I wanted to joing the military, basically few days before i went nuts. It was a longtime dream of mine to serve by the gun.
Anyone had a similar dreams just before the breakdown?
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I wanted to have a career as a chef, but that was done in by my back injury which happened just before the onset of my SZ. I walked away from a high-end career in IT because of having SZ, but I was never in love with it other than the wages. I’d love to be able to pay my bills as a photographer, but that would require a healthier economy. The print sales of every photographer I know cratered back in 2007 - most of us sold to the U.S., which continues to deteriorate financially.
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No wonder 
Im just kidding. I have a few passions and im following all. You will discover new ones if you try a bunch of stuff.
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i fkd it all up 
basically
idk if it was a dream or just something to do bc my dad was doing it, but i tried my best until the illness wore me down and i was hospitalised
one of my dreams was as a vet tech, but I got told by some one I was too stupid. So then I started going to school at ITT Tech, wanted to become a computer electrical engineer. But I got sick so I couldn’t do that either.
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I wanted to be in the army too, but had to drop out of training with the army reserves due to a knee injury!
I was at Uni at the time and had a bad experience with my housemate that eventually made me ill after I moved away from him and his friends.
Being schizophrenic has shattered some of my dreams, but has created some new unexpected ones!
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Meh I wanted to be a writer but didn’t realize how hard that is…that said I’ve written a book. And it’s good! But I need to write another few so I can get more notoriety…
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I served four years, but I didn’t turn Sza until quite a few years after I got out.
I was working on a graphic design degree. But things just got nuts during my degree program.
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I qualified as a natural therapist straight after high school. I specialised in chinese acupressure and reflexology.
I worked in a clinic in town at the same time as running my own business.
My goal was to work in a day spa. I reached that goal working in a Sheraton (up market hotel chain) day spa up the coast.
I worked all three jobs at the same time until my wrists gave out.
I still have dreams. I would like to study to be a librarian and I might pick it up this year or next. I don’t see how schizophrenia can stop me if I am medicated, seeing my psychiatrist and engaged in work I enjoy.
I can study part time and I do work part time.
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I don’t have a “before”, but I did attend The Academy of Art in San Francisco for almost a year. I barely completed the first semester and missed much of the second semester before dropping out. It was my dream to be an illustrator. That was my major. The noise in my head was unbearable at that time though, and I was frantically self-destructive. I look back with such regret, but I couldn’t manage it and I wasn’t getting help…
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I’m sorry you had to abandon your dream.
Do you think you could go back and pick up where you left off?
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As a freshman in college, I wanted to get my degree in psychology. I went insane instead during my first year. I got an A in psychology which was amusing, as I could recite the symptoms of abnormal psychological illnesses, but not connect that to my abnormal thoughts/behaviors. I was totally lacking of insight. Nearly a decade later, I got my BA and MA from a second university, so the first dream I fulfilled late.
I also wanted to become a rock star/art star/poet star—like all three simultaneously. On the bright side, I can kind of draw expressionistly stuff and write free verse poetry. On the downside, never did accomplish the rockstar/art star/poet star trinity. I wanted to be like a cross between Sylvia Plath, Picasso, and a fierce, sexy rock star. Was not to be!!
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During my junior year in high school I went to visit colleges where I could pursue my dream to become a pilot. That all went downhill when my depression and psychotic symptoms started getting the best of me at the end of the first semester where I had to be hospitalized multiple times. I was homeschooled for a while after and eventually just quit altogether. I don’t even have my GED now.
After that I started taking guitar lessons to take up my free time and started to look at music careers. I started taking classes at a luthier school when I was 18 (a luthier is someone who makes and repairs stringed instruments). So far it’s been the best school I’ve ever been to and I actually enjoy going to the classes. Although the side effects of my meds are really screwing me up learning wise and performance wise. I’m seeing multiple professionals for it to make me more functional with dealing with the side effects though.
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My goal when I was 19 was to get hired on by the State of California. I wanted to be a maintenance man who works mainly on highways or freeways to keep them clean and take care of the landscaping. My dad supported our family by doing this for two years during the depression in the early seventies. It was very hard to find jobs back then and we needed the money so that’s what he did to keep our family living in nice places and keep us wearing nice clothes, and having a nice car. All my jobs I had starting at 17 were minimum wage jobs that paid $2.65 an hour. i was lucky if I could make $400.00 a month. The maintenance job paid a salary of over $1000 a month. That was a fortune to me. But I got sick and i missed out.
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I always wanted to be a pilot. I became one and flew about 4000 hours before I got sick. I can’t pass the medical to fly anymore but I can still fly as a light sport pilot in a light sport plane with only a driver’s license. I want to build my own plane.
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I’m pretty sure my life goal was to be a drug addicted stripper, married to some abusive drug dealer. As crazy as it sounds, and despite the horrible years I went through, schizophrenia saved my life. I never would have realized I was worth something if I didn’t have to fight so hard with invisible people about my worth.
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I always wanted to make it as a Physicist, an Astrophysicist ,indeed… I find Maths easy, I love when imagination, practical thought and reasoning come together and they make sense in the paper.
I finished school with high score in math because one day, bored by the content, I figured a pattern on squares with odd numbers.
I finished High School and it all began when I started college. My life turned very much as Hell.
My first-and only one- Hospitalization lasted four days because I begged my father to take me out.
He did so. And then I couldn’t find a Psychiatrist who would take me because of the Legal matter of having been discharged without consent and so…
And then, I met the most caring, lovely, supportive person ever: my actual Psychiatrist.
She said that, If I take the medication properly, I won’t get hospitalized again. I did so.
I have had some setbacks but it is highly forbidden for me to read Science or Math books of any kind and I can’t work now, even thought having done it in the past for more than 12 hours a day.
And now, even thought having had horrible childhood and teen years, having past through sad adulthood, I can finally say I’m happy after many many years.
Leaving my passion for Science was the hardest I did. I see all the books in my bookshelf and sometimes, I feel sad, but just a little.
I have achieved many goals during this years: I have quite improved my mood a bit, I have designed many different techniques to coping for this condition.
I have achieved A1 in French, A1 in Portuguese and I’m not native speaker; so I have C1 in English. I’m from Argentina.
I have travelled for over 7 countries in Europe last year, and I got to know many many BEAUTIFUL places.
I also did a crash course for computers, Tango lessons, knitting lessons, I draw and paint, I love writing, I make a couple of courses to improve my knowledge in English(I make CV’s, Resume).
And also the years that I spent “out from home”, I did many things in High School, which got me several kinds of knowledge: UN models, working for IT at School made me open-minded, Biology Olimpics, Violin lessons, I even have a Telescope and a Microscope! I did a whole quarter of Pastry…and the Japanese Experience: Ikebana, Bunka Shishu.
What’s the point of all I’m mentioning? Never stop looking, every experience is a new learning
And now…a new passion is burning deep inside me: singing. I sing like ■■■■but It is my daily pleasure. I highly recommend it.
And now I’m thinking on taking up Sewing.
NEVER NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER STOP DOING. Possibilities out there are infinte!
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I wanted to become a CPA and work as an accountant/auditor/finance guy for a major corporation. But then i got fired while i was working for a major accounting firm. I still don’t know whether i got fired from the job because i was psychotic or because i didn’t do the unethical stuff that my supervisor wanted me to do.
oh gosh that’s something I’ve wanted to do, oo000h, think of all those discarded goodies - gratis por mi, plus a fat paycheck to do it too. It’s like Christmas everyday!
Especially here in Northern CA, where most drivers are pigs, tossing anything, anywhere, just my luck.