I’m forty-seven now. Things started getting weird on me early in my twenties and I was diagnosed around age twenty-four. I think. Those years are a bit jumbled in my head as I wasn’t doing well. Lots of visits to the hospital. Lots of med changes. Lots of side-effect problems with meds. Lots of depression and suicidal thinking. Long stretches where I was so non-functional I wasn’t even toileting myself properly or attending to personal hygiene.
Making everything worse, I actually had doctors writing me off and telling me my illness was so severe that I would never get that much better. They would be able to use medication to make me more comfortable with all the crap in my head, but I would never be free from it. Also, they told me I would never have a ‘normal’ life where I could have a spouse, kids, education, and employment like everyone else. It left me wanting to just not exist.
Now, in my forties, all the gloom and doom I was feeling and others dumped on me turns out to have been unwarranted. Yeah, I had some bad years until I found some meds that worked for me and got my thinking untwisted. Met a woman, fell in love, have a kid who is about to turn thirteen. I got some education and had one career that I didn’t enjoy so much, currently working on a different career I think I will enjoy a lot more (photography). [Apr 03/16 Edit: Driving a bulk fuel delivery truck to make up for low photography income at present.] I’ve had success with both the old career and the new one.
I won’t shine you on and tell you everything is perfect because it’s not. I have bad days. Sometimes I have bad weeks. I still have to take my meds and I occasionally have problems with symptoms. All that being said, my life has not turned out to be the sh*t sandwich I thought it was going to be. Anything but, actually. Pretty glad to be where I am now and in the company of the people I’m sharing the ride with. Much better than I would have wished for.
That’s my story, and I’m nothing special. If things can turn out all right for me then they can turn out all right for you, too! Don’t give up hope. 
- Note 1: Edited for bad grammar and typos.
- Note 2: Edited to update age to 47. Employment updated to reflect current full-time bulk fuel delivery position. Still doing photography part-time (the economy is soft right now and no one considers portraits ‘essential’.)