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Is it Your Personality or is it Schizophrenia?

02 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by A Journey With You in hope, mental illness, relationships, schizophrenia, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

hope, isolation, mental health, mental illness, mentally ill, public, schizophrenia], social, wellness

When I was a teenager, and I would go to visit my dad (my parents are divorced), I would frequently get impatient with him because he talked to people wherever we went. If we went to the grocery store, he would talk to the woman next to him about rice, and as we were checking out, he would talk to the cashier about the weather, the specials that day and anything else that crossed his mind.

Recently, my in-laws come over from France, and commented to my husband, that it makes them uncomfortable that I talk to strangers at the train station, grocery store, in restaurants and on the street.

So often people claim that they have become their mothers, but in this case, with my relative’s observation, it occurred to me that I have become increasingly like my dad.

I mentioned earlier in the week that my writing buddy is visiting for a week from Virginia, while my husband is out of town. The two of us went to a hotel to celebrate Easter at a brunch buffet. I made the reservation for eleven, but by ten in the morning we were both hungry and wished we could dig into some of that food.

I called the hotel, but they said they were booked and couldn’t’ get us in early. We decided to head to the hotel, hang out in the lobby and possibly walk around the block. We agreed that something about being near all that food made us feel better than waiting at home.

When we arrived at the hotel, we climbed the curved staircase with wood railings to the second floor where the brunch was set up. There was a man at the top of the stairs assisting guests. I told him that we had reservations at eleven but that we had come early. He said, “Well, you need to check in on the first floor, and it is possible they can seat you now. I’ll take you down to the desk.”

We followed him back downstairs, and he asked my last name. I spelled it for him and then said it. He went to the desk in front of us and told the woman and man sitting there my name and that I had reservations at eleven and could they possibly seat us earlier. The man behind the desk said, “Unfortunately, we are booked.” I said, “No problem at all, we will take a seat in the lobby and wait until our table opens up.”

Before we could walk away from the desk, the man who had met us at the top of the stairs said, “I’ll take you to your table.” I said, “Wow, you know how to pull some strings!” He laughed, and the two of us talked the whole way up the stairs until he handed us off to the hostess.

Later, while I was getting food from the buffet line, I saw the man who got us our table, and he asked me how I liked the food. I said, “It is so beautiful, and it is delicious. The perfect way to celebrate Easter.”

While Joyce and I were eating, the same man came to our table, and I told him I was standing up (instead of seated at our table) because my back hurts when I sit. He told me all about his back injury and asked if I wanted to walk around the buffet and loosen my back up. He said if I did, he would sit down and keep Joyce company. We all laughed really hard.

I talked to about a half-dozen other people while we were enjoying our buffet, and I know it isn’t much, but it made my day brighter. I love talking and interacting with strangers. It is a shame that my schizophrenia keeps me isolated so much of the time because what once made me impatient about my dad, brings me great joy.

Becoming our parents isn’t always as scary as it sounds.

 

 

 

 

 

What We Give, Say, and Do

28 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by A Journey With You in bipolar, caregivers, mental illness, relationships, schizophrenia, stigma, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

anxiety, mental health, mental illness, mentally ill, psych ward, schizophrenia], social, social workers

I had an experience on Monday that left me reeling. I’m not going to explain exactly what happened, but I will say that I felt ignored, pushed aside, and avoided. It was the first time I was meeting this group of people, and they were all aware that I have schizophrenia. I have never felt like having schizophrenia caused people to treat me differently, so this was a new situation for me.

It is clear when someone comments with something like wacko, sicko, psycho, etc. that they have ignorance and possibly intolerance about people with a mental illness. If someone ignores you or avoids you, it isn’t obvious why they are doing that. For example, I can’t say with one hundred percent certainty that people were avoiding me or pushing me aside because they didn’t want to interact, recognize, or give space to the person with schizophrenia.

I spoke to a coach/mentor friend of mine and told her the whole story, and she said she didn’t think it was intentional. I know her advice and her perspectives are good ones and healthy ones, but there is a nagging feeling in me that says, what I felt was real, and true, and valid. (Just to make a note she wasn’t trying to invalidate my feelings, she was trying to be objective).

Now that I am thinking about rejection, there was a time, on a psych ward, that the attendants made me feel less than. It was after I was admitted, late at night and I was in my room. The attendants were obviously going over my paperwork, and one of them said, “Did you see where she works and what she does?” Someone else answered, “Yes, she is a social worker for the State.” The first person replied, “I hope that doesn’t happen to us!”

