Born 1958
Education and sports were my love
Then came women
Graduated from high school
Went off to university
Delusions hit
Dropped out of universals moved back in with mom and dad
Hospitalized and put on Haldol
23 years of just existing like a zombie
Switched to Abilify
Immediate positive results
Went back to work
Later became a peer support special
Fell in love
Got married
Weight gain again
Now I thrive!
congrats man…you can always lose weight…good job.
I post my story a few times a year. Got sick in 1980 at age 19. Spent year in a group home then 8 months in the hospital. Moved into a nice group home and became stable, 9 months later I got a job. in 1984 I moved into supported housing. I worked my job and stayed in supported housing for four years.
Got addicted to crack but got clean in 1990. Moved into another group home and started going to 5 or 6 AA, CA and NA meetings a week. Got a job unloading trucks at Sears and started college, in 1995 I moved into my sisters duplex and rented a room for three years. After her house I moved into this guys house and rented a room again and got a job as a park ranger. I stayed there 3 1/2 years and then quit my job as a park ranger and moved into a house with seven other roommates and worked as a janitor and then at Macy’s and then at Target.
In 2007 I moved into my own studio and lived there until 2015. During that time I worked at Kohl’s and started my current job as a janitor. I had problems with neighbors that got so bad I moved out and rented a room in a friend of my sisters house. I stayed there 4 months then got asked to leave. At the same time my mom died and I got suicidal and went into the hospital after staying out for 25 years. I had to quit college and couldn’t drive. It was also the start of my lower back problems.
After getting out of the hospital I moved into another group home after living independently in regular society for 20 years. I was still working my janitor job but I had to take two months off. I lived in the board & care home for almost two years then moved into an apartment that was supported housing. I lived there for 8 years until I moved into this studio last June.
So I’ve been employed for almost the entire last 42 years, I’ve been at my current job 14 years. I graduated college in 2023. I’ve had my own car and been driving since 1997. Over the course of my illness, until about 2015 I’ve had friends, I’ve traveled a little, I’ve had about 15 different jobs. I used to go to a lot of barbecues and parties and went waterskiing and camping and to comedy clubs. I’ve been clean and sober for 35 years.
I have always been a different kind of person growin up…very intense emotions. funny boy…liked to laugh a lot. witty…chatty…hypersexual in my teens and twenties and thirties until I became full blown psychotic at 35. prodromal about four years prior…just never really took over yet. I was delusional and was hospitalized in a baptist hospital and their advice to me was yes stay on the meds but don’t drink whatever you do…I drank a couple six packs on weekends and they thought I would rather drink. they were right…I didn’t stop drinking and told myself that I had just had a nervous breakdown and didn’t think I needed my ap’s…just walked out on my residential designer studio office and it made the boss so mad he fired me. so I moved in with my best friend, Matt in Tulsa (prior lived in oklahoma city), and got another job at a furniture and fixture company as a furniture designer…when I finally became full blown while I worked there they escorted my wildly psychotic butt to the mental ward by van…it was all surreal…I remember everything…I wrote a book about my delusional journey and it’s available on amazon and I have small but flowing royalties from the book.
It’s good you found love. I hope there’s a happy ending for the rest of us.