How do you network with them?
Whether or not you are sz only you and your doctor can say. For me being diagnosed is a bit of a comfort. I had some symptoms, not as bad as yours, and I was also suicidally depressed. I was suicidal from the first grade onto the ninth grade. I got a break when I went off to boarding school but when I came back it all started back up again for a few more years. For me a diagnosis helps me file everything. I might get paranoid my fiancee is cheating. I get that sometimes, sometimes more strongly than others. Weāve been together for seven years and intellectually I know itās a delusion (and a common one too) but itās very persuasive sometimes.
I see that pop up in my head and itās like the check engine light on a car. It might just be the car is getting fussy or I might have dinged or broken something in there. Either way I putter into my doctor and get it sorted out. My delusions that he cheats, my feelings that some events are fortuitous or have a good omen and will therefore have a good outcome (sometimes I try to stay away from events because I feel like they are unlucky. I religiously knock on wood whenever I say something that might jinx me), the music I hear sometimes when I lay my head down on my pillow that wonāt let me sleep, with the diagnosis all of it fits into one little file folder. Instead of tons of little problems I have just one bigger problem.
It works the same way with my bipolar. Iām getting suicidal, nothing is ever right, (Iām leaving out the manic part because so far Iāve only ever been hypo manic), etc. Thatās a different problem and itās distinct from the sz.So Iām sza (schizoaffective with bipolar), thatās the box. Iām sz and bipolar, those are the file folders in the box. And finally, I will get delusions when my meds are going bad, I get really upset over absolutely nothing, I get angry a lot, these are the little files with the anger at my parents for not realizing that their child had been suicidal for eight years is the writing in the no one cares about me file of the bi polar file folder of the sza box in my head.
I sometimes think they care and I sometimes think they donāt but I know that I do have people in my life that love me like C (my fiancee) and my extended family so thatās the bipolar giving me some gruff and now that I know whoās talking back to me I can pop open that file and get to work on it instead of wasting time with my countless other problems like the fact that I will go out of my way for the sensations on one side of my body to be the same as the sensations on the other side of my body. Thatās a completely different problem and needs to be handled a completely different way.
You wouldnāt realize it looking at my room but I like things tidy.
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