Tags
confidence, delusions, employment, life, magic, mental health, mental illness, mentally ill, schizophrenia], symptoms, wishful thinking, writer, writing
I have been applying for jobs that I think I would be able to do for the past year. One of the things about me is I always want to contribute. I worked up until five years ago. Since that time I have been trying to take classes and become retrained as a writer so I can build a freelancing career. I even went to culinary school and graduate school but couldn’t (for different reasons) keep up with either one.
On days when I can seriously self-reflect, I know that a freelance career or a work from home opportunity is all I can manage. In the morning, after I take my medications I frequently become so groggy and tired that I need to crawl back into bed and sleep for thirty minutes to an hour. There are days when I call my husband and ask him to come home from work. It is a good thing that he works so hard and has a good relationship with his boss.
One of the things I try to do to build a freelancing career is attend writing conferences and network with editors. I try to build these relationships on social media as well. My husband always goes to the conferences with me, and it is a good thing because we haven’t been to a single one where I didn’t run into problems with my symptoms.
If I made an appointment with you at ten in the morning to meet at Starbucks, you probably wouldn’t realize that I have schizophrenia (that is if I didn’t have to cancel or wasn’t experiencing anxiety). Many people see me for short periods of time and don’t realize that I have a severe mental illness. I am capable of having a conversation, and I laugh a lot when people possess a sense of humor.
One reason my illness isn’t always easy to detect (with the exception of anxiety and paranoia) is because I have been practicing hiding it for over twenty years. I don’t like people to see my symptoms.
The strange thing I am trying to express by writing all of this is that I have a desire to be well. I think I am capable of more than I am. I have a desire not to have schizophrenia. I think I have an illusion (delusion) of myself at times that convinces me that I don’t have schizophrenia at all even though I am always adamant about taking my medications (a constant reminder that I am ill).
It is hard to describe having clear enough thoughts to write these essays or to write anything, but in the same day be so paranoid that I need my husband to come home from work to help me. Those two worlds, my healthy world, and my symptom-filled world, don’t sit well side by side. The side of me that writes these essays thinks that I can achieve anything, and all I need to do is try hard enough or get the right breaks. The mentally ill part of me requires more medication, help from my husband or others, and keeps me from really being successful at anything (because no matter what I think I can do, I can’t control the daily symptoms).
I guess that is my brand of schizophrenia in a nutshell – a woman full of possibilities and ideas that she can’t reasonably achieve because her symptoms pop up unexpectedly and demand all the attention.
It is hard to admit that you are limited in your potential. It is hard to admit that the very part of your body that occasionally creates original and interesting sentences can turn into your enemy.
I don’t feel sorry for myself, but acceptance is a life-long process and one where I feel my progress is not linear but more like forward and backward and off the path all together like when I apply for a job that there is no way in the world I would be able to handle. Is that hope? Is that delusion? Is that magical thinking? Is that over-confidence, or is that the result of schizophrenia and the reality of my illness playing hide and seek with me?
It’s hard to have a disease of the brain because even in healthy people the brain can play tricks on you, and in mentally ill people you can’t always tell the tricks from reality it’s like watching a magic show by a master magician.
Nailed it!
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Thanks!
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It’s not hope or delusion or magical thinking or being over confident. I call it being human. Just my opinion:)
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Thank you my friend! I miss you and think about you every day. xoxo
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I have been following you for over a year and can’t tell you how much I admire you!
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Thank you so much for reading my work and for your kind words of support!
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I agreed with previous comment, you totally nailed this. I think “invisible disabilities” are harder to live with than anything. I find the world doesn’t come CLOSE to understanding my son who doesn’t look like he has schizophrenia. The fact that he is “high functioning” makes it even more difficult, and easier for him and others around him to imagine he doesn’t have an illness at all. Yesterday, in fact, he flushed all his antipsychotic medication (Abilify) down the toilet in front of me in an act of defiance.
He’s tired of me and his psychiatrists telling him he has schizophrenia because when he looks it up on Wikipedia he has none of those symptoms. But I find the “negative symptoms” are not recognized on those lists and that’s what HE has. The lack of motivation, the unpredictable melt downs that come with stress, the lack of being able to follow through with anything remotely long-term like a job or a school schedule.
He’s been living with us for 4 years since his initial psychotic break and has made great progress but he still has an illness that he’s not able to accept.
Now he’s decided it’s his medicine that is making him feel disconnected from the world and unable to “have fun” or “enjoy his life.” We’ll see where this new phase leads.
Because I have to admit that it triggers my own fantasies that maybe he’s right – maybe he DOESN”T have a mental illness, maybe it IS the side effects of the medication that are blunting him and keeping his “negative symptoms” active.
Because as his mother, I wish more than anything that he didn’t have schizophrenia, without the meds he’ll “go back to the way he was” four years ago when he was in college and his life was on a perfect track…before he took all the LSD that induced a psychosis….maybe he IS recovered enough to go off his Ability and slowly get back to his “former self.”
But I fear I am just buying into the same things you referenced today in your post: that because he has good moments or hours in any day….that because he is very capable much of the time…because he looks “normal”…he doesn’t have a mental illness.
I admire you very much for writing about all these things. You are a huge help to me, and I hope your writings get out there far & wide for more of the world to see. You are a light in my life, and are making a real change in the world with your thinking, your writing, and your ability to articulate subtle realities that most people have no clue about. I salute you and look forward to more! Thank you. Anna
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Thank you so much for sharing this information. I am sure it will help other parents out there to know they are not alone. Thank you for your kind words and support. It is such a great motivator to me to know that my writing touches people and that they can relate to it. I tend to socially isolate so reaching out even over the computer is healthy!
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I struggle with bipolar type 1 and have become full-blown psychotic in the past that lasted for weeks; delusional thoughts and confusion here and there have stayed ever since. I relate to this article, I live my life basically “pulled together” to the point that it’s hidden until I tell people.
I work 100% from home and don’t earn an amazing income but its not shabby either. However – I do feel that I can’t quite grasp what I’m really capable of work-wise, and I struggle so much with acceptance of working from home.
I oversleep most every day and beat myself up, I’m constantly stressing about if I had a “real job” I’d need to be at the office by such-and-such time, I’m always mentally preparing myself for going out there and getting a “real job.” In the meantime, I’ve actually built something fairly substantial from home, plenty of “normal people” freelance or work form home, and when I can get myself to accept reality I realize this is the best fit for me.
My hardest fight at the moment is setting my sights on my own business over, and over, and over again when I get distracted by other ideas (sounds like what you struggle with).
I think the biggest stressor is ultimately, I want to prove that I can work a standard job, because deep down I’m afraid I cant. On some levels it can still be so hard to accept the illness.
Thanks for the blog and God bless; you are not alone in the work confusion!
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Well said,Rebecca.So much of schizophrenia is unseen by those around us.I know I don’t look like like I have have it unless I’m psychotic.My meds are really working.But I still have problems sometimes with it.I’m sorry you do too,my friend.
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