I really wish we had more treatment options. Alcoholics have AA, opiaters have NA. wheres the SchizA? Everytime I get to looking at my diagnosis online I find the top three most common, or only, treatment options. Medication, physcotherapy, and just dealing with it your whole life. I find myself reading the same articles and rereading the same websites wishing or hoping simply reading the right set of words will magically cure my ailment. What are some other things all you people use to deal with it? Im already on meds. I already have a therapist. and im tired of just dealing with it I want a cure! I wish I could just āstopā schizo-ing like other people just stop lifting the bottle. Also is it a bad thing that I tend to turn random words into adjectives? I donāt think itās a problem but Iāve had a few people verbally mention the fact that I make up my own words to describe how Im feeling. Im also aware its a hallmark symptom of the schizo, but I find it to be a rather clever use of the English language.
There is a Schizophrenics Anonymous group in the US but there arenāt very many active chapters. The closest one to me is a few hours away.
Iāve been told by my therapist and others in this treatment facility my only options are NAMI and Frontier House. My only concern with them is they are both a wide variety of different ailments and not necessarily just people that share our problems. So far this online forum is the closest thing I have ever found where I can log in everyday and simply talk about things Iāve kept to myself my entire life, only to realize Im not alone and neither are almost every single one of my problems Iāve faced over my entire life spent so far alive. Itās definitely a reassuring feeling. I just wish I could face to face with all you guys. While still excluding the other guys that canāt relate. I canāt open up around people that will simply think Iām crazy. Ive been told im crazy my whole life and frankly Im tired of it. I donāt FEEL crazy. I feel different. Unique even sometimes (less so after a session on this forum) But I definitely cannot relate to a room full of alcoholics complaining that they are thirsty and cannot eat. Im well hydrated I donāt touch the booze and I actually over eat (im not fat I burn those calories)
Your postings are coherent. I find them readable. Donāt worry about your neologisms. Theyāre a common symptom of schizophrenia. I like your characterization of yourself as unique, but less so after a session on this forum. Look at lowselfhelpsystems.org for an alternate treatment. This is Recovery International, a form of CBT. Look for a meeting in your area and try one or two meetings on for size. Iāve taken to looking around on the Internet for different research results on SZ and then posting some of them on my Facebook timeline. Maybe it will affect some of the normals on Facebook. You know, Iām coming out of the closet. I get sympathetic comments from people who have similar problems.
I want a cure too! Itās so unfair that nobody wants to talk about this issue in mainstream media. I want to see something just like the Black Civil Rights Movement (and Iām African American, check my selfie page :)), the Womenās Movement, the LGBT Movement, there needs to be a movement on mental illness to shed light on it.
@mellowyellow Did you look into NAMI?
J.
Some of the things I do to lessen the load from shizophrenia include exercise, healing music, prayer and meditation, and OTC supplements.
Jayster
NAMI doesnāt have what the Womenās Rights Movement had with Susan B Anthony and Eleanor Roosevelt; or the Civil Rights Movement had with Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. A movement with a prominent, namable leader and face of the cause. NAMI does do wonderful things though!
I never thought my voices would go away but after 3 years they began to fade. They very rarely come back. My avolition was bad for the past 8-9 months but right now I seem to be getting a break from it.
Really itās a Rollercoaster life it seems just gotta learn to roll
i think that there are far better ways that we could be treated - & there is ample evidence, to my mind, of such approaches. The problem is that almost everyone denies it all - the Government, mental health system, charities, sufferers & public alike. It wonāt all change for the better until there is far more awareness around it all - & that could take hundreds more years - i donāt think itāll happen in our lifetimes.
Personally, part of what i have done is to do a lot of reading & research into all these areas, to find what i feel is the truth of it all. Of course that is at odds with the mainstream system/society - & all it becomes is more polemics. i tire of it all. This World is stupid.
OK , we will get more treatment options when there is good evidence that support them. Iām not a believer in conspiracy theories , I take meds and dont feel like a zombie or feel i canāt make up my own mind on the subject. There is little to no evidence that schizophrenia can be resolved by talk therapy alone. However there is a bunch of evidence that psychotic disorders sit on a spectrum , and we have a few that recover without meds , writing books and preaching to other sufferers , effectively telling them , why canāt the afflicted people be more like the ārecoveredā who did it, without meds.
An interesting interview with Bruce Lipton -
Not sure where your from so will presume USA. Grow is also āFREE!ā but just starting to hit foreign shores. So may not be in your state yet. http://www.growinamerica.org/
Basically itās AA transformed to mental illness. Nothing wrong in emailing them and mention some interest to get the ball rolling. If not in your country or state yet.
I second that. However,
My pdoc told me something a bit different. He said that if I would continue to apply the metacognitive coping techniques that I employed when psychotic, effectively a form of CBT, I could succeed in stopping the hallucinations entirely. When I came to him I had only diminished their salience by it, and dismantled the delusions, but it became a very tiring exercise. So I saw the medication as a kind of shortcut. It sure did work a lot quicker. Maybe he just said it to make me feel good about my efforts.
There is very good evidence that supports comprehensive psychosocial approaches.
Can CBT stop complex hallucinations? As a person with little medical training (short of 1 year prenursing training/general carer qualification) It all depends on the type of hallucination I would say , in my humble opinion.
You donāt have to say what your hallucination is , voices are certainly the most amenable to CBT. Certainly without a doubt Iāll say that.
However complex hallucinations such as visual , somatic & olfactory are a different story all together.
If money is no object, eat a fresh vegetable. Yesterday I went to the Supermarket and bought a lovely little salad cucumber, which I ate when I got home.
J.