Introduction (very long, sorry!)

Hi, I’m a new member but long time reader. I know that’s kinda weird but I didn’t want to interfere. I am sza but I am very stable, in college, ect. I write. I used to write poetry before I started my medicine but now I write stories. I’m happy about the switch. I was tired of what poetry has become and I was trying to make the switch to writing a book. It was the meds that flipped the switch though. I have no doubt about that.

I feel guilty about being on here sometimes. I have had depression my whole life, but my sz (the affective part of my diagnosis was added just in the last two-three years) the sz was caught before I really suffered. I was at an expensive boarding school that was very sensitive to mental health issues (I had been diagnosed with ausburgers indicators and major depression after my my Dad heard a description of ausburgers on the radio) and I was having terrible times in my local high school (bullying). I have expensive medicine and an expensive doctor and I realize that not everyone has a family blessed with these resources. That makes me really mad and upset.

I want to do something to bring awareness to the fact that we need help too. I’m not belittling cancer patient’s suffering, but I don’t hear about them ending up on the street because they have cancer. Why are cancer and AIDs the only thing people care about? (I have a LONG history of cancer on my Mom’s side. Every woman down to my Grandmother has had it. I think I have a better chance statically of getting that than I ever did with mental illness).
Before I got the doctor I have been working with for two or three years now I was seeing a local doctor who refused to change my meds even though they obviously weren’t working any more. He seemed to listen but he did nothing. I ended up in an emergency center run by that same doctor. I wasn’t really any worse than before but I basically admitted myself. I had given up hope that I would ever be emotionally stable. The abilify kept the sz under control for the most part but the depression and the problems that go with it ran wild again. My Mom and I didn’t know what else to do so we tried the public center where my new therapist (who I was recommended to when I got out of the center) worked. It was worse. Way worse. He saw me for thirty minutes because he had so many patients he couldn’t cope and tried to say I had OCD instead despite the fact that at school doctors had given me basically every test under the sun to confirm sz. He just blew that off. My general practitioner was actually the one who saved me from that. He was interested in psycology and when I cried because I had a cold (I cried over everything) he recommended the doctor I see now.

Before getting on this site I had never really seen the faces, so to speak, of others. All I had was psychology textbooks I had read. Horrible predictions. It scared me. I was fascinated by psychology, but I started to stop researching it because I was afraid.
I am writing about sz, or trying to. A story about why we need affordable treatment for mental illness (a novel not a news article, people need a real story), and a love story. A story to show that people with sz deserve love just like anyone else. I don’t want to lie about hearts and roses, but I want to show that we are people too. Loveable people. We get lonely too.

I have a fiancee who has stuck by me even as I have alternately pushed away and held to me, so I know it’s possible. I never had any frightening delusions about him, I just wanted better for him than me. Neither of us have seen what a lot of you have been through. I don’t know why I am saying any of this. I guess I just want the blessing of people who are sicker than I am, who have suffered more than I have, that what I am doing is ok. I just want to believe that even though I haven’t seen the darkest of days I can help those who have. I’ve been on here because I don’t want to lie. I don’t want to say that loving us, loving me is easy, but I want to say it’s worth it. I think it is and I think my fiancee does too. I don’t think people date out of pity for four years. I just want people to know the truth, that we aren’t psycho killers like on tv or in junk novels. We aren’t monsters and I just want to show people that.

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Hi onceapoet,

Welcome to the site. I think your goals and objectives are very positive ones - and I for one applaud your efforts. Thanks for joining us and for not just reading the posts. By getting involved I think you can learn and benefit much more than just reading.

Let us know of your efforts, and feel free to post your writings here - I’d love to read some of them.

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Welcome to the forum. I think you will find friends here. I have.

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hi @onceapoet i hope you can post more,

i use to read a lot more but i started getting involved anonamously and it has helped me share so much and get some more support,

i was also inspired by some of the posters here and on the old forum.

welcome and i think you are doing great x

Welcome. You have a similar story to mine. I went to boarding school too and that’s when the symptoms got worse and I was also bullied a bit.

That’s a brave thing to write a novel. I wrote one, but it was a little scattered.

My mania is getting worse. I tried Buspar and I think that’s not helping me, but I can’t really tell. Do you have any advice that helped you?

First off, I want to say welcome but that seems sort of out of place because I’m really new to this community and not sure I have the right haha.

BUT I also have a very similar goal, to write a novel about people suffering from sz. More specifically a children’s novel because I feel that’s a sz group that is especially underrepresented.

Anyway, I’m a published writer and was a professional editor for a while, so if you would ever like someone to read over your work or need someone to bounce some ideas off of, I would love to help! I think it’s a very lovely thing you’re trying to accomplish, and don’t let the fact that you don’t suffer from sz as severely as someone else might mean you don’t have a voice in the sz community!

