Around ninth grade, Michelle started hearing voices, telling her she was “a horrible person.” She also began experiencing withdrawal and depression, common negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
She pulled away from friends, stopped participating in class, and let her homework slip. “I just wanted to completely be left alone and have no one speak to me,” she says.
Michelle’s mom, noticing these changes and behaviors, took her daughter to several therapists to try to get to the bottom of the symptoms. But Michelle believed her mom was trying to sabotage her.
“I believed she was trying to hurt me and wanted me dead,” she says. “I fought her time and time again.”
It wasn’t until Michelle went off to college that the cracks started to show. Her first few weeks at school were exhilarating, full of new classes and friends. But soon the familiar voices drifted back. This time they were telling her the same things about her roommate as they did about her mom.
Scared of being turned away without answers, Michelle sat in front of the school therapist and answered yes to his checklist of questions.
After 15 to 20 minutes, the therapist handed her a pamphlet and told her she had bipolar disorder. He instructed Michelle to make an appointment with the school psychiatrist for medication and sent her on her way.
For the next four years, Michelle operated under a diagnosis that didn’t fit, taking medications that failed to quiet the voices and calm her other symptoms.
At age 22, exhausted from trying to maintain jobs while experiencing hallucinations and paranoid thoughts, she decided to seek help again. But this time, she was completely honest about the depth of what she was hearing and seeing.
This openness allowed the psychiatrist to give her the correct diagnosis finally. She had schizophrenia.
Even with all of the support from friends, family, and Carolyn, she still needs a way to handle the anxiety and stress that come with living with schizophrenia. For Michelle, that outlet is art. When feeling anxious, Michelle uses washable markers to draw what’s going on in her mind. “It kind of just moves all around the page to give you the idea of a schizophrenic mind,” she says.
This practice helps quiet her thoughts.
Once the raw drawings are finished, she scans them into Photoshop, layering and manipulating them into brilliant digital patterns. These designs eventually become the fabric for Michelle’s brand, Schizophrenic.NYC, appearing on T-shirts, hoodies, and lifestyle gear.
One of her best-selling shirts features a cheeky reminder to the schizophrenia community: “Don’t be paranoid. You look great.”
Eric R. Williams, MD
Medical Reviewer
Eric Williams is the associate dean of student affairs and career advising and associate professor of neuropsychiatry and behavioral science at the University of South Carolina Sch...
