Hello, my name is Michael Willett and I am here to tell you what it was like to live with an undiagnosed mental illness from the age of 6 to the age of 14. At age 14, I had my first and only hospitalization where I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I am 16 years old now, and intend to keep myself out of the hospital and to fight against the stigma of mental illness that prevented my parents and me from seeking help for me earlier in my life. This is my story…
When I was age 6, I started kindergarten in Princeton, Massachusetts. My family and I were living on a quiet country road away from the school, so I needed to take the bus to school. As far as riding the bus, I truly believed that it was alive, and a great big thing that was going to eat me. I was really scared of the bus, but had to go on it, so I did. My fear of the bus grew less, as I got bigger. Within a short while, I was no longer afraid that the bus would eat me. My feelings towards school at the time were that I was scared and dreading going to school that first day. When I first got to school, and until I was hospitalized, I thought the school looked like a prison and was a prison. I thought sending me to school was some evil plan to make me feel all alone. Even though I know there was no plan, I still felt all alone. So my mentality made the "plan" work really well. When I met the teacher, she seemed to be a very nice person. The other students that I met that day seemed mean, angry, scared and out to get me, all at the same time. As time passed in kindergarten, I began to like school because I enjoyed learning, and the praise I got from the teacher for being smart and a good student. I never acted out in class or on the playground. However, it was on the playground where I started to get made fun of by the other students. No matter how hard I tried that year, I did not feel like I fit in. The kids were interested in basketball and other sports and I was interested in school work. When the kids started to make fun of me, I would get really angry and want to get back at them. Instead of acting upon my feelings, I stuffed them down way deep inside me. Unlike most people, I honestly and truly believed that the names they called me and the things they said were true. It was the same for me at home. When my Dad said: "I am going to take away your allowance forever" after I did something wrong, I believed him. I know now, sort of, when my Dad is just venting and when he really means it. I think I will always have trouble knowing when things that people say to me are true, false, a joke, or just venting. That is part of my illness.
Age seven was not that much different than age six. My family and I were still living in Princeton, and I still had to take the bus to school. Everyday, I dreaded taking the bus to school, not because I was afraid of the bus but because I knew I would be made fun of and tormented when I got to school. My only memory of my first grade teacher now is that she was pretty. I still enjoyed learning and being praised for my smarts, and I never acted out in class or on the playground. My home life was pretty much the same. I still believed what the kids who picked on me said about me, and my anger increased. I took all of my feelings and stuffed them down on top of my other anger from kindergarten. I had not let go of any of the hurt and anger from the previous year.
Things started to change when I was age eight. Unfortunately, it was not for the better. We were still living in Princeton, I was now in second grade, and the kids and one kid in particular continued tormenting me. I still believed the things they said about me and heaped my anger at them upon the stuff I had buried inside of me. I had not let go of any of it from kindergarten and first grade. My second grade teacher was a big lady and treated me nicely and with respect. Sometimes, my parent's thought she treated me too nicely. I remember when my parents and I got into a great battle over a project call the "Apple of my Eye". I was supposed to write letters to each of the students in my class telling them why I liked them and why they were special. I liked, and believed everything they had said about me. The problem with my parents came when I would not do the work because I believed I was too good to do it, because of the good things the students said about me. I had to spend an entire weekend writing those letters. My parents made me, and I hated doing it, and I hated them for making me do it. That anger went inside me as well. My parent's got mad at the teacher because she wanted to let me off the hook.
At age 9, we were still living in Princeton, my youngest brother Thomas was born; I was in third grade and still rode the bus to school. Things started to get worse for me, the kids were still picking on me, I still believed what they said, I was still trying to be a perfect student, and the anger that I felt towards the kids was increasing steadily. I was still stuffing this anger down inside me, without letting it out, and added to this was my anger at my third grade teacher. My teacher had threatened to keep me back a year because I did not turn my final writing project in on time. I really believed her, and was terrified that it would come true. I hated to be told what to write and when to write it. I like to write, but only when I feel like it. Looking back, I would say that my obsessive side was starting to manifest itself. At school, I was obsessed with getting perfect cursive letters while at home I was obsessed with building Ranger Rick's Clubhouse. I wanted to build the Clubhouse so that I could create a place where I would fit in. My parents thought that I was joking when I wanted them to go out and buy the lumber and chairs I needed to build the Clubhouse. I hated them when they would not do what I wanted them to. So all that anger went inside me as well.
