I have been schizophrenic for 8 years now. I had to move back home and everything. I am 35 living at home. I hate it. I am just so scared to live on my own. I feel like I am giving up hope because I have been hospitalized 7 times. Every job I have had since I have been schizophrenic haven’t worked out. I am currently on disability and I feel useless. I am embarrassed. All three of my sister’s have houses and boyfriends. I feel so embarrassed when they visit the house. They also don’t understand and tell me how I let fear keep me from getting a job. I just don’t know how to move ahead. I want to work but have no references. I don’t know if it’s the invega sustenna I am on or what. I just have no motivation . But I won’t give up. I believe in God and I have hope.
I try not to measure myself to my siblings anymore. All three are very successful and married. I’m not capable of living up to their lifestyles. The thing that bothers me the most is that they have no mi, so they expect me to be able to do everything they can do. They are completely ignorant of my condition and have no desire to learn.
^ My brother has always been more tolerant of my MI than my sister. In my sister’s eyes everyone had to walk on eggshells because of my mental illness when we were all still living at home. That’s a gross distortion of the truth. She saw me as getting a lot of attention when in fact more often than not it was quite negative. There was certainly a degree of high expressed emotion going on from my parents.
Yes. Mine are exactly the same way. They feel that I should be able to lift myself up so easily and get a job and move out. It’s not that easy. I have been like this for 8 years now. In and out of jobs. One mental break down after the next. I have been stable for almost 3 years now but I still struggle with bouts of paranoia and attacks on my mind. There is more to it than meets the eye.
I just sent my brothers a simulation video that another user posted about living daily with sz. I didn’t get a response from one and the other just said “sorry bro.”
I think it’s futile at this point to keep trying. I’ll live my life, they can live theirs.
Yes. That’s what I am going to try to do. Just live my life. And focus on myself. When they visit I don’t always have to be around them. I can just go in my room. I am just going to focus on the things I can change. And learn to live with the things I cannot change. I am going to try to push myself and if I fail… I’ll just keep trying and pushing. I can’t give up this battle. I won’t.
Don’t give up. I’ve only been working for the first time in a year and already I’ve been scheduled for twice the amount of hours that were agreed to upon hiring me. I’m just going to keep showing up, doing a good job and if they let me go for not being able to work, then they have lost out. The stress from work has caused me to become paranoid, delusional and depressed. But it is my goal to finish out the season if that is possible. I won’t quit this time.
As for my family, I have decided not to attend family gatherings anymore. I can’t take the stress it causes me. My mom is ok with this, I live with her and she completely understands.
I am proud of you that you are trying to hang in there with the work. Since being diagnosed the longest I have held a job is 3 months. I just don’t have good social skills and when I am picked on or harrassed I just quit. It’s the people that I can’t stand. My nerves just get to me. I struggle with anxiety. I think I am going to be like you now and just say no to family gatherings. They stress me out too. But they are always at my mom’s house and I live with her so it’s hard to avoid. Sometimes I am actually thankful that I have schizophrenia because I think of I was a normie I probably wouldn’t be able to keep a job either.
I’ve had many jobs since getting sick. It is the people at work that don’t talk to me or mock me that make me paranoid. I am anxious too but I am trying to take it one day at a time. I like what I do there and I get to help people which is what I’ve always wanted to do.
I don’t think the place I work at is very stressful for most of the people who work there, but it is for me. I hope that the stress lessens over time, but so far it has just increased. Tomorrow I am just going to take it slow. Hopefully my manager is there and I can talk to him about the schedule. If I get a definite no on adjusting the schedule I don’t know what I will do. I can’t handle a 38 hour week, two weeks in a row. Bit this kind of thing happens to me at every job. I do good, learn fast, and the next thing I know I’m scheduled for more hours than I can possibly work.
Don’t mind me asking but do you get any assistance while you work. Like are you on disability too?
I’m on ssdi.
I told them I could only work 20-25 hours a week. They said no problem. For the first two weeks it was fine, now I am scheduled 2 straight weeks of 38 hours. WTF?
