Getting to know myself through my illness

DX'd - Other
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For those of you who do not know me, I am a diagnosed schizophrenic who is (finally) at ease with her illness, takes her meds regularly and is doing her best to have a normal life alongside with her partner in business and in life and their 3 months old son. Although the medication comes with a few side effects that burden my life, I finally got to the point where I honestly believe those side effects are smaller than the damage my affliction itself can cause to me and to the rest of my family, so I take every possible measure to make sure my psychotic episodes do not repeat themselves thus debilitating me and my loved ones. I have next to no positive symptoms of SZ (apart from the psychosys) and a few negative ones that justify my diagnose.

My current antipsychotic, amisulpridum (solian) seems too be taking care of the psychosys only, leaving me with only little aid to battle the recurrent lack of ability to speak , avolition, disorganisation of thoughts, lack of interest and ability to focus my attention, sleep issues and the tendency to prefer an imaginary world to the real one. This is why I decided to join this forum and maybe get your imput on what I am trying to do to alleviate these symptoms and enrich the quality of my life.

So, today I was thinking about how my psychosys manifests itself and I got to the conclusion that it does only little affect my personality, what it does in exchange is to exacerbate some of my personality traits and bring them to a level where I can express them. I have been abused in childhood (a very aggressive mother, diagnosed with schizotimic personality but who did not treat her affliction and a brother who raped me several times and used to beat the s**t out of me, no father) and thus I grew up as a docile, timid and very ill child. When my first psychosys took place, my real personality and temperament emerged : everyone found themselves facing a coleric, outspoken, stubborn, smart woman who could manipulate everybody who was not aware what was happening to get to her goals.

Now, you may well say : so what is wrong with that kind of personality? Sounds like a powerful woman, not a sick person. Well, the problem is the goals themselves were delirious or simply absent : I took pleasure in finally expressing my real personality, but I had nothing really in my mind, I was doing it for the heck of it, creating a lot of mixed feelings in the ones around me. A good friend used to say about me: “she used to be a mountain, now she is a mere pile of sand” referring to the fact that my discourse ceased to be structured towards a finality and my actions leaded nowhere.

So, as I said, I was thinking about that now that I"m back to my docile, avolic, aphasic and unattentive state due to not being psychotic. I"m thinking: that over there, the personality I develop during the psychosys is what I do best. I really am this stubborn, smart, aggressive, resourceful and daring woman. All I need to do is to make sure that I don"t get into a manic state that will take control of my natural qualities (therefore take my friggin" meds) and also find means to constantly copy, in my lucid state, the behaviour I have in my delirious one, but with clear goals , with good measure (not to do things for the heck of it, but only if their purpose is clear in my head ) and with respect for the ones I love.

In conclusion to this long, self-centered post which I thank you for reading: I"m taking a pen and paper, making a plan for today and I promise to all of you who have read this that I"ll update this thread with what I got at the end of the day as a result of this moment of epiphany.

Thank you for being here for me :sunny:

Love,

Zupa

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Zupa… Nice to see you back. Beyond your SZ (because your not letting it define you) I see you as a strong woman anyway for the ability to over come your childhood and open your self to love. You have a partner and a son. You were able to overcome that past pain and trust someone to that level… No easy task in anyone’s life.

I like how your able to take some of your symptoms and make them work for you instead of against you. That right there is a hard thing to do. Good work doing it.

I go through these quiet often. It really hard for me to get a plan and stick to a plan, even a small plan. I have a lot of help in that area. It easy to want to let go of this reality and retreat into my other one, and I still do that, but only for a short while. Again, I have someone to help me out of my head if I start getting too deep. I admit my interest in stuff is purely on an academic level. I love reading about stuff, but I won’t really act on it. I feel like I’m doing better then I ever have. But beyond the right combo of meds and therapy, I have a lot of help doing it.

I look forward to your next post.

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I know it’s not the same but on some levels it is. After I came through my addiction and went into rehab I learned a lot about myself. I’m still learning. There were qualities about me that came out during my addiction that I was to passive and insecure to allow to come out before that. After coming clean I struggled with not wanting to lose those qualities. On some levels I still miss that freedom of allowing the more dominant side of personality to take over and not having to worry about other peoples feelings. I know what I’m capable of and sometimes it’s not always good but now that I’m more aware of who I am I can work at finding a balance that allows me to be me without being manipulative, that allows me to stand up for myself in a good way.

There is nothing self-centered about your post. There is nothing self-centered about knowing who you are, good and bad. There is nothing wrong with being stubborn, smart, aggressive and resourceful when those qualities are being motivated with love.

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I stuck to my plan, but apparently I had miscalculated the time I was meant to spend on each activity, so I ran short of time precisely on the activity that scared me most.
I won"t let myself be brought down by that, I did fulfill most of my list, so now all I have to do is make sure I have a realistic plan before I start working on it. Only experience will help me with that.

So, keep your fingers crossed, next week I"ll test this theory to see if, at the end of the week, I"ll be able to elaborate a correct plan, follow it, and attain my most important goals.

Thank you for the warm welcome back note. I really appreciate that you noticed my absence and my comeback, @SurprisedJ :smile: