Hey, so I looked up old posts about this topic but couldn’t find anything that seems to talk about this.
My family doesn’t believe I have mental illness or at least that what think, mostly because my mother constantly tell me to stop talking my meds.
And have this belief ( or a delusion) that I don’t have a mental illness and just gullible and stupid. But I think that a self-esteem issue than anything else.
She needs my help as she getting older and less capable of doing things around the house. ( I don’t live with her). But I might have to start living with to help with everything but I don’t want her to get my head about the medication or (as she done in the past ) flush my medication down toilet.
My other sibling don’t want her to live with them. So , just asking if you guys had similar experiences or have solutions to dealing with people thinking you are faking it.
Honestly sometimes especially my parents say I’m exaggerating or faking. Truthfully I don’t think my mania is real and i agree with them I’m on mood stabilizers and antidepressants make me either feel like I’m intoxicated on drugs or they give me severe anxiety but I still don’t think I have a severe mental illness I think it’s mild
The mother never believed it for years. Until a week after my Dx with schizophrenia i showed her the clinic letter saying “Paranoid Schizophrenia in Relapse”.
The look of shock on her face was priceless. And i know damn well she felt Guilty.
The sister was more understanding cos she is an Enrolled Registered Nurse,
but i do admit to have some sort of satisfaction with mum when she found out like it was “i bloody well told you so i was suffering”.
She was from the 1940’s era anyway - i honestly think she could not comprehend it from the way she was brought up.
I know I’m going a bit off topic but there’s zero evidence I have a “bipolar component” I think I get pretty bad depression tho and my therapist said that he’s seen me “manic” a few times I don’t believe it tho I was just hyper I think
I hear you. The brother says i mention it too much, as if im supposed to be bloody ashamed of being Sz. And mother flat out often called me an attention seeker and a liar. Which was bloody laughable - cos she was in the doctors 3 times a week for minor ailements and i used to call her an ambulance chaser.
You Dead Right Mate. Unless you had the Psychosis and the following fear and paranoia - you honestly have no bloody clue.
Many people that like to judge us - i swear would be crying for their mother if they had voices screaming in their head in bed at 3am in the morning like ive had.
My family are the same, they dont believe i have schizophrenia, they are terrible. Except for my younger brother he believes it because he knows the time i went through a psychotic break.
Its a s----y situation because my family expect me to act normal and i simply cant i have a severe mental illness… which causes problems so i try to avoid them.
Its all very well having a mental illness - but for gods sake dont live by the label. For most people their MI is only a small portion of their life. All ive ever asked is for a bit of understanding. But schizophrenia is not who i am.
Can’t agree with you more. But I tend to Second guess myself when I don’t experience symptoms for while. But then remember what I was like without medication and I don’t want go through that again.