I had a university degree before I developed definite symptoms of schizophrenia and I come from a family that stressed self-improvement. I found a good medicine fairly early and had help from my parents until I could hold a full time job. I live in a community where education is valued and at that time was useful in finding a good job.
On the other hand at first I was unable to concentrate enough to read and comprehend a single sentence. And I grew up when simple self-help books were all the rage so I started there with something inevitably interesting to me. And because my degree involved a lot of reading I was able to follow up on things I had become interested in back in college.
Oh, Iâm not the old me, either. You wouldnât believe the number of Google Calendar Alerts I have set for personal hygiene. Thatâs okay, it turns out the new me is doing things the old me never would have thought possible.
Remember, having SZ isnât the end of the road, just a fork in the road. Just because you donât wind up where you planned doesnât mean it wonât be a hella great journey.
No. People complain about the side-effects of the medicine impairing their thinking, and they do, but the deficits caused by the illness are far more profound. Amphetamines can help â at least they help me â but if you live in the US, the FDA dictates that the patient have a medical necessity for the medication: work, school, etc. I used to take issue with this. After all, we have it bad enough. Do we have to be dumb because weâre, in some cases, too disabled to work? Now I see that too many patients would abuse the amphetamines, take the whole bottle in ten days and destabilize, then take five days to get back to baseline, then be without them for the rest of the month. Without a job or class to show up for, there isnât the same incentive to make the bottle last the whole month. I view the FDA much as I did the late Kim Jong Il, former dictator of North Korea: draconian and out of touch, but not uninformed. Still, I think they made the right call on this one.
My cognition drastically rebounded after maybe a tear on medication. What helped was decreasing the dose strategically. Now I am back at 100% thank god. For quite a while I had no future.
I have psychotic episodes about once a day. During these periods my cognition goes to crap. It really feels terrible. But when I take my 200mg Seroquel when I feel it coming that always pulls me out of it. Miraculously.
Medication is the only reason I am able to take classes and have a limited social life. Whothout it I am addled by intrusive thoughts, which can be extremely restrictive. I also get really stupid when I am not on medication. It is embarrassing.
Talking therapy without sufficient meds did nothing for me. Many antipsychptics restore dopamine in the prefrontal cortex through an indirect process, improving cognition. Do some research on them, most of them made me feel smarter.
I am afraid of changing my regimen even by a minute. I am so dependent on medication. But donât I seem like a person with average intelligence at least. Based on the way I type?
Indecisive, I think constantly training the brain is really important. There was a time when my ability to follow words from professors was lacking and I dropped out of school. I gradually gained it back through just constantly watching tv shows and anime. I believe that trained my concentration and attention, which allowed me to focus in class to listen to what was being said. To really improve your cognitive abilities, you have to constantly learn and push your brain. I find that the more I read, the faster I get in reading and comprehension. I find video games with a lot of strategic and tactical depth useful for developing problem solving and analytical skills. Ultimately, I think the best way to train your brain is to enroll in post secondary education.
