4th and part of 5th grade were good times. That was the last time I was part of the gang; I was friends at one time or another with just about all the other guys. The girls weren’t fond of me but I could see why. Grade school and high school relationships are pretty superficial. If you’re not good looking at that point you’re pretty much out of luck when it comes to the opposite sex. And I was no Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
But nevertheless, those were fun years. No responsibilities, my job was to be a kid and play. Those were my last innocent years. Me and my friends were not causing any trouble or doing anything illegal. We just rode our bikes played basketball, football, and baseball or still played with certain toys Didn’t even really get into fights, but wrestling was a popular pastime.
But my family moved three months into 5th grade. And the city we moved to was an affluent area but the first day at my new school kind of foretold how my new digs were going to be when the teacher told my classmates to include me with whatever they were doing at recess and lunch. The first thing we did was to discover that the school had just made a new cement floor at the baseball dugouts so I followed my new friends and we all carved our initials into the fresh, wet cement floor with sticks. We got caught but I was the only one who didn’t get in trouble because I was new.
Eventually in sixth grade at this school we started smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and hard liquor (usually straight). We started vandalizing, stealing. It was kind of weird when I think back on those times. The contrast to my prior school was stark; it was night and day and actually, my new city was only about 6 miles from my old neighborhood.
Since I became schizophrenic in 1980 my most productive years were from 1990-95. I guess I was happy and content sometimes. I was in a board & care home and I worked the entire time, I enrolled in college and I got clean and sober and started going to 5 or 6 AA meetings a week. I had a good friend in the home and he started coming to AA with me and we started going to movies or the music store to buy cassettes or DVD’s on weekends or visiting both our families and going to parties and other events.
That would’ve been pre-school. Pretty much perfect and not a trouble in the world. That would’ve been 1999-2000 I think. I loved my school, loved my friends. I was just a happy silly kid.
4th grade was pretty great too. We had just moved and everyone at my school treated me like I was a visiting noble or something when I was the new kid, people fought over who would play with me. Very good friends. Lived right by a forest on a huge lot with giant rocks to climb on and in the fall you could be completely hidden by the leaves on the ground. We saw animals all the time. Many happy memories from that time period with few bad. I’d already been through bad stuff though and was not that same child I was in pre-school so I still rate pre K higher.
Most of freshmen year of college was fantastic except for when I failed accelerated pre-calc and thought it was the end of the world No other year of college lived up to freshmen year. Had huge amounts of baggage by that point of course but it really felt like a new beginning.
That sucks to get colitis so young. My mom and grandma on my dad’s side both have it but they didn’t get onset until like early/mid 30’s. Since it runs on both sides of my family there is an uncomfortable risk I will end up developing it, I really hope not as I’ve seen what my mom has had to deal with as I grew up.
2004 (when i was 20) was a good year, even though I was just diagnosed with sz the year before. I was not religious yet and I had a hippie boyfriend that year. We used to go to the support group at the local psych hospital and once we went to the beach. He used to come visit me at home. Somehow I look back on the time with him with fondness. Last night i dreamt of him again, i don’t know why. When I found out last year that he died in 2010 I cried. He was a lovely man.
The years I was very religious (2005-2011) I was in remission and off meds for most of that time, but I don’t think of those years with fondness. I should have been with my boyfriend instead. One good thing though was I grew closer to God.
Apart from 2004, I think 1999 was a great year. I was 15 and in junior high and was an astronomy fanatic. I had a telescope and everything. It was real fun!
Yeah my grandma went into remission after 20 or so years I think? My mom is still affected by hers though. There are much better medications out today, so my mom tries to make me feel better about it by saying it’s not that big a deal anymore so long as you stay on the medicine. (She had a whole ordeal recently where she was taken off bc it lowered her white blood cell count, then her doctor died so she couldn’t get a refill, then we moved and for her to be prescribed a new med she had to go through all the old tests proving she had ulcerative colitis even though she’s had it for years )
When I was very young my mom would tuck me into bed and actually sit and talk to me. Soon as I turned ten everything changed but I think therapy is helping.
The greatest period of my life was when I was a teenager from 15 to 19. Was obsessed with a delusion of living in the wild or the bush. Regularly went on trips to the nearby wild habitat. It was great. Most real experiences I have ever had. Schizophrenia for me started at 15. Once I started getting disability pension I gave up on living in the wild.
No other year of college lived up to freshmen year. Had huge amounts of baggage by that point of course but it really felt like a new beginning.
