Cognitive dysfunctions getting really better

I think it’s been about 2-3 years since I started trying to actively “use my brain”.
Before that, I had negative symptoms and not much energy or motivation, so I go to bed at 5 in the morning and get up at 3 in the afternoon, surfing the net all day(or night) doing nothing else.
I wasn’t able to think a simpliest thing, and it was really hard for me to read a book or even a headline on the papers.
But it was a tough feeling that I cannot think anything. I felt stupid. That really hurt.
So about 2-3 years ago, I started trying to actively use my brain.
I did these things: crossword puzzles, watch DVDs that’re easily understood, read headlines or magazines.
At first, I got headaches. Literally. Everytime I try to use my brain.
But, little by little, it’s getting easier to think, and read.
Of course I was fed up with all this training at some point and wanted to stop.
But I kept doing these things. I was persisitant. For 2-3 years.
Then recently, I noticed that my brain’s working just fine.

Now, I read magazines, newspapers, and books.
Probably not as well as ppl without schizophrenia do, but I think I do 80% right.

I DID IT!! :laughing:

I don’t think I hear about cognitive dysfunctions much here on this forum, or maybe because I don’t read every thread, I miss such threads, but how about yours?
Is there any struggle?
Anyone else?

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I have noticed with every setback it gets harder and harder to do the things that I use to be able to do.

I know from myself I have a really hard time reading. I start a book and never finish it. and this is really bizarre for me because I used to stay awake to finish a book. But I can function as a normal person aside from minor setbacks.

I’m glad you could overcome this obstacle.

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I realize how important it is to have as few setbacks as possible.

Thank you.

It’s really hard to read a book for many schizophrenics.

Good to know that now you can function as a normal person. :smile:

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I might give this a go. Thanks @bananatto

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I’m happy for you. For me, my cognitive dysfunction started before I got schizophrenia. I was in college and couldn’t keep up. I thought I was getting dementia because I had memory loss and made careless mistakes that ruined my grades. Then I was hospitalized and took medicine. My intelligence skyrocketed. But that was like 4 years ago. Now, I suffer from lack of motivation to do mathematics or anything challenging. I don’t stay with things. I have a harder time communicating, verbally. My reading ability has declined. My ability to remember things is challenged. I think it partly has to do with medications and partly to do with the illness. I am currently doing brain training exercise with three apps: lumosity, peak, and elevate. I’m hoping after doing these a year, I will be confident again. But to be intellectually where I was 4-5 years ago, I would have to be able to do number theory, mathematical logic, and real analysis.

When it comes to reading, I stick to forums or occasional news items. I want to get to experience actual people instead of ideas all the time. I did enough reading up on “ideas” until this point in my life. I have plenty of my own ideas to keep me busy. :hamburger:

Thank you.
I also did lumosity for a short period.
I hope your abilities will come back.
Do you like mathmatics?
It’s hard to not be able to do what you like, isn’t it.

yes i have problem With this. i cant drive a car cant do a job because of this, it makes me really deppressed and unmotivated, making my question what am i living for. but right now it seems better. i hope it gets better and better.

Yes it is. I used to love mathematics; I was obsessed with it. Now, I don’t really care for it, which I find disturbing. I think it would be more useful to learn programming but it’s so hard for me. I was going to get my BA in math at college, but I dropped out. To go back, I would have to be really confident and be able to perform highly.

That sounds really nice…
I think things would be much easier if I already had a lot of “ideas” in my hread before I got schizophrenia.

Maybe being on two antipsychotics causes me not to care. I don’t know.

It’s really tough to not be able to care about what you love.
I really hope your abilities will come back, cos I now know how wonderful it is to be able to do what you like.
It took me 2-3 years to train, but actully it took me more than 15 years to funtion close to normal.
I almost gave up…

The biggest “idea” that was an improper crutch, though, was the Bible. I had long revered it and spent a lot of time studying it. It helped forge my character, no doubt, but the information in it has grown pointless.

If there is a “Christ” that I need to honor, it will be made known at the appropriate time. Reading about it in a book 2,000+ years after it happened is not an adequate way to reveal a “Christ”, especially not in an age of deep science & empiricism. I’ll believe beyond death, but only if I have to.

I got really depressed too…

I read a book on boundaries for Christians.
It was also usuful for a non-Christian like me.
I never read the Bible, I never grow up believing God exists.
But when I think about that the Bible is the NO.1 bestseller in the world, I think there should be something in it.

I just wanted a purpose connected to God. I was quite the loner and family wasn’t very interactive after the divorce happened when we were all young. I would also behold sunsets & sunrises and look at pictures of other galaxies and just think… “Why all the unnecessary aestheticism? Clearly an artist had to have put this together…”

Yep, that was all that hooked me - the emotionality of nature’s aesthetics and what I deemed to be an unnecessary complexity in the universe. The abundance of beauty makes no sense, from a realist’s perspective.

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I get lots of tip of tongue stuff with the word removed right after I think it up.

Writer’s block is really tough with psychosis but sometimes I get help too…Words just show up.

My problem with improving my mind had to do with such a fierce competitiveness that I felt guilty. I need to settle down and enjoy the activities for their own sake.

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