Life is quite challenging for the average person, but more so when you have a disability. Schizophrenia is often known as just the hallucinations and that's what people fixate the most on. Yes it's true we can't tell if it's real or not. Sometimes we see shadow people, other misc paranormal like events, or even a friend of ours out in public when they're really not there.
It's not uncommon for us to believe that we're being watched by the government and that they're out the kill us or use us in some sort of twisted experiment. My common one is being watched by skinwalkers outside my windows, which is why I have them covered with blackout curtains. I also sometimes get delusional about cameras in the vents and I spend hours upon hours looking for the hidden cameras.
There's also the aspects of negative symptoms like avolition and anhedonia. You can't get joy or happiness out of the things you actually like doing and you find that you don't have the energy nor motivation to take care of yourself. So instead of making yourself a healthy meal you'll instead opt to get something quick. Like nuke a pizza in the microwave and call it edible. Then there's the fact that it's hard to get ourselves to brush our teeth or to bathe.
We're not lazy, and we don't intend to be a slob. We really do want to clean our place, take a bath, brush our teeth, etc, but we just can't get the motivation to do so. It's an endless cycle of hell and unfortunately medication doesn't help with the negative symptoms, often making them worse instead.
If I could get you to take away one thing, it would be to realize that we may act crazy, but our reactions and actions overall are perfectly logical based on what we see, hear and believe. Like we think shadows are watching us, it's because we see them and know they're there and we're frustrated that you can't see what we're seeing. It's like piercing the veil of reality and seeing things not meant to be seen.
In my late teens and throughout my 20's I used to believe vehemently that I was psychic and unfortunately my dad had fed into that delusion for years and it was extremely difficult to break that delusion. I'm not piercing the veil and seeing the unseen, I'm not psychic, I'm just someone who's batshit crazy while still on a buffet of medication to keep me relatively grounded in reality. It's not perfect, and it does cause things like blurry vision, weight gain, easy to overheat, and increase negative symptoms, but it's at least a little less scary.
