My So Called, Gay Schizophrenic Life: Introspection

By Aaron Stickney

This book begins with focusing on dealing with the societal ramifications/stigma of mental health disorders, the LGBTQ spectrum, and also looking at the religious stigma of the two. Finally, I will be telling my life story mainly from the years of 2012 to 2018. Coming to terms, with my mental health disorder and identifying as a gay male. While also dealing with issues of coming out at work and being sexually harassed on a daily basis, being drove into a mental hospital on numerous occasions and finally going towards the road of recovery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aaron Stickney
• Release date: Jun 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005633332

Aaron Stickney

Author of his personal memoir, My so Called, Gay Schizophrenic Life. Aaron is also a fan and avid writer of romance novels and horror novels. Aaron plans on releasing romance and horror novels under a pen name. Which will be coming in the distant future.Aaron suffers from a form of schizophrenia called, Schizoaffective Disorder. Which was one of the main causes for him to work on and write his memoir. Other facets of the books included dealing with his sexual identity and other facets.

Book preview

My So Called, Gay Schizophrenic Life

Introspection

By

Aaron Stickney

Copyright © 2020 Aaron Stickney

All rights reserved

The Characters involved have been changed. Any similarity to real person, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stores in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express permissions of the publisher.

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book, to my parents who if it were not for them. I would have never survived much of my life.

I would also like to dedicate this book to the various staff member at HealthWest and also the clients who I serve on a daily basis.

I would also like to thank you the readers for purchasing this book and helping fight the stigmas of Mental Health Disorders and the LGTBQ Community.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter One

Into the Brink

I honestly do not know where to begin with this book and even how to begin writing this very chapter. Alas, we will begin and I hope you do enjoy what you read. This is not going to be easy for myself because it always brings painful memories when I reflect on them but I think that is truly the meaning of life! To learn from our past mistakes and to grow as a better person as a whole from that point onward. While sometimes it may seem like the troubles we are going through are as tall as a mountain. We need to look at the bigger picture of life and the journey over the mountain is the story we will tell one day.

I want people to get a better understanding of myself and my mental health disorder. Upon further reading you will discover what that disorder is and also you will discover many other facets of my life. For years I have battled many personal demons. It took many years away from my life, which I know I can truly never get back. I lost so much precious time that it pains me just thinking about it. However, what I know now is we can truly never allow ourselves to wallow in the pains of the past and only use the past as a lesson and stepping stone.

For the most part of my life, I knew I was different from everyone else. It started at a very early age and I cannot remember exactly when these thoughts surfaced in my mind. I have a very vague memory from when I was extremely young. I would lie on my couch in my house. I would tightly hug a pillow close to myself and imagine this pillow was cuddling me back. I was at an age where I could not even grasp the full concept of what a cuddle meant, but I knew it was not a foreign idea. What made this concept unique was this pillow was actually a male cuddling me. If I had to guess, I would say I was around six or seven at that time. To think that kid at that age would even remotely have the concepts of affection like this was odd. To think about the same sex that way at that age would also even be seen as an odd concept. It was not like I was taught this by my environment nor was it taught to me by family.

Why? This was around the late eighties and early nineties at a time when homosexuality was seen as very taboo. Homosexuality was seen as such a taboo at those times that you would never really see anything like what we do now within mainstream society. To a degree, that if you saw such a LQBTQ figure in mainstream media it was a caricature and a flamboyant mess. It was not until I was probably around twelve or thirteen, that I knew after learning from my environment what it was to be different, and how being different was not something I should be thinking. I did go to church from time to time during this period but I never regularly went. I know what you are about to read further on if what truly happened was divine than it just proves to me that to be connected to a higher power. One does not simply have to go to a congregation to worship such an entity.

I digress, going back into the swing of things. I was around this time in my life I began to develop feelings for guys my age. To be honest this frightened me, because of the stories of Brandon Teena and Matthew Shepard. While that was a factor in me hiding who I was for years, it was not just the sole reason why I could not fully admit to myself I was different.

Now I know many of you know now me personally over the years feel that I am gay but that simply is not the true case. I cannot really describe it but I also find women very attractive which might be a shock to many of the people who know me. A dear friend and former supervisor said it best, You’re Just Aaron. Now, I have never really experienced anything remotely sexual with a woman, to a point that I know I could but it is simple not something that entices me. To be quite frank I do not find sex generally overly enticing as well. While do not get me wrong it is great and all, I am not out there trying to get that sex injection in my veins. I am more passionate than a sexual person; I crave the love and experience of being with someone. The experience of love. Is that act of giving a person my love, my time, my hopes, my dreams. This is what I feel being in a relationship is what it is all about.

Could I love a woman, the same way I could love a man? At this point in my life probably not, while I find women attractive and could possibly… possibly being the keyword to have sexual intercourse with them. I would just be lying to myself in saying that I would truly be able to invest my whole entire self in a relationship. I could not just do that to a person. I would not want to lie on a daily basis, to a point where I would be lying to myself. Forming a family and having kids, and ultimately, in the end hurting that person the most. I could never do this to anyone, let alone a man or a woman.

For years I hid behind a facade, lying to myself of who I truly was. My identification, I would not say I am gay/straight/bisexual or any gender. If it revolved around sexual intercourse; you could classify me as bisexual because I prefer both men and women. However, as I stated I am more passionate and I feel like I do not see genders fully when looking at people. If I see something about a person I like, then that means I am not looking at a penis, vagina or breast. Although buttocks are a different story and a muscular one are the bees’ knees.

Now having come this far within the chapter, you are probably wondering have I had sex with a man? That is a complicated issue and something that I will not go into great detail about. While I have had sex with a male it has been pretty lack luster experience thus far. When it comes to a woman, I do not know possibly the experience would have been a much better experience for me personally. I’m thirty seven years old and never really experienced anything with a woman.

When I did eventually have sex, it was just an overall experience that I just could not see myself gaining anything from sex. Maybe overall I have had some bad experiences, I truly do not know. Like I have stated I am more an emotional and romantic person at heart and I personally care more for the relationship side of things than anything else. Growing up also made societal issues within me when it came to relationships. To where I could not fully admit to myself who I was. I was never really and I was never that popular guy in high school. I just could not relate to any clique in high school. You knew you were lower than dirt when the less popular students of the school prank called you. I was for the most part bullied during my high school years but it wasn’t the typical aspect of bullying you would relate to the notion. The abuse was more verbal attacks than that of the physical nature and very psychological. Months after Columbine had happened and I remember this as clear as day. A curse of mine for the most part because I have a great memory and I can remember very mundane details, to a point that it pains me to remember something with vivid clarity. I digress again, there was one student during class. Better watch out, Aaron might come in and Columbine this place. The abuse of this nature was typical for the most part of my high school life. Yet this school took the cake in my opinion, which I am certain probably got worse over the years I graduated. When a student sets a couch on fire or leaves their baby in a girl’s bathroom trash can to basically die.

Around my tenth grade year, is when I began to actively skip school classes. If I reflect upon it now there were a few reasons as to why I ultimately did this. Some of the issues with my mental disorder began to manifest but not fully. It was not for years that things truly began to manifest within my mind. I just honestly at that time felt like school was a waste of time. I truly loved everything about the school experience; the learning, the studying, the teachers. Prior to this I was doing great but my grades started to slip in junior high, which I felt like it was beneath me to do homework, but amazingly while I did not do any homework I would pass all my tests. Of course, this was not enough because homework tends to be the larger part of grades within high school.

By the time, I was almost seventeen it was then that the school thought it was time to intervene? Really, over the course of five to