In the summer of 2005, I had just graduated from University with a degree in Computer and Communications Engineering and I was feeling frustrated. I was frustrated not because I couldn’t get a job. I didn’t want a job. I was frustrated because I couldn’t get into graduate school. Despite being an uber nerd, and liking computers, I never managed to get great grades in University. At least grades good enough to allow me to get a scholarship abroad, plus my family was having financial difficulties for the past two years, so they couldn’t finance a graduate degree (they barely managed to finance my bachelors).
So during that summer, I discovered something online. People didn’t usually listen to me in real life. But this was a time of revolution in Lebanon. The Syrians had just left Lebanon driven by a popular protest movement sparked by the murder of a former prime minister. What I discovered at the time were forums related to the main political parties in Lebanon.
I started writing on those forums about the sectarian situation in Lebanon. Some of what I wrote was borderline intolerant and others just challenged the status quo. The main writings challenged the political order of Hezbollah, Syrian and the rule of Lebanon by Islam.
Anyway, I started spending an inordinate amount of time online. Day and night, writing on the forums and getting riled up when people didn’t agree with me. As time went by people started to get annoyed with me. And I was watching TV. I started noticing that the politicians on TV seem to be talking about what I was writing online. At some point I started thinking that they were actually writing on those forums.
Now one day I was talking with an important figure on one of the forums and he made a comment about porn. I thought that he was watching my internet activities and snapped at him. Later that night an explosion happened next to my house. This was a time when the Syrians were perpetrating terrorist attacks to kill politicians and civilians in Lebanon. At that point I went crazy. I got convinced that I was being target by Hezbollah who wanted to kill me.
I couldn’t go to sleep anymore. I would watch cars and think that they contain bombs for me. I used to walk a lot on the streets. I still do. Well one time as I was walking I realized the I was in sync with the car beeps. In Lebanon, everyone beeps their horns while driving for whatever reason. I thought to myself that there was a radio station that everyone was tuning into that told people of my movements using American satellites in space.
One night I couldn’t sleep, so I thought that the satellite was watching me from space. I started typing on my chest as I would on a keyboard to communicate with the NSA guys on the other side.
Oh and of course there was the American president, George Bush who knew about my every movement and was tracking me. But why? Well of course God and the holy spirt had something to do with me.
The story goes on, and I am not going to describe it here fully, at least not now. But what would happen over the next few months is that I would be told by my family that we have a history of psychotic illness. That my eccentric aunt actually was bipolar. And I would be taken to a psychiatrist who would prescribe me Risperdone.
It would take another 3 years and 2 episodes for me to a accept to stick to my medication. I would have one break years later, after again stopping my meds, but this time with the help of my psychiatrist.
The onsets of schizophrenia is very difficult for the person involves and for the family. And when it is delusions without hallucination or with tactile and olfactive hallucination it is really difficult to accept that you went crazy and not that it was a mistake in thinking or stress. I still think today that the bomb next to my house was either meant for me or to scare me. But I doubt that George Bush was following my moves. Or that satellites in space were tracking me.
So during that summer, I discovered something online. People didn’t usually listen to me in real life. But this was a time of revolution in Lebanon. The Syrians had just left Lebanon driven by a popular protest movement sparked by the murder of a former prime minister. What I discovered at the time were forums related to the main political parties in Lebanon.
I started writing on those forums about the sectarian situation in Lebanon. Some of what I wrote was borderline intolerant and others just challenged the status quo. The main writings challenged the political order of Hezbollah, Syrian and the rule of Lebanon by Islam.
Anyway, I started spending an inordinate amount of time online. Day and night, writing on the forums and getting riled up when people didn’t agree with me. As time went by people started to get annoyed with me. And I was watching TV. I started noticing that the politicians on TV seem to be talking about what I was writing online. At some point I started thinking that they were actually writing on those forums.
Now one day I was talking with an important figure on one of the forums and he made a comment about porn. I thought that he was watching my internet activities and snapped at him. Later that night an explosion happened next to my house. This was a time when the Syrians were perpetrating terrorist attacks to kill politicians and civilians in Lebanon. At that point I went crazy. I got convinced that I was being target by Hezbollah who wanted to kill me.
I couldn’t go to sleep anymore. I would watch cars and think that they contain bombs for me. I used to walk a lot on the streets. I still do. Well one time as I was walking I realized the I was in sync with the car beeps. In Lebanon, everyone beeps their horns while driving for whatever reason. I thought to myself that there was a radio station that everyone was tuning into that told people of my movements using American satellites in space.
One night I couldn’t sleep, so I thought that the satellite was watching me from space. I started typing on my chest as I would on a keyboard to communicate with the NSA guys on the other side.
Oh and of course there was the American president, George Bush who knew about my every movement and was tracking me. But why? Well of course God and the holy spirt had something to do with me.
The story goes on, and I am not going to describe it here fully, at least not now. But what would happen over the next few months is that I would be told by my family that we have a history of psychotic illness. That my eccentric aunt actually was bipolar. And I would be taken to a psychiatrist who would prescribe me Risperdone.
It would take another 3 years and 2 episodes for me to a accept to stick to my medication. I would have one break years later, after again stopping my meds, but this time with the help of my psychiatrist.
The onsets of schizophrenia is very difficult for the person involves and for the family. And when it is delusions without hallucination or with tactile and olfactive hallucination it is really difficult to accept that you went crazy and not that it was a mistake in thinking or stress. I still think today that the bomb next to my house was either meant for me or to scare me. But I doubt that George Bush was following my moves. Or that satellites in space were tracking me.
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