It’s yet another irony for me. While I don’t have schizophrenia, I am living through some of the processes of a disease that I’ve spent my life studying and trying to cure.
Throughout my life, I’ve been quick to react, independent, confident, and stubborn. But now, these qualities are reaching an absurd level. I’m in a constant hurry, skipping mindlessly from one activity to another. My attention span is completely shot. When I try to read, I go faster and faster over the words but have little idea what I’ve read. I jump from page to page, story to story, sentence to sentence, word to word, but I can’t absorb their meaning. I continue to talk on the phone to my children and sister every day but I don’t finish a single conversation. I cut each of them off midsentence and run somewhere to do something of great importance although I’m unsure what it’s supposed to be. I feel anxious and stressed out but I don’t know why. And I don’t listen to what Kasia and Mirek and Witek try to tell me. I know best. They don’t know nearly as much as I do!
One day, I read a story in the Washington Post about a student from a nearby high school who thought she’d been accepted to several Ivy League schools but found that the schools had misled her. I describe the story to Mirek, but when I finish telling him what I’ve just read, he gives me a strange look.
“That’s not what happened at all,” he says gently.
“I just read it!” I insist. “Don’t you think I know what I read?”
“You got it backwards,” he says. “She claimed Harvard and Stanford both wanted her but it turns out she made it all up.”
“No, no. You’re completely wrong, Mirek,” I say angrily, but he gives me a sad smile.
With each new day, I feel increasingly confused. The world seems to be whirling faster and faster all around me. I have trouble catching up with it. I don’t understand what’s happening, can’t follow its meanings. It races forward as I’m left behind.
In early July, the newspaper announces the grand opening of the brand-new Giant grocery store that I’ve waited so long to enjoy. I never thought I would live to see it.
The Giant has taken on a strange significance for me. It epitomizes the cruel passing of time and uncertainty of my own existence, the fragility of my life despite my physical strength, my athletic ability, and my stubborn optimism. Indeed, as I have endured my illness, I’ve begun to resent the massive concrete construction.
That stupid store will be standing there when I am gone.
Now that I’ve lasted long enough to witness the grand opening, it’s really important to me to go. We all decide—Mirek and I, as well as Witek, Cheyenne, and Maria, all of them here visiting me—to head there for the festivities. But the moment we park and I open the car door, I recoil. I’m repulsed by the large crowds and the loud music of a live jazz band inside the front entrance that is welcoming shoppers. My family doesn’t notice my reaction. Witek, Cheyenne, Maria, and Mirek are thrilled. We’ve all loved jazz for as long as I can remember. They stand and watch.
I’m fuming. Under my breath, I mutter, “What the heck! Why on earth is the music so loud? I can’t even communicate with my own family!”
They don’t see how much I hate this. I begin shouting over the music. “This is horrible!” I yell. “It’s too loud!”
They look stunned, and they try to calm me down.
“Mom, this is nice,” says Witek. “These guys are great.” Witek plays clarinet and guitar, and he learned flute in Hawaii when he spent a year there managing a coffee plantation. I like it when Witek plays; it soothes my soul, relieves my moodiness. But this jazz is hurting my ears, pounding deep holes inside me like a jackhammer. It’s painful.
I bolt from them and run through the store to search for the main office; my family races after me. As Witek and the others try to stop me, I demand to see the manager.
When the manager appears, I shout: “Stop the music! It’s too loud! It hurts my ears! Stop the music!”
She looks at me, then at my family. Before she can respond, I turn and storm out.
I rush past the band, and the music causes me physical pain. The notes are like knives stabbing my body.
My family catches up with me, and as soon as we climb in the car and close the doors, I feel better. It’s much quieter, and we drive home in silence. I am calmer already.
“What a band that was!” I try to joke.
No one responds.
My hypervigilance—my body constantly on high alert, and the sense I have that I’m participating in every event with my whole being—is possibly being triggered by stress or anxiety. That anxiety, in turn, gives rise to more stress and anxiety. Making it worse, I have the vague feeling that I’m not in control of myself or the world around me anymore. That loss of control makes me angry.
My extreme reaction to sensory overload is common in people with brain trauma, autism, and many other brain conditions. Normally, the brain is able to sort through the sensory information that comes at it and prioritize what’s important and what can be ignored. When this filter mechanism doesn’t work, the brain can become overwhelmed by all the information it’s trying to process, like a computer bombarded by too much data. The brain can no longer distinguish between what it’s safe to ignore, like the sounds of distant traffic or the sensation of wind on your face as you walk along, versus what is important, like the honking of the car that’s about to hit you. This horrible jumble of noises and sights and smells can be very upsetting. When faced with significant sensory overload, some
