Mundane Life of a Schizophrenic Grad Student

I have not written anything lately because I am a pretty uninteresting person. I wake up, feed the cat, go to campus, attend classes, do assignments, meet and greet people, and go about my way. I don't walk around talking to myself or shouting at the voices. Yes, I have heard voices, but they are abstractions of my fear that I recognize as Not Real. I just really cannot stand to listen to them, which is why I have been so good about keeping up with my anti-psychotic medicine. With anti-psychotics I become anti-psychotic, which means that I have no delusions of grandeur, no ideas of persecution, no audio or visual hallucinations. I can blend in with the Normals. It's been about 5 years now since I was last in the mental hospital. I have worked very hard to keep myself out. I meditate, I am always questioning my perceptions, I stay busy volunteering or working or going to class, I make social bonds with Normals. I have a boring life. So boring everyone accuses me of faking mental illness! The last disability evaluater called my doctor an idiot and said I couldn't possibly be schizophrenic. My current therapist does not accept my schizo-affective diagnosis and says instead that I am only bipolar. Society has become confused as to what to do with the crazy woman who has been in and out of hospitals since age 19 (I'm 30 years old now). Now that I seem better people are too eager to assume I was misdiagnosed. I was not. I am partially schizophrenic. I have excessive amounts of dopamine. I cannot filter out everyday stimuli like the rest of you and my mind gets flooded with input---all of it somehow meaningful and cryptic. A car that drives by is not just a car it is a message of some kind, some kind of decipherable message that I must decode. That is the nature of psychosis: we live in lands of coded meanings, everything jumbled, word salads, neologisms (made up words), clanging words (nonsense rhymes).

The loose associations, the ever-present paranoia, the moments of manic euphoria, the unwavering certainty that my webcam has been hacked---this is my schizophrenia and I am okay with that. I am learning to live with the coded meanings, to ignore old habits, to build new habits based on concrete reality. However, despite being a recovered mental patient, I am still that dehumanized mental patient, roughed up in the hospitals, mistreated, hurt, attacked, restrained. There is no undoing what was done to me in those hospitals, but I can redo myself and my attitude and I chose to do so.

I want a new life with hope and financial stability. Three years ago I wanted a new life with a college education and I achieved that in 2012. Now I am expanding my hopes and dreams. I want to have a real career. I want to travel the world. I want to make so much money I could buy the expensive pharmaceutical drugs I need to maintain. I want to donate money to impoverished schools and help make the world a more educated place. The worst thing anyone ever did to me was steal my hope by telling me that I had a grave disease with no future. It was worse than the sexual assault I experienced in the hospital. Nothing is as depressing as being told that nothing will ever, ever get better and that you will always, always be on government aid. Yes, that is what they told me was my future.

Now I am a Master's degree student in my last full semester (I have to finish up my thesis next semester). I have a social life with Normal friends. I was working a part-time job as well and volunteering on the side, but I quit so that I could design a thesis study. Things are different, mostly in good ways.

If you have ever been told by a doctor, counselor, social worker, or anyone else that your life will not change, that you will always be unable to take care of yourself, and that you need nothing but "rest" and no stress, you're not alone. I was there, too. My doctor advised me to drop out of the community college to avoid the stress. Obviously, I didn't listen to him, as I transferred to a University and enrolled in the post-grad program. I want you to know that there is always hope, there is always something new, even a good night's sleep will alter your brain chemistry for the better. Don't let anyone make you feel hopelessness. That is the greatest crime the system has done to us mentally ill patients. It is not the patient dumping or restraints, it is the psychological destruction of a person's precious hope that is the worst torture of all. 

Lions, and Tigers, and Finals Week.

When the only thing that separates me from the other former mental patients is that I can perform well in school, finals week is a stressful, coffee-indulging, binge-eating festival of intellectual carnage.

I am schizo-affective. Most of my kindred schizophrenics are busy talking to pigeons in the downtown park, or rocking themselves in their drug-induced stupor. Some of us lead “normal lives,” though. I am apparently one of them. I work part-time and attend college as a Master’s program student full-time. Nobody knows what I am: a former mental patient who spent the ages of 19 – 25 in and out of mental hospitals before I finally stabilized on meds and took them consistently.

Now, I must study and prove that I am more than a delinquent set of brain chemicals called dopamine and serotonin. I am more than a mental patient. Or at least that is the way I must train myself to think or else I will plummet into a fit of self-destructiveness. My entire essence is wrapped up in how I can differentiate myself from society’s image of a schizophrenic: the bizarre, violent, freak of nature that needs to be detained indefinitely. I try to think of myself as a student, as a laborer, as a creative thinker, as a writer. Deep down, I will always be that girl locked in solitary confinement in the triage center of the hospital with three security guards monitoring every movement, but it’s worth a try to act like I have a chance at a happy life. I deserve that. On that nice thought, I will take my leave. Have a great day!

