i feel messed up & very damaged from everything that has gone on. i find it impossible to try & let go of & accept the past more & way everything is.
i’ve tried & done everything i can to heal & recover from everything. i used a lot of drink/drugs in the past & also had a lot of very severe psychosis. First episode was at the age of 17, & i had a very bad experience of being forced sectioned & forced drugs on a locked ward for 4 months - i was very heavily medicated. At the time when i was released, i went into full time work for a few years before another major episode/breakdown, that ended in a severe suicide attempt & another hospitalisation.
Age 25 i was again hospitalised & placed on a very high dose of neuroleptic medication, which i stopped after a year cold turkey & again resulted in another section & hospital stay.
In total i was hospitalised 4 times.
The past 13 years i’ve been following a path of sobriety & exploring everything i can in regards to healing. The first 3 years of sobriety i stopped the medication twice & had a lot of very severe psychosis. For the past 10 years i have maintained a low dose of the neuroleptic medication - i’m too scared of what would would happen if i stopped it again.
i haven’t been able to stop smoking tobacco, & feel very heavily addicted to it. i need to try & exercise more but am very lacking in motivation. My overall functioning has been very effected & i have very low motivation. i’ve not been well enough to work for 13 years, & it’s a job to maintain the stability i have & independent living.
i feel very abused/damaged by the psychiatric system, & i don’t feel they have been much help. i find this society largely very uncaring & not very understanding with it all.
i’ve not had the worst of lives, but things have also been very difficult. Family dynamics have been hard & ‘dysfunctional’.
i suppose it’s a case of plodding on as best as possible.
Yeah i find that if you don’t take medicine you tend to go back to the ward. Just keep your head up. I have been damaged too the same number of years as you. DeAling with being yelled at. Its hard for people who don’t understand mental illness to care. Don’t know why just is.
You could turn your way of thinking,meaning think the opposite side and accept medication BUT find a good combo of medication,have you tried benzo or stimulants?
I find the ‘brave little soldier’ philosophy to be tiresome and ridiculous. I have lived it for all of my life and I realise the utter absurdity of it. Because basically it means I am a stupid tw*t and an idiotic glutton for punishment, rather like the limbless knight in the Holy Grail. Yes, ‘brave little soldier’ is up there (or, perhaps, down there) with ‘there’s always someone worse off than you’.
Sorry @Apotheosis…I am not diagnosed, but my son and I have been down the same road with the mental health system.
I hope it is just today that you`re feeling down. I know it gets old having to fight all the time-but you can rest and take care of yourself. OO **
I think most normal people come out of childhood with their inner child satisfied, carrying a kind of notion of their own inner worth, that as certain spiritual teachers say you are already a Buddha in essence, and all you need to do is realise it. But people will try to damage that inner certainty, will try to make you feel small and unworthy, and it’s up to you to try and protect the spontaneity and natural radiance of the inner child.
It’s not so easy to restore yourself once your inner faith has been damaged. We all acquire a few dents and bludgeons, but really replenishing and restoring requires something a bit extra.
REBT is ( in my interpretation) the precursor to CBT - which is what is taught in 99% of the psychology schools these days. Every city in developed countries have good CBT-oriented psychologists now.
In 30 years the only psychological help, other than some limited occupational therapy when in hospital, from the NHS, has been 10 sessions with a psychologist - i have been refused psychological assistance since then. The last assessment the GP sent me to, the assessor basically said it was all a biological condition, that i knew basic mindfulness, that the therapy they offered was too basic - & that there was nothing they could do for me.
It’s Not an unusual story in the UK with a schizophrenia diagnosis to get incredibly little to no psychological help from the system. That’s why i asked how i access it?
Sorry for your pain. I feel like I’ve lost a lot too over the years, namely a career as an architect. Hang in there. Life does get better if you have the patience for waiting.
Looks like SzAdmin got you up to speed on REBT, though I will add this link to the their website: http://www.rebtnetwork.org/. It’s a very straightforward approach to “critical thinking training.”
SIQR’s only link that I know of is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rajah524. I learned it from the guy who invented it. It’s a mindfulness-based overlay on REBT. Did wonders for my delusional thinking.