My prodamal phase was a long one. It probably started right around the time I turned 17. I mean the first two years were hell but I didn’t really lose much. After I graduated high school at age 17 my life was basically working a string of minimum wage jobs and partying. Then I stopped working and I stopped partying because I lost my friends. Losing my friends had nothing to do with schizophrenia; it just happened.
So the six months before I got diagnosed was laying on the couch in my parents apartment watching TV. Maybe occasionally going for 5 mile walk/run in the hills. My car had got stolen so I was carless. Then I was diagnosed at age 19.
My first psyche ward was like a country club. The last 6 days were hell but man, it was out in the hills and clean and new. Everybody treated me real nice. I went jogging with a counselor and played chess with another. The food was good, I used to go out on the back porch and sit in a chair overlooking the hills. A lot of the other patients were nice to me, I even talked to several girls.
Then I was put in a group home. It was solid hell for a year but again, the counselors all treated me like I was someone special and I made a friend for a few months and I had no responsibilities and all the freedom I wanted. I didn’t have to work I just hung out in the kitchen with everybody or went for walks or went to the bookstore. I even got drunk a few times.
Anyways, before I got ill I was just fuc* ing around doing nothing. Three years after I got schizophrenia I had a job, I had a couple friends, a car, I enrolled in college and I was basically living on my own . It was a step up, I would recommend schizophrenia to anybody.
