Before SZ I was a high school dropout and dishwasher. I only worked minimum wage jobs. I never had a relationship with significant others. I had aspirations to be a professional bicycle or motorcycle racer or drummer. I would like to continue to work within the industry with these aspirations also. I had aspirations of marriage and children and owning a house. My functioning really was in decline and I was in depression because I had to stop racing motorcycles due to injuries. I wanted to continue but my parents insurance company was threatening to not cover any more injuries from my racing. I slept until late afternoon and went on to race bicycles until my diagnosis. Then I was eventually put on medication that made me gain 75 pounds. This seriously hampered my bicycle racing but I continue to enjoy it.
Since I was so low functioning before my diagnosis I still am in a situation to surpass my functioning before I was diagnosed.
Does anyone see themselves in positions where they can actually function better then before they were diagnosed?
I wanted to go to medical school. I actually had a scholarship to Johns Hopkins i earned my senior year in high school but i ended up in the state hospital a few months after high school graduation. I went back to school and got my masters in my 30s but it didn’t work out, i couldn’t hold a job. Now I’m unemployed on disability but i volunteer and do mental health advocacy locally.
Yes, I would say I functioned better after being diagnosed. After I got out of high school in 1978 at age 17 I worked a string of low paying, entry level jobs. I had like 15 or 16 jobs and never lasted more than three months at any of them, mostly being paid minimum wage. Those lasted until I was 19 and I got sick and I didn’t work for the next three years.
Nine months after getting out of the hospital, when I was 22, I got hired by a small business and worked there for 4 years. I had gone to college for one day before I got sick but I went back in 1984. Since then I have had another 15 jobs but I held a couple of jobs for four years, one for three years, one for two years and I’ve been at my current job 13 years. I’m looking back on being employed for almost 39 years. I also got my college degree a couple of years ago like a few of you might know.
In my disease, I’ve had friends, traveled, gone to concerts, comedy clubs, too many movies and restaurants to count, parties, barbecues, and over a 1000 AA, CA and NA meetings. I’ve had a lot of fun since I got sick and did a lot more than I thought I ever would.
I went to a decent university, yet had difficulties landing a job relevant to my major after school ended— I was already prodromal leading up to graduation, so surely that didn’t help things.
Nowadays, I am pretty hard on myself for “squandering” my college degree, in a sense:
I haven’t really done too much with it, except for an internship out of school. Plus, it comes from a somewhat prestigious university, which makes me feel even worse about the fact that I’ve had difficulties with my illness and being on disability.
There was a lot of pressure and expectation put on me from family and stuff, so maybe that’s why I feel the way I do .
I heard most people don’t really have jobs related to their degrees lol or atleast a lot of people who get just undergrads. I went to the most prestigious school in the country for philosophy and did pretty well. I dropped out 3rd year because I started to get sz and haven’t done much career wise with it. All my experience is in construction. I don’t mind tho I still use philosophy in my everyday life. I owe my HS teacher big time for getting me interested in it.
I was too anxiously busy trying to square the circle re trying to please my parents by being the first of my family to get to university vs knowing I lacked the necessary independent living skills - to have any solid aspirations.There wasn’t anywhere near the same level of help and support for people like me in 1975, as there is nowadays.
I put myself through college cooking in restaurants and had little time for sleep so I stayed up most of the time either working or studying. hard, really hard…I’m proud I did it but years later when I got sz I lost my career in architecture…I designed over four hundred homes that still get built as we speak so there’s that…but I could have been so much more.
I wanted to study medicine. It never happened. I don’t know what I feel about that. I should be angry but I’m not. I feel a degree of sadness over it but that’s all.
@Schztuna@POET I went to a University two miles from my house. I still think getting a Bachelors degree helps me focus better. I am not as intimidated to do things mentally now. I appreciate success more. I am willing to become responsible for things now.
That must have been nice, going to school so close to home -- must have been convenient for stuff like laundry and home-cooked meals, and of course being near loved ones
All good things! Getting a degree taught me a lot as well-- it taught me to actually put in the work to get a good result. I was used to coasting academically all throughout high school, so college was a big wakeup call for me . You live, you learn!
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-- must have been convenient for stuff like laundry and home-cooked meals, and of course being near loved ones 
. You live, you learn!
I want credit for my genius hahah