Article/Video on Social Skills & Mental Dysfunction

I was reading an article on the Wallstreet Journal's website concerning social skills and how waning social skills might indicate mental dysfunction. I think these insights should be used as pre-emptive diagnostics, long before the dementia, autism, or schizophrenia wreaks total havoc on a person's life.

I know first hand that social skills, or rather, lack thereof, are signals of neurological illness. For myself, a schizo-affective, I know when my mind is sinking into illness when I think every compliment is sarcasm, every comment is a subtle jab at my intelligence or appearance, and when I spend five minutes secretly trying to decipher a facial expression that a person had for a split second.

I hope you find the article interesting. I posted the link below. The link goes to the Wallstreet Journal's website where both the article and an accompanying video can be found.

To all the schizophrenic or bipolar readers, please read the article and know that you have a neurological disorder that is not your fault and that there are warning signs you have that can help you to stop a potential episode before it ever happens. I can vouch for this; I've stayed out of Hospital since 2009 or 2010, compared to the yearly or bi-annual forced hospitalizations that I  had from between the ages of 19-25. I can definitely say that I owe my freedom and well-being to my family, to the outpatient programs, and to the recovery model in mental illness treatment which focuses on monitoring oneself on a daily basis and reinforcing positive thoughts.


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323398204578489542660099544.html?ru=yahoo?mod=yahoo_itp

Notes on my Personal Life

I am up late, thinking about how unjust the world can be. But why gripe? I have more than many other people do. I have my college degree, I am doing well in the master's program, I am not mentally ill at the moment. I have no criminal record. I don't even have any speeding tickets to my name.

I  have a boyfriend. He is an international student. He cooks for me. I am very lucky.


I got an A on a tough midterm. I now have to write excellent term papers. Then, I can celebrate Christmas.

I need. I need money. I need love. I need hugs and kisses and hundred dollar bills. When I am in my boyfriend's arms it is as though he can never hold me tightly enough. I need too much. Even with my major illness gone, I am still a bit neurotic.

Look at me, typing my private details onto the cyberspace. What is the matter with me? I am ashamed, yet my fingers keep typing. I must need attention. I must need your attention. Thank you, by the way, for your attention. Without it, my life would be a solitary existence, living alone with the secret of my damaged mind, hiding behind a wall of fun-house mirrors, unsure as to which reflection is mine.

Here, I know who I am. Yes, I omit certain details of my life from you, reader. Important things? Not really. Trivial things I do not really bother to type into cyberspace. You know my bare soul. You know the secrets that I can not share, not even with the man whom I share a bed with. He doesn't know the secret of my mental illness.

He doesn't know that I learned how to sleep under bright lights in the psychiatric holding cells. What it was like---the horrible sting of light, the sporadic moments of sleep, the ever-present security guards with attitude problems and billy clubs as extensions of their manhood. He doesn't know what it's like to wake up shattered, literally bruised, with no memory.  I curl up with him and pretend like I have no past. Like nothing existed before him. The silence between our conversations like tiny rain drops that threaten to become a rainstorm. I can never tell anyone the horrible existence that American society puts mental patients through. The physical restraints, the invasive psycho-therapy, the guinea-pig drug regimens, the stigma.....it is all so middle ages.

But enough remembering about my ugly past. I must think about a future where I am not tied to a gurney, not misunderstood, not perceived as contagiously mentally ill or dangerous. I will apply to doctorate programs this semester. If I am accepted, I will request a deferment of my admission in order to complete the Master's degree. I will complete my Master's degree in two years, possibly earlier. I will take my medicine as prescribed. I will exercise and lose weight. I will apply to PhD programs in my field. I will not break the law. I will not give up the hope of a normal existence, or of a productive career. Maybe I will even have a child. But that would be after I am gainfully employed. I want my child to have a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Moot point, though, I need to earn my degrees first. Wish me luck. I wish you luck.

Comment on NY Blog about Succeeding While Mentally Ill

I don't think I am a good role model for people who have a mental illness. I have had rough periods where I associated with abusive men, I smoked marijuana, I partied. However, I'm not a criminal either. I'm human. A woman who grew up in a low-income neighborhood with all the stressors of gangs, drugs, school drop-out rates, and my own set of personal tragedies. There are people out there who have done much worse in life, people who are in jail, and many of them do not have a major mental illness. So that is a positive thing about me: I am law abiding. I try to be polite to people. I try to empathize with the pain of others.

The worst, most self-destructive periods of my life have been, ironically, when I was following doctors' orders to avoid stress. Alright, I will do nothing, I thought. Then I wound up tolerating the boredom and hopelessness by smoking marijuana and dating men who were unkind, to say the least. Not all the men were unkind, there were some gentle souls in there who were as lost and wandering in spirit as I was. We cared for each other, gave each other the support nobody else would dare give us.