At my job, during the day, I would have been these women’s equal, their coworker, or even someone with more authority than them, but while I was in bed, on a psych ward, I was someone they didn’t want to be. I was someone they hoped they would never become.

I am going to try to be more aware of people in social settings I find myself in. I am going to look for those people that hang on the fringes, that sit by themselves, that seem awkward, anxious, or scared. And if I know something about someone like that they are battling an illness, or have recently lost someone, or anything that can make other people feel uncomfortable talking to them, I am going to gravitate in their direction.

I know you have heard it a thousand times, I have heard it that many too, but it truly is the little things that make the difference. I am capable of small things, and let’s hope those small things I give, and that we all give, turn into the force that keeps others from feeling lost or alone.

No matter what, we all have the little things to give. Give them with wild abandon.

 

 

Schizophrenia and Establishing Relationships

24 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by A Journey With You in bipolar, hope, relationships, schizophrenia, stigma, Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

bipolar, dating, friendship, health, love, marriage, mental health, mental illness, mentally ill, relationships, schizophrenia], social, wellness

I have read many blogs and books by people with schizophrenia, and many of the writers express a desire to date and eventually get married. Unlike me, there are many people with schizophrenia who live in hiding (not disclosing their illness for fear of the consequences), and many of those people are married. I assume their spouses must know of their illness even if most people in their lives don’t.

On the other hand, I am open about my schizophrenia, and I am married, but it may not be like someone would assume. I was married early in my twenties and divorced before my first psychotic break. I don’t think my first husband would have stayed with me and worked with me if he had experienced my illness. (I say this not knowing for certain because he never had that opportunity, chance, test, whatever it is someone would call it).

I met my second husband after my first psychotic break, but at that time my diagnosis was bipolar disorder. If we had both known at the time that my true illness was paranoid schizophrenia, would we have made it to our wedding? I don’t know. I can’t say. I wasn’t diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia until I was in my early forties. By the time I had the correct diagnosis my husband, and I had been together for at least ten years.

During ten years of marriage, my husband had grown to know a lot about me. The diagnosis of schizophrenia came as a shock to us, and I suppose it could have caused some people to throw their relationship away, but not us. When I received my diagnosis, I had just started to recover from a six-month episode of psychosis. Our marriage was on wobbly ground during that period. I thought during that time that I wanted a divorce. My husband thought that is where we would end up – in front of a judge with a no-fault divorce.

Once I was on medication and started to return to my old self, my husband started to heal from the injuries I caused him during my psychosis, and he started to understand the difference between schizophrenia and me. I am one person when I am on the right medication and someone quite different when I slip into psychosis. This period is where I find my husband to be remarkable. Not while we were dating and thought I had bipolar disorder, but when he had lived with me as someone who was psychotic for six-moths and received no love, or understanding, or connection from me, and then, when I recovered, he stayed and helped me rebuild my life.

Even though my husband and I had a whole history together before discovering I had schizophrenia, I think it is possible for people to find a lifelong partner if they already know that they have schizophrenia before meeting their potential mate. I think having the opportunity to get to know each other is the critical step in the process. Two people need to have some feelings and history together to be able to navigate and process a diagnosis of severe mental illness.

I think the same is true for making new friends. If those of us with schizophrenia let people get to know us a little bit before we tell them our diagnosis, then they will have already developed their impression of us, and first impressions are powerful. Many people meet me, and they know about my schizophrenia before even shaking my hand because other people have told them and many saw an article about me in People Magazine a couple of years ago.

I would prefer that people get to know me before they know my diagnosis, but I don’t always have control of that. I think if you do have control over when and where to tell someone about your illness that it is beneficial to wait until they see who and how you are so that stereotypes and stigma don’t overpower their decision to stay in a relationship.

Everything that is possible for people without schizophrenia is possible for people with schizophrenia we just have to be more creative to make some things work.

 

What Does Schizophrenia Feel Like?

24 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by A Journey With You in mental illness, schizophrenia

≈ 74 Comments

Tags

anxiety, cancer, delusions, halluninations, mental health, mental illness, paranoia, psychology, psychosis, psychotic, schizophrenia, social, suicide, voices, writing

No two people have schizophrenia or symptoms the exact same way. What does a day with schizophrenia look like for me? First of all, I feel like I am relatively fortunate because I am not currently hearing voices, some people (even on medication) hear voices constantly. I also feel relatively fortunate that I don’t hallucinate on a daily basis (at least not in the traditional sense that many people with schizophrenia report like shadows that look like people, etc.). I do, however, have olfactory hallucinations.

