Being open or keeping your mouth shut

DX'd - Other
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Some, I’ll say jerk even though the word in my head is much saltier, has been trying to piggyback on my wifi. Theoretically I’d let anyone use it if I didn’t have to worry about people messing with my network or doing something illegal and getting me in trouble. I had to set up a MAC filter just to be sure it was safe.

When stuff like that happens I sometimes feel like walking outside and screaming out at the neighborhood 'I have paranoid schizophrenia! Do you know how much you are messing with my head?!?! I considered changing my SSID to something like that. I didn’t and I don’t think it would even fit. I forget how long an SSID can be.

Some of you live in vastly different places from where I live and are less secure. I live in the United States but I live in a part where having a severely misunderstood mental problem can be difficult if not outright dangerous. I have other attributes which ostracize me too. I don’t look down on the people around me but I don’t understand them very well either. I never have.

Before I was bequeathed with this lovely little gift called schizophrenia, I was a rather open person. I have always been rather sarcastic, almost to the point of being mean (which I’ve been working really hard on) But I have never had trouble talking about most of my feelings. It was the way I was raised.

I don’t go out if I don’t have to but every time I do I’m worried I’ll just blurt something out. I wouldn’t care. I half believe everyone around me hates me anyway. But my mom works in this community and I won’t make her life more difficult than I already have.

The real problem and the question I want to ask everyone is ‘Do you feel by keeping tight lipped about your diagnosis is in some way selling your integrity?’ I know it is just from a movie but one of my favorite quotes is from V For Vendetta where V talks about how integrity is the only thing we really have. I truly believe that and trying to keep the secret makes me mad.

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I used to keep it a secret, I only told people I was about to date, to make sure they didn’t have to face the unknown. Now I am rather open about it, people see me, see I have a normal life, see I’m smiling to them and looking them in the eye, so I’d rather have enough people around me to tell me when I’m not ok than hide my illness.

However, I made sure I moved to a town where people are supportive and opne-minded. In my home town
or in other towns around it all that would’ve been impossible.

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I don’t have to tell anybody, my ex already made sure everybody knew I have a mental illness, even our new neighbors, he got to them first even though he lives clear across town. It’s embarrassing, but too late to do anything about it.

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when l was in Kentucky, I had a neighbor who set their ssid as “fbimobile”.

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@csummers Did he do it out of simple spite or was it some asinine attempt to protect people from you?

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@Zupa That is what I would like to do. I moved away when I was 24 to get away from the people in this area. Again not because I hate them or anything but just because they don’t think the way I do. But when I got sick I had to move back. My Mom has lived here her entire life, her job is here, and it would be basically impossible to get her to move. Also I don’t like snow lol.

I’m glad you found a good place to live.

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I don’t think it’s any reflection of your integrity if you mention or don’t mention you have SZ. My friend chooses not to mention he’s gay - not because he’s ashamed of it, but because he figures…straight people don’t go around mentioning they’re straight all the time so why should he. Mention it if you want and helps you…but it’s no ones business as such.

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No. I believe there is a difference between honesty and candor, in current usage:

I believe that being honest but not candid, is not ‘selling your integrity.’ If you Google the definition of integrity, it mentions honesty, but not candor.

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I think that certain people have to know, with others it is really up to you, but why tell strangers?
If you are dating someone that person should eventually know, especially if the relationship is getting serious - I wouldn’t tell the person on the first date. I also think that most of your doctors should know - after all a family physician needs to know what meds you are on. I do not tell everyone - a few family members know and I plan on telling this Internist I am about to see, my last family doctor knew - Good luck to you

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I do blab it out there… I have a tendency to just say it. But I am mindful now of my area.

@Futomimi you say your in an area where mental illness is not understood and being open could be dangerous… then I would say… follow your inner bell on this one and be cautious.

I live near the UW here in Washington State, very liberal, and there is a psych research facility just 15 minutes up the road. I’m not the only person around who is battling this illness, and a lot of people I mention my illness to have some education about it. (because of the huge school just 15 minutes away.)

I used to NOT understand why people just didn’t come out and say it… but I do realize now that not every where is like my home town. So I’m not in danger mentioning my illness.

My vocational training was through my hospital so my employer does know because I was hired from that program.

But please keep your area in mind… if you might be in danger or face worse stigma… I’d say, be cautious and not being harassed and being safe is more important.

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It was to discredit anything I said as just “psychotic” and therefore not to be taken seriously, a game to isolate and control me.

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I’m open about it, but not to any of my employers. Most of them are uneducated in this area, and would be afraid to work with someone who had the illness. I’ve even heard someone say so about a girl who was bipolar or SA.

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In my life, it’s nobodies business. In my life I can’t think of one good reason why I should tell anybody.
I have said it a million times and I’ll say it again. Why should I tell someone something that they will just use against me?
To me, it would serve no good purpose to tell anyone.

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i have told certain people that i trust that i have had mental illness in my past, just the other day a woman i know was asking about it and she said something about really bad depression and i said it was worse than that so i guess she knows it must have been bad for me, she was really nice tho and said she wasn’t going to ask me what it was which was good bc i wouldn’t tell her anyway, why would you want to tell anybody that, i wouldn’t anyway.

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I don’t tell anyone; even the majority of my family don’t know. My mum knows, and if asked will tell people I’m schiz, it’s part of her mental health stigma pledge, she doesn’t openly say it but will advocate for people with mental illness, particularly trauma and psychosis, because as many of you know psychosis is greatly misunderstood, so mum will spout facts and teach people, she describes herself as a carer, which she is, so if somebody asks her what’s ‘wrong’ with me, she’ll tell them. My dads in denial, never accepted it. The rest of my family don’t really know so I keep quiet.

