Rebecca Chamaa

Becoming Invisible

Excerpted from Pills, Poetry & Prose: Life with Schizophrenia* (2015)

It never would have occurred to me that I would become one of the invisibles while sitting in my doctor’s office. If I was begging on the street, talking to voices no one else hears, or yelling at people passing by then I could possibly understand the avoidance, the lack of eye contact, the pretending that I don’t exist, but I was sitting, with hair and make-up done, in my jeans and tank top, holding a manuscript, looking like a middle-class, middle-age housewife visiting her shrink.

I knew it was over when they started talking about the Colorado massacre. I knew it was only a matter of time before they said it. Yes, there it is, right behind crazy and orange hair – schizophrenic. It is the only time I hear the word used widely in public, when there is a tragedy and someone shoots a large number of people.

That is when I became invisible for the first time. I must be invisible. I am waiting in my psychiatrist’s office. I am listening to the receptionist and the security guard talk about crazy people, and how the shooter of all those innocent people must be schizophrenic because of his orange hair. The receptionist says something that makes me know that I have changed from human being to something lowly, difficult, and unlovely, she says, "Believe me, I know, I work HERE don’t I?" In response to the security guard talking about recognizing, "those" people when you see them.

The point is not lost on me. They don’t recognize me. I have paranoid schizophrenia, and I am holding a manuscript that I wrote, ready to submit to a magazine and reveal my diagnosis to the world. I look at the pages and I try to focus on the words I wrote exposing my secret to the world. So, this is what it is going to be like when I go public? I am going to be invisible like so many other mentally ill people? Dear God, is it worth it to tell my story? Can I handle this avoidance and total disregard for my humanity?

My psychiatrist steps out and calls me into her office. I read her the manuscript. I tell her I am going public. I tell her I am afraid of the stigma, but I won’t be the first or last to experience it. I tell her about the security guard and the receptionist. I think I see anger on her face for the first time ever. I find comfort in her anger, because it shows understanding and compassion. I change my mind, I am not invisible. I am a ghost that only certain people can see.

A review of Pills,Poetry and Prose can be read in the current issue of Wordgathering