Do you ever "feel" disabled?

[vladyslavbond]

I do feel disabled. My disability is just a fact of life at this point. However, I am not ashamed or afraid. Rather, I am severely inconvenienced. I feel injured and crippled. To me it’s a challenge that I failed to overcome, and only have a small chance to fix before I end up on the streets.

It’s strange to me that you stress over the mere notion of being disabled.

Next paragraphs are just me venting about the specifics of my condition and are largely irrelevant for the conversation. Feel free to ignore them.

I was a programmer. This job requires high concentration, constant learning, and firm grasp of algorithms and mathematics. Those are precisely the characteristics that schizophrenia took from me. I am easily distracted, forgetful, emotionally unstable, not to mention delusional and experience hallucinations.

I waste hours to pace around the apartment just boiling delusions in my mind. I often lose items. When I go outside to buy food or bring water, I repeatedly return back halfway to check if I locked the front door, up to five times.

In terms of potential for learning I believe myself to be slightly above average. However that doesn’t matter much when I am just absolutely unable to focus on even reading a single book. I have to re-read a paragraph up to ten times just to understand what it says and how it connects to the rest of the text.

I am unemployed since 2016. I also dropped out of the university at last year and remain in a massive debt because of it. I have no control over my life, and I barely understand why that is.

Originally I considered “the voices” and “visions” to be minor inconveniences. During psychosis I even thought that they gave me important and valuable insight. However, I am in my early thirties now, and still can’t get a hold of my life, regardless of what I tried.

Being disabled is just a fact at this point, not a matter of feelings.

[lekkerhondje]

i feel disabled for sure… can’t go outside, can’t work…

[Ninjastar]

I go back and forth. It can be empowering, but also frustrating. When I am doing well, I get loads of praise, I am called an inspiration, etc. When I am not doing well, people tell me how disappointed they are, people stop wanting to talk to me, I stop getting invited places. I am acutely aware of the fact that I have access to a certain type of life only so long as my functioning level stays above a certain threshold. That would be fine if it was about things like luxury items, stuff nobody needs but everybody enjoys. But it also includes things like friendship, respect, autonomy, access to resources that I really don’t need when I’m well but desperately need when I am sick, etc.

Recently, I had a huge backslide in my physical health because insurance wouldn’t cover the treatment for an injury. My pain got really bad, and I ended up spending more time in bed but less time sleeping because the pain was too much. I became grouchier, more pessimistic, less fun to be around. I stopped getting invited to places because I couldn’t physically do the things other people were doing. When I wanted to talk about it, people didn’t want to talk because I had become a one note record just ■■■■■■■■ about my pain. In the beginning, I tried my hardest to do things independently, and got embarrassed and frustrated to ask for help. But because humans adapt, I became less embarrassed, and more used to asking for help. Which progressed to expecting help, and no longer even trying to do it myself. Which made me very demanding and frustrating to be around, and probably contributed to my condition worsening.

As I have started to recover, thanks to new insurance and finally getting treatment for my injury, I’ve been looking at the world a lot differently. When I had my psychotic breakdowns I went through a similar experience, but I interpreted it differently. I think because it felt like the recovery from that was a lot more under my own power. So I felt like my isolation was a result of bad behavior, and my re-acceptance was a result of improving my behavior. But in this instance, no amount of behavior could change the fact that I needed surgery and was unable to get surgery. I may have been able to do more than I was, or try harder to push myself, but it would have likely led to burnout.

I’m still processing the experience right now, and haven’t really come to any conclusions. But I definitely live in two separate worlds. One for when I am healthy, and one for when I am sick. And that seems really unfair.

[TheFountainPen]

I am allergic to fair weather friends. That’s one of the reasons I only have a couple true friends.

[LilyoftheValley]

I’m sorry @Ninjastar . It’s so hard when you’re suffering and can’t have support unless you actually don’t need support. It’s really too hurtful. I hope you find healthy ways to cope. All I know is that having 2 separate lives based on something out of your control is truly awful

[HQuinn]

Yes, I often feel disabled in social and work situations. Work, I struggle to concentrate and sit still and also filter through background noise, and I should probably start asking for accommodations.
Socially, I do not feel like I can read people’s expressions, moods accurately. I also still have anxiety about mind reading and other paranoid delusion stuff when interacting with people that hinders me.

