Schizophrenia, well-being and social interaction

Health and Recovery
#1

Ive noticed, after becoming ill last year, that my social interaction and understanding of human beings has changed completely. I kind of view other humans not as persons anymore. They have become completely, how should i put it, soulless. As if they are like plants or animals, only chuncks of matter talking and doing their daily chores. Before my illness i took it for granted that people are just like me, striving for knowledge and success. But ive lost many things to schizophrenia. Like prior to the breakdown and hospital i was also very focused on entirely different things more to do with life and the social as well as private well-being of one self was taking for granted. I never worried about ‘feeling bad’ or ‘feeling unwell’, sure there were days where one felt sick and didnt go to school or skipped doing sports. However with this illness your daily life is absolutely messed up. ‘Feeling good’ and ‘well-being’ has shifted dramatically. You cant have a nice day or an longer onset of lucky feelings, which lasts for weeks, as one had before the illness. No instead you feel like complete trash throughout the whole day and week, and perhaps there will be one day where you dont feel like crap but it lasts for like 1 hour. Well-being doesnt exist and has lost any guarantee. Perhaps ill recover from this, although knowingly it will all turn to hell one day or another. The guarantee for a good life is gone. Social life has become very strange, i dont know why but i can view people as human beings, like myself, any longer. I sometimes have these weird semi-hallucinations where people have some sort of snake-eyes. But it isnt anything new i had this same thing when i was medicated in the hospital. The meds didnt help and only made myself feel worse and worse. The voices still annoy the hell out of me, not because they have grown to be louder or more frequent, they infact got very quiet and less, still they are here, in my head, and they dont go away.

Anybody else struggeling with recovery and has social problems?
Anybody med-free and not hearing voices or having delusions anymore?
Anybody has regrown a healthy, normal sense of reality and society on meds?
Do you take your well-being as guaranteed or do you also fear that everything will turn out to be ugly again?
Do you believe everything will be good? Is this the worst thing that can be lived through and that everything past this illness is going to be alot better in the future?

I am curious how you view other human beings and whether the mental illness has ruined your life as much as it has mine.

#2

I still have social problems and I think I always will, but I no longer have the bizarre perceptions and ideations you’re having with them. I was always shy and introverted and now I am more that way. Mostly though it is just a question of getting on with what needs to be done, acting with a purpose, and accepting your feelings without immersing oneself in a pity party.

   The Doors:

"People are strange when you’re a stranger
Faces look ugly when you’re alone
Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted
Streets are uneven when you’re down

When you’re strange
Faces come out of the rain
When you’re strange
No one remembers your name
When you’re strange
When you’re strange
When you’re strange

#3

Yeah i was/am also introverted, but not in the typical sense as being shy, i just like doing things on my own better than having many people around. Did you suffer from any ‘bad feelings’ after you were diagnosed? Or do you basically feel like prior to the illness? I personally feel tremediously different. Its like all the good things in life, however few of them i had, which one takes for granted (good health, ‘normal’ mood and feeling secure) were suddenly gone and turned into bad things (insecurity about the world and reality, awful mood and poor health). How was it for you? I still dont understand how this friggin world can run its course with some people enjoying their life without any problems, fullfiling their desires, and how others can suffer like this or even worse. Where is the ■■■■■■■ justice?

#4

I felt:

through all of my teen years and drug and alcohol years and I’ve always had poor health since I was a baby, so I didn’t notice as much of a comedown as you do. In fact I feel better in terms of security and mood now than I ever have since my pre-puberty years. I imagine it is very shocking how miserable life can be but I’m sure just from reading the news that there are millions, maybe billions, of people who are suffering worse than we are…

#5

I’ve achieved a fair degree of serenity on the med’s Geodon, Seroquel, and Wellbutrin. Thank God for the atypicals.

#6

I’m on better terms with society since I’m not psychotic.

There are people out there that live in way worse conditions, I feel lucky even.

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#7

Thanks for all of your responses.
I dont know about you but i lived in a poor country and a poor neighborhood(like 3rd world country poor. no roads, no clean hospitals, little and corrupt police, nor any financial income) for almost ten years. and i would say that when you are poor and suffer from hunger at least you have a sense of hope that things might turn out better. you also dont suffer from a bad/awful perception. but with this illness not only youre suffering but also have no sense of hope to see a bright positive future. Perhaps your experience differs from mine, in this sense of having a very bad mood day in and day out. its like having a headache, suffering from a cold, as well as feeling as if youre about to vomit.

