A most precious thread.

For me schizophrenia severely ruptured the relationship that I had enjoyed with myself prior to the illness. My sense of being in the world, my thought processes and, indeed, the very way my senses perceived the world would go through involuntary changes. I was plunged, at times, into a confusing and frightening world ruled by my own paranoias and delusions. Living with the ever-changing experience of schizophrenia over 23 years has changed my relationship with myself many times and in many ways. In this paper I want to describe a few of these changes that have helped me deal with schizophrenia and to reveal a little of an ongoing communication with myself that is a large part of my process of recovery. The nurses I most valued at that time were those who, rather than imposing their reality on me, helped me to explore where reality and well-being might exist for me.