Six months ago, I could stand in an empty room, no one there but myself, and hear a thousand different voices.

Many people make light of this, and I can’t sit here and try to say I don’t because I do too. Everyone makes light of things they find difficult to swallow; it’s just how people work.

All the time, I make jokes that I’m schizophrenic, but I would do anything before going back to that. One second, I go from keeping this story as hidden as possible, to writing a story that almost everyone will read. But, I thought about constantly hearing “Get help!” and “People are there for you!” but I had never listened until it was almost too late.

Sixth grade was when it all started showing up, but it was not very bad, so I ignored it. As the years went by, it started to get worse and worse, faster and faster, until February 2022, when I finally got help, and doctors prescribed a medication to help me cope. Doctors were never 100% certain of why I was having what is called auditory hallucinations. They suspected it was because of my severe depression. The medication helping with that was a sign that they were correct and going the right way. The reason it all became so severe was because I let it go on for so long.

I’m so grateful to be where I am today, to be on medication and doing amazing. However, I wish what had happened to get me there didn’t happen. I have struggled to tell doctors and counselors everything. I constantly feel ashamed and guilty for being so ‘ill’ for so long, and not doing anything about it until my parents’ money and time were thrown down the drain, and I was traumatized from everything that I had experienced for so long. Something that was never even real.

It’s crazy how your brain can be so against you and create things that slowly degrade you day by day until you feel hopeless and alone. Until you finally, decide you aren’t really living.

I don’t want other people to feel there’s nothing they can do. I don’t want someone suffering to listen to speakers, begging them to get help, rolling their eyes and ignoring everything said because they’ve heard it a million times before. You’ve heard it so many times for a reason. Even if what I  thought was real was not reality, it still heavily affected my life. Your life is what you see. It doesn’t matter what or who is around you; how you perceive it matters. If your mind is distorting reality, that is what you are living. All because that is what your mind is making you live through-whether real or imaginary.

Before I got help, I never saw things for what they truly were, the world was distorted, and I could barely hear the real over the fake. I isolated myself in hopes that I did not affect others with what I was going through. I suffered because I didn’t want to be ‘emo’ or ‘cringe.’ I wanted to be normal but knew I wasn’t, so I decided not to get in other people’s way, which also affected my life even though none of it was real.

Two weeks after I started taking medication, I remember sitting on the bus waiting to go home. I looked out the window at a field and waited to see my house because I was only about five minutes away. I had a bad thought. I was on a low dose at first, so it happened every once in a while back then, even with the medication. I realized it was easy to fight off, and the world felt silent after I did. My world fell silent, but not in a bad way, like something horrible had just happened, rather in a way of relief. That’s when I realized that I was finally on the right path of being free. I was making my life ten times harder than it had to be for so long, I had never felt happier. It made me want to cry tears of joy right then and there.

Recovery is not completely just medication and doctor’s appointments though. As everyone in the world probably already knows, I got a kitten this summer break and named her Bee. She is a sweet little calico and I love her with all my heart. She helped me a lot with everything going on in my life just by being there for me. I can pretty easily say that she is one of the best things that has ever happened to me and makes me happy every day. From when I first got her and she was a tiny, six-week-old cat full of fleas to now a healthy, almost 8-month-old cat that loves to bite, she has opened my heart a lot more than I think pills and doctors ever could.

While this is something for people to see and realize that it’s not wrong to get help and that you should get it as soon as possible, it’s also a thank you. A thank you to everyone at PHS who accepted me even after I had isolated myself for so long for fear of affecting others with my problems.

PHS is a community that I am proud to call home. Don’t be afraid to get help like I was. Find help as soon as you can. I promise you won’t regret it, and thank you to everyone at PHS.