Sometimes I wonder if the doctors made a mistake on me when I was in the hospital. All those scans and tests they ran. I know deep in my heart I have schizophrenia but sometimes I wonder if I’m just blowing things way out of proportion. Like when I tried to explain that most of what I hear is more so in my head than with my ears someone tried to tell me everyone has that negative little voice in their head…though she hadn’t seen or heard from me when I was in my worst of states.
Like the most recent relapse I had (the strongest one) I believed I had bugs crawling over me. I was working a stressful 7 day work schedule (full 8 hour days) and one little rumor started about someone having crabs and then it blew way out of proportion in my head. I thought I had them, and then when I was at work I’d start feeling sick and well I eventually quit work and worked with my doctor to readjust my medication in take and after two weeks or so I started to calm down and the panic attacks started to subside. Since then it’s all been in my head stuff.
I know what’s real and what’s not and I think that’s the most confusing because if I know it’s not real then why do I still see something? If I know that a delusion or hallucination isn’t real then is it really schizophrenia? It’s not like I can control when something flashes before my eyes, or just off into the corner somewhere. It’s not like I can always control myself from laughing at some of the funny conversations that play out in my head. Then I just feel worse because I did laugh.
I don’t know, it’s just the voices trying to convince me that I’m not really sick and I don’t need my medications. But I still take t hem every night regardless of what they’re telling me. I just wish I could get them to shut up.
the illness is well managed. still it could in and of itself be in remission. it’s not unheard of for cases to clear up, but possibly it’s a breif psychotic disorder. sorry i don’t know the real name.
as for myself, i am nuch like you. however i find its the car you don’t see coming that hits you. if i may make the analogy
I have good and bad days. Today the noise is just noise. It’s like my brain in is in a crowded bar with people talking, eating, and all the other noises associated with being in a bar. Including several TV’s being on different channels…this is more and more common for me, though I do prefer this than when I can actually understand the noise because most of the time its negative. But it makes it hard to be around people or enjoy watching TV/listening to music with lyrics because it’s all so jumbled and I just want quiet. That’s the hardest thing about having Schizophrenia. Unless people can see you actually sick they don’t understand what its like.
There is possibly a genetic reason for people to get “sick” with schizophrenia. It helps to understand the hereditary component or else I have trouble believing it. My mom has more of the schizophrenia than I do, but when her symptoms set in it appeared more like borderline or bipolar.
I know I don’t want people to see me as ill. I tried to self-advocate for a long time and all it seemed to do was confuse people. I’m not faking it when I say I don’t have schizophrenia symptoms. My last psychiatrist wouldn’t believe me.
The weird thing is: my mom has beliefs that aren’t true and she’s persistent about them. I’ve had a couple brief bouts with delusions, but never that chronic or that lasted for over a week I believe. Sometimes it happened that I had a delusion that lasted for 30 minutes or a thought or belief that I had to talk myself out of believing.
Honestly, I believe that people are most able to tackle paranoia and delusions through therapy.
I wonder if either I am just doing really well and have schizophrenia, or if I’m doing well and the symptoms are dependent on my moods/affect. I can’t say for sure. Most of the time I don’t have symptoms unless I’m super super tired or had insomnia, stressed.
The thing that bugs me is the idea of someone telling me what a normal perception of something is. I mean, people can get it confused even in psychiatry.
There’s a difference between an eccentric or uncommon belief and a delusion driven belief. A belief completely based in fiction. And if you’re trained right you can tell the difference. But there is a distinct line to be drawn. People who go through stress can sometimes look like their eccentric beliefs are delusions, but instead are fixated on their beliefs because that’s how they learned to survive or no one taught them otherwise.
If your medication doesn’t treat the symptoms of delusions for schizophrenia, and you’re taught that it’s ok to be “mentally ill” and sick, you become comfortable in your fixated beliefs. Not that I advocate breaking anyone of their beliefs, but sometimes people do need wake up calls. Understanding what it means to become disillusioned with thoughts and beliefs and to genuinely figure out what you believe is important.
That’s why I hate how I’ve been treated because I’m proud of who I am and how far I’ve come.
Eating with confidence requires being fed with confidence. The bugs crawling - maybe you were not touched with confidence so that you don’t think to rub your understimulated self to wake up the confused nerves. People who are not sure of their ideas can’t teach, only spread their doubt and confusion. I hope you find confident friendship to help you out.
