Do you feel you missed out on normal milestones?

Lounge
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Yeah. I feel I missed out on a lot. Growing up, I thought I’d have a husband and children one day. As an artist-crafty-type, I would have been great making Halloween costumes, and all those cool artisan cookies that are on the covers of magazines. That never happened. I can’t even afford a cat.

The career failure was the worst though. I’ve always been fairly shy and sensitive, and I went into an occupation (graphic design) that required lots of self-marketing, and an outgoing personality. It was also a huge disadvantage not being bilingual (in English and French).

I think that failing so much at my job—being in and out of work all the time—led to my mind breaking, or maybe my mind was always susceptible (there were small signs of the illness throughout childhood), and the schizophrenia would have been triggered by something else. Then, several bad things happened at once too, causing the condition to get much worse.

I looked for help, and things improved for me a bit, once I was on meds, but I never regained full health, because drugs have side-effects. I ended up with diabetes. There were also other kinds of new problems like ableism, and friends abandoning on me.

But there’s a silver lining in every cloud. I think I might have been spared a lot of pain too. There’s a lot that can go wrong in family life. Imagine if your child went missing…

Sorry this is getting long… I will stop now. :smiley:

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I liked some posts here, but then I wondered: Is it wrong to like unhappy posts, or does it show support for other people? :thinking:

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Sometimes I use a like as an approval of the message and sometimes I just use it as an acknowledgement that I read it. So, I’m not sure there is a proper protocol. I think everyone uses them differently.

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The only thing I could think of being was a librarian ,purely because I read a lot then. A disastrous week doing voluntary work with the hospital library service,a few months after my first hospitalisation, shattered that completely.

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25

I do the same thing.

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I’m sorry to hear it went badly for you. Life is rough…

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I felt supported when you liked my post, like you understood how I felt or at least related to what I was saying.

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Sure, but not because of sz. I didn’t get sz until age 30. I missed many of those milestones simply because girls weren’t attracted to me.

29

Oh, good. I was worried I wasn’t acting appropriately on here…

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30

I did all of it and more but it wasn’t very romantic.

31

I wish I had gotten a degree or at least a certification, and therefore had a cool job that paid decently.

I was in the middle of schooling to become certified in Medical Billing & Coding, in 2018 & 2019. But I had to drop out, after my psychotic-manic break. I was hospitalized in July, 2019. I’ve never fully recovered to where I was before the hospitalization. My cognitive functioning is poor, now, worse than ever.

I don’t work now, because of SzA (and fibromyalgia, too). I have some other medical issues besides those, but they aren’t as limiting.

I just wish I was successful and not so disabled as I am. I’m not even 30, yet. I feel like a failure, sometimes. I’m not who I thought I would be.

I guess I’m OK with who I am. I mean, I don’t wallow in sadness about my situation, unless I’m in a severe depressive episode. I just try to be happy with what I do have. I’m happy to have my husband, my pets, my home, my car. I’m happy to have medical devices and medications.

I guess I kinda rambled a bit. Sorry. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

32

Oh, I just gotta say. My husband and I always planned to adopt a child, from day 1 of engagement. We were set on it. We were excited about it.

I’ve mentioned it many times on this forum, even. But I recently realized I am not able to care for and raise a child. I was hoping that I would improve enough, one day, that we could adopt. But I don’t think that day will come, now.

It’s upsetting… I thought I would be a mom, someday.

I guess I’ll just be a mama of dogs, cats, snakes, future hamsters, maybe other future rodent animals. I’m an animal mom.

I guess that’s OK. Life doesn’t always go as planned.

33

I don’t feel I missed out on much preschizophrenia. The high school experience is overrated I think. Never went to prom. Had fun in college but I feel after schizophrenia I’ve missed out on somethings. Never finished college. That’s one thing I sometimes would like to try and finish.

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34

Thank you. Anything involving interacting with people or even average levels of dexterity/manual skills/practical skills is a poor thing for me.

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35

Before schizophrenia, I missed out on graduating from HS, because I dropped out in tenth; so, I also missed out on going to prom, and having a graduating class - so, no reunions.

(But, I was so isolated, even then, that I would probably not really have many people that I would look forward to seeing, at a reunion.)

I became weirdly anxious in tenth, and missed a lot of school. It wasn’t tied to any event, so it seems very strange to me, now. I have, since psychosis, wondered about the occult, a bit. Was something done to me, that led to this senseless anxiety? At times, I have wondered if it was someone else’s, tied to something that had happened to them, but I don’t know who, or what, or why.

Also, since psychosis, I have wondered if my sister is a spiteful sociopath who wanted me to never finish HS, and if she had hoped for that, since middle school. It is hard to recall, now, but I think she was the one who suggested that I drop out, and get a GED, which I did do.

(She also suggested that mom get a Swedish car, which she did, during that time; mom also seems altered, now, so I have wondered if she also has schizophrenia, but hides it from me. Before that, mom got Japanese cars, mostly. I focused a lot on cars, in psychosis.)

I find my sister disturbing, now, and do not like her.

My first boyfriend, I was forced to realize, in psychosis, had been false toward me, from the beginning. This took me months to process, and does not really make me want to date, even though the relationship only lasted two months. I wish someone had told me, or that he hadn’t asked me out, at all.

I spent most of my pre-schizophrenia adult years, in the house, a shut-in. I feel like I missed most of my twenties, sometimes; I became schizophrenic, at twenty-seven.

I still haven’t learned to drive. I take the bus, but I don’t like the company that runs the bus, and think that they play mind games with me, and probably others, too.

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