A big part of my life before the illness was trying to compete and move up socially. School and ambition were almost the total pre-occupation growing up. After the illness I fell to a fairly low level socially and I am somewhat poor. That has been a major loss. I have had to seek and find other answers to life’s purpose.
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With schizophrenia I’ve learned to lower my expectations. That isn’t all a bad thing as I still live a realized life- it’s just a little different from most. The thing is when you get rid of expectation you lose your disappointment!
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@rogueone I see you have thought about this too. It is painful for me to see this. Insight can be hard sometimes. I took a long fall with my illness years ago. Your comments are helpful and I am trying to understand “a life realized.” To me this means seeing a purpose to life and having success at that. I do see a purpose or path to my life and I feel I am “realizing” it.
Thanks for your helpful reply. I have lowered my expectations.
This brings up some big questions and I must deal with them on my own.
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this is a big concern for me, but really what matters to me is growth on the personal level, not what society defines as growth necessarily. i want to my ideal self mentally, but the illness has robbed me of that. its not as simple as “i want to be smart and impress and dominate people with my brain and abilities”. i just want to have a good memory, have normal emotional experiences and be flexible and mentally sharp. i also want to have my ideal body. this disease has robbed me of all those things.
so, basically, i want to have the capacity to be a complete person. not some drugged up zombie living in a poorly defined reality. i want to have the ability to decide which direction my life goes in again, like i did before.
Me to. I had lots of plans. Wanted to be a nurse. Etc. For a long time i was depressed for not being able to work. I enjoyed it. Now i went from being extremly busy to just taking care of home. Although i love ny kids and i know people wish they could be in my shoes. But ive always worked. Ive been working before i was legally able to work. And didnt want to stop. Struggled with not working. Still miss it. But hey thats not what god wanted for me.
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@Anon10 I understand that personal growth has now become the main motivator for many of us. I think you goals for your mind (and body) are a little too high for those of us with schizophrenia. But you also don’t need to be over-medicated like a zombie. Thanks for your input.
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@anon36372018 Thanks for your reply. It sounds to me like what you want the most is plenty of good work. That is good to seek. Would you be happy with a lower level job than the one you initially aimed for (nursing)? I think I spent a few years in depression over not having my original career, which it sounds like you had too.
What I miss is having social status and money. But really I don’t have it so bad.
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