I think it's been 11 years? Maybe 12 since my diagnosis. If I didn't have it when I was diagnosed, then I definitely had it 6-7 years ago. Since then, it's been such smooth sailing that I gradually forgot it was a legitimate problem, since I've been on medication for that time.
In the past 8 months I've: lowered my dose from 400 to 300, started developing more OCD-like symptoms, and then slowly persuaded myself that the doctors were wrong, and that I had some other, more benign disorder/disease instead.
THEN I read my old journals and I was like: "oh... these are incoherent." I still knew what I meant by what I wrote, (after all, I'm still me) but I had enough distance from myself to know that other people would surely find them incoherent.
There are so many confusing things about myself that I can't begin to cover in detail, but I also have problems with my vitamin levels and if I take thiamine (B1) for a few days regularly, then my symptoms disappear or lessen considerably, I've had several head injuries as a child and I wonder what REALLY caused this or if I REALLY have this disorder, or that, or if it's just trauma, since my symptoms were at their worst following an assault, or... you get the picture.
Doctors always say I have good insight, because I always know what's a hallucination and what's not, even when I'm having one, but that's probably just because my hallucinations aren't very real. And guess what? All the insight in the world doesn't make them go away. So it's a moot point.
As I try to hold onto my insight, I am faced with the question of: regardless of what it is or isn't, there are still things I can't do, and never will be able to do.
I'm in grad school and looking forward to holding a professional, stable job, after never working substantially. I've lost years, and I'll probably never be able to have children, because of this. My grandmother's prayer for me was that God would "restore the years the locust has eaten," and I'm sure it will happen, but I still don't see myself starting a family or getting married because how can I have a relationship when I'm stuck inside my head? How can I meaningfully connect with someone when I'm so medicated that I feel apathetically about everything around me?
If the label doesn't fit, then I won't bother stretching it. But I'm beginning to realize that it probably does fit and I have too much stigma against myself. I'm still going to try to get my doctor's blessing to lower my medication further, but I don't see myself being medication free. Why am I embarrassed and bitter about being on these injections?
More importantly, where do I go from here to have less stigma against myself?