If you had asked me at age 18 where would I be in 4 years I would have answered: I will be a college graduate and I will be securely employed.
Well, I am 29 years old and that little bubble of hope kind of popped around the time I had my first schizo-affective episode at the age of 19. Since that time, I have ridden the turbulent waves of mental illness. I have succeeded and failed at community college, barely managing to transfer with an Associate's degree, almost a decade later. Now, I have a Bachelor's degree. It's officially on my transcripts: Bachelor's degree conferred August, 2012. Some might call me a total failure. A dreg, a former pothead, socially unproductive. Some might call me a tough cookie for managing a severe mental illness while working, going to college, and attending to my family. I call myself a masochist, in a way, for putting up with the tightening deadlines, the boss with the anger management issues, professors with attitude problems, eating myself into a size 16 pant size, dieting myself down to a size 14 (I am still considered overweight by the BMI chart but nowhere near where I used to be), making friends with sleazy womanizers, and juggling all this with the incessant stream of homework, papers, family obligations, financial strains, and (of course) periodic flare-ups of my mental illness. Yes, that little masochist in me wants to feel the pain of juggling life roles, of near epic failures, and deepening despairs concerning my future.
Yet, if it were not for the masochist I would have chosen a fairly easier route: graduate, go to a career placement service, get a job, work below my full capabilities, buy an Ipad. End of life. Despite the urge to be stable financially and professionally, I couldn't let go of the field I am studying. It intrigues me. The promised future paycheck also calls out to me like a siren in a Greek tragedy. So I applied to the same Cal State campus as a graduate student, got accepted, and now I am on a kayak heading down rapids. I do not know how I well fare in graduate school. It is something I want to do, something I am driven to do. I want to be educated. I want to be specialized. I want to feel intelligent.
This last decade I have felt dumb. I heard things that nobody else did while schizo-affective. I saw things. I believed wild delusions that anyone with normal brain chemistry could clearly see was not real. I have struggled with not trusting my mind at all and now my mind is the only thing I have to keep me afloat for the next two years while I complete my Master's degree.
I just know I want to be like Elyn R. Saks in "The Center Cannot Hold." Psychotic? Yes. Smart? Yes. Educated? Yes. Successful? Yes. She is my role model. Thank you, Elyn R. Saks, for writing your story. A year after I found out about your story I am still inspired to persevere in my life, to prove you right!
So....here I go. I am going to work on a presentation I have to prepare for a class.
Thanks for reading!
Well, I am 29 years old and that little bubble of hope kind of popped around the time I had my first schizo-affective episode at the age of 19. Since that time, I have ridden the turbulent waves of mental illness. I have succeeded and failed at community college, barely managing to transfer with an Associate's degree, almost a decade later. Now, I have a Bachelor's degree. It's officially on my transcripts: Bachelor's degree conferred August, 2012. Some might call me a total failure. A dreg, a former pothead, socially unproductive. Some might call me a tough cookie for managing a severe mental illness while working, going to college, and attending to my family. I call myself a masochist, in a way, for putting up with the tightening deadlines, the boss with the anger management issues, professors with attitude problems, eating myself into a size 16 pant size, dieting myself down to a size 14 (I am still considered overweight by the BMI chart but nowhere near where I used to be), making friends with sleazy womanizers, and juggling all this with the incessant stream of homework, papers, family obligations, financial strains, and (of course) periodic flare-ups of my mental illness. Yes, that little masochist in me wants to feel the pain of juggling life roles, of near epic failures, and deepening despairs concerning my future.
Yet, if it were not for the masochist I would have chosen a fairly easier route: graduate, go to a career placement service, get a job, work below my full capabilities, buy an Ipad. End of life. Despite the urge to be stable financially and professionally, I couldn't let go of the field I am studying. It intrigues me. The promised future paycheck also calls out to me like a siren in a Greek tragedy. So I applied to the same Cal State campus as a graduate student, got accepted, and now I am on a kayak heading down rapids. I do not know how I well fare in graduate school. It is something I want to do, something I am driven to do. I want to be educated. I want to be specialized. I want to feel intelligent.
This last decade I have felt dumb. I heard things that nobody else did while schizo-affective. I saw things. I believed wild delusions that anyone with normal brain chemistry could clearly see was not real. I have struggled with not trusting my mind at all and now my mind is the only thing I have to keep me afloat for the next two years while I complete my Master's degree.
I just know I want to be like Elyn R. Saks in "The Center Cannot Hold." Psychotic? Yes. Smart? Yes. Educated? Yes. Successful? Yes. She is my role model. Thank you, Elyn R. Saks, for writing your story. A year after I found out about your story I am still inspired to persevere in my life, to prove you right!
So....here I go. I am going to work on a presentation I have to prepare for a class.
Thanks for reading!
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