I had to do some day long program through my county to get access to free abilify back in the mid-2000’s where it was group therapy, coping skills class, on and on. It focused a lot on social re-integration. For context, a lot of us were schizophrenics in a revolving door who couldn’t help laughing to ourselves out of nowhere. It did help, but relearning made me see how different I am from non-schizophrenic brains. In that sense, and the fact that it makes my life harder, I think I am disabled.

That being said, I think the experiences of living with schizophrenia builds something inside of us that the rest of the world doesn’t get. Something that makes us withstand things that others could not.

[Zoe]

I do feel disabled. Especially when I compare myself to my sister.

But things just take longer

[Aziz]

Sometimes I feel disabled but in reality I am always disabled. Trying to find better meds.

[Blossom]

Do you ever “feel” disabled?

Yes, every day. Both mentally and physically. I have several disabilities.

[matthewj]

I have memory issues big time and i cant concentrate to save my life. I guess thats disabled. Also i cannot multi task i can only do one thing at a time. But im upbeat and fairly happy regardless

[Ninjastar]

Thanks @LilyoftheValley. It is a lot easier now, but I am starting to learn that my periods of recovery will be interrupted from time to time. I can’t get so shocked and upset every time it happens, because it will continue to happen. Just gotta focus on making sure it doesn’t stay permanent each time.

[crazydiamond444]

Sometimes. I start work at a food service job this weekend and am taking two classes in community college, but i definitely feel like I have to work harder in some areas than others. I get distracted easily and get tired when people talk to me for long periods of time. I recently stopped being as delusional, but people will say things that trigger me and instead of focusing on what they’re saying i have to bring myself back to reality instead while they’re talking. I’m still pretty smart, especially for the community college I go to, but I feel like the meds slow me down. I’ve seen what it looks like when i’m not on meds though and it is bad. Even now some problems with cognition, especially verbal cognition. It’s like my brain can’t access the meaning of the words. So yeah, communication skills are definitely lacking. I guess I am disabled but I won’t use it as an excuse to not better myself.

[LilyoftheValley]

You have a very healthy attitude towards your illness. It’s inspirational

[Dove1]

Often I feel disabled but at the same time I feel like I have a definite purpose in this life. I want to write a book, for example.

[Wave]

Yes I feel disabled because I have a mental disability that prevents me from living a complete life.
I now am struggling physically too because of an injured right arm (shoulder)

[Blizzard]

I feel more disabled when my arthritis flares or very little activity makes me winded than I currently do from anything the voices say. When the voices were talking 24/7 it was a different story.

[anon39736208]

Very much so. I have noticeable cognitive difficulties after so many major psychotic episodes (I’m 51) and I feel so conspicuous. I struggle to find the right word in the middle of a thought and then I lose the whole thing, or I get hung up on one word when I’m listening to someone else and my brain literally gets stuck and my brain shuts down and completely stops comprehending. I work retail two days a week and I know some customers must think I’m stupid.

And like I told my mom earlier today, I feel like those little mice who live in the corner of her garden and are afraid to come out in case the resident hawk scoops them up. I’m often visibly paranoid and I don’t like the idea of people crossing my boundaries being seemingly able to read me. I tried working five days a week after 5 years on long term disability and over the past year have gradually cut down to two. I’m hoping two works well, I changed from an abusive to a very inclusive employer.

[Hadeda]

Yes I feel disabled a lot of the time. There’s so much I am struggling to do that normies can do so easily - getting driver’s licence, going to university, working at a job, having family (not that I want kids), brushing teeth every day, cleaning house, socialising… I feel useless. I look after my husband with epilepsy but I can barely cope with that. I find myself sleeping half the day and mooching around the house and half-heartedly cooking basic food and washing dishes in a dirty sink. I got a hold of myself in Dec but now I’ve gone down again and letting things slide.