Tag Archives: symptoms

Taking my Schizophrenia Back to Work

06 Tuesday Nov 2018

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

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I started my new job as an usher for live performances on Halloween. I have seen the first half of the musical Wicked eight times since then. I can not get the songs out of my head. At my polling place this morning as I was waiting in line to vote, I was singing some of the songs to my husband and people around us started to laugh. I had to tell them what my job is and that the only music I have listened to in the past two weeks is from the production. Several of the people had seen the show and others want to.

Ushering is my second job outside of writing that I have held in eight years. I worked for a day at an Amazon Warehouse, but that turned out not to be a place I could keep my symptoms at a minimum. This new job is stressful only in that I have to learn two theater’s seating charts, and one of the theaters seats almost three thousand people.

I know that sounds easy, but it isn’t easy at first, it is complicated. Each shift gets better because for instance now I am confident that the right side of the house is all even seats and the left side of the house are all odd seats. It seems simple, doesn’t it? I don’t find it simple, at least not yet. There are eight different sections to the theater, and each section has its own set of numbering. UGH! After a month, I am sure it will be second nature. It is just this first month that has me stress sweating every time I go to work because I want to do everything right and fear to make a big mistake.

Of course, I love dealing with the public. Customer service is something I have always enjoyed and the more confident I feel about the location of seats, the better customer service I can provide. I like to greet people, and chit-chat with them. I know that sounds strange because only a few weeks ago, I was writing about isolating socially. Well, for years, I did isolate socially, but now I am in the middle of the crowd smiling, laughing and talking.

I have worked hard these past seven days. I even worked three days of double shifts. I didn’t realize what I was signing up for at first, so November is more difficult than any month going forward. It is hard, and I probably won’t get a lot of writing done, but by the end of November, I should be completely familiar with the larger of the two theaters (the only one I have worked in), and that should make the job so much easier and fun. Because let’s face it, working for a theater is a fun job!

Even though I have been writing for the past few years, that is not at all the same as having a job with supervisors, co-workers, customers, etc. I answer to editors when I have an article or essay due, but for me, that isn’t every day. Also, with writing everything is online by e-mail. At my new job, I have to wear a uniform (instead of pajamas), put on make-up, take a shower, talk to people, clock in, do what is expected of me, smile, be pleasant, take direction, work as a part of a team, handle situations as they arise. And learn new information every day and adjust to that information.

There is one other huge difference between working at home and working outside of the home, my symptoms (except anxiety) are less. Of course, my anxiety is high because I am new and I am a perfectionist when it comes to jobs and school, but beyond anxiety, my symptoms of schizophrenia are less.

It turns out challenging myself and trying to reverse the damage this illness causes to the brain is a good strategy. Lack of motivation? Find an environment where you are accountable and expected to accomplish things. Isolating socially? Force yourself to be in the midst of thousands of people where you are required to laugh, talk and engage.

I know that not everyone with schizophrenia could handle a job with so much customer contact, just like I can’t do equations like John Nash, or practice law and be a professor like Elyn Saks. We are not all capable of the same things even though we have the same disease. I will say that I wish I could start a program to get all people with schizophrenia working. The jobs would be different for everyone, but I believe the benefits would be the same: an increase in self-esteem, an increase in independence, and possibly the reversal of some of the symptoms of an illness that can take so much from you.

I did cry at work once this past week because I felt overwhelmed by not being able to answer everyone’s questions and being slow to figure out where people’s seats were, but it was only once and only a little (no tears rolled down my cheeks, they stayed in my eyes).

Despite the crying, the gains from this past week are huge. After a few more weeks, I think I am going to love my job, and I will most likely be stronger, more confident, more capable, more resilient, more productive, more cultured (from seeing so many shows), healthier and happier.

Whoever said an honest day’s work is good for the soul was on to something, possibly something significant regarding schizophrenia. I have needed time to heal, rest, and be in a stress-free environment, but now, working seems like medicine the doctors forgot to prescribe me.

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?

007, Schizophrenia, and Writing

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized

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I type out the last sentence, sit back, take a sip of my coffee and read the whole essay through one more time. “I think this is good,” I tell myself. I make sure to save it one more time. It is under the file on my computer that no one else sees, the one named after the James Bond film, “For Your Eyes Only.” I sing a few words from the theme song out loud and try not to think how my work, probably my best work, is in that file that only I will see.

