Schizophrenia Explained by a Schizophrenic Scientist

Opinion

Let me introduce myself: I am a scientist with a PhD, worked for 12 years at the University of Hull, until 2019, in Politics. I am a member of Mensa and Intertel, and have written many books about politics, but I am also a patient with schizophrenia since 2002. That I combine both gives me the advantage that I can research schizophrenia with first-hand experience. I have both the scientific training and intelligence, and the symptoms. So, I can intelligently talk from inside someone with schizophrenia. I think I am one of the very few living scientists with schizophrenia in the world, apart from Prof. Elyn Saks in America. Since 2008, I have researched schizophrenia and ended up writing many articles and two books about it, called Health and Safety for Spirit Seers, Telepaths and Visionaries – Self-help for Schizophrenia and My Prescription for Schizophrenia. In this talk I will share what I think causes schizophrenia, I will talk about the nature of the symptoms, including some illustrations and graphic examples, and I will share what helps me live with this condition.

Brief Intermissions

In the coming years, I went to America for studies, and came back. I had no occurrences, wrote on terrorism, and all was well. When I came back to Germany, I only had one psychosis like incident when I believed someone was in love with me (I heard his voice in my head talking to me that he loves me) and I started to write to him, but he did not want any contact. I had two instances of seeing ghosts. Once was on Sylvester night. I saw a black shadow walking behind me. One was in my bed when my boyfriend was away. I had the dream or hallucination of a teenage boy with a red cap trying to kill me with a knife. I screamed.

Long Episode

When I came to the UK for my then boyfriend, a Kurdish man, we went to a party and had too much to drink. After that my hearing of voices started. I heard male voices shouting at me and I heard male voices arguing. I thought these were people known to me and I tried to talk to them. But this was wrong. I realize now that these were spirit voices. This went on for a long time. My partner left me because he could not cope with that. I heard a male voice shouting at me for many years. I also had the impression of being kicked all the time by a spirit entity with the foot. Once, I wrote some angry emails to my ex-partner and I had a hallucination of a gangrape that felt as real as it would have in real life. Also, once I was ill for one full week, and I hallucinated a lot on that week. All I can remember is that I had a tour through karmic dimensions, met a fish goddess and was told that my karma would be reversed from now on. I saw energies of people once, like a Jetstream when they left my room. I saw my own aura once; it was yellow and violet. I heard an angry male voice shouting at me all the time and tried every alternative therapy to get rid of it. I also tried medication, but the medication did not seem to help. Once, I had the feeling to talk to angels. I was contacted telepathically by two entities from above. They asked me to make a choice. I said I want to work for peace. They said: Good choice. That was all that was communicated. These were invisible entities of high authority and beingness. I heard a single, kind voice on occasion from above. It said things like: You need to learn love now. Or: You need to learn wisdom now. I felt caressed by a male spirit several times. He was very loving. He embraced me with the utmost gentleness and my body felt as if he put a warm soft blanket over me. He was very loving. He embraced me with loving energy. I was deeply fond of him and asked him his name. He said his name was Frederik. We married in spirit, and then he left. In those years, I lived a quite lonely life, I became increasingly spiritual, but did not attend church service, I read a lot about heaven, spirituality and the afterlife (near death experiences). I researched schizophrenia in and out, and I worked hard for my University on abolishing war.

I experimented a lot with healthy nutrition and vitamins and became vegetarian.

Intense Episode

When I met my partner Will, whom I love dearly, I had many miracles in my life. I heard a soft male voice say: He is good for you. We saw many rainbows together on one day, I think I counted five. I saw a heart and a smiley in the sky. The heart was on my birthday, it was a hole in the clouds. The smiley was on a random day, it was formed out of clouds and looked so precisely like a smiley that I wanted to take a photo, but when I came down with my camera, it was nearly gone, so I had it drawn by an artist for me. I saw an angel standing in the window, like a vision, when I sat on the sofa with my partner. She was a lady, tall and slender, in a beautiful golden long dress, with short, curly hair. She looked like the peace angel that one can see in Munich and Berlin. Another voice interfered and said things like: You are as big as Bach. Or: You really make history.

I took up prayer in that time and prayed a lot. I heard loving voices more frequently. I forgave my ex-partner, against whom I had harbored resentments and offered him peace and asked for his forgiveness. That made the angry voice go away. Before it left, it shouted things like: This is fascism! You don’t understand that. And so forth. And it was keen that I drink apple juice. I lost my job; the University was in poor shape and I was already ill. I developed alcoholism. Friends left me. I had a meditation at church in which Jesus said to me I should love more. So, I started to tell people that I love them. Some people were apparently offended by that. But I think it is really nice to express love. I had an experience in which I was loved by an unseen entity. This was the first time in my life that I experienced true erotic. It was tantra like. It was perfect desire. I never experienced this with a man. Not even with my now boyfriend, whom I love deeply. I saw aliens. I saw three new forms of aliens. They smiled at me and a yellow headed one with blue ears only said: You need to explore space now. (I think it referred to the human race). That was all that was communicated.

