Tag Archives: reading

Is it Possible to be Happy and Have Schizophrenia? Spoiler: Yes.

09 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by in caregivers, mental illness, schizophrenia, stigma, Uncategorized

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Last night before going to bed, I read a long article about happiness. Of course, I thought I would remember which magazine it was in so I could write about it today, but I can’t. I tried Googling words and phrases from the article, but it turns out there are a lot of articles, essays, and general information about happiness on the internet.

What stood out about this article to me was the idea that you have to love the challenges and negative things in your life to be truly happy, and you have to look at life as a game. In the article, the author wrote about how if you view life as a game you wouldn’t want that game to be without challenges.

Okay, so before drifting off to sleep, I started thinking of my diverticulitis which has completely changed my life. I am so careful about what I eat, how much I eat, how much fiber I get, eating fruits and vegetables, and we used to go out to eat all of the time, and now I would prefer to eat at home. It also presents challenges when we are traveling, so we don’t travel as much.

What can I love about diverticulitis? Well, I eat 5-7 servings of fruits and vegetables every day. That is something to love about diverticulitis. Having the illness got me to eat a healthier diet. Also, I am by far more mindful of what I put in my body. This isn’t to say, I don’t eat potato chips and chocolate, I do, but I never engage in mindless eating now when before I did. Lastly, having diverticulitis helped me learn that I have willpower and a great deal of control over my actions. Okay, so those were the only things I thought I could stretch and say that I love about having diverticulitis.

After I did the exercise with diverticulitis, I had to try schizophrenia. Is there anything I can love about having schizophrenia? Even writing the word love and schizophrenia in the same sentence is difficult, but I am going to move past that and try the exercise.

I like the woman I am with schizophrenia, and I don’t know who that woman is anymore without schizophrenia. There are symptoms that I know are my illness, but there are other things about me where I can’t separate the illness from my personality. So, by loving/liking myself, I could also say I love/like schizophrenia (definitely not all of it!). But there are a few things worth mentioning; I think schizophrenia has increased my compassion, and having schizophrenia has made me more empathetic. Schizophrenia has helped me see the bigger picture which includes me, and many others who are both like, and not like, me. Schizophrenia has helped me make connections in my brain and my thinking that I might not otherwise make.

There you have it; I was able to love two of my biggest health concerns for some of the things they bring into my life. Am I one step closer to happiness? Well, I already consider myself happy, so no, but if I keep looking for the positive buried in the negative I might end up being deliriously happy, who knows?

A Book And Blogs

04 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by in bipolar, hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized, writing

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Two weeks ago, I wrote about a book, The Suicide of Claire Bishop, by Carmiel Banasky. You can find the post here.  I am currently about 1/3 of the way through the book and happy to report that I like it. It is very well written, the story is interesting, and so far, West, the character who has schizophrenia is interesting and not at all offensive. West doesn’t have the same type of symptoms as I do, but it is easy to believe that someone else’s symptoms are similar to his. I haven’t finished the book, but so far it is a good read.  I would love it if some of you read it and then let me know how you think the author did creating a character with schizophrenia.

Early in the week, I posted a blog on Psych Central about 5 things to avoid asking someone with schizophrenia. I would love it if you would check it out. It has been my most popular article on Psych Central.

Today, I posted an article about 6 ways to be an ally to someone with a mental illness. I welcome your feedback.

Zen and Schizophrenia

13 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by in hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, writing

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I have found a new hero.

Yesterday I mentioned that I wanted to be someone that other people with a severe mental illness could look at and say, “If she can do it, I can do it.”

I read, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, when I was in my twenties, but I can tell you right now, that book didn’t sink in. Currently, my husband is reading me a chapter a night, and it is as if I have never heard the story before.

After reading our nightly chapter last night my husband asked, “How old is the boy in the book?”

“I think he is eight.” I said.

My husband grabbed his phone and I grabbed my tablet and we both started to flip through websites to find out the age of Chris, the narrator of the book’s, son.

“He’s nine.” My husband said.

While searching for Chris’ age, I came upon a piece of information that upset me.

“Oh my God, Chris was murdered.”

“What?” My husband asked.

“Chris was stabbed outside of a bar in San Francisco when he was in his early twenties.”

Normally, reading something like that will make it impossible for me to finish a movie, or book, or television series. For a while I was watching the series, Sons of Anarchy, and I accidentally found a spoiler on the Internet that the main character’s (Jax) wife, Tara, gets killed. Before finding that out, I had loved the series, I would spend my days in my room watching episode after episode. I stopped watching it, because I was so upset that the writers killed off one of my favorite characters. Tara was the most innocent character on the show, and she and Jax had fallen in love as teenagers, but she had broken his heart by moving away from their home town so she could go to school to become a doctor. I loved those two. Anyway, I haven’t watched it since I found out that in a future episode Tara would be killed.

So, last night when I read that Chris, the real life son of the author of the book, Robert Pirsig, was killed in a mugging when he was a young man, I almost said, “I can’t finish the book knowing his fate. I just can’t.”

But then I read something astonishing. It was there on a website along with the information about Chris…Robert Pirsig was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

I will listen to the book as my husband reads it to me. I will read Pirsig’s other book, Lila, and I may read them both again another time.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, has sold over five million copies since it first came out in the 70’s. It is the most widely read philosophical book of our time. The author has an IQ of 170 and was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

I have a new hero to look up to, and I am filled with hope. Schizophrenia, be damned, there are people who have bashed your stigma to dust, and that can be easily wiped from my shoe.