A Woman Possessed: Memoirs of a Schizophrenic

By Liz Harmon

My story begins by traveling down that long dark tunnel to the age of five. This is my first recollection of the beginning of years of nightmares. These are dreams that a five year old has no right having. They are anywhere from horrific to prophetic. Some of them went on anywhere from days to weeks to months with the same recurring theme. What I like to call dream series. It didnt take long to become a spooked child and I overcompensated by doing extreme stunts and performing foolish acts of bravery. I was quite the dare-devil. Dare me; Ill do it. I dont know if I was daring life to destroy me or just plain on a self destruct mission. The result is often the same. Somehow I lived to tell the tale. I would lie down in the road to see if cars would stop. Things like that.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479756834

Liz Harmon

Liz Harmon was born and raised in New England. She has an Associate Degree in Oceanography and Marine Biology as well as a Certificate in Word Processing and Office Information Systems. She has a CDL and has done Real Estate. She has also done a lot of volunteer work including Basic EMT in the course of raising her three children. She has a well rounded education in many different fields and continues to self-educate. She holds a number of State licenses. She has stood in front of the Legislature and continues to fight for those who may not know that they can fight for themselves.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Liz Harmon.

Cover and Illustrations by: Bonnie Bernard

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

126576

CONTENTS

Entry 1 – In the Beginning

Entry 2 – The Lone Wolf

Entry 3 – The Switch

Entry 4 – Run Rabbit Run

Entry 5 – The Man in the Red Triangle

Entry 666 – The Embryo

Entry 7 – The Robot

Entry 8 – The Green Floor

Entry 9 – The Puppet Master

Entry 10 – Anger Trumps Fear

Entry 11 – Psychology 101

Entry 12 – Flying High

Unlucky Entry 13 – Crash and Burn

Entry 14 – Philosophy 101

Entry 15 – Grey Matter

Entry 16 – Close Encounters

Entry 17 – He Who Wears the Hat

Entry 18 – Knowledge is Power

Entry 19 – Anxiety 101

Entry 20 – Intervention

Entry 21 – Down in a Hole

Entry 22 – A Mixed View

Entry 23 – End Game

Entry 24 – The Red Room

Entry 25 – One Shot Deal

Entry 26 – Through the Looking Glass

Entry 27 – Perfect view

Entry 28 – Entry 29 – Sacred Spirals

Entry 30 – The Pineal Gland

Entry 31 – The Temples

Entry 32 – The Degenerate

Entry 33 – The Apex

Entry 34 – Graduation

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my three children who for better or worse were born unto me. My legacy to you is to let you know how strong you really are, and to let you know how very proud I am of each one of you and the unique set of cards you were dealt.

Never let anyone make you feel like you’re not good enough.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincere appreciation and respect to friends and family members who stood by me in my many hours of need. Thank you for having more faith in me than I had in myself. And thank you for never treating me like I had leprosy.

I would like to thank my mother for not taking that step and having the courage and strength to take such a beating in life. I’m sorry I put you through so much.

I would like to thank my father for his love of education and books. Thank you for your profound statements that I will pass on to others.

I would like to thank you both for trying to pull off the impossible.

A very special thank you goes to all of my teachers who also had faith in me when I did not.

Special thanks also goes to my editors Donna Lee and Jessica Hann and I would also like to thank J. Hann and J. Wheeler for their assistance in choosing a proper title.

Last but not least I would like to thank my other parents for taking me in and taking in every other stray that ever showed up at your door.

FOREWORD

Hi. My name is Liz Harmon and this is my story. It spans half a century and it’s not for the faint of heart. This is not a work of fiction. If you have been diagnosed schizophrenic or you know you are, you may be very uncomfortable reading this. I hope you can get through it and I sincerely hope it doesn’t push any buttons for you. I should have started this book a long time ago. What last little bit of energy and desire I have in this world needs to go into writing it. I hope you can find some humor in it and maybe even save yourself.

A message for all the normal people out there who rest at the top of the bell curve: You just haven’t been tested yet. May you never be tested and I envy you.

Throughout this book I will be roasting the American Medical Association along with a few other agencies. In particular I will be attacking psychiatrists and psychologists. I don’t really mean to. It just so happens that in the scope of this book you are in the line of fire. Please try not to take it too personal. It is my own frustration and lack of patience in a system that takes too long to make changes in the short run. I know it can’t be easy to watch people suffer and there has been many a Doctor who has found themselves completely frustrated with me. I’m the first to admit that I’m the Worlds Worst Patient.

PROLOGUE

So here I am. I’m a schizophrenic manic depressive with a histrionic personality. I’ve got arthritis and a broken neck and not a penny to my name due to my generous nature and my apparent inability to screw the other guy on my way to the top. I’m going through the change of life and I have empty nest syndrome.

BUT I’M FINE!

According to the Social Security Administration

I had recently (two years ago!) applied for disability. I applied based on my deteriorating physical condition. I was denied. My letter of denial states, Although it is apparent that you are in a lot of physical pain you are still capable of performing menial tasks. My first lawyer failed to get my appeal paperwork in on time. My advice to you is don’t get an on-line lawyer. So I dumped them. They still expect their fee if I ever collect. They couldn’t even get my name right on the phone. I have a local lawyer now who feels we should play a psychological angle. I said Well if they want crazy I think I can give them that!

I sent them my past records. Not good enough. They didn’t feel confident about a win. They needed a doctor to sign off and since I don’t go to the doctors unless I’m on my death bed I just hadn’t seen enough doctors and just hadn’t taken enough medications over the years to prove anything.

