I am a former mental patient (a female schizo-affective) who recovered thanks to a regimen of medicine treatment mixed with cognitive behavioral therapy. I got healthy enough to return to college, finish my Bachelor's degree, and currently I have been in a Master's program for nearly a year. I also volunteer on the side and I am a leader of an organization on campus as well. Originally, I had wanted to follow up with my PhD after completing the Masters, but now I feel (as my therapist so bluntly put it) that achieving a doctorate was nothing but a pipe-dream.
I have kind of given up on my dream of achieving a PhD. I am doing above average in my field, but my mother and the Department of Rehabilitation counselor both told me to go get a job instead.
"We're not funding PhD's," said my DOR counselor. "Our goal is to get you guys to pay taxes." Tact might not be his forte, but I guess he has a point. I am supposed to earn money, not just grants.
Humorously, the DOR counselor asked me what made me think I was schizo-affective. He seemed skeptical of this diagnosis. I almost started to giggle.
"Nothing, nothing at all. In fact, I think I am totally sane, with no mental illness. It is total fact that I am being psychically driven by hostile countries through long-range, low-wave frequencies. The voices I heard are totally a part of the psychic warfare techniques used against me to discredit me and get me to commit suicide. I can, in fact, read minds, and the minds I read are always plotting against me. It is an injustice that I have been involuntary committed into psychiatric facilities on a dozen separate occasions and 5250'd each time. I demand lawsuits! Lawsuits and a UN stipulation barring psychic driving!!!" I really wanted to say all that. I really did. Instead, I just sighed.
"I have been hospitalized a dozen times and the psychiatrists all diagnosed me with the same illness--schizo-affective disorder. I used to get audio and visual hallucinations, grandiose delusions, and extreme anxiety. I am on medicine and the symptoms have all gone away. To me, this tells me I was really sick because the medicine made such a huge difference." ----That's what I actually said to the guy. It really bemuses and frustrates me that I have to assert myself to others and state "yes, actually I am a schizophrenic, no kidding," and the whole time they're like, "why is she faking?" I guess it is difficult for society to accept that a person who can be non-functional one year can be a high-functioning student/volunteer/organizer with no hint of positive or negative schizophrenic symptoms. But it's true!
It is tough being a recovered mental patient. Often, it is very tempting to agree with people who never met you before but who judge you based on how you are at that very moment (perfectly socially acceptable), and who decide maybe you were never sick, you were just mishandled by the system.
I was mishandled by the system; I experienced sexual abuse in the wards, death threats, cruelty by staff, use of restraints without having made any threats or suggestions that I was going to be violent or a flight risk----but I can honestly say they didn't misdiagnose me. They just horribly traumatized me.
Now I am getting so irritable. Every time I talk about the stuff I went through in the psych wards, I get a migraine headache.
I change subject now.
******************************************************************
Currently, I am the president of a campus organization. I did not start the club but I was recently nominated to be president and so I am president now. I have a meeting with the administration today to discuss our upcoming event, which I am now in charge of, as the last president just left with the paperwork for the event incomplete and not approved by the administration. I like the last president. I am just a little nervous because the choice to switch officer positions was not her choice. I think she might be a tad bit bitter. I must use my diplomatic skills to win her over. I will then use the diplomatic skills to win over the administration and to hold this event, which is coming up next month.
I must go make promotional materials for the event, that is not approved to take place yet. Better to be over-prepared than to come empty-handed.
Usually, I don't wake up at 2 am, but today I did, so I might as well make some promotional materials. Thanks for reading!!
I have kind of given up on my dream of achieving a PhD. I am doing above average in my field, but my mother and the Department of Rehabilitation counselor both told me to go get a job instead.
"We're not funding PhD's," said my DOR counselor. "Our goal is to get you guys to pay taxes." Tact might not be his forte, but I guess he has a point. I am supposed to earn money, not just grants.
Humorously, the DOR counselor asked me what made me think I was schizo-affective. He seemed skeptical of this diagnosis. I almost started to giggle.
"Nothing, nothing at all. In fact, I think I am totally sane, with no mental illness. It is total fact that I am being psychically driven by hostile countries through long-range, low-wave frequencies. The voices I heard are totally a part of the psychic warfare techniques used against me to discredit me and get me to commit suicide. I can, in fact, read minds, and the minds I read are always plotting against me. It is an injustice that I have been involuntary committed into psychiatric facilities on a dozen separate occasions and 5250'd each time. I demand lawsuits! Lawsuits and a UN stipulation barring psychic driving!!!" I really wanted to say all that. I really did. Instead, I just sighed.
"I have been hospitalized a dozen times and the psychiatrists all diagnosed me with the same illness--schizo-affective disorder. I used to get audio and visual hallucinations, grandiose delusions, and extreme anxiety. I am on medicine and the symptoms have all gone away. To me, this tells me I was really sick because the medicine made such a huge difference." ----That's what I actually said to the guy. It really bemuses and frustrates me that I have to assert myself to others and state "yes, actually I am a schizophrenic, no kidding," and the whole time they're like, "why is she faking?" I guess it is difficult for society to accept that a person who can be non-functional one year can be a high-functioning student/volunteer/organizer with no hint of positive or negative schizophrenic symptoms. But it's true!
It is tough being a recovered mental patient. Often, it is very tempting to agree with people who never met you before but who judge you based on how you are at that very moment (perfectly socially acceptable), and who decide maybe you were never sick, you were just mishandled by the system.
I was mishandled by the system; I experienced sexual abuse in the wards, death threats, cruelty by staff, use of restraints without having made any threats or suggestions that I was going to be violent or a flight risk----but I can honestly say they didn't misdiagnose me. They just horribly traumatized me.
Now I am getting so irritable. Every time I talk about the stuff I went through in the psych wards, I get a migraine headache.
I change subject now.
******************************************************************
Currently, I am the president of a campus organization. I did not start the club but I was recently nominated to be president and so I am president now. I have a meeting with the administration today to discuss our upcoming event, which I am now in charge of, as the last president just left with the paperwork for the event incomplete and not approved by the administration. I like the last president. I am just a little nervous because the choice to switch officer positions was not her choice. I think she might be a tad bit bitter. I must use my diplomatic skills to win her over. I will then use the diplomatic skills to win over the administration and to hold this event, which is coming up next month.
I must go make promotional materials for the event, that is not approved to take place yet. Better to be over-prepared than to come empty-handed.
Usually, I don't wake up at 2 am, but today I did, so I might as well make some promotional materials. Thanks for reading!!
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