How this began

this is where it all started

Soon after my sixteenth birthday, weird thoughts began pouring into my mind. It started out simply, that I was being watched by doctors somewhere. I did not know why they would watch me, or what they got out of it, and where I was and with whom. There were a lot of questions that I didn't have answers to, and in the beginning, I didn't want to know. I became very paranoid, everywhere I went they saw what I was doing and perhaps they were reporting to my parents. When I showered, they were watching, when I ate, they watched. Everywhere, all the time. Later I realized that most of these initial thoughts were incorrect.
I have thought of what could be a trigger for this, and the only instance I have found that would explain any of the delusional, paranoid thoughts would come from my parents. When I was thirteen and fourteen, my parents fought all the time. Typical I would expect. Many of my classmates said the same thing. I felt differently from the rest of the students though, they could carry on while their parents yelled at one another. My parents fought over money, how to raise my brother, sister and myself, and often sent messages back and forth through small booklets and emails. I would sneak into their rooms and computers and go through the drawers and emails just to find out what they were talking about. Not necessarily in those writings, but in general, I had been labeled as "the worry child". Not only because I had begun to worry all the time, perhaps that was the very beginning of my paranoia, but also because my parents worried that I would be the one to get into drugs and partying. I don't know what caused them to think I would, but it probably stemmed from the fact that my older brother was the perfect kid. He never did anything wrong. I was always the opposite of my shy brother. I was open to the world, voted most outgoing in my graduating middle school class, and loved to meet people and investigate behavior. Because I was so much different than him, that may have lead them to assume that I would delve into "teenage social norms", aka drugs and sex.
Having such a large label at that age was hard for me, I was constantly trying whatever I could to get away from that label, and be more like my brother, but my personality would not always allow me. I needed to talk to people, and be a social butterfly.
When I began looking for a high school, my mother always said she didn't care where I chose to go. As long as I was in school and could get there, I could go where ever I wanted. My dad and I were very focused on a higher end, private, international studies, university type school. The plan was that I would board there during the week, living on campus, and would come home on the weekends. When my mother got wind of this idea, she turned into a torrent of yelling, screaming, and tears. She would not have anything to do with her daughter living away from home at fifteen. I felt betrayed, hadn't she said she didn't care where I went? Why hadn't she chosen to take part in that section of my life, and not just jump in with a solid NO at the very end? I believe this is where our tension started.
During high school, I ended up going to a very art and theater oriented school about fifty miles from my house in the capitol, and liked it very much. I expected freshman year to be full of making friends and putting my personality out there for everyone to eat up as they had in middle school. It was quite different. My parents continued to fight, and considered splitting up very seriously. My mother told me I should move into the city with my father, because she told me I did not appreciate my home or like it at all. She didn't know what I was thinking, and I did not like her putting words into my mouth. I became depressed and suicidal, honestly believing that I had no place in the world and that if I were gone, I would be out of my mother's way. On one occasion, the guidance office at school got wind of my thinking, and called my parents. They were angry that I had not told them about it, my mother was upset that I was talking to a councilor and not her. She didn't believe in therapy.
From then on, I kept what I was feeling quite from the world. I did not talk to the councilor again, and it was better that way. I did not want my parents knowing that I was so upset because of them. That would just make things worse. By the end of my freshman year, I had snapped out of my depressed state because i had created a good group of friends for myself, and realized that everyone's first year had been hard.
By the second year, things were all changing. I was now almost sixteen. The beginning of sophomore year started out well, I had some classes that I liked, and those friends stayed with my from the year before. This time though, I found a new friend. I still don't know why I was drawn to him, he was a really bad kid in class, and he smoked marijuana, which I thought was one of the worst things anyone could do to themselves. For a long while, we talked and hung out regularly, and he was really nice and talked to me about feelings. I trusted him, and we agreed not to tell anyone what we talked about ever, it was only for us to know. We then got closer, skipping classes to walk in the woods, and lay together under trees. I had kissed other boys before, a couple times, but no one else was like this boy. I never got tired of making out with him. I loved having him touch me, and kiss my neck, and I felt like I was being absolutely cared for. He then convinced me to smoke with him, and I fell in love with being high.
At first it was difficult to accept that I had smoked weed. I had thought of it as very, very bad. For a long time, I had actually thought I would help this boy give it up. He wanted to make me happy, so for a while, he caught up in his school work, and stopped smoking every day. However, when I realized just what it felt like, how free it felt, and how good... I was dragged into his world of blowing off school to smoke, not doing homework to smoke, and going behind my parents' backs and the backs of the law, to buy and sell the drug. Within two months, I was smoking every day.  I stole large amounts of money from my parents in order to buy. They say marijuana is not addictive, but I was hooked. I began to adopt an I-just-don't-care-anymore attitude when it came to school. I had always been the straight A student that helped others with homework. Now, I was the one falling behind because nearly every homework assignment was done halfheartedly, and i told myself that it wasn't important to try.
I turned sixteen on December 19th, 2010. My parents had solidified their relationship, and I think that helped my second year of highschool pass by a lot better than the first had. I was no longer wearing all black and trying to be by myself all the time. I now had my own personality again, and a group of friends that not only stayed with me through my second year, but grew immensely. Two months into the year though, the strange thoughts began.