Last week at work a woman was sharing a story of a client who has dementia. She said the woman was making paranoid comments. She said, “that’s like schizophrenia.” Meaning the paranoid comments are like someone with schizophrenia. I said schizophrenia is hearing voices. She repeated what she said. I said I guess they (people with schizophrenia) are paranoid. I said with medication they’re not. Then I told her my grandmother had had dementia and was paranoid too.
People believe the worst about schizophrenia. I’d like to share that I have schizophrenia, but I can’t because everything I say or do would be overshadowed with me being schizophrenic. I’d love to explain to people who know me and know mistakes I’ve made had to do with not being medictated. I didn’t have a diagnosis at the time. Anyway.
I don’t tell anyone at work because I see no benefit to it.
Otherwise I’m pretty open about it. Letting people know early on weeds out the people that are a$$holes and keeps around the people that care about you.
I met several women on bumble and they all know I have schizophrenia, in the last week I’ve gotten three amazing compliments from 3 of them. I now know they don’t care I have it.
You’re perfect
You’re a rarity
You’re unbelievable
But I’ve also had lots of women delete me because of it without even giving me a chance to talk with them.
Sometimes the nurses swore about me behind by back. I know that people usually don’t think I’m that great. But I guess I’m just doing every day things to prove that I can succeed.
People I know well, and also people in my church, know.
With people I newly meet, I always use the word PTSD or irrational fear or so, because it has so much less stigma to it. I feel sz or psychosis makes people think you are not human like them anymore. I had someone who found out through another person, call me a lunatic and thanked me for not chopping him into small pieces when we spent time together. I feel with PTSD they can relate it more to their own experiences, say, going through something bad and then feeling scared. I always try to describe it in such a way. Whereas I feel psychosis makes many people put you into the same category as green aliens from Mars: unrelatable and different.
I think for me… if I know someone well, they have had the opportunity of getting a more well-rounded picture of who I really am first.
If I don’t know them well and say “hi, I am add name, I have sz/psychosis” they will only see that and not my personal good and bad sides ever again.
Likewise, I wouldn’t want to discuss other categories I fall in too quickly either. Like my sexual preference, riches (or lack thereof), physical ills. It’s none of peoples business, unless there is a good reason they need to know.