I once tried to post one of the files from “For Your Eyes Only” on my blog, but I couldn’t stop the racing thoughts. The article was about a company that makes video games. I thought one of their games was demeaning to people with schizophrenia. I wanted to have my voice heard. I wanted to publish my views on the game so others could read it and decide for themselves. I wanted to express another side of their story. The article was up for approximately one hour before the thoughts about internet trolls and how they make death threats and harass writers they don’t agree with defeated my publishing attempt.

This past year is different from every year prior. I watch the news every day. I feel strongly about and am outraged by many things. There are essays and articles that I don’t see written about the hypocrisy of so many politicians. I am a Christian and the things some of the most vocal Christian are saying about politicians being “ordained by God,” make me feel like Christianity has fractured more than just Methodist and Lutheran – there are fundamental beliefs that some people hold that are in direct opposition to the ones other’s hold. At this point, it is clearly a separate religion. I have an essay about it, but I fear to take a stand against the Christian Right.

So many people romanticize being an artist and having a severe mental illness. I once did the same thing. I thought reading the poems of Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath made me dark and edgy. I thought artists needed to be dark and edgy, especially poets which is what my younger twenty-something-self desired to be. I used to tell people that I thought I could drive myself over the edge, make myself crazy  – like really crazy, like “Girl Interrupted,” crazy. That was all before I had my first psychotic episode. That was all before there was no more “acting” edgy, or “acting” dark. My mind was dark, and I wouldn’t call hallucinations, delusions, or suicidal tendencies “edgy.”

My first diagnosis was bipolar disorder. I still held on to some of the romance of mental illness – brilliance. I looked up every famous person with bipolar disorder. I read books about them. So much talent, so much intelligence. I might not be able to play at being edgy anymore, but I could show signs of intense creativity and intelligence. I wanted so hard to believe like so many people do, that mental illness is somehow a gift. Gift of the gods they say. I gave up all notion of romance when I ended up in a hospital room with doctor and nurses using paddles to start my heart. This illness, this disease of the mind, was trying its hardest to kill me and as far as I can tell there is no great evidence of creativity or genius after death.

I started taking my medication regularly, even though on the medication I no longer felt like writing poetry, or writing anything for that matter. I put the romance behind me to stay alive, and that included my desire to be a poet and identify with the ill geniuses, creative and otherwise. I married my boyfriend and lived a pretty quiet life for some years. My psychiatrist at the time said I was “too well” to be mentally ill and said that my previous psychotic episodes were caused by trauma. He took me off all medication. Within one year, I was having conversations with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I believed the second coming was just days away and I spent six months believing I was a healer. I made cakes. I made more cakes. I made three cakes a day. I gave them to the mailman. I gave them to everyone living in our apartment building. I believed my cakes could cure anything from cancer to MS. I wanted everyone well. The hall of our building smelled like a bakery for months. I ended up in the E.R. with suicidal thoughts, and that led to a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.

It took almost twenty years to discover the root of my problem, but here we were, my husband and I, with a diagnosis that seemed bigger and scarier than either of us knew how to handle. The two words paranoid and schizophrenia even sound scary. Having them placed on me as an identifier as in, “I am someone with paranoid schizophrenia,” was almost more than I could take.  But as with any illness, you keep moving forward – a step here, a movement there, a jump, and then without realizing it you have been living with that illness for a month, six months, a year, ten years, and you go on.

Even though I had received my bachelor of arts long ago, I was never one to give up learning. I enrolled in several poetry classes at UCLA’s Online Extension and Gotham Writer’s Workshop, and I even joined a local poetry group. I was rusty, but I wasn’t dead. I started publishing again and getting support and feedback from poets I trusted and respected. I applied and was accepted to an MFA program.

Once in the MFA program, I was required to take classes beyond poetry. Having never thought of an idea for a novel in my life, I avoided the fiction classes and took a non-fiction class. I fell in love with the longer form. I fell in love with writing essays instead poems. I asked to change majors but found out I would have to start the program over. I wasn’t willing to do that. I kept taking writing classes online, but this time they were non-fiction classes instead of poetry classes. I started to publish some of those pieces. And the more I learned, the more I wanted to write about what I saw, how I felt, and responses to popular culture and the world around me. I thought my biggest obstacle would be going public with my new diagnosis, but that wasn’t it. My biggest obstacle was a symptom of the illness I had thus far been hiding.