I don’t tell anyone else, people frown at me when I say I’m unemployed, even though it’s very common at my age. I say I’m a student now, I’ll be full time in September, but when people ask me about everything I do, I find myself lying out of shame. I understand what you mean, I want to shout to the world what I’ve been through, that just getting up in the morning is a huge achievement for me; that I’m alive today is my greatest achievement,I act weird because I’ve barely left my house for years unless I had to, etc. it goes on… But I keep my trap shut, you can only understand if you’ve been there I didn’t even have understanding in hospital, my behaviour was laughed at by the other patients I met one lad in my first two weeks who had psychotic depression and he would make me tea and we’d chat, it was lovely, he understood but the others didn’t. They mocked me etc. but that’s okay, I mean I was a mess.

I know I will tell people any partners I have, close friends etc. My fear would be the moment I tell them, they’ll leave me, it didn’t take much for my friends at school to abandon me. The course I’m starting in september will be 21+ so I’m hoping for more understanding than you would get in teenagers.

Go steady, sorry for the lengthy post,
You’re not alone,
Meg.

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Keep it quiet absolutely. If someone thinks you might be getting a disability check, some of the conservative church members will besiege you out in public ‘preaching’ about working or talking nutty to you. These folks follow orders from the voices like it is God to stalk specific people & verbally harass them, some of the sicker ones will vandalize, trespass, try to date specific people to ruin/harm them, scheme to ruin workers or work for specific customers…You don’t want this STIGMA. This is called gang stalking/cause stalking or thought broadcasting. When it goes on at work, it is called hostile work environment and can take for form of sexual harassment of women especially - this ruins people, especially the newly diagnosed who missed some time from work. Mental care policy is to refuse any assistance with these ‘social’ problems and call it delusional. I highly recommend you not participate in this crap as the people go crazier and get forced into doing worse, but understand that some churches were advocating this behavior of their parishioners so some cities have A HUGE problem with people mistreating strangers in public.

I met someone bragging about hurting people…It’s just too long a story but the group brags about killing a lot of electronic possessions to drive victims into debt to force a sexual relationship or submission for other uses…These folks work in high end IT & the males were raised learning how to break everything and anything by torturing their family members breaking their stuff. Worse went on btw…Well, I had everything in my house quit 5+ times after meeting this bunch and LOTS of intermittent glitches on lots of things including cable modems and routers. I am very glad I learned to switch hard drives and I am handy with my equipment because I do use a computer to work… I eventually gave up that nice living arrangement to get some distance from the wealthy family of nuts who do not need to work & spend a lot of time stalking people & trying to whore poor women who came across them, but anyway…Intermittent glitches can happen to anything…there is a lot that can happen to anything that is not explainable with current explanations yet some schizos get to see intermittent computer malfunctions timed with the voices. (Like digital camera that was not wi-fi capable and had no on-board program to do this taking a picture, cutting it in thirds & switching the pieces around. There is no explanation but there it was for several people to see.) I’ve seen things ruined on the ISP end too after working in this area pre-diagnosis…The only way to survive this mess is only keep the basics & keep your money in the bank. You can be destroyed with your possessions so easily…

So, what would I do in your situation? I WOULD NEVER explain my diagnosis unless you want to be an aggressor as you will have to defend yourself BAD, watch your back BAD and probably submit to a BIG church’s way of handling the voices to even work (within their network of employers…) You will end up psychopathic but probably comfortable with some woman who hates your guts & reminds you sometimes plus children who will not try to work because they got fired too many times for following orders from voices to mistreat customers or steal, then you get the ‘unclaimed’ grandbabies. … This can happen… (Before you call some woman crazy for telling worse stories & worrying more than you men, do understand some of the worst males have women who don’t want any go crazy & sometimes lose their employment…Some women really did get trapped & could not get away from these males so women become fearful after seeing this happening to the others…There are a lot of ex-wives developing psychosis too…More than one wealthy man was bragging this…)
ANYWAY,
Computer issue: I would switch SSDI. You need a router with the button. Put the router in invisible mode, hit button to add all your gadgets & leave router invisible. But, you know there is no such thing as privacy ever or security of your home except while you are home with door locked…

I choose the integrity or choose to deal with consequences for whatever risks I take. I hate to admit this but…it is HORRIFYING to finally understand what integrity means to others – don’t get caught. That is ‘US’ or ‘them’ kind of religion is very alive and well in the United States…If you even set foot in some of the big churches, you may not even have a chance to get away from their problems and will be harassed by these psychotic nuts who thinks God commands them to bother you even if you are working…Some of us just choose ‘being able to sleep at night’ integrity and avoid these others as best we can. This can be VERY difficult to IMPOSSIBLE to avoid the religious crazy folks in cities…while some city’s churches were so crazy, the nuts even ran off & bothered people without attending church either…The church God in some cities was crazier than the street’s God. I can speak from experience, the middle class peoples under 35 are much more of a threat than the poorer folks as these middle classers are almost always on a parent’s money and have NOTHING to lose at any job so they will do anything. The poorer people had SO much more to lose and acted better as they could end up homeless.

Choosing NOT to submit to this HORRIFYING case of group think is hard. It take guts and a lot of determination, all our energy sometimes…

Be aware, I looked at small town recently and they had a ‘bully’ trying to get people to act like gang stalkers there, verbally harassing strangers about something private. This was happening in a church & pastor left some of the parishioners kind of crazy…and sent them out to be okay…I am most interested in TRYING ANOTHER smaller town as I pissing off the big church here & get verbally harassed by name by these nuts about something that happened 5 years ago when they were VERBALLY ATTACKING ME. This church has too many tentacles to stay IMHO.

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only friends and family and everyone on this board really knows I have schizophrenia…I get messages on facebook from people who have read my book, but that doesn’t bother me…