“Negative symptoms have been the most difficult for me. Flattened moods feel like a dull, vacant ache I carry in my chest, only drawn out when I connect with people, making more effort to feel human.

I'm inevitably pulled by the endemic panic, fear, and paranoia that plagues people living with schizophrenia, challenging my better senses and judgment.

My ability to relate to others begins to deteriorate, and I start to withdraw from the things that keep me mentally healthy.

The content of my thoughts and emotions becomes obscured or absent in isolation, and it feels like I'm enveloped in a black, chill radiation or languishing in a hollow void.

The disfigured, anxious person I don't recognize as myself returns until I seek to thaw the agoraphobic stasis I self-inflicted.”