My Spirit Left Me

Where the Hurt Began - Schizophrenia and Surviving Life

Photo by ManuelTheLensman on Unsplash

I had a work assignment the other day in a small town that I used to pass through on my way to and from college.

It felt like a part of me remains in the towns on route to my college experience town. I won’t even begin to describe the emotion in the actual college town.

I saw the first symptoms of my schizoaffective disorder while I was at college. We can almost chart the progression of my illness with my grades.

I have been diagnosed as a schizophrenic for around 15 years now, but it started much earlier with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Today it is considered to be schizoaffective disorder. Schizoaffective disorder is the combination of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

I write this blog post and all my blog posts to share my experiences with my disease.

I think my spirit left me in that little town and in towns along the way. I think the essence of what was right with my upbringing drained away because I was becoming ill.

I was disturbed with my illness those early years in college.

Is that feeling I get when I visit a town along my route, simply a form of post traumatic stress disorder?

Perhaps the town is nothing more than a trigger for bringing back those memories.

I have also been back to my old college town. The feelings are even more visceral.

What a deep and emotional longing I feel when I visit the college town of my freshman year. Such a great sense of regret. Did I do anything right those years?

I could and should use this as a topic for discussion with my therapist.

I could always say to myself, “Well, you have mental illness. The result of those years was because you weren’t well mentally.”

I would love to reframe my thoughts, but they aren’t even really thoughts. They are a deep sense of shame and regret.

Why did I have to go through those negative events?

Were my poor grades and poor decisions all the result of my mental illness? Or am I a wild child, that was an errant? The prodigal son.

If nothing else, while in college, I was a small boat tossed by the wind of a hurricane. That probably describes it best. I was just tossed about by life.

Today, I have a mooring. I have been through much worse circumstances in my present time - think jail, and haven gotten through.

My moorings were spent and not moored to anything when I was a freshman at college. I floundered. In trying to find a place, I looked toward the wrong place.

I am dancing around the issues I had. I was just completely incapable of being on my own in those early years of college.

Such regret… If I could take it back I would. Today, I have Direction. That’s probably the single most important fact to note.

I was errant and still feel the emotion of it. A part of my soul was left in that college town.