Question for SZs who work or attend school full-time

Most of my psychiatrists seem to want to just change the diagnosis to something less severe because I’m high functioning. One took me off of medication entirely after 8 years on it, which kind of ruined a good job.

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I think most of us on the forum could be high functioning with supported employment but 40 hours a week would be difficult for most of us. There aren’t enough hours in the day for the work life balance you need with a mental illness with doctor and therapy appointments and extra sleep and things like that.

Most people see their doctor only about once a year.

I work part time and i took classes. I realized that im not a strong as i used to be before sz.

I think you should take that into account that you are not functioning as well as other people. And dont force yourself to function as other people. You might hurt yourself.

They tend to get shoved into managed living facilities here in Canada and many of them are not very nice at all. Acute psychiatric care and available beds are awfully limited on my end of the country. I hear the bed shortages are absolutely critical in Ontario now. People are turned out of acute care beds too soon and the follow-up is limited to non-existant.

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It seems that under funding/provision of mental health services is a universal problem. :frowning:

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Yeah. Sadly. Underfunding in most social sectors is a universal problem.

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I think a lot is put on the shoulders of family members/other relatives. It helps to have good family support especially in pushing for help for the ill person, but not every one has that.

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I don’t work or attend school…I used to be an architect and that crushes me…if I can’t work in my field I can’t do anything. I can’t concentrate…there is no cure so I take my generic prolixin and shut my mouth usually when people say what they do… @shutterbug I am sorry your success has you breaking down…you in my book are kind of unique even yes , a unicorn as you say…a shining unicorn to the rest of us here though I think… @77nick77 you too buddy…!!

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i felt like people didnt take my problems serious because i appear too high functioning, even a lot of my family wont acknowledge that i have deep troubles. they think im fine because im “smart”. ill be going to school full time come a few months and i worry people will only further dismiss my problems because of it

Honestly? Yeah, that’s going to be a problem. Sorry.

:sob:

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I think this is a problem quite a few people have. The problem is when you are psychotic/highly stressed any ‘smart’ you have may go out the window. Certainly faulty thinking and irrationality can take over.

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Well, I work only part time now but over the course of 38 years I have worked many 40 hour weeks. Hell, I can’t figure myself out. I am able to work and go to school and a few other things but given my personality and my place in life and taking into account the way I grew up no one when I first got diagnosed would have predicted I would ever do anything significant in life.

I have a few social skills but I would say I’m way behind most people my age (57). But I can function in a work environment OK, most of the time… I have worked on large crews sometimes or small crews but I can’t figure out which was hardest.

But when I was growing up (pre-schizophrenia) I didn’t say two words to anyone I didn’t know.

I got my first job at age 17. For the next two years I went through about a dozen or more jobs, none lasting more than three months. In the 10 or 11 hospitalizations I pretty much kept to myself. Occasionally, someone would like me and show an interest in me which actually always surprised me, but mostly I was a loner inside of hospitals and out; sleeping and pacing were my two main passions in hospitals and don’t think me immodest but I was pretty damn good at both of them. I would even dare to say I was above average in doing both of those and I excelled.

But yeah, I learned long ago that when you badly need help there is nothing they can do for you but if you are functioning well they have all kinds of good advice and a lot of help for you.

I really didn’t have a life pre-schizophrenia. But geeez, after a few years of schizophrenia I had a couple of friends, a job, college, a car and occasionally I would go through periods where I had enough spare cash to buy luxuries and afford to do fun things.

I’ve never been in any clique-type group in my life. I’ve always been on the outside looking in. And everybody even tries to stop me from even looking in.

After I first got diagnosed 38 years ago I really had no plans to work or for anything else. I didn’t work from age 19-21. But I was in a vocational l program and after quite a few months the counselors saw something in me that I sure didn’t see in myself because they started giving me little jobs and responsibility. I was given a task as leader of a gardening crew. The program sold food for lunch and they talked me into running a cash register in the vocational for all the clients. Next they invented a groundskeeper job for me; I was responsible for the landscaping around the program building. My next small step was cleaning the agency offices, doing janitorial work once a week for $40.00 a month for the agency headquarters that ran the vocational and housing program I was in.

9 months after being out of an 8 month paid vacation in the hospital and 9 months after being in this program they got me a real job in the community and when It comes to working I’ve been employed ever since and I’ve never looked back.

High functioning? It all seems relative to me. One of my very first groups when I began my career as a professional schizophrenic the leader called me high-functioning because I could ride a bus!!!

But yeah, I feel like a unicorn myself. I never fit in. It always seemed that it was always me against everybody else instead of part of them. I don’t feel like I’m on the same side as everyone else. It’s changing a little now, at least I’m aware of it and that’s the first step in changing.

I’ve had many, many, years of functioning and living in society just like anybody else, interspersed with periods where I went backwards, such as a year long relapse when I was about 30 years old, and a battle with addiction at age 26-30 that kind of stagnated me for a couple of years or quitting a job when I was 38 to belong in a day program.

No one really bugs me about how I’m functioning. I guess other schizophrenics look at me and say “Hmmm, that guys working, interesting.”
My sisters lately have been able to appreciate all I’ve done. I’m damn amazed with myself. I’ve done some really hard, good things in life besides working. I don’t feel penalized for working by anyone. I just do what I do and try my best.

