The Face Beneath Your Skin

This blog entry is going to be about what it's like being a schizophrenic.  I tried to find a video with the lyrics to the song "Papercut" by Linkin Park on here but I couldn't find it except for the karaoke versions.  So here's a link if you want to see it:  https://youtu.be/1Y-RmfB4hY4

So what is it like with schizophrenia?  For me, I didn't used to have it, and if I did, it was dormant for a long time.  The song "Papercut" really describes what it's like very well.

Why does it feel like night today?
Something in here's not right today.
Why am I so uptight today?
Paranoia's all I got left
I don't know what stressed me first
Or how the pressure was fed
But I know just what it feels like
To have a voice in the back of my head
Like a face that I hold inside
A face that awakes when I close my eyes
A face that watches every time I lie
A face that laughs every time I fall
(And watches everything)

So I know that when it's time to sink or swim
That the face inside is hearing me
Right beneath my skin

It's like I'm paranoid lookin' over my back
It's like a whirlwind inside of my head
It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within
It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin

I know I've got a face in me
Points out all my mistakes to me
You've got a face on the inside too
Your paranoia's probably worse
I don't know what set me off first
But I know what I can't stand
Everybody acts like the fact of the matter is
I can't add up to what you can but

Everybody has a face that they hold inside
A face that awakes when I close my eyes
A face that watches every time they lie
A face that laughs every time they fall
(And watches everything)

So you know that when it's time to sink or swim
That the face inside is watching you too
Right inside your skin

[x2]
It's like I'm paranoid lookin' over my back
It's like a whirlwind inside of my head
It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within
It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin

The face inside is right beneath your skin [x3]

The sun goes down
I feel the light betray me
The sun goes down
I feel the light betray me

The sun
I feel the light betray me
The sun
I feel the light betray me

It's like I'm paranoid lookin' over my back
It's like a whirlwind inside of my head
It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within
It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin

It's like I'm paranoid lookin' over my back
It's like a whirlwind inside of my head
It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within
It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within
It's like I can't stop what I'm hearing within
It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin


A big thing with schizophrenia (for me at least) is paranoia.  When I have a psychotic meltdown, I get really paranoid, hallucinate, hear voices (meds have helped this not happen very much), and get delusional.  Before I was being treated for it and it was in it's beginning stages, I was paranoid that my mother-in-law was trying to poison me, and I thought the ground was going to swallow me.  The hallucinations were things like I thought I saw my cat in one room, when he was really in another room.  The voices didn't tell me to do stuff, it was mostly like I was listening in on a conversation between multiple voices having conversations.  Sometimes they would talk to me though.  Sometimes I'd wake up at night hearing someone screaming my name.  Other times when they'd talk to me, they'd say really horrible things about God - I hated that.  Delusions didn't really happen until much later.

Super Bowl Sunday I wasn't able to take my meds all day because I kept vomiting them up.  That night I flipped out.  I kept hallucinating the bedroom door violently opening and closing.  I was so freaked out, I wasn't sure if I was hallucinating or if something was really happening.  I grabbed part of our wall and refused to move.  I wouldn't let anyone come near me.  I was like an injured animal who wouldn't let anyone help me.  One of our neighbors came over who's a grandmother and knew some of my issues.  She tried to get close to me as I was in tears and I wouldn't let her come near me. Eventually, slowly, I let her come near me.  She helped me take my meds and then go to bed, she even tucked me in bed.

Another incident was a couple weeks ago.  I ended up vomiting my meds in the morning and couldn't try to take them until that evening.  That afternoon I could feel the effects of not having taken my anti-psychotic.  During my husband's podcast, I started getting paranoid.  I kept thinking I saw shadows moving.  Then the delusions came.  Yes, I have a problem with cutting, but this time was different.  This time I started thinking, "I need to cut to see if my blood is a normal color."  Luckily, I had enough sense to not follow through with it and realize it wasn't normal thinking.  I got so scared and I didn't want to interrupt my husband's interview, that I just sat on the couch covering my face in my hands so I wouldn't see the hallucinations anymore.  I was in tears because I was so scared.  At the time, my cat Shiro was in another room on top of his cat tree.  He must've known I was in a lot of distress.  I heard him jump down and he came up on the couch and laid right next to me.  At first I didn't know if it was really him with all my hallucinating and I didn't want to look to make sure.  When I've had hallucinations, I've had them from all the senses.  Usually they're visual, and when I hear voices they're auditorial.  When I had my first overdose in 2009 though, I had other ones too - all at the same time.  While I was in ICU I saw red ants crawling on the wall and ceiling.  They were so realistic that in corners they'd look like they were bunching up.  When I'd look up at the ceiling, they'd fall on me.  If my mouth was open, they tasted like paper.  As for hearing, I heard someone playing the flute in the hospital.  I guess the only one I didn't have really was smell.  Anyway, back to the recent attack.  For about an hour I sat there covering my face in tears.  When my husband finished his podcast, he saw me freaked out on the couch.  For another hour he tried to convince me to uncover my face.  He told me Shiro really was laying next to me too.  After I uncovered my face Shiro jumped down.  I took my meds that evening and I vomited them again.  The nights when I can't take my anti-psychotic are very long.  I'm paranoid, I hallucinate, and I'm so on edge that I can't sleep.  The hallucinations at night tend to be the scariest ones.  They look demonic to me and because of things I've experienced in the past, I don't always know if they're real or hallucinations.

Some hallucinations are so out there that I can tell they're not real.  Like one time last summer, I had a hallucination of a green pickel/hot dog floating towards me.  It was so weird I almost laughed and thought, "Great, I'm hallucinating food now."  A lot of times though I hallucinate shadows during the day.  Sometimes I hallucinate bugs (which is actually what they were when I first started hallucinating).  Sometimes I think I hear rain when it's really not.  I also hallucinate faces at night.  One night I saw something laying on top of my husband - it looked like a person, and they were staring at me.  Typically when I hallucinate, I look in a different direction, and when I look back in the direction where I saw something, it's gone. This isn't foolproof though.  There have been times when I looked back it was still there.

As for paranoia, I often feel like I'm being watched and followed.  If I hear weird sounds I panic.  A few days ago I was home alone and I thought I heard someone playing with the doorknob.  I didn't know if it was real or not but I was too scared to find out.  Another time when I was home alone I thought I heard my husband playing Pokemon GO outside.  I opened the door and there was no one there and the sound was gone.  That really scared me.  I always think people are talking about me.  I'm always paranoid about relationships.  If I'm having a conversation online for example.  I know it takes time for people to respond.  But I start panicking, "They haven't answered back yet, did I say something wrong?  Do they not like me?  What if they think this way about me?"  It's even worse with in-person relationships.  I'm always afraid I'm going to say or do something wrong.  I'm always afraid of what people think of me.  I have a hard time reading people because of my Asperger's, so I have to just go by what they say, but they're not always honest either.  I can tell you many stories where I relied on people being honest with me about stuff socially, and it came back that they weren't.  If I gave you all those stories I don't think this blog entry would ever end.  So because of those experiences, it makes me not trust people even more.  Lies are one of the things that affect me the most.  If someone lies to me, I can't trust they'll tell the truth, and I know it's like that with most people, but I think it's a little more affective for me than most people.  For most people, if someone lies, they just have a hard time trusting THAT person.  For me, if someone lies, I can't trust anyone.

That's about all I can think of right now.  I hope this blog has been helpful.