I went public with my diagnosis in an essay posted to Facebook by a mentor and friend. The post was how all of my friends and my husband’s family found out about me having paranoid schizophrenia. My husband and I planned for a year before we agreed to the announcement date. We thought people would disappear. We thought people would be angry, confused, and we braced ourselves for people making an exodus from our lives. Well, people were far more graceful than we could have imagined and if those two words that make up my diagnosis scared anyone away, we haven’t missed them, but what all this writing and exposing of myself did was make me hyper-aware of my symptoms.

Paranoia means I can’t publish essays that devel into my feelings about this president or any other. I am terrified of openly criticizing corporations; I fear their reach and power is so much bigger than a person like me. I’m not currently suffering from delusions like that the government is wire taping me (I have believed this and feared it in the past), or that I am in contact with aliens or hearing the voice of God. I do not hear voices at all. But I do live in a fragile state where I am afraid of what people will do to me if I oppose them, challenge them, or offend them.

Living with paranoia is my biggest challenge as a writer/artist. Not being able to fully express myself because I fear being targeted by internet trolls, the government or large corporations can keep me silent, and it can kill creativity. I might not be able to speak up, but I’m grateful my creativity isn’t dead.  The proof of it is for my eyes only in a folder that sits on my hard drive where only me and James Bond, or someone posing as him, can gain access.

Technology Diet? I Need A Scale for That.

29 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by in mental illness, relationships, schizophrenia, Uncategorized

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Yesterday it was eighty-one degrees in San Diego. We went to the bay side of Coronado and walked along the waterfront. It was like summer. People were riding bikes, eating ice cream, walking dogs, pushing children in strollers, eating on restaurant’s patios, and listening to the music of a live band. The whole scene had a festival-type atmosphere.

I haven’t been out for a while because of a pinched nerve in my back, and because I tend to isolate socially, but it was wonderful to be out among people who weren’t checking their phones, or clicking away on laptops or tablets. People were outside, enjoying the beautiful weather and enjoying activities together. It felt like another world.

I realized something about myself. I like to talk to strangers. I asked everyone who had an English Bulldog, ( one couple, and one family) the name of their dog if they had health problems and other questions. I told the barista at the coffee stand that I loved her eye makeup, and she told me she had watched hundreds of YouTube videos to learn how to achieve that look. Jokingly, I asked her if she would come to my house and do my eyes, and she said, “Yes, of course!”

After we had returned home from the bay, we had dinner and then decided to go to the grocery store to shop for our weekly groceries. I had a summer dress on and with the sun already down it was starting to get cool, so I threw a sweatshirt over my dress and put on some pants underneath. I looked very disheveled. At the store, one of the clerks and I started up a conversation, and I asked him how he liked my clothing ensemble. I told him I called it my, “I am going to the grocery store on a Sunday night and why not put everything in the closet on.” We both laughed, and he told me no one would notice. It’s true we shop in a pretty rough area, so maybe nobody did pay any attention to the woman with several outfits on.

I was so surprised how much I liked talking to strangers. I especially love getting them to laugh or smile. Even though San Diego is supposed to have the highest rate of road rage; it seems like people are friendly when you meet them in person. I have spent so much time on social media, and away from face-to-face interactions, I didn’t realize how much more civil and delightful people are in person.

To keep perspective on humanity, I need to commit to seeing people more. It may be difficult to force myself out of the house when I have active symptoms, but it is so necessary for my head and heart.

Spending too much time in the world of technology (social media) got under my skin. Getting outdoors, in summer-like weather, when people want to laugh and enjoy themselves is like a balm for the soul. I forgot about politics, angry tweets, and name-calling. I forgot about the polarization of our country and how easy it is to bash one another in a faceless land (social media).

I like it outside where good hearts show up in every direction. I’ve heard of technology fasting and technology diets. I think they are as critical to good health as eating vegetables.

Schizophrenia: The Dog That Constantly Bites My Ankles

19 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by in caregivers, mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized

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The thing about schizophrenia is you have to carry it all the time; you can’t just put it on the shelf and walk away.

 

I have good days, and I have bad days, but I never have a day where I forget I have schizophrenia. Schizophrenia, the reality of it, or even the symptoms are with me almost all of the time. On a regular day, I make choices all day long because of my illness. I make choices about when and what to eat. I have my main meals approximately twelve hours apart. I think about where I am going and what I will do. I say no to many things. I don’t go anywhere early in the morning, not because I am sleeping, but because doing so causes me to have anxiety problems the rest of the day.