I think it’s just because I hate bugs and its one way my voices can intimidate me by making me think this. So am I reading this correctly that having Schizophrenia is not considered “being sick”? I’m not talking about the being sick with throwing up everything you put down your stomach, or having a fever of a 104 or whatever. Being sick meaning that it prevents you from doing normal things like having healthy relationships, or holding a steady job. I do not have either right now. Stress raises my delusional/hallucinated state. It also increases the voices in my head. Jobs create stress, no matter what you do. I had a simple data entry job for 3 years then went into a relapse with my Schizophrenia and had to quit before I did anything that got me fired.
I was up all night having panic attacks then would be exhausted all day because I was expected to put in a full 8 hour day work day and at the time we were working 7 days a week. Naturally my brain went into overdrive and I reached a breaking point. Since then I’ve been on SSI. I attempted to return to another job, a cashier at a local grocery store but they again wanted me working 7 days a week, which I knew I couldn’t handle. I can’t seem to get a hold of a 5 day work week, but even if I did the stress of the job would eventually get to me and cause another relapse…or so I think.
I do consider Schizophrenia an illness. Because even though you’re not “sick” you’re not normal either. Most of the time I think people are born with the disorder, I think mine was intentionally caused because I was born two months premature then when my body first went into hormonal changes (i.e. becoming a teenager) I started showing the signs of it. Then when I got myself to a normal enough state with medications and treatment but had a relapse brought on by too much stress. I also believe it’s chemically enhanced I seem to have the most issues around that time of the month then it quiets down for a week or two before it starts again.
I don’t think it’s an illness or makes you “sick” in most cases. In the same way i do not believe the “Once an alcoholic always an alcoholic” meme. I cringe when i hear someone say they have been sober 10 years and still are an alcoholic. No, they were once a drunk, an alcohol addict, and they quit successfully. now move on with your life and drop the label.
Same with SZ. It CAN cause you to feel sick, but it also has ups and downs. Not only that, much of the SZ problems are that a person doesnt know how to cope with the symptoms. they freak out over visions and voices. but some people can work, raise a family and be successful with visions and voices.
people become overly paranoid till it becomes debilitating, but that also can be overcome by sheer intent, and occasionally facing the fear. Unless its a healthy legitimate fear then go ahead and be paranoid just dont let it control your life.
Even the negative mocking voices can be worked with and successful stopped or quieted.
So in some cases I think people let themselves be sick…not intentionally but because society in general has taught us things like visions and voices are not normal.
SCHIZOPHRENIA IS NOT CURABLE! My mouth dropped open when I read the line “This kind of interaction is a direct consequence of the DSM system, under which Schizophrenia is conceptualized as an incurable disease.” Hell if there is a cure for the damn disease why are we still suffering from it? Now I’m getting mad.
“Ignore the delusional speech and encourage normal speech.” As if. I’d like to slap this author…and I’m not a violent person. Change your behavior…as if it were that easy when you can’t tell what’s really in front of you and what your mind is throwing at you. When I had my last relapse I latterly thought I could feel the bugs (that weren’t there) crawling on me. I could hear them scatter about. Sure some part back in my mind knew it was a hallucination but when you’re mid psychosis you’re not rational. It took my mom hours to calm me down. It took several trips to my doctor and several adjustments of my medications to get them to stop or at least get pushed back far enough in my mind that I know it’s not really there and can ignore it.
I’d be sitting there at work doing what I was paid to do (type) and then I’d see a group of women sitting together talking quietly as we waited for additional work to get built up and I’d think they were looking and whispering about me, simply because they were looking in my direction. I couldn’t talk myself into believing that it was all in my head. I tried. Believe me, I tried. I tried looking away; I tried busying myself…every time they whispered I thought it was about me. How can I function adequately at my job thinking every little whisper in the building is somehow related to me? How can I function adequately at work when I think I feel bugs crawling on me?
Let me just say that the financial benefits is a joke in this country. If I didn’t have my parents to help me out I clearly could not live on what the government thinks I can. If I could work don’t you think I’d rather work then sit on my butt all day watching Dr. Phil and getting more and more aggravated at myself for sitting on my butt all day watching Dr. Phil? Schizophrenia is an illness. I don’t care what this quack is saying but okay let me finish this article. How do you know one has schizophrenia? They get tests taken, lots, and lots of tests. They get diagnosed by professionals. Not just some quack willing to get a slightly depressed individual down on his luck tranquilizers. The exceptional young man scenario my foot…(not the word I really want to use but am editing it for politeness.)
Well you sound like a sweat person when following your web blog site.
Granted I used a sweat female Text to Voice software to do the reading for me, but that should not change things much since you did the writing and all.
You are walking across a common path, looking for a way to a better path, the fair path.
If I find it, I will let you know.
P.S. The site looks fantastic. I wish my site had that kind of appearance but I am too stone broke to afford a better.
