Yet one of life's cruel ironies — her mother's sudden death just after she had finished work on a doctorate in psychology — put Felt into a bout of deep "double depression" where "no one quite knew what to do" to help her and her younger brother. She became "a bit rebellious," with all of the sudden changes, went to live with her father and was fortunate to have aunts who were supportive.

Whether her illness was precipitated by her mother's death, she doesn't know, "but I didn't ask for help until I was older. People stepped in and tried to do what they had to do, but I just kind of had to do it my own way."

After high school, she was looking to become a writer, but realized as she moved toward adulthood that things were beginning to unravel. "I felt a sense of being followed or watched. When I talked, I would just kind of drift off in the middle of a sentence."

She didn't act on what she was experiencing, "but I didn't address it, either," she recalls. One day she drove downtown and was parking in a pay lot when she began hearing voices.

"All my senses were heightened and I shielded myself from any eye contact, but the noises and the voices were ongoing," Felt said.

From that day forward, she had constant, unseen companions, "typically three people making a running commentary on what I was doing." Simply observational at first, the conversations began to change tone and she began to feel persecuted.

"Your mind goes to great lengths to wrap around what you experience and rationalize it," she said. "It tries to make sense of why these (unseen) people are talking to you or about you."

The best description of what schizophrenia is like is having a series of odd, disconnected and fantastical dreams that don't relate to anything the conscious mind is aware of, Felt said. "You find yourself thinking, 'How can I even come up with something like that?' "

The symptoms continued for at least a year, despite her best attempts to hide what was happening. Even when she confided to a friend, "it's so real that it's hard to believe that it is an illness. It's easier to believe it's some kind of elaborate scheme," where hidden microphones record your heartbeat; unseen people watch you through the walls; your food and drink is being drugged.

"I stopped eating or drinking anything that wasn't sealed in a package."

After a desperate five-hour drive to see a cousin who was able to find a psychiatrist who gave her a diagnosis, some anti-psychotic medication and other medications to counteract the side effects, she found herself rebelling at the thought of being schizophrenic. She was 23.

Twelve years later, Felt spends most of her days in jail, but it's not the scenario most would logically assume: began to self-medicate, couldn't hold a job, became homeless and finally committed a crime to secure some cash.