I used to be a better tennis player than all my friends. My parents taught me and my sisters how to play when we were 6 or 7 and we got really good. Then in fifth and sixth grade me and my friends got into playing during the summer on the courts near our house and I usually won. We played occasionally all through high school and I was the best.
I was a better chess player than most other kids I knew when I was growing up. My dads taught me how to play when I was 6 and we played hundreds of games. He was really good and I just got really good playing him. I could beat my friends easily, and my cousins. I won first place in a chess tournament for the school district when I was about 8 years old.
When I was in my early thirties I worked unloading trucks at Sears on a 7 man crew. When I started I was just an average worker but when I realized my co workers didn’t know how to work I started excelling and pretty soon I was the best worker on the crew. I worked my ass off for 2 1/2 years, I was the fastest, hardest worker. I loved lifting heavy stuff like TV’s, refrigerators, stoves, water heaters, tool chests, gas grills, lawn mowers, and other stuff. I literally got at least one or more compliments a week on my work from my boss, the salesmen, the customers, loss prevention, or even my co workers begrudgingly would admit I was good.
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You think it’s the meds not the illness?? Or cognitive symptoms. I can’t even remember what happened when I started meds. I just know if I were without them I’d be way more out of my mind which would hinder my creativity. I do remember my creativity at 19 before I had any psychosis. That was the most creative I ever was.
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I was the best at my job when I was a young man before Sz.
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Good for you @77nick77 !!
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I was psychotic for many years way before I ever started on meds and I was writing that whole time.
Now, I’m on meds, I’m not psychotic, and I can’t write a word. You decide.
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Decide yes. For u it seems apparent it’s the meds. But peoples experience definitely do vary. I started meds early on in psychosis. I guess I was very creative at 21. My biggest downfall was a bad month at 23 and 11 months year old. I had two bad drug experiences that month. Worst month of my life. Went into rehab right after and I wasn’t ever the same creatively.
when I was 21 I wrote amazing things. Even years after. I’ve still improved in ways because I mature and get cognition back. But it’s just I’ve changed to a different identity in my writing
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@Jonnybegood, I think we might be witnessing the difference between sza, bipolar type and sz. A sza person might be more creative and productive during a manic psychosis whereas a sz person would be less creatively productive during a sz psychosis.
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Sza bipolar type was always my diagnosis. But you’re right. Im dxd now with ddnos and ptsd and ocd and sad and drug induced psychosis as well as substance abuse. It is different
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I wrote books when I was 24-26 but now I could never write a book again.
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And you attribute that to your illness and not your meds? @Jonnybegood
My last (genius) pdoc told me that my cognitive impairment was due to my sza and not the meds nor alzheimers.
My current pdoc goes along with my suggestions that my difficulties with my piano playing are due to the meds.
So who to believe? I think the answer is that it’s a little bit of both.
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Before sz I knew a lot of ppl. If you mean ppl I knew before and not only now, no I was never the best. I was very good in school but always had a friend beat me, one of them became a brain surgeon and had the best grades in my college history. As for computers I am pretty good but also had a friend who knew better, actually he was the one who taught me about computers, he was my longest lasting best friend until I stopped my meds and I insulted him for telling me I have sz and need meds. He never spoke to me again since then 
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Also I was beaten by some friends and my brothers in having a gf first. I never had a gf until I was 20-21y.o.
Also I wasn’t the most social among my friends.
I would say that since having sz, I am the best at failing in everything 
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I started meds at 23. Wrote books at 24-26. Tbh I can’t write long stuff when I’ve smoked weed any time lately. Maybe if I quit I’d be able to write. Can write poetry on weed. It’s what got me hooked again. At one point I couldn’t make poetry unless I was high. I sacrificed my writing abilities for shorter term poetry. The books I wrote were during sober periods. Or maybe I was drinking occasionally.
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In school I was always best at spelling and English, history, and languages. These days I’d say recognizing music-- I can hear just about anything pre-90’s and know the song and artist. Useless except for striking up conversation with older folks 
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I’m good at recognizing music and artists pre 2000 too. I agree: Useless. Except for impressing people about my age (62).
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I was better than any of my other friends at Olympic target archery. I was also better than most of the other members of my last club. Now, I don’t know. Ranges were mostly closed for the last two years.
I’m proficient enough with a camera that it’s hard to find people who operate at a higher level than I do now. I’m invariably the most advanced member of any local photo group that I join.
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I used to be the best at platforming games XD
I remember playing Super Mario Galaxy at a friends house when I was about 17 and helping him on the bit he was stuck at lol. He wasn’t bad at the game but I completed the bit he was stuck on fairly quickly.
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Does messing things up counts?
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I was a pretty good downhill skier among my former social circle.
Pretty good quad-line kite flyer
Have an eye for photography but for whatever reason I quit that hobby. My former friends even tried to encourage me to go pro.
So I cannot say I was ever the best at anything. I can scoop dog poop like a professional still though.
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I was always admired as “jukebox” in college because I could play any seventies song they requested…makes me still feel good to know so many songs.
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