Olfactory hallucinations have to do with smelling things that aren’t there. I frequently smell things my husband can’t smell and if it is a chemical smell I will develop some paranoia about it. I may even think I have accidently eaten it and that I am dying.

Some people go in and out of psychosis. When I am psychotic, I am not at all like the person who is typing this right now.  Psychosis is totally different. For me, psychosis eventually brings terror, delusions, voices, suicidal tendencies, and distorted reality. For example, the person I love most in this world, and who is my inspiration, and who I honestly believe is the best person I have ever met, is not someone I know or love when I am psychotic. That should show you the huge difference from what I experience almost every day and what I experience when I am psychotic.

Although I am nothing like my baseline self when I am psychotic, still psychosis is not a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde scenario. It is not multiple personality disorder. Over time, if unchecked, for me, it is more like a very creepy (terrifying) circus that has gone terribly wrong and that I am trapped in and can’t get out of.  Although I don’t experience episodes of psychosis much anymore, I live in constant fear of becoming psychotic. For me, it is the worst part of schizophrenia. It is always a real possibility that I will die during an episode of psychosis.

The two symptoms that I battle with the most on a daily basis are paranoia and anxiety. I have episodes of anxiety that make it impossible for me to do anything besides trying to relieve the anxiety. It is a catch 22 because the more I focus on relieving the anxiety, the more anxious I become. Anxiety ruins many events for me. At a writer’s conference, I will almost always be overcome with anxiety and have to leave to be by myself and try to diminish the symptoms. When I see friends, and I am socializing, I often have a panic attack and need to go home quickly. Being around people in general can easily trigger a wave of anxiety. I take medication for this, but this symptom is probably the one that keeps me from leading a “normal” life.

Paranoia comes and goes for me. I have a great deal of paranoia around food. I frequently feel like my food is poisoned and I refuse to eat it. I have all kinds of rituals around eating that make being out socially, enjoying a meal, awkward.

The worst kind of paranoia has to do with standing up for myself. When I stand up for myself I have the worst episodes of paranoia. I believe the person, or corporation, or organization, etc. that I am standing up against are going to come after me. This is one of my symptoms that I find the hardest to live with. Constantly being fearful when you are just trying to be treated decently and fairly in this world is difficult to live with. Believing that people are going to punish you for disagreeing with them is a terrible way to live. We all need to feel some form of safety and comfort and trust in order to be healthy and happy. Those things are disrupted for me by schizophrenia.

I’m not asking for your pity. I have a good life. I am trying to create understanding. Schizophrenia looks differently for everyone, but now you know a little bit more of how it feels for me. Would I say having schizophrenia is hard? Yes, I think having schizophrenia is hard. Is it harder than cancer, heart disease, or any other illness? I don’t know.

I wish that there was as much support for schizophrenia as there is for cancer – pink ribbons, pink arm bands, pink cups, walks, runs, company fundraisers, support from friends and neighbors. Schizophrenia is a lonely disease, and not too many people talk about it (unless it has to do with a crime) and people definitely aren’t turning their social media a certain color to raise awareness. Most people with schizophrenia suffer alone, or with their family (if they are lucky enough to have family). That reality may just be worse than the majority of symptoms.

Social Isolation as a Symptom

09 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by A Journey With You in mental illness, schizophrenia, writing

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

airplanes, creative nonfiction, friends, isolation, mental health, mental illness, psychiatry, psychology, schizophrenia, social, symptoms, writing

I live a ten minute drive from the airport. My house is just to the right of the flight path. People from all over the country fly by my window every day. If they are seated on the right side of the plane, and looking out the window, they can see a white boxed shaped building with arches above the windows.

Two international flights come in every day, one from London and one from Japan.

All those people passing by my window as I sit at my computer, pour a glass of water in the kitchen, or lounge on the couch reading a book. People moving. People traveling. People living their lives.

I walk to the largest urban park in the country. Visitors from all over the world pass by me. I hear languages I can’t identify. I see tour groups where the leader holds up a flag so no one gets separated from the group. I pass by museums, a koi pond, and a plaza. People are so close I could reach out and touch them, but I don’t.

Last week I read an article by a woman with schizophrenia. She wrote about being in love with her loneliness. I read the words again and again in understanding and recognition.

Some symptoms get worse with age.

Today, I am off to a celebration. My computer will be waiting for me. Books will be stacked, bookmarked, or spread open. The room will be the same as when I left it.

When I return I won’t speak to anyone for ten hour stretches. The sound of planes will keep me company. I will see tourists exploring the park. I will read, and I will write.

I will live in the world of my mind, and yes, I will experience the love of loneliness.

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