The Journal Entries

Paranoid schizophrenia has often been seen as the red headed step child of all mental illnesses. The unthinkable. The most feared. Something to surely keep your distance from. Historically, schizophrenia has been rather treatment resistant and the quality of life of the afflicted was usually poor. Only fifty years prior to my father’s diagnosis he would have been chained to a wall in an institution. A reality that was never lost on him. My father always said that sane people haven’t the slightest clue of what it feels like to not be able to depend on one’s own mind, one’s judgment. He had been a college student with just under a semester left to secure his Bachelors in Education, so he could seek out a career as an English teacher. He loved to write and was damn good at it. There is no doubt it was his calling. Little did he know this very career path he sought and talent he possessed would serve as his lifeline, his primary therapeutic escape from insanity. With the onset of his illness he switched from fiction to journaling. His first consistent entries being entered in 1981. As life progressed he had a strong desire to share his writing, his story. He wanted to get published, but didn't have the executive functioning necessary to organize his writing into something printable. When he passed away in April I inherited his entire collection of journals with almost daily entries from 1981-2014. They chronicle his journey upon initial diagnosis through the end of his life. It truly is a window into an agonizing fight with schizophrenia. My father's writing will always appear on this blog in bold italic to differentiate from my own.

I remember my irritation with people inquiring after my well-being when I was not feeling well. If, innocently enough, I was asked how I was doing, I would snap back, “You know how I am doing, not worth a shit.” Since I believed that my mind was being read, I did not see the necessity in telling anybody anything. My life had been reduced to playing a sick game. I felt I was dying of exposure. Not physical exposure, but I felt like I was turned inside out. That I had no privacy, even the sanctity of my mind was violated, and I felt I had gone public. I was, by turns, humiliated, embarrassed, impatient, and contemptuous. I was alternately frustrated and angry. It made me mad when other people were trying to understand what was going on with me when I was confused and didn’t know myself. Let alone to be expected to communicate my twisted vision. I knew that to try and explain would make me sound crazy and only invite consternation from my people. Being a very proud young man, it did not sit well with me to be freaking out. I had always prided myself in having my stuff together. Now, here I was talking rubbish, or what sounded like rubbish. To me, I felt lucid, but in the absence of proof for my allegations, I felt helpless and frustrated. Enough frustration engenders aggression. So, at one point, at my wits end, I hauled off and punched a hole through a closet door. I knew that I was losing control. A day later I was in the hospital for the first time. I was verbally abusive, bellicose and determined to get to the bottom of this “conspiracy of them”. I didn’t know who “they” were, but I “knew” they existed. I have no privacy in what I think, say or do. The only thing I don’t share is the pain. The pain is private. Nobody, at least so far, can feel the pain of another.

Hello Friends

I am a person in a unique situation, though I know there are others like me who exist, I have yet to meet them. I grew up in a nice middle class family in the suburbs. Never wanted for anything. I came from a "good" family AND my biological father was a paranoid schizophrenic. Very rarely do people associate the white picket fence suburbia with one of the most feared mental illnesses. However, that was my reality. I was raised by my mother and wonderful step dad, who eventually adopted me. My father was always in my life, but it was dependent on his current mental state. I ached for him my entire life. My father had his first psychotic break when I was about one year old. I never knew him before he became sick. This is a grieving process by which I am still moving through despite his recent physical passing. So, I am left to grieve the man before schizophrenia and the man after schizophrenia. The man I never met was a marathon runner, boxer, college student, brilliant writer, doting father and fun friend. The father I knew was loving, but paranoid. Strong, but vulnerable. Smart, but confused. Years of psychotic breaks, psychiatric hospitals, self medicating and psychotropic drugs had left him a shell of the man he once was. To manage his illness and stay sober he needed to be devoid of emotion. This is not to say he didn't feel anything, but it was a dangerous tightrope for him to walk if he were ever to get too happy or too sad. When you cease to be able to experience the extremes of emotion, it takes from you the experience of life. My father's illness had and continues to have a huge impact on my life. Society taught me that I should be ashamed of my father and his illness. It should be kept a secret and certainly didn't fall in the category of "nice" dinner conversation. I grew up believing this was something I shouldn't talk about and certainly shouldn't be proud of. The stigma that my father felt, that I felt all of my life is something I seek to break. As I entered adulthood I stopped feeling ashamed and started feeling proud of who my father was and what he was able to navigate under the circumstances. He had over 20 years of sobriety, an incredibly hard thing for any alcoholic to do, let alone a schizophrenic alcoholic. Something to be revered and celebrated. He lived independently with minimal hospitalizations. When he did go into the hospital it was typically because he recognized the slippage and admitted himself. Commendable. He learned to live on his poverty SSDI wage of $1100 per month without getting into major financial difficulty or utilizing other public benefits. Praiseworthy. He maintained grip on his sanity each and every day despite the persistent delusions that medication could not quiet. Laudable. This lens through which I see my father, is not the same lens utilized for the majority of Americans. They see weakness. If you cannot see a disorder in our society than it must not exist. If you can't prove it with a blood test, then it must not exist. However, we have a large body of scientific evidence that validates major mental illnesses such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. It is well known by the medical community that these are organic brain disorders with a strong genetic component. It is time to stop blaming people who have a mental illness for their disorder. There are children and families suffering in isolation and sadness because they know if they come into the light there will be judgement and blame. I want to tell my story, so people know they are not alone. It is not a character flaw to have a mental illness, just as it isn't a defect to be the child or family member of someone with a mental health diagnosis. Our system is broken and people are hurting.

Blaine Goff Memorial Fund for Children with Mental Illness

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