There is the planning that goes into managing my illness, but there are also daily symptoms. I usually feel paranoid at least once per day. I have something happen to my vision that frightens me at least several times a day. (This is an odd symptom. I will see flashes out of the corner of my eye and then I will become frightened that I am becoming psychotic, or I will see shadows, or dots, or anything I can’t identify.)  I am frequently anxious, and when that gets bad, I have to take more medication. It goes on and on.

I never get to relax like when we are walking on the beach and daydream about owning a big piece of property or owning a boat. Schizophrenia is my constant companion – thoughts of it, the reality that I have it and am dealing with it almost never goes away.

I have moments or minutes of relief. There are times when my husband makes me laugh really hard, and for that brief time, the laughter squeezes everything else out. There are times when I am reading or watching a movie, and I will be unaware, at least for a short time, of the shadow of schizophrenia that lives within me.

I don’t know if there is any other illness that is as hard to shut off or shut down or block out. If all chronic illness comes with a weight that the person always carries that weight must be fought off, or thrown off, in any way possible to let in the sunshine, the lightness, the joy of being alive.

As I move into the New Year, I am going to try to discover things that give me a break, even if only a short one from the heaviness of having schizophrenia. Even though I don’t carry the burden alone; I get so tired of centering my life and thoughts around schizophrenia.

In 2018 I would like a little more freedom to dream and to roam unencumbered by an illness that gets in and never lets go.

 

 

 

Musing About Life with Schizophrenia on World Mental Health Day

10 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by in mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized

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Many people with schizophrenia claim they are in recovery. I don’t know what recovery means because my illness can be gone for a few minutes, a few hours, but never a whole day.

Schizophrenia is like a body part. For example a finger, you aren’t always aware of its existence until it aches and then you are hyper-aware that it is a part of you and that something is wrong with it.

I could spend all day trying to come up with sentences, similes or metaphors for what it is like to live with schizophrenia, but in the end, you would simply get a flash of it, a small sense of it, a bit of understanding. That is why I have over four hundred essays on this blog, and I am still able to write about things relating to schizophrenia and mental illness. Although it isn’t all of me, schizophrenia is a large part of my experience and how I approach, interact, and exist in the world.

I frequently say, all the things that define me are many, wife, sister, daughter, friend, etc. but the whole truth is that schizophrenia belongs in there, too. Because as much as I am all of those things, schizophrenia clouds, and impacts each one of them. I am a sister a certain way because of my illness. I am a friend who cancels many dates because of my illness. My husband lives with symptoms I have every day. He talks to me when I am paranoid. He tries to calm me when I am overwhelmed by anxiety. He helps me monitor my medications, and he attends my doctor’s appointments with me.

I had my first psychotic episode at approximately twenty-eight. I remember what I was like, what life was like before schizophrenia. I find that truth to be surreal – something that is so much a part of my everyday existence, so much of how I see the world is not always how it was for me. I was a different woman before I became ill. I understand parent’s grief when their successful, athletic, happy, academically gifted (or whatever else) child all of a sudden turns into a different person. I understand their grief and their panic. In the first few months after their child is first diagnosed it may seem like that child will never take a shower again, or meet friends for coffee, or read a book.

The good news is there are many excellent medications out there, and if someone can keep from having episodes, they may be able to function at the level they did before the illness. I know during most of my thirties I worked a full-time job, volunteered on boards, had a wide network of friends, took classes, traveled, and was married. I lived a full life. Unfortunately, my doctor took me off medication, and the results were disastrous. I was psychotic for over six months, and I never regained that high level of functioning. It is unclear if that long period of psychosis is what “damaged” my brain or if it is just the progression of the illness. The symptoms of schizophrenia change as people get older, so it is possible my illness is different in my fifties than it was in my thirties. I’ll never know the answers; I can only speculate.

Even though I never live a day without being aware that I have schizophrenia, and one symptom or another is almost always my constant companion, it isn’t as if my life is less valuable or less meaningful. I often think mothers and fathers have built-in meaning in their lives, but for those of us who are not parents, we must sometimes search for meaning. For me, my life’s meaning has changed with each decade.

