0 - Introduction

by chastity vale

There isn’t a moment when i became a schizophrenic. There was no single second where the glass broke and the water flooded in. There was a time before, but the time during seems to stretch on forever.

Sometime around when i was 22, i walked into a health clinic in a small town in Northern California, and asked for help. i was beginning to hear things, voices calling my name. They put me on an antidepressant, and missed the signs that i was developing schizophrenia.

What’s before you or in your hands or on your hard drive now is a collection of essays patterned on the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale, or PANSS. The PANSS is supposed to measure the severity of schizophrenic symptoms. As i’ve been writing these, while dodging in between times when i cannot write, i have routinely scored above 100 on the test, in a range called “Markedly Ill” or “Severely Ill”. i have written these essays while sick, while hallucinating, while paranoid beyond belief. i’ve written them between times wondering if now is the time i go to the hospital, while trapped in bed from EDS and paranoia, while on car rides to doctor’s visits.

If you’re reading this on substack, then you’re reading an effectively unedited version of these essays. Following releases will likely be significantly changed.