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(part 5) - surrounded with psychology
V. Schizophrenia

Today was day five. I was meeting a guy who lived by himself and he had schizophrenia. When I met him, he seemed as if he was uninterested in meeting me but I tried not to assume anything just yet. His voice seemed a bit flat like he had no emotion. I remembered reading that when I learned a bit about schizophrenia. I wanted to write that down with a star next to it indicating I remembered this.
Schizophrenia was something I was really interested in learning. I wanted to ask him about things like how he lives his life, what things does he see, what he’s like around other people, what it’s like in public places for him, etc.
He told me that it can be hard for him to do normal things or to be in public. He’d always see a dark figure that scared him almost every day. He could describe it so visually. It was a dark ghost looking figure with long arms and fingers. It had long hair. And it had the same expression on its face. A creep smile with sharp teeth. It must’ve been so hard living with seeing something like that. Sometimes, the figure would tell him to do terrible things to himself like harming himself, hurting others, even killing himself. He told me that he almost did once and he was so scared. The figure had told him to take a knife to his throat and slit it. He kept on refusing but the voices got louder and louder and that’s when he called 911 for help. He would go to therapy twice a week to talk about what was going on.
As we kept talking, he looked at the couch that was across from him for a long time. I finally noticed and asked if he was seeing the same figure again. He said that it wasn’t the same one and in fact, it almost looked like a deformed version of his mother who sadly passes when he was younger. He grew fear. He tried to wipe his eyes in disbelief that he saw part of his mother in this creature. And he began to panic. He said, “Mom? Is that you?” and started to cry happy tears. He rushed over to the couch to hug her but I had to tell him the truth. I said to him that no one was there but he ignored me. He began to talk to her. “Mom I can’t believe your actually here. I missed you so much and I love you mom.” He broke into tears while still in a hugging position. He stopped and backed away. I asked him what had happened and he looked very scared. He told me to run because she was “holding a knife in her hand.” He said that she was moving closer to him saying, “I’m going to kill you. You’re not my son.” He couldn’t believe it. He was so scared and began screaming. I pulled him away from the living room and I told him it was okay. He was shaking and I asked if she was still near him. He said that she was still in the other room, moving slowly towards him with the knife. He screamed “Please stop, just go away!!” That’s when he realized that this was just an episode and wasn’t real. He said that it finally vanished and everything was back to normal. I’m sure that was so scary for him and I gave him a hug.
I checked the time ane realized that I had to go. I said that it was nice meeting him and seeing what it was like to have Schizophrenia. I told him that I wished there was a cure and he laughed and said he did too. He joked and said, “Maybe I’ll become a scientist and make a cure for it.”

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