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I wouldn’t bother with these schizophrenia groups Pixel. I had the same experience in attending a support group for caregivers of mentally ill people. This lady was giving me looks as if I was a lot less severe than her son, hence why I am capable and competent. Instead of seeing me as a resource that can help her son recover, she only had enmity.

You are able to work a full time job and support your family. That is practically what a normal person would do, if anything some normal people wouldn’t even as nice a job as yours. Since you upping the medication, did your symptoms go away? Personally since I am working full time also, I take my medications at the maximum dosage. To see the dosage is irrelevant as long as it doesn’t give me side effects. I also sleep 9.5 hours a day. There are sacrifices that must be made for people like us who suffer from severe mental illnesses.

I don’t know if you meditate but I found it had helped me immensely in every single area of my life. I have become less anxious, more compassionate and kinder to other people. What I have learned from meeting senior people at my firm is that they are all really humble. That has taught me being kind and nice to everyone is extremely important to career success. I practice it through meditation.

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I have been struggling with feeling too high functioning lately. I am in the process of applying for disability and they denied the initial claim (which is normal). But they said “You are not disabled”.

I also know people who say, “You’ve worked before, why can’t you work now?”

I am in school part time right now and am doing well. I’m also raising my three year old part time and most days I feel fine. Then all of the sudden a moment of dissasociation will hit while I’m walking down the sidewalk and I worry I’ll accidentally step out into the road for some reason.

I guess it’s important to realize that SZ does fluctuate and some days will be better than others and some will be worse than others. I feel your struggle. :confused:

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I normally wouldn’t, but when your symptoms are increasing and you’re starting to feel suicidal, it’s generally a good idea to make sure you have a support network in place that is able to see that you are becoming ill in case you lose your own insight. Which is what I was trying to do (get a support network in place).

No.

I’m not on the higest dosage, but on a higher dosage than I have been for a decade. Too much medication and my higher functions shut down. I need them for work.

I sleep about 3 hours per day because of chronic back pain with another 1 hour nap later.

It always makes my positive symptoms worse. I’m someone who always has to be busy doing something to push my symptoms back. Doing a whole lot of nothing has never worked for me.

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No not really. I’ve never been able to find any sort of psychosis support group near me. Even when I did PHP there was only like 2 other people there who had experienced psychosis and one had a family and 2 kids and was bipolar and the other one was on the lower side and lived at home, though you could tell he was intelligent, he had just been struck hard with cognitive stuff and so sometimes would make absolutely no sense in conversation and showed clear evidence of delusional beliefs. I don’t think he even acknowledged he was ill I think his mom made him come. The other lady said it was good to hear from someone else who experienced psychosis as we were a minority there it was mostly bipolar or really traumatized people.

I have had mental health professionals be like “there’s no way you’re sz” because I don’t seem “crazy” enough or whatever but generally once I start talking about my history and experiences they’re like oh actually…

So I dunno. I think it’s sort of sucky to cast someone out just because they’re of a diff functioning level than you, whether lower or higher.

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The assumption that if you have any kind of life you must not be that bad seriously undermines the effort many of us put into coping on a day to day basis, imo.

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Yes, this has been what I’ve been saying in my stories I post. I may say I’m high functioning in certain threads but i also say the truth and facts. The truth and facts are that I’ve gotten lots of help, advice and support over the course of 38 years with schizophrenia and a lot of what I’ve accomplished is luck and being in the right place at the right time. I was the one who put in the work and showed up for work and school but I had lots of help.

My case of schizophrenia when I first got diagnosed was severe like everybody else here. In 38 years I’ve never ran into any schizophrenic who has not suffered. Suffering is synonymous with having schizophrenia. I was locked up for 8 months in the hospital when I was 20 or 21. I did not stand out in any way, in fact, just the opposite. I kept a low profile and kept to myself. But I got out and moved into a beautiful group home and 9 months later I got a job and I’ve been working fairly steadily ever since. That’s why it pains me to hear people in their first 1, 5, or 7 years with this disease sound so hopeless and they sound so sure that they will never accomplish anything because of the disease.

Yes, I understand that not everybody had the mental health resources I had. But like I often say, I am not special. The hospital I was in for 8 months was not some nice, new great hospital. I was a very naive 20 year old suddenly thrown in with homeless mentally ill, criminals, violent people etc. But my family supported me and i did what was asked of me. They said I needed medication. I didn’t want it but I said sure. I saw the psychiatrists. I didn’t cause trouble. I didn’t use drugs or drink when I was in my early twenties.

When my parents found places for me to live I accepted it and moved in and did what was told to me and I accepted that. Unfortunately in my late twenties I got addicted to crack where I caused a little trouble but I quit drinking and drugging in 1990. But yeah, I am like anybody else. I had humble beginnings, I was just put into the mental illness world when I was 19 and I spent the entire 1980’s in hospitals, psyche wards, group homes.
My point is that I was like many people in the beginning of their disease. So I just wanted to show why you should not give up. To newcomers with the disease, you have a chance of getting better, a good chance, but it won’t happen overnight. You have to put the work in and lay down a foundation for the future. It means taking your meds, seeing the doctors and the therapists, doing things you don’t like doing or even doing stuff you hate doing now, but it will pay off in the future.

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