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#8

Did you quit your meds? I read somewhere xeplion withdrawls are a pain

#9

Yeah :grinning:. I feel better though than ,before, when i was on the shot. You were also on Xeplion, if i remember right, 100mg? Its nice to know that it is working for people with little to no side-effects such as weight gain. It didnt help me at all though. I heard voices constantly and only now are they everlongly dwindeling, as i have less and less of the paliperidone in my system. The funny thing is though, ive read on the internet that Xeplion takes 6+ months to clear from your body. However when i had my blood tested last week they found out that my xeplion is not in the ‘therapeutic effect’ any more. I had like 6,6 (some weird minimal measuring unit per liter) in my blood. Its still an amount and a normal person has 0,0 of it but its not supposed to have an effect on me. I still feel the medicine. even though i dont have as great an appetite as i used to. So either this ‘therapeutic effect’ is some irrelevant nonsense or im stuck with my mutaliated sense of motivation and perception of feelings for the rest of my life. Im going to wait for the next 5 months so the paliperidone hits >0,5 per liter, see what happens. I hope the voices go away and i return to my old former self without medicine. I hope everybody could be like this. This whole experience has been hell for me. antipsychotics are a torture tool(not to speak of the illness itself), if youre having the side-effects.

#10

My guess is that im the only one who has this kind of weird ‘soulless’ perception of other human beings. Its annoying the ■■■■ out of me. You cant have a nice conversation without thinking about this issue, instead of focusing on the topics at hand.

#11

My social abilities in real life & on the internet are quite strong. I think that is a strength of mine - my intellect. Other than that, I’m still not all that physically healthy. My visual hallucinations are pretty constant and prevent me from concentrating on real world tasks like eating, exercising, or holding down a job.

I’m also emotionally “tapped out”. I literally don’t care about anything other than making it to retirement & dying happily. I used to love dreaming, but man these past couple of nights have been tough on me. Lots of tough dreams, ones that are hard to endure - lots of unsympathetic interactions in them.

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#12

Yeah absolutely feel you there. The dreams, even though you dream about nice things everyone would like, are always in some bizzare context. such as hearing voices in dreams or experiencing being given drugs against your will or being absolutely powerless and whatnot. Good thing is that they dont last long for me, because i always wake up at like 4-5am in the morning. Horrible sleep + strange dreams. Though sometimes the dreams are fcking amazing and one would rather live in the dreamworld than waking up to ‘reality’.

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#13

It’s easiest to see a lot of humans as barking dogs after you dealt with thought broadcasting, gang stalking or guided conversation people. Some of the churches take these formerly psychotics and reform them into a person who takes direction from the voices to do anything, all ethics be damned. These harm others now to keep themselves okay because the church is an anti-christ situation in some places and really just about meeting the needs of dirty businessmen using these servants who follow orders from their auditory hallucinations. There is very little okay reasoning ability left in some of these…These churches do not follow any biblical teachings and exercise few ethics…Except for revenge. These are barking dogs you need to avoid. (Checking out any church could result in being stuck and they mistreat schizos or treat you to a lot more harassment if you do get to leave a church. You need to know several people in a church well as they have your back up before you even consider attending there regularly unless you want to sit in the back of the denominational churches anonymously…Non-denominational and sometimes pentacostal churches hide the worst abuses usually. Some are threatened with harm of family or stolen from for leaving, harassed so bad out in public you cannot work is possible too.)

I think these are the best people to avoid. It is hard to work with these so can really be to your advantage to work part-time or temporary jobs on disability check before you try for full-time because you may not be treated the same by these mentally disturbed types after you go psychotic…this can be episode based as well. These treat you okay one minute and do a 180, then screw you. Sadly, a lot of the middle age and middle class have accepted psychopathic or passive aggressive behavior as normal, while most of the millennials embrace it.

I enjoy freelancing as I get to meet a lot of people so I can judge a desirable work situation over a mistake lots of times. Sadly, if you make an employment mistake, you could end up dealing with more mental problem symptoms because you met a person into the wrong thing, this is very common working in alternative therapy stuff (metaphysical based) or event centers.

I managed a little tangent…Experiencing the mental problems will give you an idea who is who, normals and other psychotics. Avoid the other psychotics unless sometime tries to pick you up for a date, they are frequently a life-wrecker if they aggressively show this behavior but some who try this tactic to meet people know a lot about the community’s problems and do make a good relationship as long as he doesn’t call you a nutcase/mentally ill. Government employees are okay socializing with us too as these are frequently spared mental problems and social harassment. You and I both know the meds are tough to maintain for most of us, or just impossible. Someone who is weak enough to mistreat a person and cannot just take their own suffering is just a mistake, and a terrible person, but eventually this is ‘normal’ behavior in a lot of places due to church pressures to harass people on disability following mental care.

