I could tell my dad anything right from the beginning of my disease at age 19. Paranoia, delusions, fear, anger: We regularly talked about it all. When it came to my delusions he listened because he was honestly curious about them.
And through all my ups and downs with paranoid schizophrenia and all my hospitalizations and my many crisis’s, he was there for me, trying to help me.
I should say here that my whole family has been supportive of me ever since I got sick and it was mainly my mom who did all the work behind the scenes finding hospitals and nice group homes for me to live in. And my sisters have helped me more than they could ever imagine with taking me places and including me in activities with their friends, husbands, or boyfriends. But it was mainly my dad who took the role in my early years to visit me and help me the most.
I’ve done a lot of stuff thanks to my sisters and eventually with my step-mom and my step-dad. The only fly in the ointment was when after I had the disease for 20+ years I started having a little trouble hiding it and staying in control and my step-mom started having a negative attitude towards me and seemed to be judging me negatively. That was kind of a shock, I knew her 20 years and I never would have imagined she would do that.
But my dad had seen me at my worst and heard all my troubles and never put me down for having my disease. It’s amazing because he was from a small town and his friends were all these tough guys who fought and chased women and they all couldn’t wait to get out of high school and join the service and fight in WWII. The war ended before they could fight in it but they all enlisted anyways and fought in the Korean War.
Anyways, he was a smart guy but coming from his background, he knew nothing about schizophrenia when I got diagnosed with it. But he rose to the occasion and dealt with it for 30 years until he died ten years ago. It is just amazing he dealt with my illness so well. I couldn’t say enough good things about him. And he was tough but he was actually a nice guy. Not perfect; but he tried to raise us and support us the best he could and though I went down a different road in life than most people both my sisters are doing pretty well for themselves and had good lives and they can thank both my mom and dad for a lot of it.
Anyways, just feeling nostalgic. I’m just sitting here reminiscing about my life, I’ve had some odd bumps and turns in my life and somehow survived and I’ve managed to do more than just survive; I’ve had a lot of fun and good experiences. I’m 58 and so far the first half of my life turned out a lot better than I could ever imagine. Considering that when I was the newly diagnosed, psychotic 19 year old schizophrenic staying in a group home and sleeping on a dirty mattress thrown on the floor in a dirty tiny room for a year, going out of my mind with mental illness and suffering with no hope in sight, I’ve not done too badly.
I couldn’t imagine any future back then. But with my dad’s and the rest of my family’s support, lots of luck and lots of hard work I’ve not done too badly for myself. May I be just as lucky during the next half of my life. Here’s hoping.