I am currently working on increasing my writing and advocacy about life with schizophrenia, or a severe mental illness. The more voices like mine that get out there that people can relate to, the more humanized the severely mentally ill will become. If only five people read this blog (and other work I have coming) and those five people change the way they feel about schizophrenia or feel like they have a different understanding of people with the illness, then that is five more people who can tell five more people, and on and on and on.

I think that is how the world gets changed, and although I’m not suffering from feelings of grandeur, I do think I am doing my small part to change the perception of a feared, stereotyped, and misunderstood illness. I would say that everything happens for a reason, but truthfully, I don’t believe that at all. I believe we do the best with what life gives us, and life gave me schizophrenia, so I do the best I can living every day with that.

 

 

 

 

What is Schizophrenia and What is not

05 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by in mental illness, relationships, schizophrenia, Uncategorized

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It’s Monday. I spent a busy weekend with my husband and had relatively few symptoms. In fact, other than some fear/paranoia, about the use of an ATM I was symptom-free. Because I had so few symptoms, I wondered, not for the first time, what part of me is my illness and what part of me is my character or personality?

In times when I am not psychotic or having a panic attack, I think what people see from me mostly is my personality and not my illness (even though they may think everything is my illness). Several things happened this weekend that made me think, even without schizophrenia, I am an imperfect person.

My husband and I went to a festive open house on Friday night. There were many galleries open, and people were ice skating to holiday music. A three-story Christmas tree lit up the courtyard, and we were in search of pumpkin pie. I love pumpkin pie and I didn’t have any for Thanksgiving, so I wanted to make sure I had a piece before it disappears from menus. I was walking around the corner of a sidewalk, and six young men came in the opposite direction, one of the men slammed into me with half of his body. I yelled, “OWWWWWW!” He didn’t stop. He didn’t look back. He didn’t say excuse me, or that he was sorry.” In my anger, I yelled, “F****er!” Immediately after I yelled it, I regretted it, not because I was worried about his feelings but because I was worried that the six young men might decide to start a fight with my husband. Obviously, there are times, when my anger gets the best of me, and I don’t have the best judgment. This incident is an example of my personality and not my schizophrenia, and I find it to be something I should work on.

On Saturday night my husband and I went to a holiday celebration that attracts over 350,000 people over two days. It was extremely crowded. There were times when people would stop in the path of where others were walking, and I would get frustrated. During one such time, I said quite loudly, “Seriously?” And a woman looked back at me with such a hateful look. When I got past the people stopped, I saw a person in a wheelchair. I felt terrible because it must be so difficult to want to attend a holiday function that is not easily accessible for the disabled. Also, I never want a person in a wheelchair to feel like they are a burden in any way. I felt bad about my impatience. This incident is again part of my personality and not my illness.

There were other things that happened over the weekend that I felt good about and they too have to do with my personality and not my illness. I let a young mother go in front of me in a long line in the restroom so her little girl wouldn’t have to wait any longer. I offered to share our table in a very busy outdoor beer garden with a couple that I saw walking toward the table at the same time we were, but I managed to get there first. The couple did share our table, and we had a nice conversation. We also told a group of young women we were leaving in advance so they could secure the table and not have to stand around.

I once read that in a relationship if you criticize your partner you need to say one thousand nice things to them to erase the impact of the harm you caused. I wonder if the same is true in the world: if we act negatively, hostile, impatiently or rudely to another person do we have to do one thousand nice things to set the world right again? I think maybe we do.

After this weekend’s events, I am going to be working on completing one thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven random acts of kindness to put the world right again, and it all has to do with my personality and not my illness. My illness isn’t to blame for everything; I am responsible for so much of what I think, say and do just like you.

The Real and Unreal: Struggles With Schizophrenia

08 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized, writing

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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.

Realizing Your Value

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

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

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I am grateful for my friends and the other people in my life. I think I am particularly grateful because I have schizophrenia. I have some internalized stigma (I’m working on it), and that causes me to feel overly grateful that people want to be a part of my life.

When I look at who I am as a person, and who the people in my life are, I realize they are lucky to have me in their lives, too. Just as all the people in my life have to overlook some of my symptoms, or deal with them, I have to overlook their quirks, habits, flaws and love them as they are. None of the people in my life are perfect. I have some friends who lean toward the negative. I have some friends who are terrible listeners. I have some friends with quirks and idiosyncrasies. I have some friends who have big egos, and I have friends on the opposite side who have self-esteem problems.

