The title is “Who here considers themselves high-functioning? If so, how highly functioning?”
I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia about 7 years ago. I have worked for more than the last 5.5 years straight, with most of that time being covered with full time work, and about 6 months of it being very close to full-time work. In my first episode before the diagnosis, I was arrested and put in a holding cell, due to behavior caused by my admittedly severe psychosis at the time. The prosecutor plea-bargained for 2 years probation because she seemed to believe the truth that I was quite insane. Since then, I had one psychotic episode after my original psychiatrist weaned me off the medication entirely after my first two years (about) of full-time employment. I managed to stay employed and keep working full-time during that episode, although my manager was informed by people that I wasn’t doing my job well for a couple of weeks. I can function well on an extremely low dose of medication, but apparently I have trouble when I’m on no medication at all. I don’t believe that I’ve had any other episodes, other than those 2. I’m currently on 1 mg of Haldol daily,.
In my experience, when someone who was diagnosed with schizophrenia shows that they are ‘high’ functioning like this (for a schizophrenic), the psychiatrists start to back off of the original diagnosis and start saying it was a misdiagnosis: The person must have been something else (something less ‘severe,’ I guess) like schizoaffective, or schizotypal, or something. Schizophrenics supposedly can’t function that well on low doses of medication, I guess. So, my psychiatrist now says she is sure I am not a schizophrenic, and I must be something less severe, like maybe schizoaffective or something, but I’m not sure that she’s made an official re-diagnosis.
Was it a problem with the initial diagnosis, or is there some problem with the term ‘schizophrenia’ and the diagnostic methods or expectations altogether? Am I actually a partially recovered schizophrenic, when schizophrenics aren’t supposed to be able to recover that much? How should I know? I’m just a lowly schizo-whatever type of something.
HOW high-functioning am I? I’m not sure how one determines that objectively. I’ve managed to stay employed in U.S. civilization. Is that the type of functioning you are talking about? Or are there other accomplishments that are expected to be high-functioning? I haven’t won a genius grant like Dr. Saks, or a Nobel prize like Dr. Nash. I think even Dr. Saks has been told she couldn’t possibly be a schizophrenic because she is TOO ‘high-functioning,’ although she seems to disagree.
I do, however, have dreams of accomplishing something big some day; and, maybe it is a delusion, but I don’t see why it would be impossible at my current level of functioning. I also don’t see why I can’t improve my level of functioning with some recent advancements in popularly-available technology, to that end.
So, yeah, I consider myself to be a person who was diagnosed with schizophrenia who is ‘high’ functioning for that diagnosis. I have very little idea how to decide ‘how’ high-functioning I am, though.
Does that answer your question?
AberrantSalienc
P.S. Thanks to everyone for helping me past my relationship dilemma a few days ago, and thanks to Chris for his great post on becoming a contract programmer. I’ve tried to give back to the community for a few days, and based on the likes that I’ve received, I guess I’ve done that a little bit. I’m going to try to wean myself back off of posting for a while though, because posting on these types of forums can become a little addictive for me. I’ll probably be back when I want to trade insights for a while, though. Thanks again!