Severely Schizophrenic and Successful? Yes, It’s Possible!

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My name is Donald Carroll. I am 47 years old, and I have suffered with severe schizophrenia (or schizo-affective disorder) since I was 28 years old. I suffer constant auditory and visual hallucinations, but I have also experienced hallucinations of touch, taste, and even smell. I experience a myriad of other uncomfortable sensations in my brain, many of them very difficult to explain. I have sought relief from the symptoms of my illness for nearly 17 years, to no avail. I have worked with many doctors over the years, and I have tried all of the anti-psychotic medications known to man. I have been subjected to electro-shock therapy on several occasions, hospitalized several times or more, all with absolutely no success as regards finding a medication or treatment that could suppress my hallucinations such that I could function much better overall, and suffer less.

I seem to be treatment resistant altogether? It was the same with my grandfather. My grandfather, on my father’s side of the family, suffered also horribly from this illness. Though he also consulted many doctors and tried the treatments available to him then, none of them worked, and he ended his life when my father was just 12 years old. I learned more recently also that my grandmother, his wife, suffered (perhaps more mildly) from this illness. Finally, I have 2 identical twin female cousins, whom are now both afflicted with this illness—all on my father’s side of the family. In a genetic sense, I probably had it coming. I, myself, have also suffered greatly and faced suicide, or near suicide, many times over. Though the torturous experiences are still very much alive and well today, I do function, in most respects, much better than I did in the earlier years. How? Frederick Nietzsche wrote, “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” I simply cannot die at my own hand, it seems, and so I have lived and learned the nature of my own symptoms, very well. And I have learned, for me, how to best accommodate for them.