Schizophrenic’s Guide: Mental Health Check-In…

I, Dalton Lewis, am still crazy. Unless there is an unforseen medical miracle I will always be crazy. I am a mentally ill American. I talk to voices inside of my head. The diagnosis remains murky: paranoid schizophrenia or schizoaffective or thought disorder depending on the doctor. There’s no real test for these things except to pay attention and talk to the patient and his or her family and friends. I talk to myself in my head, tell stories. I don’t have full control over said stories.

I weighed 272.2 when I woke up this morning. I maxed out at 309 and have been losing weight for about a year or so. I have worked out four or five days a week during that year. My A1C went down from 6.2 to 5.7. I am healthier than I used to be. I can walk farther and farther and breathe less heavily when I walk.

I am on meds. I have been on the same anti-psychotics for a long time. They have done a good job at letting me pay attention to the world around me. I don’t miss conversations any more: I used to miss conversations because I talked to voices inside of my head while people in the real world tried to talk to me. I no longer do that: I can turn it off. I can stop talking to the voices when something important happens.

I have written novels. I write a lot. I wrote a realistic novel about life with mental health issues — a fun, interesting book about a group of friends with psychological issues. I still can write novels effectively that make sense and have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

I have been reading some but not enough. I need to read more novels. I read 22 novels last year and want to beat that this year.

I play strategy games. I don’t think that I’m all there during the games in terms of paying attention to the games. I try to pay attention but don’t always succeed.

I watch football. I obsess over football news. I watch it several times a day, the same tidbits, over and over, the same analysts, going over the same little nuggets gleamed from practice or free agency or the draft. The season is about to start. I want to watch real pro regular season games — very much.

Today I saw my sister, her husband, and their son. They are doing well. We ate lunch — quiche with sausage and turkey bacon and mixed vegetables and a salad — and then watched the Chicago Cubs defeat the Cincinatti Reds 13–7. My sister and her husband fixed our phones — we needed new sim cards, whatever that is — and tried to fix our printer. Their son is just entering the eighth grade and playing baseball. They are going to Disney Land or Disney World this weekend. I don’t know which. I hope that they enjoy themselves.

That’s my mental health update. I write, and I read, and I play games, and I watch movies. I have a few close friends. I have a good life.

Thanks, and take care, friends.