Oh man that would piss me off. That is what I am afraid of too because I am on disability and I can’t go over a certain number of hours or they will cut me off. I don’t know what to say
I would be really pissed and stressed.
I left a note for my manager on Monday stating I couldn’t work the hours he scheduled. Then the next day I couldn’t log into the app for scheduling and that made me extra paranoid. I figured he fired me. It took three days of worrying till I found out the server was down.
So I talked it over with my mom and she said just go in Sunday and whatever happens, happens. I’ve tried my best and done a good job. I’ve done more than they’ve asked of me. If they don’t want me there I guess I’ll have to find another job.
That’s good you let him know the hours were too much. You have to do what you have to do. I would have done the same thing. Being on disability is big security for our illness. I cannot put mine at risk. Getting disability is a career once you get it you better find a way to stay on it. That’s the way I see it. I am so thankful for it.
I would say yes and no. You never know what life may throw at you.
Yeah I couldn’t survive without it. I take rexulti which is $1500 a month plus 4 other meds. No way I could afford that working two full time jobs.
I never thought that, after a quarter century of living with SZ, I’d discover a supplement (Amyloban 3399) so effective that it wiped out my leftover positive symptoms leaving me feeling like I no longer have the illness at all. Or that the supplement would be under $120/mth. Now I’m just down to dealing with aspects of my autism and a heart condition.
Never say never man, life can surprise you.
My life is that too. I’ve given up on having a house of my own and my parents said I could live with them until they die. I dont want to be on my own anymore. Its embarrassing with my sisters and their husbands. I dont want to go back to some lousy job after disability ends. I’ve given up on having a decent life and having a relationship with someone. It’s not from illness, it’s from medication. I am new to being on antipsychotics permanently and maybe I’m being a baby, but it has drastically altered how I can cope with life.
about 8 - 9 years in and i aint givin up. gotta keep trying
IDK. At the ten year mark of having schizophrenia in 1989 when I was 28 or 29, I was in the middle of a nasty relapse. I was addicted to crack, broke, unemployed and lost my housing so I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in a small room in a family friends apartment. My whole life was a really, really, bad situation. I was hospitalized or sent to an evaluation room several times at that period. The thought of giving up had to have crossed my mind but I sure don’t remember if it did. I wasn’t living at that time, just existing. I had every reason to give up but I just kept going. I had no friends except the family friend and he was in his sixties so except for going out to coffee occasionally we didn’t hang out. And my days consisted of sleeping in and then getting up after my dad went to work and eating and then staying inside most of the day. Some days I went out but usually only for either for a walk or to the video store. And life was boring and miserable and painful.
Winston Churchill had a great quote that pretty much describes most of my life and especially my initial psychosis and my relapse.
“When you’re going through hell, keep going.”
And that’s what I did.
And one day my dad told me, “Why don’t you go out and get a job.”
So I went out and found a job recycling cans and bottles which involved working by myself. It didn’t last so I got another job in a warehouse. It was quite far away and I didn’t hate the whole job but I certainly wasn’t happy with it. But a couple people were friendly to me. I ended up walking out of the job site at lunch break and never returning. I was a hell of a irresponsible person at that time. I really didn’t care about a lot of things that as an adult, I should have.
But yadda, yadda, yadda. I smoked crack some more, I had another job, moved around a bit and ended up in a group home at age 30. But I got clean there. I got a job. I made a few friends. Got a girlfriend. Then the next step was living in another board & care home for 5 years. During my stay I worked the entire time and attended college. I did quite a few fun and social things during my stay. When I wasn’t working or going to school I was out doing things with a friend there.
Now I’m 58. The result of not giving up is that now I live pretty independently, I have a great car, a nice apartment, I have a chunk of money in the bank, I have no debt, I work, take online classes, and take care of business and now I can afford to have some entertainment. I think I will get better. It sure seems like it.
I don’t know about everybody else but if I think I can’t win than I will surely not win. And the contrary is true too: If I think I can win, than a lot of the time I will win.