Does you illness and how it’s affected you make you feel inferior compared to your parents/brother(s)/sister(s)/other people in general ?
I am a fat, never employed due to illness, cheaply clothed person, living in a council tower block flat that I struggle to keep clean and tidy due to poor motivation and difficulty organising tasks.
My father was a fairly high ranking diplomat(high enough for a Who’s who entry) and my stepmother was president and executive director of a dance theatre
Both are well respected and I just feel so awkward and inferior in comparison. I also feel inferior compared to my sister who has had a fairly successful career in interior design.
In fact I feel inferior to most people.
Logically and rationally I serve no useful purpose.
Well your problem is that you’re comparing yourself to people who don’t have schizophrenia. You have to lower your expectations of yourself. Were not losers or failures; we are people with a real disease. You wouldn’t expect someone in a wheelchair to break the 4-minute mile would you? Your purpose is to do what you can with what you’ve got just like anyone else. I’m sure your family doesn’t (or didn’t) think you’re inferior. Look at it this way: you’re not doing drugs. you’re not causing trouble. Those two facts right there make you more successful in society than thousands of other people without schizophrenia.
i can’t add anything to what 77nick77 said…though he is wrong with the wheelchair breaking the four minute mile…you could put a v8 engine on the wheel chair…wow that would be awesome…lol.
you are articulate, kind , intelligent, sensitive and you help others…if more people were like you the world would be a better place.
I also feel inferior to most people.
My illness stops me from working, and I have low self-confident because of it.
If I had at least some work experiences, then things would have been different.
Not only in the area of work, I haven’t had experienced much of what other people my age have experienced.
I also lack most of the knowledge most people have.
Some people say that everyone is different, but I always think that mine is not difference but deficiency.
Although long term severe mentally ill-39 years- I am no longer dxed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective. Re school you are mixing me up with someone else. The last time I was studying was a failed attempt at a correspondence course in late 75-early 76.
Those factual points aside maybe you are right in saying I shouldn’t compare myself to those who have never had a severe mental illness. It’s still hard though.
Who cares if you have no purpose? Who’s to judge you? We got dealt a bad hand. You don’t have to have a purpose. Do something that makes YOU happy (or content) and screw everybody else. I don’t sit around thinking about having a purpose. I’m replaceable at my job. I’m replaceable as a tenant. So what. I am here. And I am planning on staying here.
Yeah, I did get you mixed up with someone else. Sorry about that.
And, yes, it’s very hard. But do you think one single person with schizophrenia on these forums has an easy life? We’re basically in many ways all in the same boat.
Not really but find they are the ones trying to make me feel inferior. I’ve a lot of skills and understandings that tends to get over looked because of the illness or what they think of me. Although my Dad wasn’t in that category but was in denial for awhile that I even got ill until he had a ptsd related psychosis attack himself.
You seem to be helping a lot of us with your posts and that was without even thinking about it or knowing you better. Bottom line is we all have worth and I’m sure you have many skills you just take for granted that would boggle my mind. Probably even envy you for them.
You hit my sore point, firemonkey. Since I have this illness, I lost the sharpness of mind and productivity. I could only work 1 hour each day which is one eighth or even one tenth of the working hour of a normal person. With such a low productivity, I can not compete with others in the reality also I dare not apply for the position at the university. So I feel abandoned by the society. All the glory, glamor and excitement of working doesn’t belong to me…
But I am still struggling to work by writing and doing industrial design. If I am lucky, I can still achieve a little by the accumulation of daily work.
i woudn’t say i feel inferior personally at all. i’m well thought of by my friends. ok, right now i’m not finacially successful but give it time and i may be in the future. yes my parents are successful people, as is my brother but i posess certain traits that some of them don’t. my brother is a little on the cold side emotionally whereas i, if anything am over emotional. ok so my house isn’t the cleanest it could be but there are other people i know whose houses are far worse and they are supposed to be fully functional so i guess i’m at the low end of the dysfunctional scale right now. yes i need a lot of help but i’m also far more creative than most people i know and i’m very proud of that. so i may never be a published author…so what. all i can say is i’ll do my best with the tools i have. i may never get my inventions reaised but that’s ok too. what’s important to me are my children and the life they’ve had to endure simply because they were born. inferior? not a bit. oppressed most definitely but i can deal with that too because quite frankly i don’t give a ■■■■ anymore. you can’t oppress those which have no fear left in them. i’m not afraid to die for my cause. like anyone else, i don’t want to die but i have no fear of it because i know my family will be waiting for me. my grandad proved that when he came to visit me wheni was 12 years old. i know i have people on the other side waiting for me so death doesn’t really scare me anymore. inferior? financially maybe but character and morals? i am far superior to my detractors.
Your mother and father do not have schizophrenia. You have schizophrenia. No one can blame you for your life. You get special consideration because you don’t have the same tools to succeed as they do. And it is just absolutely not your fault for not reaching your families success. And your family knows this. I don’t think they expect you to reach their level. So don’t put unrealistic expectations on yourself. If you are not causing trouble, if you are not doing anything illegal, if you are a peaceful law-abiding citizen, and if you are not doing drugs than you are more successful than a large part of the population.
“Don’t compare your insides with other peoples outsides”.