meds are making their work. but too slowly still… 7 years behind me looking for the right med. i didnt knew nothing else besides the psychiatry for those years. and 10 years before that where i was fully symptomatic, hiding my suffering, miserable also… and now its tough as you can imagine.
i have my moments of rebellion, of jealousy, of anger, of grief… i still look back and i hate myself and sometimes everybody else… today i felt for 5 minutes what is to be normal. but then again, i felt down… its really fragile and i realize it will take years maybe. 10 months that i am on zyprexa and depakote. maybe it will take me a lot of more time to feel normal again.
and you, how long time for your recovery?
i have no social life, no job, i even dont go out for the most of the time… bad…
kisses
I’ll be on abilify for 3 years I March. It does take years.
idk…my friend stabilizes really faster. she needs 6 months after an episode. for me, it will take years… I am aware that ive lost too much. ive made too much errors. sometimes, I get tired of this and I think about suicide. but I know life can be good so I just want to see what is to be normal. I wasnt never normal… really… never… even since child… idk what is this diagnosis. but it happens. I watch documentaries on youtube about mentally ill people. lots were abused. lots knew only the illness through whole their lives… but yes, I am a bit tired to always fighting. I want my emotions, I want my heart feeling something, I want my reason, I want my depression go away. yes… and I am alone in this struggle…
I have only been sick a year and a half but it seems like it is taking a long time for my delusion to go away. It is severe and disabling. I know it can take time. At least it has been almost year since my last episode. I think about suicide too sometimes because I have been so abused and because my illness won’t go away and causes me to relive my abuse. I try to focus on the day at hand and the blessings that I have but it’s hard. Sometimes it is very depressing.
The way I heard it was - “Recovery is a journey, not a destination.” Who knows what the destination is, or when we will reach it.
Recovery takes years and if you take your meds everyday each day will get better. I learned the hard way about going off the meds as I lost everything. I have not missed a day taking my meds in 30 years. This is the most important thing you can do in your recovery.
I hear you Anna1. It took me over a decade to feel like I can say I’m recovered. I still worry that the symptoms will come back. And then there was the many years before a good diagnosis… It’s difficult. Maybe a change in your meds is still needed if you’ve been on them for 10 months without improvement. I know that it took months before the addition of Abilify helped though.
It doesn’t help to do nothing but I remember the years where I couldn’t do anything myself. Don’t be hard on yourself for taking time to recover or for not having an active lifestyle. I know I was so hard on myself and that only made it take longer.
I want to add that I really feel that we, as a community, need to find ways to bring people who suffer the way together. I feel your pain when you say you are going through it alone. It is such an isolating disease. I wish there was a clubhouse near me for people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I think the clubhouses are a really good idea. I, myself, want to start either a clubhouse or group home that is affordable for people on SSI and SSDI - I have this vision of being part of a community where I belong. Check out sites for international clubhouses. I can’t put links in because I am a new user.
@everly, you didn’t get it. I was switching meds for 7 years. I didn’t do anything else for this time. so my pdoc wants from me now to stop switching. Zyprexa helps me but I should make efforts. and sometimes, the illness is too strong and I get tired of all this struggle. but yes, dont worry, maybe ill be okay one day.
today I am calm cause yesterday I took klonopin. but my emotions are not full, my reason is not sharp I guess but its ok. at least,i have peace for one day 
I know a lots of people for whom the meds are a bigger help but I am not from the lucky ones. I take mines cause I am really bad without them. and I continue to look forward when I can. sometimes, I just have pity of myself still a lot :(…
I’m sorry. I’m glad you found a doc to take you off the medication merry-go-round then. I sure feel lucky that the meds are helping me!!!
I have only been sick 18 months and I am waiting to be well on meds. Based on these stories, is can take like a decade or more to feel normal on meds. Geeez Louise that’s a long time. I hope it doesn’t take that long. I may try a different med to make my delusion go away. I am very sensitive to meds though, so I am scared. We’ll see
line from the wall in the mental health centre:
true though
recovery is living well in the presence or absence of mental illness
however yes
it’s taken me years to get this far
things seem to keep getting better
I’ve been suffering mental illness since 15/16 when I attempted suicide. I had depression before that though at the age of 11 to 13.
I’m 30 now, I still don’t seem any better if anything things got worse.
My diagnosis went from depression to bipolar/anxiety to schizoaffective/ptsd.
What’s next… alzheimers?
With my luck I’ll be the first young to middle aged adult with alzheimers woot woot
True enough. I’ve been working on my recovery for 25 years. Probably going to be working on it until I die. Those are just the cards I was dealt and I have to play the hand the best I can.
my doc said this MI could be life-long
My understanding is that only about 25% of schizophrenics “recover”. So, technically 75% would have the illness for the remainder of their lives after being diagnosed. Still, there are certain things that improve chances of recovery and things that make them worse, so these aren’t necessarily fixed percentages that represent any particular individual’s chance of recovery.
In the 25% example, I think “recovery” referred to living independently off of medication without symptoms.
when I talk about recovery I mean more to feel just fine and sane even on meds. not full recovery wow…I am so ■■■■■■ up in my head, I really dont think like a healthy person I find. I feel my brain in my head instead of thinking… my mother just keeps saying that ill never be fine, it makes me mad. and yes, maybe its harder now for me after my 15 years of being between 4 walls…