I’m certainly not going to recommend or endorse that you should kill yourself. What I’m going to tell you is this. I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1980 at age 19. My first 2 1/2 years with this hellish disease was nightmarish. I suffered extreme psychosis and I suffered every minute of every day for those first 2 1/2 years. I had no hope and I often was suicidal.
My case of schizophrenia was so bad that I couldn’t see any decirnable reason to live. I had every reason on earth to just give up and end my life. I spent 8 months locked up in a psychiatric hospital when I was 21 years old. I was out of my mind and so were my 100 fellow patients. For those first 2 1/2 years I had no friends, I had no money, I had no job, I had no schooling, I had no girlfriends, I had no independence. I had no sanity. I was medicated into a shuffling zombie that paced the hospital halls, not talking, eating every meal in the cafeteria by myself for 8 months while my fellow patients sat around talking to each other. Doesn’t sound like a very good life does it?
But I got out and immediately things changed. I moved directly into a nice group home. I stared going to a vocational program 4 days a week. I was living with 8 other mentally ill people in that home. Well, after 9 months there I got a job. I worked their for four years. I moved into supportive housing where two or three of us with diagnoses shared a house by ourselves but there was a guy who was a counselor who would check up on us periodically to see if we were doing OK.
Then I got a car, I had two or three friends, I enrolled myself in college, I did fun things. I still had terrible symptoms but I was functioning despite them.
Well, I’ll turn 55 in March. I have worked almost steadily since 1983. I only need four more classes for my college degree, I lived totally independently from 1995-2015. I have a beautiful car. I’ve dated. I got asked out by a pretty girl about six months ago. I have a friend now. I have traveled across the country a few times, I’ve been to many movies and restaurants. Do you see my point?
I went from being hopeless to living a productive life that has been fulfilling in many ways. I was in your shoes. When I first got sick I had no future, I had no sign or hint that I would ever accomplish anything. You can’t predict the future. Life is just a huge gamble but sometimes things work out.
In my early years with schizophrenia, I was nothing special, I was just one of the crowd with life tossing and turning me at its whim. I was just one of the guys. I don’t think I need to say more. I’ve made my point. I’m not saying that everybody can accomplish what I have but lots of other people with schizophrenia accomplish many things in life besides me. I hope you get something from all of this.