hey,
Take the pills as prescribed. Keep on top of your own symptoms…Don’t stop the medication if your doing well…it often means it won’t work as well.
I’m 45. I was diagnosed when I was 29 with schizophrenia, 23 with depression.
Still. Take the pills. If you get side effects talk to your treatment team…ie get yourself a good psydoc! I have 15 minutes with a great psychiatrist and he can tell how I’m doing in five to ten minutes…a good shrink is hard to find it seems so you get one you stick with then!
Talking doesn’t help. Medications do! Simple strategies of thought definitely do!
A friend,
Rogueone.
I got diagnosed when I was 19. I’m 54 now. It’s a long fight, you’re in it for the long haul. When I was 19-21 I suffered really badly with no end in sight. Anybody who knew me back then would never have thought in a million years that I would have done the things I’ve dome in my life. I’ve been at my job for four years and I will probably be let go because my back has gone bad. But I have not given up.Of course I’m bothered and worried but let me tell you what I’ve accomplished in my life despite this disease.
I’ve worked almost steadily (albeit mostly part-time) since 1983. I have gone to college and I’m need only four more classes for my AA degree. I have lived on my own since 1995, Six of those years I lived completely by myself. I have owned several cars since 1998. I have had friends occasionally. I was fortunate and lucky enough to have dated and I was in a relationship with a pretty, nice women for awhile. I will be out of debt in about two months. I have flown across the country several times, from the west coast to the east coast.
I have done a lot of other stuff too and I plan on doing more. Tons of people on this site have done amazing things too. We can hate our lives but we have our periods where we shine. So stick around. It’s a shame you don’t seek help from your family. My success is due in a large part to my family supporting me for thirty five years.
You’re too young to give up. It’s not hopeless, it only seems that way. It would have been easy to give up when I was your age. But I didn’t because my family wouldn’t let me. The key to getting help is reaching out. That’s where it all starts. Everybody, schizophrenic or not, needs help at some time in lives. There’s no shame in asking for help.
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I had to lie A TON after my nervous just to keep the normal life going…But these calculated risks (leaving some jobs off resume, avoiding some city’s abusers and lie to leave anything questionable, not discuss diagnosis at all) kept normal attainable as long as I put in reasonable effort to work. Functioning and avoition do vary a lot. People hit younger with schizo have more social problems and work dysfunction, older people function better to continue working/independent living plus very motivated to keep it all going so low avolition is not so much a problem older. Liked having middle-class life alone, will keep trying to avoid returning to miserable parent’s situation except as emergency option to leave unsafe situations (which does happen for females alone sometimes).
SSi has helped me tons, even though it’s less than $10,000 in assistance per year. There’s no way I can manage a full-time job given my symptoms. I’m also given around $2,000 in food allowance per year and basically a free 250-minute cellphone.
Let’s just say the Gov’t has really helped me out monetarily. Without that support I’d just be a deadbeat living in group home, no internet contacts, no connection to anyone in my past (not even family), boring my mind out with nothing to do - bed ridden 95% of my life away.
Now, however, at least I have some freedom to think & feel independent.
Edit: Off of medications, I think I would have a shining hope of managing a part-time job, but the excess dopamine and lower physical & mental drive leave me useless.