You need to know, in professional circles, some people are used as an example and ruined by the town thugs as gain compliance from the rest of the business people. These will brag about ruining member of a social or networking group when the person stops attending and this is loudly pointed out due to ‘whatever reason’, sometimes it just happens because a poorer person felt threatened and spoke up. You may be shown the door in any situation by the group bully, it is better you just not return to these situations or defend your territory as these will ruin you if instructed. Avoidance is all we have left to survive this or at minimum, keep up our spirits.

I’m living in a place that ruined the pooper scooper man who put himself through college and lived comfortably here doing this work, until he ran into the wrong person and his customers were targeted. He was thrown out of the community, but able to tell his story about accepting the local powers/cooperate/follow orders (through the church frequently) to mess up people. At least the school gave him his diploma, as some in this kind of situation were ripped off and their educational records screwed with to show they did not graduate which usually results in firing from public position with lots of attention show as EXAMPLE.

As bad stuff happened to people around me to show examples of what can happen here, I decided I should not be working out in public as I was getting stalked and messed with bad at jobs that had life/death responsibility which results in employee being sued. After thrown out of the professional networking groups in two places in same week with different people involved, I know it is better to keep resume off public websites and work remotely/find work in another area as some of these will literally hunt a person down to ruin you if you are noticeably working in your field or have any public contact where you can cross paths. Other option is work with small business owner you know or person you know who manages a department and can keep you safe there.

In my situation, I refuse to be run back inside by the symptoms and behaviors of the area’s barking dogs. It is most important to never respond to any of these people aloud or get angry as you will be the only person hurt. These people do not make decisions for themselves… Any response is futile except for silence and eventually these get bored and leave you alone. In other ways, it is helpful and you can expect to see this behavior every time you move for a couple of months so you know who in the community hears the voices too. Lastly, you may want to discuss this behavior out of others when things first begin, but later it will only cause you greater discomfort by discussing any of this…and giving it more power at the same time.

Do realize, mental care considers this subject delusional but feel free to google any of these terms and see all the discussion…This is policy of mental care no matter how damaging for us. We just have to work in this system. You can eventually decide to take a small amount of the drugs if your symptoms do not respond…I recommend seroquel as it can be used at night cut into pieces to get drowsy. Insomnia causes bad weight gain in women. Even if the voices don’t stop, many people do work just fine hearing it some of the time and noise just runs in the background…Remember, you can never get angry with the psych doctor or you will be given a forced psych hospital stay at your own expense, if care doesn’t meet expectations you just make appointments with some other doctors until you find a good fit.

Edited: I only socialize a little in public, attend a few events and shop for basics. My area is bad news due to long history of sheltering sex abuser groups and ruining the victims…A lot of other people faced same fate and scam, so I’m lucky to know how things go and I can recognize the opportunities that do still exist and move in this direction to keep going.
Best of luck to you.

#14

Anybody else struggeling with recovery and has social problems?
I was diagnosed in 2009,I struggled a lot for 5 years until end of 2013 where my doctor added Mirtazapine and I gain insight of my illness while on therapy.Now I do better.

Anybody med-free and not hearing voices or having delusions anymore?
I am still on meds,and been on them for 6 years already.I don’t know if I will be able to make it without medication

Anybody has regrown a healthy, normal sense of reality and society on meds?
I am mentally healthier now and are closer to normal,I am glad I do with the help of people around me,my doctors and also my own effort

Do you take your well-being as guaranteed or do you also fear that everything will turn out to be ugly again?
Now I am really careful about what I actually do so that I do not fall into negative thoughts or unhealthy lifestyle again(like gaming,smoking,drinking or drug)

Do you believe everything will be good? Is this the worst thing that can be lived through and that everything past this illness is going to be alot better in the future?
Life is full of ups and downs,I certainly can say it’s the toughest 5 years of my life and I had learned from it and know how to prevent myself from getting stuck in the rut again.I have learned to live a healthy lifestyle by hard work and being positive

Good luck to you,you are better than I used to be when I was in my worst moment.I believed you will recover soon,take care!

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#15

Will also mention, in smaller communities, you can even figure out who is most screwed up based upon which church they attend. The pentacostal or big non-denominational churches crank out the most loud-mouth hate mongers while the old fashioned denominations most the most stable people…You can tell who to avoid just based on this.

#16

Thank you for your detailed lengthy response and wishes but i havent attended church regularly in my life, ever, nor have i been part of any christian community. Christian churches/communities, here in western europe, arent as socially relevant anyhow. none that i know of. i am also very independant of anybody in society and basically live on my own. regular work i have none currently and receive monthly money from the state.