“Just leave, please!” I screamed, sobbing as I saw the light return from under my door and heard the floor boards creaking. I feel safe again, but I know this time the regular door handle lock will not save me. Next time they will kill me if I do not prepare. But how did I get here? Who was at my door? Who am I hiding from?

Well, it started a month ago when I let a man stay in the other side of my apartment. It’s a rather large apartment for New York City, but a rather expensive one, and with my job cutting my pay I wouldn’t make the rent and be able to have my utilities and eat three meals a day. So I decided to let a man stay in my house for 300 dollars a month. It’s really a good deal, seeing as I will be able to make rent, and they will be able to afford it. But when they got violent with me after I asked them why they couldn’t pay rent, I got scared they were going to kill my cat after they threw a chair at it. So I locked myself and my cat in my room because it has a bathroom attached, so I have running water at least, and my in-room pantry and an emergency exit, so I can leave the house. And the emergency exit is bolted and chain locked with a CCTV security camera setup, so he can’t get in that way without me hearing him. I have it all planned out as to how I will escape tonight to go get food, and then when my food runs out, I will get a good lawyer. 

Three months later, my food ran out. I luckily work online, so I have been saving more than enough money for a good lawyer. Sadly, the lawyer I consulted said he has squatters rights, but since the most recent and violent attacks, not to mention seeing his face outside my window sometimes at night, I know what’s coming next: my death. Today my lawyer is coming with a police officer to deliver me a month’s worth of food until I can get to trial, and he legally has to leave until the end of the trial. Assuming they don’t say he is legally allowed to come back.

I told my lawyer to come through the back door, so I can see the CCTV and know it’s him. As I hear the emergency exit knock I see them on the camera, but when I open it? I see the man running down the alleyway. This wasn’t my lawyer. And this man was not an officer. They dragged me out of the apartment and I saw a glistening object in his hand, a knife. This was it, here we are, this is my fate. All this and I could have just worked harder, and I could have made my rent. I wouldn’t be here, dying so young. But as I stand here being held back by a man pretending to be a lawyer and another a police officer waiting for whatever comes next, one puts a pill in my mouth and I faint from anxiety. Soon after I awake, I realize this was all in my head. I forgot to take my schizophrenia medication one morning almost four months ago and my schizophrenia got worse every day, so badly that I started making narratives in my head. 

This is an extreme case of the symptoms of a person with schizophrenia in daily life. It can get so extreme that the narratives created in their heads can last for months, so badly that they need a caretaker to bring them food, because they can’t shop for themselves. In this experience, the main character was so afraid of the narratives created by themselves they believed they were in a horror-like situation. The man in their house was their father, yelling for them to leave their room. He was scared that they were not eating after they asked for money, and he said no. They thought that he was the man they were hiding from. When their house was getting violent and when they locked themselves in their room that’s what caused it to get worse. Their dad gave them their pills every day so they didn’t forget their pills due to the schizophrenia.

Their lawyer was their online caretaker and the people who came to check on her were her online caretaker because it was an emergency and their medic. Their dad came for help to calm them down, and lastly when they saw their face at the window it was hallucinations and delusions. According to psychiatry.org, Schizophrenia is “a chronic brain disorder that affects less than one percent of the U.S. population. When schizophrenia is active, symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, trouble with thinking and lack of motivation.” These are extreme circumstances and these show only the worst symptoms and exaggerations. These usually occur to everyone with schizophrenia at one point or another without proper treatment, and they can even become violent and dangerous to themselves and others. All that fear and suffering, and they just needed their pills.