Embracing My Life

You have schizophrenia said the doctor.
I have lived now and since for almost 6 years.
A suicide attempt and incarceration
I have tried many times to leave
this period of my life behind.

I don't know what changed
inside me when I was 14 or 15.
I can't remember the day I became sick.
It was not really an event.
Instead it built up inside me over years.
Schizophrenia is marked by
an inability to tell fact from fiction.

Until not so long ago, since
the age of 22, I believed
I had a rat in my brain.
and also that people were out to harm me.
I put myself in jail so
that I could be safe, more than once.

Over 30% of people that are
incarcerated have or experience
mental illness.
and a similar amount are living on the streets.
The majority of suicides involve
a mental disorder. and
still it is not treated as a life
threatening diagnosis like cancer or hiv.

Years and hospitals later I
feel differently than before.
I feel called to tell my story and
to make a difference. Schizophrenia
affects 1 out of every 100 people
and everyone's lives have some
way been touched by mental illness

I no longer seek to just put this part
of my life in the past.
I try to use the strength it has given me
and just be that much more determined,
live and be happy.
I am embracing my life as a schizophrenic.