Coded Messages Everywhere!

Schizophrenia Manifested Itself in My Seeing and Hearing Coded Messages

Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash

I began to see coded messages that I thought were intended just for me. The messages were everywhere even in the license plates of cars around me.

Sometimes they were vanity plates.

Sometimes, I was interpreting number patterns in the plates.

What the heck am I talking about?

It is not uncommon for people with my disease to perceive that there are coded messages intended for them in the world around them. I have schizoaffective disorder. I was first diagnosed over 15 years ago. Initially, the diagnosis was schizophrenia but it has changed now to schizoaffective disorder. Schizoaffective is the combination of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

I can share that I thought the vanity license plate in the car in front of mine was sent by either my enemy or my ally.

Imagine that, to think someone has the resources and planning abilities to place an entire car in front of mine at the intersection or on the highway.

Logical thinking and my ability to perceive logic go completely out the window when I am in a state of psychosis.

It is the state of my illness, when I’m consuming coded messages from the radio and from the cars around me.

It is exhausting even as I type this. Even writing it now, several years after I have been in such a state of psychosis, tires me.

I was so amped up.

That’s my description for my bipolar high and delusional schizophrenia. As I’ve written before, everything around me had salience. That is, salience is the quality of being noteworthy or important.

I know there are plenty of people who would relate that sometimes they think God has sent them a heartwarming message when they get behind a car with a license plate that reads GLRY2HM.

There’s nothing wrong with that and I think it is probably healthy to feel God’s love that way.

Where it becomes a problem is when OMGMOVE becomes a message from God, a powerful ally, or a perceived enemy.

That’s where my schizophrenia took me.

OMGMOVE might be perceived as a slight about my being slow on the job sent by my enemy. My enemy mocks me in painful ways. Or the plate might be perceived as a sign from my powerful ally saying I need to move to a safe apartment.

When I speak of my powerful ally, I refer to a person of my delusion who I thought was helping me. They were part of a powerful organization.

It really is nothing more than delusion.

When I am living in my delusions, this all feels very real. I cannot distinguish the true from the false.

I am not joking when I say this is all so very exhausting. I’m convinced, my psychotic time has taken years off my life. I am so very stressed out and paranoid.

My illness always comes with paranoia and delusions.

Paranoia makes me think OMGMOVE means my duplex is unsafe and I must move to a tent in the backyard.

Today, when I see a plate like OMGMOVE, I smile to myself. It is just a clever plate probably making a commentary on slow traffic.

I am fully medicated and stable today. Not only do I not have delusional and paranoid thinking, I almost can’t manifest it if I try.

I am warm and comfortable. Life is good and I wish for anyone reading who has been through similar circumstances to find peace.