@msredhedgal I didn’t take much medication during the first pregnancy, but unfortunately it ended with a psychosis. Now I’m having my second child and I’m on 10mg of Abilify plus bezodiazepines as needed. Now, that seems to be a big dose of antipsychotic, but I am quite tall, so…the dose is adjusted to my coporal mass. It’s very scary, but I hope my son will be ok. I’ve read someone’s post who said she called the manufacturer of Abilfy to inquire about safety during pregnancy and they said there is not enough data available, but out of 7 pregnancies, 6 were ok. That is a good percent, I’m guessing.
@Padster being happy does not mean I do not have bad days. You should see my home…it’s a mess, and I can’t build up the courage to tackle all that needs to be done. Also, my family decided I should spend less time with my son in order to sleep well, for fear I’d have a new relapse if I don’t - and that did hurt at the beginning, as I was thinking I was doing just fine with raising my son. Now we’re seeing each other every two days, and it’s a bit painful. WHat else? I am constantly reminded of my illness by my well-intended but tact-missing husband. Also, I know that one possible prospect in my future is to have a sponge-like brain at an older age and end up lonely and lacking lucidity. I have to take benzodiazepines ever so often, when I feel too much pain or I am being too delusional to be able to go on. My hands are trembling and my jaws clench, sometimes I find it hard to speak and be understood.I sometimes stutter, for no apparent reason. I can’t concentrate to learn as I did before I got sick, and my decision process has been also affected. People tend to avoid me and I tnd to be affected by that. I have persecution mania ideas that I don’t always recognize and that torture me before I can put an end to that train of thought. I live knowing that a new psychosis will make my close ones lose faith in me and that I’m not so sure I can control myself enough to not have that psychosis and be hospitalized. It took me one whole year after my last hospitalisation to gain my husband’s partial trust in me, so much as to talk with me, bring me flowers, stop telling me I risk losing him and make plans again for the future. Worst part is, I understand why he acted like that and when I don’t seeing my SZ sister-in law during crisis and realizing I acted the same gives me the cold shower I need. It’s a painful, insidious, horrifying disease, I will give you that.
However…I’m starting to tell my delusions from reality and act upon that understanding, so that the illogical ideas and beliefs don’t get acted out. I am actively learning fallacies and cognitive biases so I can avoid them in my own thinking and identify them in the thinking of those who are influential to me. I am conscious of the fact that, having a weak will at this point, I am being “brainwashed” by my healthy, able-minded husband, and I only dare to think what he allows me to. But I choose to be brainwashed into healthy thinking than ramble endlessly on subjects that have no connection to reality. I’m not happy-happy. I choose to be happy, I choose not to run, not to hide, not to fight the help I can get and not to make the connections that you are talking about. I choose down-to-earth jobs instead, down-to-earth pieces of information to learn, useful things to think about and discuss. It’s not a SZ-generated happiness, it’s a self0induced happiness that I choose to sustain, because why not do that if you can instead of living a life you cannot enjoy?
It’s hard to explain, Padster, and I’m sorry if I can’t tell you how to enjoy your life while being SZ. But what I can tell you is that I beg you to try doing it. Try enjoying life and allowing in your head only the thoughts that don’t disturb you. Does that make sense? Life should be bearable for us, but we tend to want it to be exquisite. Well, I guess most people , SZ or not, can only do bearable with their lives, even if we tend to idealize their lives and think they have it better than we ever will. It’s a matter of perspective. Again, I hope that makes sense. 