Personally, I really didn’t want the label. I hate labels. They are a most self defeating concept but for the convenience of Insurance claims what must be must be. I currently have no insurance and I have to say that my lawyer was willing to pay up front for charges to go see a Psychiatrist one more time and try to get him to sign off.

I had an hour long interview at some point with my lawyers office and was asked several standard questions. One of the questions was if I had ever been diagnosed ADHD. Jesus! Are you kidding? I told her to get real. It probably didn’t go over well. I guess it’s the newest rage and they thought it could help with my case. But I had to say no—never took a pill for that one. I think I missed that boat by a couple of decades.

Can anyone say: POST TRAUMATIC STRESS SYNDROM?

Is there a real doctor in the house?

The Social Security Administration feels that since I graduated High School and beyond and punched a clock that there is really nothing wrong with me. Perhaps they think I’m full of BS. I am sorry Uncle Sam but I really don’t have anything left to give.

The doctors won’t give me oxy like they are giving to everybody else for no good reason that I can see. All around me I see so many young people who have nothing nearly enough wrong with them to deserve to join the oxy generation. These are young people who were somehow allowed to give up their lives before they even gave it a shot. Yet the doctors treat me like I’m a dope addict despite the fact several random drug tests prove I have nothing at all in my system, including the bucket of useless pills they gave me. I simply offered to trade in my bucket of pills for one pill that might help my physical pain. I haven’t heard any complaints from the oxy generation. Perhaps they haven’t bothered to look at my MRI. Perhaps it’s because here and there my doctors bills were paid by the State. I’ve come to the stark realization that when you are subsidized you are subhuman. It’s probably just as well I didn’t get hooked on the bucket of pills or the ‘oxys’ for that matter because I can’t pay for them right now.

As bad as my nightmares are, most often they can’t touch real life.

That’s what you get for trying. Like my sister says—no good deed shall go unpunished.

One more reason to drop out of the three ring circus. I don’t need your oxy but it might make me less mean.

Thanks anyway

Sincerely yours

ENTRY 1

In the Beginning

My story begins by traveling down that long dark tunnel to the age of five. This is my first recollection of the beginning of years of nightmares. These are dreams that a five year old has no right having. They are anywhere from horrific to prophetic. Some of them went on anywhere from days to weeks to months with the same recurring theme. What I like to call dream series. It didn’t take long to become a ‘spooked’ child and I overcompensated by doing extreme stunts and performing foolish acts of bravery. I was quite the dare-devil. Dare me; I’ll do it. I don’t know if I was daring life to destroy me or just plain on a self destruct mission. The result is often the same. Somehow I lived to tell the tale. I would lie down in the road to see if cars would stop. Things like that. You get the idea.

It’s not easy to live life when one third of it is composed of hellish nightmares and the other two thirds are composed of a very dysfunctional family, public education and Saturday catechism classes. I liked my cartoons. Bugs Bunny Roadrunner show was my favorite. And let us not forget church on Sunday.

I don’t speak Latin or French but the architecture was beautiful.

It’s also not easy being the oldest out of six other ‘human alien hybrids’ where EVERYTHING is your fault.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all bad. This book is intended to help others like me. I suspect there are many more. Time to come out of the closet! Everyone else has. By the way are there any functional families out there?

ENTRY 2

The Lone Wolf

I also knew early on in life that I was different. I couldn’t explain this knowing to you. I just knew. I started out life with my genetic cards dealt. I’ve taken enough science classes to give Darwin his due credit. It’s evolution and survival of the fittest. Those of you who are stuck on the Bible need to pick up a microscope once in a while. I’ve always been highly curious and explorative. Never mind that curiosity killed the cat. I need to know how things work. Everything. I was forever taking things apart. It wasn’t until much later that I learned to reverse engineer. Sorry about all the coffee pots, toasters, stereos and other house hold appliances that I just couldn’t leave alone. Be glad I stayed away from the car. I do know that it’s a lot easier to reverse engineer a machine than a human psyche. I also have one hell of an imagination. So do the people who wrote the Bible. I’m a ‘need to know’ kind of girl. Confirmation is good.

I started realizing that I just didn’t seem to have much in common with the other kids. I had friends but really enjoyed my alone time. I had Barbies but was just as happy stealthing through the neighborhood and sneaking into peoples houses while they were gone and checking out their stuff and playing dressup. I got caught a few times. I was just as happy climbing trees and buildings. I fell from the second floor once and broke my arm in three places. It cured me from scaling buildings but I liked trees on a windy day. Not anymore. I get dizzy and can’t move when I have to climb a ladder.

Meanwhile, my nightmares continued. I can’t tell you how many times my parents had to share their bed. How they managed to have so many kids is beyond me. I was also a bed wetter and spent a good deal of my young years with cropped off hair because I never learned to spit out my gum before falling asleep.

Monsters, monsters and more monsters. They were forever after me. Most of the time they had human faces. I had to learn how to fly away from them because I could never run fast enough. You know how that goes in a dream; like trying to run through water. My first attempts at flying were pathetic to say the least. More like swimming like a frog in slow motion just to get to the height of telephone wires. I got better at it over the years. I also learned how to know when I was dreaming and figured out a way to wake myself up. I would open my eyes as wide as I could in my dream. I don’t know how I figured this out and I don’t know why it worked but it did more often than not. After a while you get desperate. I was far too young to try and interpret my dreams. I’m fifty now and still trying to figure them out.

I started self-loathing tendencies very young as well. I did a lot of stupid things. I was not an easy child to raise. I remember one