Alone No More

Lukas Allen

            When I started to hear voices and was labeled with the illness of schizophrenia, I felt completely and totally alone. It wasn’t the sort of “alone” that comes from having something I believed no one else could identify with, even though that was much closer to what it was, it was an alone against many. It was the diagnosis of schizophrenia and the symptom of hallucinations.

            The reason for my voices was magical thinking tied to reality around me, even if unseen. I tried to understand what I was going through, and the only thought that made sense was something perhaps impossible but unproven. My explanation for my voices was telepathy, a telepathic hive mind that actually everyone experiences. I was terrified, as everyone seemed to be in on the joke and I had arrived late. And I was the joke. These telepathic bullies harassed me for so long, and I was afraid to tell anyone about them. There was nothing I could hide from them, unless I actually didn’t know it. Still, they would make judgements and conclusions foreign to me, and spoke in ways I never heard before. The worst bit was that they could see through me, to my unspoken thoughts, and talked in this telepathy like it was something normal and common, able to spread my secrets and play on my trauma.

            Although, the very notion that there are other explanations given by voice hearers as to what the voices are already seems to dispute my delusional theory. People believe in ghosts, aliens, all sorts of phenomena that could actually be the voices but that none can agree on. In fact, it is actually common for people in a bereavement state to have a hallucination or some other “supernatural” occurrence while they are in the grieving state. The commonality of the occurrence of hearing voices in a way disproves my own fears regarding hearing them.

            I often feel alone with the word “schizophrenia” almost physically attached to me. If anything, it’s a heavy mental weight to carry along. The notion that I actually am alone compare to the many is what the label of schizophrenia produces, practically all it produces. It seems to purposefully create shame, guilt, isolation, and doubt to one who has the word invisibly branded on them. A lot of the times it is used in that way, and is only used as a slur instead of as a medical term.

            I learned, slowly but utterly, that there are other people who can understand my illness, and even have varying degrees of it themselves. I learned, even though it is a heavy task, that I do not have to use the word given to me by doctors themselves. I don’t have to use the word “schizophrenia” in any event. I can speak to others who also have similar diseases or occurrences, and perhaps we can all shrug the word off eventually.

            I am alone against the voices, no one can change that. I am the only one who can hear them and react to them. I do not need to fight the entire battle alone, though. I can change my thinking, if not the voices, I can react positively rather than negatively, and I can find allies, no matter how insignificant they may seem.

            I was alone, with a curse word label and legion of hallucinations.

            I am not alone today.