Poll: How well do you function

above average bc i am awesome :stuck_out_tongue: lol

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Slightly below average - the house just never gets cleaned the way it should! But at least I get the shopping and cooking done!

I could have gone for average or below average. It depends on whether i am comparing myself to others with severe mental illness or not. I know that my brother and sister who have had their own problems but are not diagnosed function much better than me. I can cope with some things better(finances) than others (keeping flat clean and tidy,hygiene, social interaction).

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@firemonkey, how do you create a poll?

I said average. I’m in recovery from my symptoms but am not the type of recovered person with a career and a house of their own and a family or whatever. There is a lot to life I can’t manage or deal with for reasons even other than Sz like social and generalized anxiety which is crippling for me and I don’t know just…life man…it’s freaking nuts how competitive and fast and hectic it all is…

So average here. Can be confused for above average or below average depending on whats going on in life I suppose.

Explained in this thread

Below Average. Got out of my pajama’s at 4:30 PM today. Accomplished nothing.

I function as well as I need to in the environment in which I have to function. Granted, it is a very benign, forgiving environment.

I feel like I do ok to pass as a normal person, but I do a lot to avoid stress and complex social situations. It’s hard for my mind to wander like it used. I feel trapped inside the same thoughts all day long. Other than that I’m doing alright. My sz is set up to be a continuous 24/7 distraction. Either voices or telepathy something is always going on.

Below average. Like swimming - I get there and back.

I’ve been told that I am “incredibly” highly functioning and that it is unbelievable that I have schizophrenia by PhD’s. A couple of them wanted papers from other doctors for proof. They were like “Oh wow. I would have never guessed. Good luck.” and handed me the note back. My logic professor just stared at my psychiatrist’s note and said “Nice.” I made a 98 in that class, while most of the class dropped out.

My medications work. I am not only a straight A full time student, I am very into lifting weights and have a lot of friends. It is sort of hard to believe that there is anything wrong with me if you were to just watch me from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. But i take six pills a day, nap and/or drink lots of caffeine. That’s not normal.

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That is actually a hard poll for me.

It depends on the day and who I’m comparing myself too.

Compared to the people in my SZ group, I’m average.

Compared to the people in hospital, I’d be above average maybe.

Compared to people who are 100% recovered, below average.

Compared to my Uncle with Sz… a little below average

Compared to my cousin who is a self professed slacker and artist, with no mental illness and at about my age, still enjoys living on his Mom’s basement sofa… above average.

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Don’t ever compare yourself to people who are above 95% recovered, they obviously have a perfect reaction to medications and also expensive therapy. My symptoms go away with medication and a stable lifestyle, and they stay away. I also have a top of the line therapist. That’s just a stroke of good luck for me. I was functioning half-assedly as a student but was an asocial binge drinker and heavy smoker before I got on meds. I had like one real friend, and he and I got shitfaced all of the time.

Thank you for that… I truly am just pondering and wondering… How does one measure 95% vs 97% or 100%. What is the dividing criteria?

If it’s on functionality… then how does my non-mentally ill happy slacker cousin with no job living on his mom’s sofa, can’t even do his own laundry compare?

The comparison thing has always baffled me. Is it how you think internally? Or is it how you function externally?

I know my head glitches and pings… but I have my job, pay my bills more and live fairly independently these days.

My cousin has no glitch or ping… he’s just happy having no job, no life skills and letting his mom pick up all the expenses.

Comparison is subjective I guess?

I answered average. In some departments I excel, in some departments I’m below level 0. It feels like I was once normal, but was stretched…god I hate that word…So now I’m left with a super analytical outside-of-the-box kind of thinking, which also leaves me delusional and always figuring things out as if I were running the stock market chances. I think I function well enough for the state my brain is currently in.

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Its how you behave, behavior can be observed. If a team of psychologists were to watch a week of your life, they would be able to access how well you function. It includes socially as well as professionally, people with no personal lives are not 100% functioning. Or the opposite, as people who function socially but not professionally would also never score 100%. Like a guy from my graduating class in high school, he has plenty of friends but isnt in college or working, to my knowledge, just living off his parents. He failed a class in his senior year and didn’t graduate. I on the other hand had only one friend my freshman year of college but was on the Dean’s list, on a full ride and taking honors classes.

My shrink who I see saw me when I had academic success which some people just cant have, but I had a shitty personal life. I’ve turned around to be social again and find myself around friends on the weekends. I also date people, with some success and some absolute failure. I stay in touch with lots of people. I’ve conversed over texts with two friends already this morning.

I think recovery from mental illness isn’t really something that can be measured by a percentage. I mean what makes one %95 recovered compared to %100 or %93 recovered. I think having suffered from something like mental illness we may never be truly %100 recovered. We may be able to live free of symptoms and even hold down a job or go on to develop a career and whatnot. But I feel that there may probably always be the emotional and psychological scars of having suffered.

Recovery is something unique to our own circumstances anyway. I know for me recovery at this stage of my life means simply living free of psychosis and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with rejoining the workforce or going to school or even rejoining society in any conventional sense of which I am not even sure I want to. I know that emotionally there is much more recovery to be achieved by myself, I’ve been through more pain and suffering than I think anybody would have known their way out of. But I have my entire life ahead of me to achieve such things.

I think there will always be room for improvement in our individual paths of recovery.

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i answered well below average…at least for the last month anyway. my house is a tip and thanx to the haldol shot, i have no motivation to clean it. i loaded the dishwasher today and ran my son places and that’s it. i didn’t cook and i didn’t clean the house. i need a bath too. the last one was not yesterday but the day before and i’m pissed off as i have a house full of teenage boys and don’t feel relaxed enough to just lock the bathroom door and have one. i’ve been up since 4.30am and u would’ve though in all that time between then and now (8.15pm) that i couldve cleaned my house from top to bottom but i didn’t. can’t bloody wait till this haldol is out of my system. it’s been a complete disaster for me but at least i tried it right? so yeah, well below average at the moment.

With the house you manage, the kids you raise and care for, the people you know in your area, everything you do… I think you are doing amazing.

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00 heaven knows we belong way down below