Is it really a big disadvantage to be diagnosed with schizophrenia?

Is it really a big disadvantaged to be diagnosed with schizophrenia as compare to other mentally healthy person?what are we actually lacking as compare to them?

i now come to think if i had a partner would she accept me of my schizophrenia?because i am not a fun person to be with and i have schizophrenia which add on to the disadvantage…although now i am trying hard to improve social skills

If you look at the big picture we are at a disadvantage in life in many ways, stigma not being the least of it. But re-read any thread about socializing, working, or going to school for schizophrenics and it will answer your question.

Keep faith, keep love in your heart, maintain your conscience and you will overcome this illness.

By the way, on another point, I was reading through my “family tree history” and you read some interesting things about people on them. My point is, schizophrenia has got to be one of the most interesting things that can be said about the person. Trust me, its an interesting thing to hear about a person. It will interest people long into the future. Schziophrenia has got to be the most interesting illness that could ever afflict a person. You couldn’t possibly encounter a more interesting thing.

1 Like

well, it is the ‘willie wonka golden ticket’ to many programs that people wouldn’t usually qualify for. since i’ve been tagged schizo, i’ve gotten free health insurance, disability insurance, and i don’t have to pay for my meds. I have a pcp, a psych nurse, and a neurologist, and I’ve had laundry list of testing done to figure out what’s going on, because schizo’s don’t have droopy eyelids for example.

i have looked for a new job, cannot find one.

so, there’s a trade off guess.

3 Likes

What bothers me is that, unlike us, psychiatrists, psychologists, or other mental health clinicians, are all immune to being detached from reality, so says society. In their case, if they can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality, it is said that they have simply experienced the Martha Mitchell effect, and that’s that, period.

Martha Mitchell effect —> This is the process by which a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health clinician mistakes the patient’s perception of real events as delusional and misdiagnoses accordingly.

That’s right, if a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health clinician can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality, they are still defined as being 100% sane.

If it weren’t for the Watergate tapes, poor Martha Mitchell would have been defined as a crazy for the rest of her life. Boy did she get a lucky break.

It means that as long as you have credentials of some sort, then you can get away with just about anything.

If you are a popular artist or perhaps a scientist, you can have the craziest looking hair style but it is totally overlooked. If you don’t have such credentials and you have the very same hair style, you are instantly regarded as being nutty as ever.

3 Likes

How’d you get free health insurance? I’m scrambling to get a job so I can get health insurance. At my job interview for assistant manager at Goodwill I was treated like a spoiled brat because I said I couldn’t afford college anymore and brought up my dad was helping me pay back loans. This woman acted like multi-tasking was an Olympic skill, said they offered no job training, health or insurance benefits, the hourly wages was 7.50 and to reapply as cashier because I didnt have enough work experience. This was GOODWILL. How discouraging is that? I also don’t qualify for disabilify or SSI OR SSDI. I’ve been a full time student the entire time I’ve had schizophrenia and before hand. It has significantly interrupted my education and I’m embarrassed but I see absolutely no financial aid or otherwise offered for people with disabilities like that. Unless I was to get like $400 a month and wasn’t allowed to work or get assistance from family anymore? It doesn’t make sense. The system is just not helping me at all.

What people don’t understand is that my disability forces me to be dependent on my family that I’m not spoiled, that really no one else is helping me. I am even being forced to pay back my scholarship and WV Grant due to a mixup in communication.

I wanted to finish college so much. Schizophrenia has stolen my future.

how did I get medical insurance?
I applied through the obamacare health marketplace website, and since my income was zero, it fell through, and I qualify now for medicaid (rules have changed), and my Meridian Health Plan is through medicaid. It is a blessing, as it enabled me to have all these tests to determine what’s wrong.

I do get psychotic after a hot bike, weirdest damn situation…

well, i was hospitalized 2 years in a row for my psychosis, because I bike all summer, and the good Lord makes the temperature rise into the 90s here in Iowa, and bang, I’m crazy as hell.

so I did some crazy things after I went crazy after my bike rides, and I was discharged from these psch hospitals, still crazy because the meds DO NOT WORK!

so I submitted the 2 hsoptializations and the crazy things I had done to social security, and just received SSDI.

hope that explains it, gift from God I did all these nutty things I guess, Obama gave me some health insurance ! otherwise I’d still be driving around, looking for help, stealing food at restaurants, that’s how I got picked up the last time, i’m such a lawbreaker! I ate my breakfast at Denny’s but my ATM card was shutoff, and the bank didn’t open for 2 more hours. I told the sherriff, he couldn’t call my dad on his shoe phone anymore, my dad was dead, and that won me a ticket into a hosptial cell for 7 days, and a psych ward for 6 more weeks after that. - lol

one of the things I gave SSDI was the police report, where I was picked up for stealking a $7.95 breakfast at Denny’s and told the officer to call my dad on his shoe phone, like get Smart TV, remember?

i hadn’t taken my thyroid pills, that was most of it I think. I’m starting my book, it’s a great story :slight_smile: better than Nash, I guarantee

what an st*pid/unlucky thread title.

offcourse its like with every illness, its is mostly negatives
besides the awereness/reflecting i dont think i can see a positive side too this

Over here in my opinion it is a disadvantage, as even the mental health anti stigma charities do very little to promote awareness of psychosis and schizophrenia. I think that says it all. When the most aware shun and are frightened of people with it. I act the tiniest bit odd and people will avoid me.