I had hellish hallucinations too. I thought zombies want to break into our house and steal bread, and that I would turn into a zombie and all was on civil war mode (this was in the hot days of Brexit). I hid under my bed and prayed the Lord’s Prayer. Then it went away. In the Brexit years, I thought I was threatened by the death penalty for writing to my friends, and that people wanted to kill me, and that I was tortured by a secret weapon of the CIA that used telepathy. I also imagined my family abused telepathy to force me into motherhood, even though I am far too old and too ill for this and both me and my partner do not want children. This was really painful, and due to this pain, I developed alcoholism. I am sober now.

I also thought some crazy pig farmers in Eastern Europe had installed a huge loudspeaker who blasted a ridiculous song through the world that was audible all over the world. It contained a sentence: I love you not. NATO had to come and shoot it down. It was so loud that people’s heads in Eastern Europe exploded. Also, I imagined that I lived through world war, including nuclear bombings and killings and bombs going off all around all the time. It was terrible. I imagined I had joined the academic resistance to the war and wanted to write a peace worker book, books for peace. I thought that fascists hid in bunkers all since the Second World War between the old concentration camps and wanted to come out. Some lived in Munich. They were behind the psychiatric pressure on me and the pressure to reproduce, which I felt was coming from my family. I imagined I reported these fascists to America. I also thought the governments of the world had instructed us that we would face starvation due to genetic modification and climate change and that there would be mass migrations to Europe due to hunger, and we would need to find a solution all ourselves. These were terrible years. I even imagined that there were death camps around and such. It was horrible.

At some point, when I joined AA (I had taken up drinking due to the illness), I heard a lot of loving voices surround me and say: It is not about being up or down. And: We will raise you again. Once, I also heard God talk to me, or another higher entity, but very powerful. It asked me what I want to say to the world. I said: I want to say: Don’t kill and be nice to each other. But then I added that people should not do everything I do or say (because I did not want this responsibility) and that God should also talk through others, as this would be better for me and world. On that day, I believed a lot of people wanted to come to visit my house, so that the city council needed to close the streets and train lines.

The Voices

The main symptom of schizophrenia is hearing voices. They are called auditory hallucinations. They feel like telepathy. They are audible only to the patient; no one else can hear them. I am often confused how my partner, with whom I share a house, can be so calm in all this noise, but he does not hear these voices. These voices can be male or female and can be loud and aggressive or loving and calm. I heard the voice of a male who shouted at me: This is fascism! Or simply some strange instructions and commands, such as: Drink apple juice!

I also heard the imagined voice of my mother arguing with me about falling pregnant (I know she wants grandchildren, it has been a very long conflict between us, because I don’t want children). But I also hear loving and kind voices on occasion. This happens usually when I do something good.

Something helpful for me and others. Something benign and spiritual and loving. They might say things like: Thank you! You make history! I am proud of you! These loving voices I don’t want to miss. They are really wonderful.

There were times when I thought to even hear the thoughts of people on the street passing me. This was when I was on a very low level of medication.

These voices feel like telepathy and spirit communication. I have argued this many times. I am personally convinced I had spirit communication. I think I hear my dead family and my family alive via telepathy. The CIA claims aliens communicate telepathically, some believe animals communicate telepathically, and there are accounts that in heaven spirits communicate telepathically.

I am not so sure my other idea of the voices as telepathic communication between living humans is correct. I tested this a couple of times at my partner, asking him if he really just thought what I had heard, he nearly always said no. But at other times I have the feeling I can understand what animals say. That’s really amazing. I feel I can listen to animals. Pigeons, for example, talk a lot about forgiveness. The voices are not my own thoughts. I would realize this and I could influence them if they were my own thoughts. But I cannot change them by thinking something else.

Telepathy

For years, I thought these voices were telepathy. They feel like telepathy (clairaudience) would feel. I thought I can hear the thoughts of other people. I was fascinated by telepathy research; this is why I thought I hear the thoughts of other people. I thought I hear their anger when they are angry with me or their love when they like me or their sadness when I make them sad. I finally got around testing this at my boyfriend. I rarely hear voices from him or think I hear his thoughts. But on occasion I do. I asked him several times if he just thought this or that. He nearly always said no. My mother likewise. Hence, it is NOT telepathy. It is NOT the thoughts of others that I hear. It is not a subliminal connection to other living beings whose emotions or thoughts I perceive. This relieved a lot of anxiety for me. I feel free now realizing that. I still believe, however, that this form of telepathy could exist.

Spirit Communication

However, what I believe is that these voices might be spirit communication. It might be spirits surrounding me who talk to me. John Burke in Imagine Heaven writes that spirits (entities in heaven) communicate via telepathy. Also, some angels that I talked to communicated with me via telepathy. It might be guardian spirits, positive, loving and negative, harmful, entities that talk to me because for some reason I am sort of clairaudient. Like, I might be a medium or something like that. These spirits are not necessarily to be believed or to follow all the time. They are just entities. Some are nice and loving, others want to cause trouble. It is advisable to not always do what the voices say. I believe this now to be the case. What also points in this direction is that I did a spirit release therapy when I was very ill with a lot of very negative voices (lots of them). Spirit release therapy is done by a practitioner (I used Terence Palmer for this purpose) who uses a medium to ask his spirit guide to remove attached spirits and negative foreign influences from me remotely. This was completed at me, 5 or 6 earthbound spirits were found and some other influences, and when they were removed, I was immediately free from the intense chatter around me and could function again. I have voices again, but not a chorus of them and only one or on occasion two and I can drown them out with medication and listening to music.

