What is Schizophrenia?

My name is Patrick and I realized something was wrong with me very early in life, even though my foster parents just thought it was from an overactive imagination.

It would start when I would be showering or in the bathroom and I would think I was being watched by our neighbors. I would have full-blown conversations with imaginary people. When I was little, I used to be able to see some people. They mostly didn’t want to hurt me but wanted to play with me. I have very vague recollections of these ghost-like people that used to watch me when I was sleeping or was playing. Eventually, the people I saw and heard became more violent and harmful and drove me to try to commit suicide.

Those people I was talking to were very, very real to me. I constantly needed to check my body position to make sure that I was grounded in reality. It got so that I would speak aloud to respond to a person (in a bank, say) and find the hallucination dispelled and people staring at me.

Eventually my foster parents brought me to the hospital, and I ended up having about a three-week stay there. While there, I opened up about everything going on with me and the psychiatrist ultimately came to the conclusion that I was schizophrenic.
We found out that both my biological parents were schizophrenic, so that explained a lot. Now I’m pretty good on the medications and only hear things every once in a while.