It came on slowly and suddenly.

The transition was both elusive and obvious. The signs were present, but without the proper lenses, all symptoms could be hand-waved.

A loved one of mine has a terrible affliction. It is a peculiar disease of the mind. It ravages one's reality and burns the connective layers between oneself and others.

I am only an armchair psychiatrist waving around research as a fake degree, but I'll paint the diagnosis for you DSM-5 style. This beloved person has a mix of illnesses from at least a couple of clusters of personality disorders. From Cluster B—the cluster of emotional, dramatic disorders—she has Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder. She is also deeply afflicted by what I might consider the worst of the bunch—schizophrenia. The mix of schizophrenia and one or more emotional disorders is known as schizoaffective disorder.

These are clinical definitions, not colloquial ones. I want to orient us onto the same page, so here's a quick appendix for the disorders:

• Schizophrenia: a chronic mental illness characterized by delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized thinking. It develops in late adolescence or early adulthood.
• Bipolar disorder: a mental illness characterized by extreme mood swings that include highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression).
• Borderline Personality disorder: a mental illness characterized by unstable relationships, intense emotions, impulsive behaviors, and rapid changes in one's feelings towards others.
• Schizoaffective disorder: a mental illness characterized by a combination of schizophrenic symptoms and one or more emotional personality disorders, such as bipolar disorder.

When someone lives in their mind's own constructed, delusional reality, it is impossible to get them out. You cannot reason with the schizophrenic mind. It is fundamentally a thought disorder, one that not only disorganizes thinking but cannot internalize common logic. If the afflicted person is convinced that agents sent by the Catholic Church are spying on them, there is no convincing them otherwise. Any substantive evidence will be hand-waved; you will be dismissed and cut off from the person. The disease creates impulses to ensure no one can break the veil—it will convince its host that those challenging their reality are out to get them and to subsequently cut off ties with them. Schizophrenia cannot be treated by talk therapy alone. It is chronic and requires medication to stabilize.

I've seen my dear one struggle for most of her life. She could trust no one. Anyone who disagreed with her views or reasoning would be villainized. Trivial mistakes would be construed as personal attacks—if someone forgot to do an errand she requested, this would mean the person disrespects her and wants her to suffer. Her suite of illnesses made all her relationships unstable while convincing herself that she was a martyr in her social isolation, similar to Job of the Bible, whose faith and virtue were brutally tested by God.

The illnesses ravage the personality. They poison the emotional body. They transmute the water of our life into a poison swamp. I have seen how these afflictions can wipe out any semblance of personality, any happiness or joy, and metabolize any virtue into extremities and hate. They are repulsive, hateful illnesses.

I have seen my loved one become consumed by hate—it is beyond unsavory and is frightening to witness. It is like watching a horror movie before your eyes, seeing the bitten victim slowly turn into a mindless, aggressive zombie. There is but a husk left, enough to leave one's heart hopeful of recovery, but within the shell, there is little left from the disease's pillaging of the soul.

I've seen the disease progress to a point of no return. There is little left of my dear one. Her soul is eclipsed by the disease, and I am not sure we will see her light again until the next life.

I love my dear one, but I resent her illness.