Something brought our workmanship interests down until we don’t want to. Was it a teacher, a doctor, a friend, it could be several influences. I feel imprisoned by an unidentified critic.
3 Likes
You’re speaking for others again.
Yes, and I knew you would be the first to respond. Would you settle for it is a sz tendency to doubt one’s ability. I know this is something you have overcome to a large extent. But you’re not everyone either.
It is human to doubt one’s ability. We don’t all go around looking for the worst in everything or excuses to be miserable, though. That’s your superpower.
The negative is just as real as the positive. I was afraid to be happy.
Sometimes I am a perfectionist and want to be the best in the world at something. And sometimes I just want to lay down and fart the rest of my life away.
1 Like
I was like that. Then I realized I can never be the best or perfect.
In elementry school, the teacher said don’t practice. Do perfect practice lol. You’ll make less mistakes.
I don’t know. I felt bad getting disabled. I mean even lowly work is good work but it hurt me mentally. I always wanted to be a somebody and successful. Now, I really don’t have a choice. I’m 34 and only had 3 part time jobs in my life and then failed college because of schizophrenia. That was over 12 years ago. I haven’t done anything substantial since.
I tried online stuff like codecademy and coursera and edx. It’s not the same as real college, but it can still be challenging and rewarding. I can do it all online. I’m afraid to go to an online classroom because I’m afraid of failure. I had perfect grades at community college and never failed a course in university, but felt like a failure because of my below average performance. I did amazing on homework for the most part and flunked the midterms and passed the finals I guess.
My worst test grade was a midterm for abstract algebra, I got a 2.5% because I didn’t study and just assumed I knew the material and had a finance test the same week. I passed with a C at the end. I’m not stupid or dumb, just inexperienced. The best way to learn is to do tons of problems and practice tests. I usually worked alone for some reason in some classes.
3 Likes
I hated when the teacher would say form groups so we can do group projects and presentations. I was the only one left sitting by myself and always a very friendly girl would come and invite me to join their group. I still graduated college with a c average or something.
1 Like
I was studying real analysis, number theory, and mathematical logic when I developed schizophrenia back in 2011 my senior year. Math logic was hard and abstract. I passed the initital requirements but did poorly on tests for some reason and was drinking too many monsters lol.
Number theory was cool and fun loved it.
Real analysis was good and not hard for me but I didn’t do well on the tests again.
Math logic I was probably going to fail. I did poorly on the weekly assignments and underestimated the rigor of the class. I never remembered the teachers name but she was from CalTech. I had a wonderful experience and education, but couldn’t do the work or keep up anymore. It was either drop out or fail 1-2 courses and stay with it. I would have probably needed some meds to do it but for some reason, never went on meds until 2012, a year or so later.
They say real analysis is the hardest course. It probably is. I was below average. Nothing special.
I also lived in a coop with 150 people and decided I needed to go home. I never went back. I think those days are gone.
If I ever do school again, it should be online. I loved math.
My first course at university was discrete mathematics in the summer and I got a B. It was lower division but felt like a marathon doing it. I studied a lot. Maybe I’m just dumb now.
I never would have guessed.
We can’t control everything that happens to us, the good and bad. But we can control our reaction or response to said events. How we deal with our feelings about it is key to staying emotionally healthy.
1 Like
We can also help those who are trying to fight stigma for people with SZ by not adding to it at every freakin’ opportunity.
1 Like
@shutterbug, You never seem to miss an opportunity to make me feel bad about myself. I wish you would stop it.
1 Like
@PinCushion settle down cowgirl.
Personally I understand what you are saying but I think you are seeing it improperly. As I see it people normally gravitate in a orbit, like a planet around its star. Schizophrenia sent us flying away from orbit and it’s hard to throw ourselves back like a marble and enter a new Orbit without the momentuum throwing us off again.
To use another metaphor, it’s like people normally are on a treadmill and increase speed over time, first they go on the treadmill, then the Speed goes up and they crawl, slowly they get up as the Speed increases and they start to walk and then run. On the other hand at some point we got off the treadmill and people’s expectations and to some extent our own is that just like they are running we can run on the treadmill too and perhaps we even can but the problem is that the treadmill never stopped. The bloody machine is still going at full speed and we are legitimately afraid of jumping on top lacking the ability to get into step, lose balance and hurt ourselves. Eventually we try, something goes wrong and we lose Faith in our ability to succeed and so we get angry and unwilling to jump onto the hazard that we perceive to be the moving treadmill.
I say build your own treadmill and get walking, eventually you’ll up the Speed and run in Place like everybody else. Just like children go to school, interact with their peers and build up their social skills from scratch so we need to humble ourselves, and understand that we need to go back to a school nobody invented, with an atmosphere no place allows for adults so that we can grow there. So we need to create the school because we can’t go back to kindergarten and elementary school and pass for children.
First of all is achieving the growth mindset we had when children, then finding ways to shape our environment in a way that trains that which we lack at a speed we can work with. We need to have patience with ourselves, it’s impatience that makes us angry and unwilling, nobody is giving us a ten year plan to be an adult, everybody either expects us to fail or for success to be a matter of a couple years tops if everything goes right. We need to make it for ourselves because it’s better to have a ten year plan that works than a crazy one year gamble that may result in our face firmly planted on the treadmill and us back to square one with a new shiny head injury for our troubles.
That’s how I see it, unfortunately we lack the structure children have to slowly grow into valued members of society but we have the advantage of actually knowing what we need, the difference is that they have the pleasure of discovery and wonder to guide them into adulthood, while if we follow that Path blindly we fall right into mania and psychosis. What we need instead is patience, and appreciation for the tiniest of progresses over months and years. Awareness that we shouldn’t rush ahead but need to build stronger foundations, even though the next step will eventually already seem within reach, we need to hold firm and let the step come to us by virtue of our foundations being so solid that they act like a river overflowing into the field, resisting the urge to drain the river before it has built up enough water.
I know my metaphors suck, but I hope I got my philosophy across. Go back to the basics, learn how to crawl while everybody is running beside you and laughs at you or complains that you should at least try walking because you’ve walked before and know how. Screw them politely, your own pride included, and focus on learning how to crawl, when you’ll get to walking you’ll be ten times steadier and nobody will be able to take away your progress.
P.S. @PinCushion Shutterbug isn’t trying to be mean, just snarky. I say mute him like I did, that way you need to unhide his comments and can prepare mentally for his level of snark.
2 Likes
-
You don’t seem to need my help to feel bad about things.
-
If you want to complain about your life, that is your business. I object to your blanket statements for all of us with the illness depicting all of us as being helpless or beholden to the illness.
@PinCushion , you can ask one of the moderators to add him to your “ignored user list” if you’re not getting on with him.
I’m sure he can do the same!
Then there will be peace and quiet 
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.