  She comes to Earth and is born and experiences life.  There is the voice of an angel who call her name to let her know when it is her time to return home to Heaven.  As a kid I felt anxiety and fear about dying.  Even though I believed in the concept of Heaven and life after death and even that I would see my family again, I still had an overwhelming fear and anxiety  But I never expressed that to anyone.  It stewed and stewed and kind of took over in a way and I would obsess about it.  At first I would imagine I could hear someone calling my name.  But what I realized on my walk is that I actually began at some point to hear my name being called.  That's how the voices started.  I heard them always, in elementary, junior high, and high school.  And still today, that is how they first like to get my attention is to relentlessly call my name.  When I was young it was a kind grandmotherly voice, kind of like a faraway echo.  Then as I grew into adulthood it became an angry, demanding, screaming male voice.  And I was very threatened and put into that place of fear and anxiety almost continuously, but never telling anyone what I was experiencing or feeling.  As I have worked through a lot of my fear reactions to the voices and hallucinations, the voice has calmed and speaks a little more reasonably, but sometimes they get mad because I don't respond dramatically so they look for other ways to command attention.  

I don't hear the voices as often now; I am under professional treatment and have learned a lot of things about ways to cope and function in spite of psychotic symptoms.  I have what would be called breakthrough symptoms, meaning I am not having full blown episodes, but I still have symptoms pop up whenever they feel like it.  Take last week, out of the blue I had 2 auditory and 1 visual hallucination.  About a month or two ago I had a very strong tactile and auditory hallucination, a fairly rare occurrence for me.  On a daily basis I always have a running sound in my head, like a low hum or buzz or motor whirring.  I always believed it was completely normal and everyone had this, until I asked my husband last week and he informed me that it's not normal.  I posed this question on a group I'm on and I found out that many of the people with this disorder experience the same thing and also didn't realize everyone else doesn't.  

My hope is that as I work on getting brave to open up about my experiences, there will be someone else that can find their hope.  I know that I am not the only one who has spent the better part of my life trying to hide my uncomfortable and misunderstood parts and feeling silenced, alone, different, and judged.  Now that I have joined a group specific to my disorder, I am hearing this story over and over again.  As you read what I share I hope you will have an open mind and heart.  And realize this is a very tender vulnerable piece of my soul that I'm putting out there.  I have faith God has a purpose in wanting me to get real.