I think with other illnesses such as bipolar, awareness is getting there. Having celebrities openly come out saying their stories has helped but still we are quite Victorian when it comes to shiz and psychosis, the attitude is to lock us up, I’ve had someone shout that I shouldn’t be on the streets when I had a public episode. That hurt more than the episode. I was hiding under a bench, frightened out of my brains but when the episode passed I was frightened to emerge incase I was attacked, I felt brutally embarressed because of the comments said.

The media here is still very anti schiz, I’m not sure what it’s like in the US but it still portrays us as violent. My mum says that I was very frightening when actively psychotic, but I never actually attacked anyone. With other illnesses there is active anti stigma and more awareness but come to psychosis and it’s all ‘boy who killed mother admitted with psychosis’ etc.

So I think that’s the disadvantage. But if you see how we post, we’re so much more than the norms of people who haven’t experienced anything, we’re wiser and more considerate or open minded, but so are many people who have see the hell’s of this world and come back.

1 Like

One sure fire way to get a job without experience is to get one through a friend. That’s how I got my resume jobs in college and my crappy jobs too. I started out at a Pet’s Mart by my mom knowing one of the managers. Use your social network, your family’s social network, and anyone who you’ve had contact with: your doctors, social workers, and family friends ( I mention them because they are usually older and have more connections).

1 Like

Yes, word of mouth is a good way to get a job.When I look for work I ask my family if they have heard of any job openings anywhere and I ask them to keep their ears and eyes open for any jobs. I’ve gotten a few jobs from friends telling me about openings where they worked. In fact that’s how I got my first job when I was 17 as a dishwasher. Later another friend got me a job where he worked in a silk-screening shop. In 1999 I was at a day treatment program for a year and I was unemployed.A counselor there clipped out a classified ad from a newspaper about an opening for a Park Ranger. I was 40 yeas old. I applied at this company and was hired and I ended up working there for almost two years. And by the way, I got that job even though I had no experience. I got my current janitor job from a suggestion by a therapist.

My husband isn’t fun. He’s a good listener and non-judgmental. He’s affectionate and generous. Those are the qualities I appreciate in him. I wasn’t looking for a comedian. My son, who has sz, has all those qualities too. I have to say that the only reason I see that my son is not married yet is that he hasn’t got a job. I’m hoping on that score, though.

It’s not an advantage, but there are worse “disadvantages” - bad character is the worst.

2 Likes

some people are confined in a wheel chair, yet have a better attitude and achieve more than those who are ’ muggles ', and nothing wrong with them.
a diagnoses is just that, an opinion at a point in time, it does not or should not define you…
take care

4 Likes

I think it’s a great disadvantage…I would still be an architect if I hadn’t gotten ill with sz…I admire those here that work, I know I can’t? I have too much of a panic disorder to be around people in a workplace, plus my concentration is shot…I am very restless usually and don’t sit down for long…all against me because of my illness…before I fell ill I worked 16 hour days…all gone with that capacity now…I can still “letter” like an architect but that is the only frail remnant of my skills…yes, it’s a disadvantage…

As far as disadvantages in the world of jobs goes:

I think that Richard Bolles may have described it best in his job-hunting and career changing manual “What Color is Your Parachute” in his chapter on dealing with handicaps, including mental disabilities. He basically defines a disability as being unable to do something. He then numbers all of the different things that some people are able to do (In the thousands), and notes that ALL of us are unable to do a huge number of them, which means, by definition, that we are ALL disabled in many ways, because there are many things we all can’t do. The trick is to focus on the things you CAN do, I guess.

That said, I think I understand why many people with schizophrenia are considered TOTALLY disabled by the federal government, meaning that they are unable to work in any way. The illness can be so pervasive that it can interrupt just about any kind of functionality.

And, the more highly a position pays, the more stressful it seems to be, often, according to the book “150 Best Low-Stress Jobs.” In that light, it might be instructive to note that some people think that stress can aggravate psychosis.

However, if a schizophrenic is lucky enough to be one of the ones who is not totally disabled, there still appears to be plenty of hope, at least in the environment I live in, in my opinion.

2 Likes