We moved from Princeton to Ayer, Massachusetts when I was age 10, so I started fourth grade in a new school. I was dreading school and was no longer afraid that the bus would eat me, but was afraid the kids would eat me. By this I mean I was terrified that the kids at my new school would pick on me like the kids at my old school. Unfortunately, I was right to be afraid. I thought my new school was better academically than my old school, and that I had graduated to a lower security prison. My teacher was the cheerleading coach for the football team, and treated me really well to the point where she had me helping other kids with math in class. This was the year I discovered football. I was obsessed with football all year long, because I felt that if I signed up for football it would be a good way to defend myself from being picked on. So I signed up for football for fifth grade. I was also obsessed with wanting everything to be the way it was. I did not want to move or have anything change in my life except to escape the kids who picked on me. I hated my parents for making me move, the kids who picked on me at my new school, and piled all of this anger upon the other stuff buried inside me. The anger inside me was getting worse and worse. I still never acted out in class or on the playground and worked hard to be the perfect student.
At age 11, I was in fifth grade and started football. However, instead of things getting better, they got much worse. One kid in particular, who tried out for the team and did not cut it, while I made the team, began tormenting me with a vengeance. One really bad incident with this kid changed my anger to intense hatred towards him. After all these years, I still believed what kids, and particularly this kid, said about me was true. Even though I did not feel like I fit in with the football crowd when I started, I actually felt like I did fit in towards the end, sort of. The team members used to call me "Willett" and I thought that they were taking pot shots at me, when my parents pointed out that only the members of the "in" football crowd called each other by their last names. So even when I was fitting in, I did not know it. I was still doing well in school, my teacher seemed big and old, but she treated me very well. I did not act out in class or in school, even though my obsessions had changed to ideas of bloodily murdering my arch nemesis that continued to pick on me. However, my feelings of intense anger and hate at my tormentor, turned inward and I began to intensely hate myself. My anger from all my years of school was still contained inside of me.
When I was twelve years old, I was in sixth grade, which was also in Ayer. I did not continue with football because I felt it made me work too hard physically. My football coach was disappointed that I did not continue and had held a place open for me on the team. My parents and I had made a deal that if I signed up for football, that I had to keep my commitment for the year and after that I could do what I wanted. I wanted out. My parents held up their end of the bargain. School was excruciatingly annoying in that I had to do more work at school and at home than I ever had to before. I still enjoyed the learning aspects of school, but not the workload. I was picked on more and more by my fifth grade tormentor, and still believed all those hurtful things he said were true. I was still trying to be a perfect student and never acted out in class, however I did actually strike a student who was picking on me in the lunch room for taunting me about a girl I had a serious crush on. I never got in trouble for hitting the kid; no one saw it and the kid did not hit me back to get a real fight going. Things at home however, were not good because my brothers and I kept on getting into big fights with each other. My brothers were saying hurtful things to me that I believed were true about me. After one incident that occurred on one of my younger brother's birthdays, I got into big trouble with my parents and had my first suicidal thought. At this age, I also started to hear voices telling me to do socially inappropriate things that I was afraid I would act upon, and in fact felt compelled to do. I never acted upon what the voices told me to do. At this time I also got visions to go with the voices so that I could see what the voices wanted me to do. I tried to escape and cope with what was happening to me and within me by becoming a voracious reader and by sleeping as much as I possibly could. My anger was still contained within, but was starting to seep out; I was still holding everything I possibly could inside.
My family and I moved to Pepperell, Massachusetts when I was thirteen years old and in seventh grade in Ayer. Even though we were living in Pepperell, I finished school in Ayer because that is what I told my parents I wanted to do. So that year, even though I lived in Pepperell, I did not leave my tormentor behind at school. This year, the school work seemed quite easy, however I was coming home from school with a severe headache almost every single day. I was supremely angry with those who picked on me both at school and at home. While all this was going on, I never acted out in class, was still trying hard to be a perfect student, while taking the occasional pot shot at my arch nemesis. Things at home were going downhill fast. My parents took me to see my pediatrician for my headaches, I had an MRI, and they found nothing. Meanwhile, my compulsions took control of me and made me believe I needed to wash my hands every 15 minutes. I eventually ended up believing I also needed to leave a coating of soap on my hand to keep me clean, and protect me from germs. At the same time the voices telling me to do socially inappropriate things, and the visions that went with the voices grew stronger and more intense. My fear of acting on the compulsions that went with the voices and visions also grew more intense. As the school year ended, my pediatrician referred me to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and I was referred to a therapist for behavior modification.
At age 14, I started eighth grade in my new school in Pepperell. The behavior therapy was not working, and I was put on medication to help ease my symptoms of OCD. I was in eighth grade for two months before I was hospitalized. My symptoms were so bad, the bullying got so bad, my compulsions got so bad, my feelings were so hurt, my fights with my brothers got so bad, my coping skills no longer worked, I wanted to kill the bullies, the voices and visions wanted me to kill my family, and more than anything, I was afraid the voices would win so I wanted desperately to kill myself. I had actually tried twice to kill myself before I was hospitalized and my parents were shocked to learn this because they never knew. I came out of the hospital to the quiet of a home where a new understanding of who I was, was beginning. I was placed in a new school where for the first time I truly felt and knew that I fit in. The teasing and torment had finally stopped.