Lately when I think about what recovery means to me, the things I need to do to overcome my issues, the steps I need to take to become a better person with a better life I get really scared and angry about having this illness.
Don’t know what to do, sometimes it seems like there’s no real hope for me, other times I feel energized and full of strenght to overcome the obstacles.
There’s the possibility of working with kids, I’ve done it before I know I’m good at it. There’s also the possibility of working with animals, my therapist mentioned it.
Anyway, it’s scary. Sobriety doesn’t seem scary anymore, but losing touch with reality again is my biggest fear. So I have to take all steps necessary for that not to happen again, and if it does I’ll need to have the strenght to overcome it.
Sometimes it’s a slippery slope. My moods are always a big mess, yesterday I was angry and depressed, today I’m more calm again.
Doesn’t mean I’ll give up, just that it is very scary to confront my inner ghosts.
Recovery makes me get out of my comfort zone… It makes me keep an eye on my thinking… it makes me work harder then just letting myself wander around inside my head.
It is scary… when I was in a negative swing… I didn’t worry about much… I had no really feeling to let worry register.
But when I began to get out of that flat negative numbness… it was like the feeling were back in full color and surround sound. It took some time to get used to them again.
The waves of emotions… getting used to that again… just took practice and patience.
Good luck and I’m glad your doing better… congratulations.
I don’t think you need to change all of yourself. So much of you is great just as you are. You’ve got some time off - try to use it to take stock of what’s working for you and what’s not.
(so much of the advice we give is self-talk, I am realizing. We tell each other things we need to hear ourselves.)
I think you’d be excellent with children. You’re bright, energetic, no nonsense. But I think you’d be great at so many things, so give yourself time to think it all over.
I think you’re moving from the initial elation of leaving a harmful course of study. It was weighing you down, tinting everything grey. You’ve had that initial soaring feeling of relief, but now you’re thinking, what next? How many wrong paths am I going to go down? Why can’t I see the answer? How can I know if I can do it when I don’t know what “it” is?
That’s all natural and expected. Don’t rush at an answer just to have something to fill in that blank. Let yourself find the answer.
Have you thought about volunteering? See if a school or a program needs people to work with children. See if a shelter needs someone to help with animals. Can you see yourself doing that for the next several years?
See about victim advocacy groups. I don’t know, I really can see you in an advocacy role. You have so much fire and such a need to improve things. Maybe think about that, too?
There’s so much of you that’s already good and as it should be. Take this semester to learn Minnii.
Yes, I’m thinking of volunteering actually. There’s a place here in my neighbourhood that helps kids with homework and activities after school. I’ll finish my drivers license first so I don’t overwhelm myself again with things. At first I think I can do it all then it all falls because I become overwhelmed, that’s one thing I’m changing
You’re right, I still have time and you’re right about all those thoughts rushing through my head. If I fail again?
I’m the living impersonation of Samuel Beckett’s quote fail again fail better.
It’s a bit what I was warned too about quitting now, it’s just another failure. But I couldn’t take it anymore. At the same time I feel the relief of not going anymore, and not having to assimilate those subjects, and feeling of inadequacy all over again.
But yeah, I’ve got time.
There’s a few animal shelters, but I’m thinking about helping a friend taking care of stray cats here nearby. She takes them to the vet, gives them food, etc. She’s doing it all alone now, she could use the help.
My sister tutors kids in reading on her lunch breaks from work. She loves it. I think the homework plan is excellent, it sounds like a lot of fun.
But I think you’re being really smart about taking it one thing at a time. I’m feeling overwhelmed and like a failure now because I was overbooked this week. I have to keep reminding myself that in one week, things will be okay. So I am totally behind you on license first, next thing next.
Yes, it can. As great as your new self is, of course you grieve your old self.
I’ve been sitting here thinking about the literary tropes of “loss of innocence” and “coming of age”. I think maybe I lost my innocence - had what I believed to be true shattered - but haven’t yet come of age - grown up and joined the world of adults. And it’s this missing step that makes it easy for me to look at my life as a tragedy.
I think what happened to you was a loss of innocence, too. That’s by its very nature painful and world-rocking. What you’ve got in front of you now is the business of growing up, building a new, functional world for yourself, and it’s scary. But you can do it. You’ve got a good start already.
For me it’s kinda the opposite. If I read your thread title literally it totally relates to me because total recovery would mean I’m going to probably have a bunch of things begin happening with my brain that I won’t comprehend for a while because they either never worked right or at all to begin with having had this illness since I was a toddler which can’t be conducive to the full healthy development of a human brain as one ages. I really can empathize with 7 of 9’s situation in Star Trek: Voyager, even if I sound like a gigantic nerd in the process saying it, because she was assimilated into a Borg when she was 6 and now probably in her 30s she’s trying to figure out how to become human which involves a lot of concepts totally alien to her due to the Borg robbing her of developmental milestones a person normally goes through naturally. For me schizophrenia is like the Borg in this way, having utterly destroyed a great deal of my humanity before it could even be born.
I ordered some sarcosine anyway from where I hear it is reported to cause very substantial improvement in schizophrenia even with the smallest amount of improvement that’s been reported. I’m not going to be surprised if I end up going ape ■■■■ because I expect if it has similar results for me things like my very consciousness are going to expand significantly in ways I don’t even understand. Last year I suddenly became able to notice subtle changes in people and myself that I was never able to do before and it was extremely overwhelming for me for a good while being bombarded by all this ■■■■ I still don’t entirely comprehend. I kinda wish it had never happened despite it has prevented me from going through some very unfortunate circumstances because when I interpret it wrong I’ve ended up doing stuff before like spamming a friend’s Facebook account for two days straight until he blocked me due to the paranoia it caused. Here’s to hoping for the best though.
I actually notice a lot of parallels in the behavior I have and 7 of 9 has which must mean the people who wrote the scripts for Voyager really knew what they were doing if a fictional character who underwent similar circumstances that are very uncommon IRL, where the brain is traumatically altered from what its normal development is supposed to be, plays out similar to a living example of it. And in some ways the effects of Borg assimilation and schizophrenia’s negative symptoms are synonymous with each other. Would be great though if schizophrenia put the knowledge of countless alien races at my fingertips.
I don’t know if its true but psychosis for me is like not sobering up out of a drunken state. Recovery from alcohol is sary as well. Sometimes i detox from medication and go through all kinds of hallucinating nightmares. But i know its like a cleansing process of the " soul". Its sad that i cannot do this in a protective environment as i am forced to take medication in a psychward. I usually go in the outback in isolation where i am completely in the hands of nature. Recovering from what and changing into what?
When you got only bits and pieces make a quilt.
When you want to be a champion you have to fight another round. So i keep fighting and get up and up again somehow. Its like the voices turned into my personal trainer.
