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Schizoaffective Disorder
Not sure if anyone will find this interesting, but I sometimes have moments of lucidity into what it’s like living with schizoaffective disorder. I’m not up to date on the latest research, but from my experience, I believe the "split" in schizophrenia is actually a survival or coping mechanism in response to extreme duress.
When I’m not split from myself, I’m much more sensitive to pain. I notice how my skin can feel like it’s burning, and how each passing moment carries a suffocating gravity with it. It’s difficult to sit with these sensations, but meditation has helped me find ways to channel and understand the pain and discomfort. In a lot of ways, it’s helping me come back to myself — one little step at a time. Acknowledging and understanding why the pain is there, and then integrating it into my life, rather than numbing it out or splitting away from it. It’s agony sometimes, but it’s worth it to feel anything again.
I think the disorganized thinking often seen in schizophrenia is a symptom of that split. When you create a second self that’s numb to what your authentic self is experiencing, you lose your true anchor. It becomes easy to get caught up in the whirls and eddies of other people’s consciousness and motives, without realizing you’ve become completely detached from your own values. (This is actually what my children’s book was about.)
When the second self gets corrupted, it’s understandable that the personality loses its integrity and becomes fragmented and disorganized.
Those of us with schizoaffective disorder are a small subset of the population — but in some ways, I think this happens to everyone, just to different degrees. I’m grateful I’m making progress in navigating this disease. If sharing this helps someone else who’s struggling, even better.#SchizophreniaSpectrumPsychoticDisorders #schizoaffective #Schizophrenia