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thought i would say hi.
take care

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Thank you! I have about 40-50 pgs on the one about the homeless man and the love story is still on page one. I’m kinda worried about the homeless one. I’m afraid that people won’t read long enough to see that once he gets the help he needs, and learns what he has done (when he is given treatment he doesn’t remember much about what he did when he was unmedicated. What is delusion and what isn’t?). He makes himself pay for his crimes when he learns about them even though they weren’t consciously committed. Or at least that is the plan right now. I kinda write like I’m running into a wall. I pick up speed (write about 3-4 pgs) hit the wall (lose my thread, have to go somewhere, do something else whatever) and pick up again later. Its going to be real “fun” tying all of the choppy sequences together though. -.-
I would like to hear about your children’s story I was an elementary edu major for a semester (got some field time and realized… I just don’t like little kids. I work well with them, but I don’t like them) but I did get to read a children’s story. It was a big prize winner and I thought it was wonderful. I tried to write one too, explaining adoption to children (I got about 10pgs single space… waaaaaaay too much for younger children. They look easy but are super hard to write.). What is the plot? I would love to read and critique your stuff as well. We can tell each each other if our characters sound sz enough. My homeless man sounds like he has a lot of ausburgers/autism in there. I don’t know if that’s just my take (doubts, ect.) but as I do have ausburgers indicators and so it’s something to watch for.
To what you actually want to know- I have never really heard any advice that helped. What helps/helped me was human touch. When I was sick I felt like no one loved me (they did, but I guess it was a delusion or something) so pulled away from everyone. Consequently I never had much human touch. My first councilor (who I ran to because a delusion I had had just gotten overwhelming and was making me feel guilty so I had to get it off my chest) described it as ‘body lust’. A cat or a dog (or even a bird) is good, but human touch is special. I realize that’s a horrible thing to say because most people don’t want to touch for a long time unless they are in a romantic relationship and not everyone is ready for that.
I don’t know if you are still close to your Mom, but she is a good place to start. Tell her what you are doing, what you need (normal people can be so oblivious) and just have her, or if you are closer to your Dad have him, hold you.
If that isn’t an option, go to group therapy and suggest that everyone hold hands during the session. Just say that you heard it might help and that maybe everyone could try it. That way it doesn’t get weird. I had tried everything (this is premeds and pretherapy though) eating, biting, praying, ect (nothing got extreme, the food didn’t help so I never really did that and I only chomped down once or twice experimentally. I just wanted to make the pain go away. It didn’t work). It was human touch that has made me happy (and lots of meds. That sounds wrong but with major depression, pills are they only thing that allow you to make yourself happy. Meds open the door so that other people can come in).

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Welcome! I’m happy for you that you have such a strong boyfriend who stands beside you when it gets tough. Me and my husband have been a couple for 16 years. I got really ill 5 years ago. He stood by my side even when I pushed him away. I’m happy today that he didn’t give up on me. I wasn’t home for a year when I got ill. I left husband and kids. But then I came back. Slowly slowly getting better

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Hello, I’m glad you too decided to post. I too haunted for ages before I got up the courage. Then my brother started posting on this site too.

My brother didn’t come out of negative symptom (what he calls wax build-up) until his meds were just right. Then he was able to come out of hibernation and have the energy to heal further. But my brother himself has said, the meds were the first crack in the shell.

Sounds like a very interesting story! Writing like that can be difficult, but seeing as I write in a similar way it certainly can be done :slight_smile: Better than trying to write bits and pieces you’re not in the mood for!

My idea is an attempt to write what it feels like to be schizophrenic from a child’s point of view, without alienating this character. A child only knows their reality, and learns from everyone else that it’s wrong. I would like to eliminate that stigma for them, at least a little. It’s about a little girl, her “imaginary friend,” and a young writer, and their adventure to save her cousin, who has been kidnapped by wild spirits in the woods.

I would love to do this! If you’d like, my email is mm_motley@yahoo.com, feel free to contact me about anything any time!

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Can I ask you for your email again later? I lose things and I’m not ready to show this to anyone to evaluate from a mental standpoint until I get my other facts straight (I have to investigate the Catholic church around here. I have the man… I don’t know the words for it? Desperately pleading? With a statue of the Virgin Mary at the alter. I need to find out if there is one). Stuff like that. Research is exhausting -.-. I set it near me so that I could go look at these places myself. The one about the married couple is set in Tuscon. I have to wait till Thanksgiving and bug my brother for details about Arizona State.
I love your idea even more. Hate is forced on children and carried throughout their lives. Best to discourage hate when they are young. Also helps the parents. Both sz and just plain good people. “Mom why is that man talking to no one?” “He’s just very ill dear. Remember that story I read you? He is just like that little girl.” I think it would give them a good tool to explain. People naturally want to stay away from things they don’t understand.
If I ever have children I would read that book to them every night. Please, please write it. It is needed.

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Of course! You can ask any time, even if I’m not very active on here I’ll see the message. Truth be told I don’t really have anything to show yet either, but I always try to extend the invitation :slight_smile: I really look forward to reading what you write though, especially since your dedicating so much time on all your research! Also, thank you for saying all that. I can’t express how much that means to me! Thank you!