Whenever I wake up, I get hit by bad memories and it makes me feel bad. Like I’m unable to do anything, with no motivation. I usually respond to this by reaching for comfort food to feel better. However, lots of nice things I used to enjoy have lost their meaning for me, like watching a nice movie, reading a book…etc
One of these bad memories is withdrawing/being dismissed from grad school for having psychosis and feeling that people are out to get me and send me derogatory messages via their talk and email time-stamps. Even with taking the medicine, these misinterpretations didn’t stop, and people didn’t feel pity for me at all. Perhaps cause I didn’t tell them I have schizophrenia? I did shout at some people for believing they are trying to hurt me emotionally and affect my academic performance, and they send me offensive messages via emails’ time-stamps. I endured these delusions (or reality?) for about 16 months until I couldn’t take it anymore, so I shouted at some people from the school, and the school dismissed me for that. Now I’m feeling very demotivated and can’t even go out from home cause I feel bad and have a stigma of a college dropout. I told some close friends that I’m doing a master’s degree and now I don’t know what to tell them. I was doing it for myself after-all and I have my own privacy, but I still feel stigmatized.
So honestly I’m feeling guilty here. Should I be blamed for what happened? or should I blame having the illness? You know I can’t control my anger or anxiety sometimes while having this illness.
Should I never give up and apply for graduate schools again? or should I focus on my health now and stabilizing my condition and mood?
However, please bear in mind, that this issue of getting dismissed from school is a bit traumatic for me and never occurred to me before. It causes me pain on daily basis, whenever I think of it. So perhaps getting back to school is the solution? My mother has been very supportive in this and told me what matters is my health not a degree piece of paper. God bless her cause she makes me feel happy. However, I’m still feeling bad about the situation and not finishing my degree. I did supply the school with medical evidence and a psychiatric report that I have schizophrenia and my medicine history, and that what happened was due to the illness. The school used this evidence against me by saying that this is a “very serious” condition and we’re fearing for others cause I shouted at a couple of people. They didn’t understand that I was under huge stress from studying diligently for the courses and this accentuated my symptoms.
So I would appreciate your opinion regarding my situation. Should I go back to school, or focus on my health for now? My diagnosis is F20 Paranoid Schizophrenia.
Thanks ahead
Stabilizing your condition and mood are likely a pre-requisite for doing well in graduate school. Going back before you’re unstable will likely result in a waste of time, money and your GPA going to sh*t.
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Well this is a life-long condition; I don’t know whether I’ll get cured from it or not. Maybe I’ll be stabilized soon, but maybe if I started school again, I’ll relapse. So the question is whether graduate school is worth doing while having schizophrenia? and who I should blame for what happened?
I think I relapsed about 5 months into this previous course, but I endured for 11 more months. I managed to finish 75% of the course which is something I’m proud of.
The stress of studying does make me prone to delusions and misinterpretations.
Why blame anyone? If you believe in a higher power, which some people refer to as god, you could blame that. You just got unlucky when it came to the genetic lottery.
Do you think that you’ll be able to support yourself in the future? If you’re going to be disabled due to sz and not work, then you might be better off just studying what interests you in your free time instead of spending thousands of dollars for grad school.
But if you plan on working in the future, then grad school might be worth the investment. Just approach it cautiously, otherwise you might make mistakes that come back to haunt you in the future.
Have you considered trying out a free online course from a website such as coursera? If you’re successful taking one of these free courses then perhaps it will be a good indication you’re ready to go back to grad school. And if you’re not successful, no harm done, since it will not hurt your GPA or cost you any money.
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As for how to rid yourself of bad memories? I think your best bet is trying to create new ones that are better and to avoid thinking of the bad ones. Hopefully the bad memories will fade with time and you’ll eventually forget them.
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Well, I believe God is doing good for you whether it appears good or bad to you now. For example, if I continued in this course, I could’ve ended up in an even worse condition than I was already. I was in a worse condition during my studies, and now slowly recovering and recollecting myself. So who knows where’s the good in this decision? But I’m just still feeling the shock of the decision and feeling bad about myself.
I’m making enough money to support myself, but myself only. I don’t have enough to get married and have children for example. I work in a family business, but as mentioned the dismissal decision made me feel bad about myself. So now I’m thinking of making a comeback to graduate school to alleviate this stigma. The only thing is I’m afraid that my illness could worsen again with the stress of studying and what happened before can occur again.
Thank you for your help anyway, Bear.
If the ones reading this have any more opinions or comments, please feel free to chime in.
Is there a way to go back part time? Ease back into it? Transfer to a different school… and use the student’s with disabilities assistance most schools offer and that will get a school to cut you some slack.
Don’t worry about being a “school drop-out” I know as you said it’s painful… but lots of people in the world have to get their degrees done in chunks… due to money… family… health… I imagine your not the only one who had to take a break and reassess and then attempt again.
I don’t think there’s any one to blame. It’s the cards we’re given… and in all hands of life there is some aces and some jokers.
Get your health back of course and see if there are some options when it comes to going back to school… or on-line classes… or part time…
Good luck and I hope you feel better soon.
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Good for you for not getting married. Lots of people just lose their heads when they meet someone and go out and get married regardless of what their situation is. In other words that’s a great decision that not even a lot of ‘normal’ people are able to make effectively.
I would say stabilize first. I’ve been unstable most of my life and it is harder to get through that way. I feel so much better now that I’m out of school but that might be just because the stress is gone. Then again though I was going really well on the geodon until I wasn’t. Like J said, ease in. I would make sure that I was stable enough to get through the courses before I went full on.