Thank you. Well I am a female and I’ve been told I’m a sweet person. I try to put others before me and treat others how I want to be treated…that’s just the way I was raised. Google Blogger is free with a free Google blog. I can’t afford anything real fancy either. I just did some surfing around Blogger for background images and thought the one I picked fit the mood of the blog. Glad you like it.
You’re right sohare181…schizophrenia is not curable. Some of the symptoms are treatable though. I do think therapy helps, but I’m not entirely sure because schizophrenia is so debilitating that it just keeps getting in the way. I am struggling because I don’t know what path I’m on. Schizophrenia is like being lost in a jungle. I haven’t been ill like I had been in awhile, and while I acknowledge that I was very ill or disjointed at times I’m still not convinced it points to this cut and dry depiction the media portrays of an imbalanced person. I’m not sure imbalanced is even the correct term for it. I don’t feel mentally imbalanced. I feel disturbed. Maybe schizophrenia is just a person who is disturbed by the world around them.
ooo, sorry about that. I did not agree with all of it either, just the basic concept that it’s a doctor saying its not an illness. i also thought that part where he says simply ignore things was a bit silly. Plus he also talks about kind of trying to be or act “normal” and gravitate towards 'normal" things.
What is normal? For me and a lot of others who have been spiritual for much of our lives, visions, voices, and synchronicity ARE normal and what would be abnormal would be the absence of them for extended periods of time.
While visions and voices are only occasional with audible voices being very rare, synchronicity happens on a daily basis on numerous levels.
I however disagree that people cannot be “cured.” Or maybe it isnt exactly cured. Just a change in a persons perception of the world leading to their ability to function in it. I’ve known people who have done this, not just me.
I can think of 3 people right off the top of my head who were on meds and got off them…2 had been on SSI, couldnt work and had a hard time with interpersonal relationships. One is working and married now, the other is a homeowner in a very nice neighborhood, and worked at a prestigious college after she got off meds, and of course got off SSI too.
Not saying everyone experiences this, but it CAN happen. Don’t give up hope…these people were held back for years before they broke free. One of the things preventing them from working was meds because of the tiredness aspect. Doctors and even family telling them they were disabled permanently and so they stayed on SSI for years…But they slowly came out of it, broke free and made something of their lives.
I know one at least still has visions & voices at times…
Thanks for the article. I found it very enlightening. I may not agree with him 100%, but it is always nice to hear of alternative approaches. And he was probably a very good therapist.
I’m the same with that article, I don’t agree 100% but its a good alternative approach. there are a few doctors who break free from the mainstream and explore other areas. many who use a holistic approach, which also often includes spiritual values and incorporates belief systems in dealing with both mental and physical health.
Maybe I just took the article to personally, sorry. I’m very sensitive about the fact that I’m on so much medication and not working at the moment. I do all I can to help out around the house, like doing dishes at night for my parents, laundry when they ask me to help them small stuff like that. I give money when I can. Yet I’m worried about appearing to be lazy or a mooch because I don’t pay steady rent and don’t have a job. I do agree you can lower medications though I don’t know of anyone actually being completely taken off the meds, but I personally don’t know anyone else with the disorder. I’ve had past family members that may have had it but they had been long dead before I was born.
There was a time when I held a full time job and was on a very low dosage of the medication. Before that I even went to a 2 year college and graduated at the top 33% of my class. I’ve also returned to school after my relapse but it was an online environment and I could set my own schedule for the classes…and only took one class at a time. But I don’t think I could function if I reduced my medication amount. I still have too many issues. I’m worried because stress is a huge trigger for me and a steady job and living on my own would cause an endless amount of stress for me.
I know people who were on meds…one was on 6 different meds and got off them and was successful afterwards. One got off meds and could get by but couldn’t work, and a couple others got off and worked and did things with their lives. I was there when 3 of them got off the meds, saw the withdrawals with some of them… and would say weaning off over a 2 or 3 week period was best.
Are you able to get disability? Of the 4 people I mentioned 3 were on SSI and one worked while on meds.
I agree with you that it’s an illness, in many cases, and in that form there is a hereditary genetic basis. In our family, oddly, I can point to three men with sz symptoms and three women with diabetes (type 1). There is research in the last two years that indicates that type 1 and sz are just different manifestations of the same autoimmune disease. But I think sz can probably also strike for different reasons. But, unlike with type 1 diabetes, people with sz do MOSTLY get better. Some completely. The brain is plastic. That means it can heal, build new neurons to replace the damaged ones. I think they are, finally, getting closer to understanding the genetics of sz. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a “cure”. But even without a cure, people get better.