In other words, I have real people in my life, and I fit into that category, too.  There are no more “things” to deal with regarding a relationship with me than there are with other people.

I think this is important for people who have a mental illness to realize. Those of us with a mental illness have so many things happen over the course of our lives that can shatter our self-esteem and leave us thankful for anyone who sticks around. The extreme case of this is staying in an abusive relationship, and the less extreme is bending over backward for people (lending them money, always doing what they want, picking up the tab for social events, helping them out in any way that presents itself, etc.).

Maybe, everyone with a mental illness should make a list of their positive qualities and then list their symptoms and see how much more they have to offer than the problems that arise from their symptoms.

I want to continue to feel blessed and lucky to have so many amazing people who are a part of my life, but I don’t want to feel that gratitude just because I have schizophrenia. I want to be grateful because friendship and love are always a reason for celebration, not because I am bruised, flawed, imperfect and lucky to have anyone (no matter whom they are) to be around me.

My hope for all people with a mental illness is that they will recognize and begin to celebrate those things that make them unique and wonderful people – those things about us that mental illness doesn’t touch, or enhances in some of us (like empathy, compassion, possibly creativity, etc.). I want us all to know we are valuable and cherished people in other’s lives just like they are of value to ours.

So, we aren’t perfect. No one is so that just makes us human, like all the people in our lives. We all have obstacles to overcome, and that can make us more alike than different. We can share our struggles and help each other along – we can make our relationships equal instead of lopsided. We can admit that we need each other. We can recognize against all odds that we are of value and people benefit from having us in their lives.

There Is More To Success Than Just Managing Symptoms

26 Tuesday Jan 2016

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

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It is common for people to have their first episode of depression, mania, psychosis, etc. in late adolescence up to the time when they are in their early thirties. I think I suffered from depression many times through my teenage years and my twenties, but I didn’t experience psychosis until I was twenty-eight.

What does it mean for people who are going along with life and then suddenly (it probably isn’t sudden, but it feels like it) discover they have a mental illness?

Not only do you have to adapt to the illness, the medications, and the symptoms, but for many of us, we have to mourn our former selves.

I have shared the story of writing poetry in my early twenties and starting to get published and then going on medication that made it impossible to write. I mourned the loss of my budding writing career for over twenty years. There are times when I still mourn for the young woman who was incredibly fashion forward (I can’t be bothered with fashion now). I mourn the loss of the young woman that would hop on a plane, and go cross country to see a friend, or visit a city (I am far too cautious and fearful to do that now). I mourn the loss of the young woman that could do almost any job she tried and did it well. I mourn the loss of the young woman that talked to strangers and never feared the outcome. I mourn the loss of the young woman with an active social life.

As heartbreaking as the interruption in my writing career was, I think the hardest part to handle is the loss of the trust I once had in my mind. Because mental illness rarely occurs in very young children, most of us with a severe mental illness can remember what it was like not to think about the possibility of depression, or mania, or psychosis.

Before I became ill, I charged through life in every direction leaving quite a few regrets in my wake, but the point is, I didn’t fear losing touch with reality. Now, I know that is a possibility, and I don’t charge forward at all – I proceed as if a caution sign was above my head in regards to even the smallest of challenges, opportunities, or desires.

These are all things to consider when dealing with someone who is newly diagnosed. They have to adjust to so much more than you can imagine. It isn’t simple. It isn’t easy to change your life in one day. It can take a long time to recover from a first episode because it isn’t just accepting that you have a mental illness. There is also the grief, loss of trust in one’s mind, relying on medications, side effects, etc. and all of these things can play a part in disrupting the road to recovery.

I feel like I was a shadow of my former self for all those years that I was silent about my illness and the battles my husband and I had to go through. I feel like not talking about my experiences hindered my progress and growth (and I don’t mean telling the whole world, I mean telling a therapist or friends and family).

It has taken me over twenty years to integrate my personal and public life, and I think that has been a blockage in my self-confidence, the recovery of my writing, my self-esteem, and parts of my recovery.

I can’t change the fact that I have symptoms daily. I can work on feeling good about myself, though. I am trying to retrain myself by attending school and writing almost every day. Working toward a career that I think I can manage with or without symptoms- something I can be successful at that increases my self-worth instead of beats against it every day.

Just so you know, there is more to being successful at living with a mental illness than just managing symptoms – that is a huge part, but not the whole story.