Monsters We Create: A Mesmerizing Podcast on Understanding Schizoaffective Disorder

Hearing Voices

“Stop, you’re giving me a headache. Can you just stop for a second?,” says Michael Vargas, to the voice in his head.

“No I won’t.” whispers the voice back.

“Thank you,” says Vargas, sarcastically and strongly. He’s learned not to let the voices take over.

Vargas, a college student from Florida, lives with an incredibly realistic chorus of voices in his head. “This is how I’ve been living my whole life, he says.

“Liar.” says an eerie voice from his podcast, from his head.

“I hear voices. I feel presences,” says the 22-year-old international student at Miami Dade College. “This is who I am. I can’t lie. I cannot lie.”

During his childhood, Vargas saw and heard the voices of invisible people around him constantly; he thought they were real.

“Hey Mikey”, said his mom. “What are you doing?”

“Just playing X-Box with Felipe before he leaves, Mom.”

“I didn’t know you invited a friend,” said his mom.

“Mom, he has been here for hours!”

“Well, … where is he?”

Vargas was surprised that his mother couldn’t see Felipe. “I will never forget the look in my mother’s eyes when she saw her sone playing with his imaginary friend. I’m Colombian, so you can probably imagine what the reaction of my Colombian religious mother was: ‘This kid is possessed!'”

“No you’re not,” puts in Felipe.

A Diagnosis of Schizoaffective Disorder

Vargas’ mom took him to a priest, and he went on to see multiple psychiatrists, psychologists, and other specialists. The consensus was that his ‘imaginary friends’ would disappear as he matured. But they didn’t. Vargas endured a multitude of tests including a brain scan. Eventually, he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Schizoaffective disorder is a mental health problem that is marked by a combination of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations or delusions; and mood disorder symptoms, such as depression or mania. Although the causes of schizoaffective disorder are still undetermined, research points to a genetic component.

However, receiving that diagnosis – receiving that label – caused Vargas to spiral into the darkest period of his life. He didn’t want to be ‘crazy’. With good reason, he was highly anxious and stressed about being labeled as something he himself – as well as the society around him – saw as monstrous,  a delusional crazy guy. But, over time, Vargas realized he was stressing needlessly. He knew he wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t delusional. He was just someone living with this quirk. And he wasn’t going to let himself be stigmatized.

Raising Mental Health Awareness

During a college course called Introduction to Communication, which had a curriculum structured around submitting podcasts to the NPR’s College Podcast Challenge, Vargas created a podcast of his experience, bravely letting the world outside into his head. In May 2024, Vargas’s podcast was chosen as NPR’s grand prize winner.

With sound design and interviews, he recreated what it’s like to live with a mental health disorder, in hopes of removing the stigma around it.  “The Monsters We Create” is a mental health awareness podcast meant to help and invite society not to demonize people with mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia. It is meant to educate people, and it intends to give a better quality of life to people with mental health conditions.

Says Vargas: “As a man who has a schizoaffective disorder, I have been living my whole life hiding my condition due to the fear of being judged and considered crazy or delusional and being left aside. I don’t want any other person to feel how I did.”

Listen to this uplifting and eye-opening audio track on SoundCloud: