I’m doing a NAMI Peer to Peer Class and they talk about the three stages of recovery: recuperation, rebuilding, and recovery and how you can be in several at the same time. Recovery is a journey, not a destination…
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I think that assessment is supposed to be done by people other than the patient…not to say you’re wrong, just saying. It looks like it would be done by staff while someone is at a mental hospital or something.
I was thinking of doing some speaking for a NAMI program before some of my symptoms returned. Was symptom free for about two years on 15mg of Abilify and then about four weeks ago I notice I’m concerned that other people can hear my thoughts, something that hadn’t crossed my mind in 2 yrs. Before I know it I’m going through virtual telepathy again…
It’s very subtle compared to what I’ve dealt with in the past and my therapist and I agree that it’s probably for the best to let it be unless it gets worse. But yeah recovered from Sz for two years and then it just creeps back in out of the blue just like that.
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Well here is recovery star assessment(used in UK) done with social worker of which full answers to it is what i used to estimate a score using the form Malvok posted .
http://www.imaginementalhealth.org.uk/_uploads/Recovery%20STAR%20User%20Guide.pdf
1= lowest 10=highest
Physical health and self care=4, Living skills=6(social worker says rating is tenuous and could be lower), Social networks=3, Work=2 , Relationships=2, Addictive behaviour= not rated as no problem,responsibilities = not rated, no problem, Identity and self esteem=4, Trust and hope =4
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Thank you for that link. I am going to fill it out later and give it to K as an aid to help in keeping a picture of what is going on with me.
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sorry i wasnt implying that it was easy for you working that long just that i dont think i could ever do that in my life time, i was just about able to manage a 15 hr weekly college course, if i was to do anything it would have to be flexible and part time i think, maybe.
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I work part-time, take online college courses, live by myself, and drive. I have no friends, and I don’t go out side every day, but I do go out most days and I HAVE to leave my house every day to get my mail downstairs and empty trash. I handle all my own finances, still get SSDI, and see a therapist and a psychiatrist and of course take meds.I handle all my own business and go over my sisters house once a week for dinner. Occasionally I visit my mom 2 1/2 hours away. You be the judge.
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I’m certainly not the best I’ve ever been, but I function highly. I have an office job that I go to without fear or anxiety. I can go out in public, be in huge crowds (mainly because I’m from New Orleans and I go to Mardi Grass every year). I sometimes get a little stressed when I’m watching my younger siblings and they get too loud. Mainly it’s because my meds make me shake a bit and my heart rate goes up(which is usually okay in a running situation that is more relaxed).
I take my medicine at the same time every day. I haven’t missed a dose since I started (more than a year).
Even though I’m enjoying this I know it won’t last, so I have to put pressure where it’s needed to get things done. For instance, I’m on a couple of dating sites to hook a man 
and I want to travel either with school or the folks. If it’s with school I have to finish applying to the school that has student trips and/or urge my parents to go on a family vacation to Ireland or another European destination. I have relatives who moved to Japan and I could always stay with them (or at least have them there) and explore.
I’m going back to school and will move to a bigger city soon. I have goals that I’ll have to suck it up and accomplish (I sometimes have to force myself to not be distracted when I need to study).
I like to help a lot around here, because I know I’ll have to ask for help someday.
I had the same duality. I didn’t tell people what I was thinking, but I was out like a light.
Self supported for 8 years, working full-time. College educated…then worked 10 years part-time in life-death for customers with active psychosis, socialized and took college classes while ignoring a lot of head-case strangers causing me “social anxiety”…this is called gang stalking/cause stalking. It is how some of the part-time schizos deal with voices.These follow orders to stalk a stranger to harass about something private, vandalize, trespass, bother coworkers/customers, follow orders on who to date and hurt person with cheating, no employment, finances or battery.
i would say low functioning…
i probably seem to have things together…but in reality that is not the case…
but i am kind.
take care
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Yeah, you said you have a bad temper but you have a great sense of humor and it seems like you try to be a decent guy. OK, that’s enough compliments from me for today. I’m all maxed out.
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Function, i never much liked being referred to as something that must “function”.
Refrigerators function, cars function, this computer is functioning.
I don’t want to function, it sounds terrible.
All that i want to do is pack some things that i need and walk the earth for about fifty years, i want to scour the globe, camp out by waterfalls and explore caves, i want to traverse an entire desert, i want to go through alaska on foot, hang out with a pack of wolves and bears, wander the redwood forest.
But i can’t do these things.
No, i don’t want to function.
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My doctor thinks I am high-functioning in terms of being able to care for myself, for others, and to hold down a job. I always think I could be higher functioning in terms of my day-to-day activities. I am my own worst critic. I am married to my second worst critic who thinks I could improve my function in terms of getting dirty laundry into the hamper sooner, and unloading a dishwasher more promptly.
10-96
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I am high functioning, and my new psychiatrist thinks I have a bipolar illness not schizoaffective because I don’t display or experience any or even a few of the characteristics. My worst issue is anxiety and panic. I panic in situations that I overthink. This causes me to space out and have to reorganize my thoughts sometimes.
I might be getting an opportunity to work at a nice paying job soon.
My IQ upon entering college was a 3.5. I worked so hard to impress and hide my illness that eventually I broke under the pressure and just let people know I had this diagnosis of schizophrenia and I feel like it played a part in how horribly they were toward me. I felt used. I felt used by the system and used by my friens and ignored by my family.
Am I just overdramatic or does it matter that a medication can cause withdrawal that mimics or induces a thing called relapse or withdrawal psychosis. Meaning if you never have schizophnrenia in the first place, and you are put on intense doses of anti-psychotics you were never going to be the same person, you were going to be on pills for the rest of your life. You have an imbalanced sick brain. So mediciation is basically an addition to my survival in life. I hate it. I don’t want to be dependent on a drug or chemical to survive and be normal in society.
But I take my medication because if I don’t I get emotional although recently I haven’t any return of symptoms. I haven’t ventured past three weeks off the medication in a year’s time.
I used to be smarter. The illness has hurt my intelligence, or perhaps strengthened my ability to conceptualize about the world around me. In fact, it may have heightened my reasoning skills over time. I’m a rational, sane, safe person. That’s why I hate the label.
I do not have delusions anymore, grand or otherwise. I’ve felt fairly beaten down and disillusioned about the world but I always see hope and as soon as I’m about to give up there is a force of awe and amazement just at being alive, and beyond words.
Awesome! Why can you not do at least some of those things?
I have…camped by waterfalls, explored caves, hiked in Alaska and was around bears, though didnt actually hang out with them, been to redwoods and deserts but didn’t spend much time in either.
cindy
same here. I work full time but my motivation isn’t strong enough. I just do what I gotta do.
judy
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yes, I agree. There was a time when I was working daily a full time job. I graduated from 2 different colleges (one was where I went daily to like 5 or 6 classes a day 5 days a week. Then the other was online where I only took one class at a time and set my own schedule.
I don’t work, and typically speaking my father is in charge of my finances but he’s lenient when letting me shop when I can letting me buy myself a little treat each month. I don’t get much otherwise and having something new once a month is nice. I do live with my parents,
I don’t cook but I do clean up the kitchen each night and do other things when asked to (like laundry or vacuuming or whatever), I have an 8 year old cat I take care of by feeding daily, keeping her litter box clean and play with her and stuff. Right now she’s sleeping next to my foot. She doesn’t let me hold her like I would love to, but she lets me stroke her all the time and she does let me pick her up and she’ll lean into my shoulder putting her paw over my shoulder giving me a hug. And when I fall asleep on the sofa in the afternoons she’ll hop up and sleep on my stomach.
While I am working on a novel I’m trying to lean it towards more of a therapeutic release rather than actually writing the novel. I’m trying not to put so much stress on me, last week I had a little psychotic episode but it’s passed now. It just reinforced the reminder that I’m not as functioning as I would like to be and I don’t think I could handle working a job outside the home since I can’t handle stress period.
And that’s about where I am right now. Trying to figure out how to handle stress without having a setback with my schizophrenia and depression attacks.
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My last hospitalization for sz was 20 years ago. I am on SSD and Medicare but don’t have any housing assistance or food stamps. I don’t drink and haven’t had a cigarette since 1999.
I am a part time caregiver for my wife, my 91 year old dad and my 90 year old mother in law. I drive a lot (often in some pretty bad snowstorms in the winter). We only use one credit card which we try to pay off each month entirely. I am up and out of the house before 7am on most weekday mornings to take my brother to work.
I do most of the cooking (really easy stuff) and we do our own grocery shopping as well as most of the grocery shopping for my dad and brother. We don’t have any kids and we rent so our lifestyle is relatively simple.
Probably won’t ever have much of a career again but we have a pretty good family.
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