Not my Own Thoughts Turning Loud

The voices are definitely NOT my own thoughts turning loud. Otherwise I could change them voluntarily or with meditation techniques, which I tried. It does not work. Also, I cannot predict when the voices occur, and I cannot predict what they will say or if they are male or female, pleasant or unpleasant. So, they are NOT my own thoughts. Also, my argument was always that I would not punish myself with shouting inside myself at me things like ‘This is Fascism’. I would not do that to myself. I have enough self-love to not do that.

Some Examples of my Voices

Translation: You don’t understand that! You don’t understand that! They are fascists. You are getting ever nicer. You don’t understand that. It hurts me. You just thought that you need to save some coffee. Don’t go back to Munich.

Translation: Everyone does that. Go away. I don’t like you. You do it right, but I don’t like you. Go and cook. You do it right but it does not work like that. I am afraid of that. It is my fault. I did not want to see you anymore. Don’t do that every day. That was fascism. Think about it. You are a terrorist. I won’t forgive you. Don’t do that anymore. You pulled my leg. Talk to your father. You don’t understand that. You don’t understand that. I wanted to forgive you.

But, when I do good deeds or do something of value, the voices can also be very nice and say things like: You make history! This is sensational! I am proud of you! Thank You! Love heals everything. I love it when they do that! It’s really, really nice. If I find out how to make the voices be always nice, I will let everyone know! I don’t mind the nice voices at all. I would not like to trade them in for anything in the world. I think they are nice when I do good deeds.

Cures I have developed my own treatment prescription. It involves more than only medication. I take Risperidone, currently at 8mg a day, the highest level. Recently, I also added Olanzapine. These medications help me a lot. I am not at all against medications for schizophrenia. I also take an antidepressant. But for me, for living well, I have developed a more complex program.

It involves:

1. Medications as prescribed.
2. Vitamins according to Abram Hoffer. Abram Hoffer developed vitamin therapy for schizophrenia. I followed this for many years, and these vitamins do make me feel better. I feel better when I take them. I took Niacin 1g and Omega 3 2 g a day for more than 10 years, not currently. I have no proof that it worked, apart from the fact that I managed to work successfully 12 years at Hull University on that regime. And I still now take at least 1g of Vitamin C a day ever since. This also lets me be healthier, as Vitamin C is good for the immune systems and prevents cancer. Since I took vitamin C daily, I virtually never had a cold and I take it to avoid cancer later in life.
3. I live a very healthy vegetarian lifestyle. I drink a freshly pressed juice and a smoothie each day, eat at least 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, no meat, but sometimes fish is ok, I drink some coffee, teas and water, and some diet cola.
4. I avoid alcohol and attend AA. I am a smoker of e-cigarettes and I chew nicotine gum. But I try to avoid cigarettes. Avoidance of alcohol is important, as alcohol can make the voices really loud and negative and makes me hallucinate really grim things and makes me aggressive.
5. I am deeply spiritual. I pray several times a day and attend prayer retreats and church. I also donate money every month and volunteer at church. Spirituality is very important to make the symptoms more benign. When I am not spiritual, the usual hallucinations of being chased by the CIA, for example (very common in people with schizophrenia) and such creep in. When I am spiritual, I talk to angels instead, which is far nicer.
6. I exercise regularly and take sufficient rest. In fact, I rest a lot more than normal people. This helps me, and I am not bothered by it.
7. I listen to classical music a lot. Meditation music and reiki music is also good. Music drowns out the voices of schizophrenia. I even take a Walkman when I walk outside, to drown out the voices. This is a trick that works as reliably as medication. I listen to music all the time. Our house has become very musical. As soon as I switch the music off, the voices come back.
8. Surrounding myself with as much of peace, fun, and LOVE as I can.

LOVE is very healing, giving and receiving, both of it. In fact, I personally believe that being a loving person is the meaning of life and makes my schizophrenia also more benign.

These things help me massively living a happy life. I tried a lot of other alternative therapies, but none of them, maybe apart from spirit release therapy, worked reliably. This is the program that works best. The healthy lifestyle is so important as schizophrenia patients are known to have a 10 to 20 years reduced life expectancy. Part of this is due to suicide, but a lot is due to unhealthy lifestyle choices. I hope my illustrations were helpful to some of you here. If you want to learn more, check out my website www.schizophreniaclinic.com or look up my book Health and Safety for Spirit Seers, Telepaths and Visionaries-Self-help for Schizophrenia, available on Amazon as paperback and as kindle book, or the sequel My Prescription for Schizophrenia, which has just been published.