I went through periods of unemployment because my doctor said I should not work. It made my life worse, as I could not afford the things that made me feel better: art supplies, music, internet, mp3 players, and books. I eventually found a menial job which made my life better but irked my psychiatrist. I lived with feeling like I had no right to put pepperoni on a pizza; who was I to make pizzas for money? This is a horrible thing to do a person, to make them feel so alienated from society that working a menial job makes them feel like they are doing something taboo. Don't tell me that to be poor and unemployed is in my best interest. Have you ever been penniless? How does that help me avoid stress?

Here is a link to a New York Times blog about people with a schizophrenic or schizo-affective diagnosis who are somehow high functioning and successful. I am in a bad mood right now because I read all the comments by readers following the article and the majority of these comments are lacking in critical thought. Many suggest that the mentally ill go back into the shadows and leave the real world for the "Normals." Many attack the study that proves schizophrenics can be successful. They suggest the results are a fluke, or worse, give "false hope" to the hopeless. False hope? If you are hopeless already, who is to say that false hope would make you anymore hopeless? I swear someone said this! Oxymoron.

Still, at least the New York Times is promoting equality, inclusion, and hope.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/studying-successful-people-with-mental-illness/

By Fall 2012 I will have my Bachelor's Degree. After I receive it, I will go job hunting or perhaps my application for graduate school will be approved. Either way, when I am stressed out with finals or mourning my recently departed love ones, I can always soothe myself by saying, "this could be worse. I could be lying in bed with nothing to do, with no reason to get out of bed, and nobody to believe I can succeed."

Thank you, New York Times Blogger! I am grateful to you for having the courage to post an article about a study that proves the mentally ill should not be treated like invalids!

Hope

I am heading to a graduate program forum this weekend. The forum is for upper-division undergraduates with a decent cumulative GPA who are curious about graduate school.

Two years ago I was a college drop-out who psychiatrists told not to bother with college anymore---it would just stress me out and cause another schizo-affective episode. Two years ago I was unemployed, lonely, twenty pounds heavier than I am now, and miserable.

What changed? I did. I demanded help from the county mental health system. I received that help, and then some. I began to think differently during cognitive behavioral therapy, seeing that I am not just a burden on society, but a person with a lot to offer. I started to occupy myself with hobbies, photography, painting, drawing, reading, studying a new language, until I was at peace with my life. Then, doors started to open. First, I was accepted into the University. Then, I managed to get through the semester without having any episodes, despite several deaths in my family that left me haunted and in mourning.

I made the dean's list. I got straight A's during the summer as well. Here I am, two years after being told to quit on my aspirations of a college degree, and I'm close to graduating with my B.A. Two years after being told that I'm a hopelessly disabled person who needs a disability check, I am really close to achieving my dream of being the first one in my extended family to get a B.A. from a major University.

Had I listened to those psychiatrists, I'd be miserable. I wouldn't know how to cope with the losses in my family. Being in college makes me feel like I have a purpose and that I can achieve what I want to achieve. It makes me feel like I'm doing some good in the world.

Had I listened to those naysayers, I'd be moping around, trying to fill the void with food or marijuana or material items. Looking back, I am glad I didn't listen to them. I am glad that I got in touch with a care-provider that encouraged me to reach for my dreams. I am glad I have a family that lets me live here rent free while I go to college!

Instead of listening to those psychiatrists. I took the road less traveled for somebody with a mental handicap. I forged ahead, making blunders, making mistakes, but carving a path nonetheless. This is me just bragging, I guess, but I also think it goes to show that there is hope in life. No matter where you're at, there's always hope. The best thing about hope is that there's no charge! It's free for the taking!

My point for this blog is to capture a moment where I feel pure hope. Hopefully, my hope is contagious.

Reason to Live

As stated in previous blog entries, my cousin killed himself June 25th. He left the rest of the family disillusioned, heart-broken, and shattered. Having my own psychological problems, I faced certain questions, like why should I live? What point is there? I'm so insignificant, why bother to live?
Frankly, I'm still searching for concrete answers.
I talked to my ex-boyfriend today for several hours and he asked the same question: what is the point of living if there is no point in living? This made me sad. I answered: Go buy a kitten and take care of it. Was that lame? Probably. But there is nothing more powerful than reciprocated love, even if it's just the adoration of a pet.

Having split from my boyfriend this week, I feel unloved. So I fill the void with you.You who are reading this. You got this far in the blog entry, you  must either be curious, morbidly curious, or seeking for the same thing I am: love, acceptance, happiness, understanding, and hope.

They say, 'take it one day at a time, one step at a time' and I hate that. There is nothing like a cliche to take the meaning out of perfectly sage advice. For me, I  have to set small goals for myself and wake up every day asking myself how I can achieve that small goal. For tomorrow it's revise a paper on British literature, eat less, exercise for 20 minutes, study the next chapter in my Arabic language textbook, and start looking into graduate programs for Fall 2012.
There are two ways I could look at this: either I'm a failure for not having a BA at the age of 28, or I can take this as an opportunity to earn around three thousand dollars each semester, tax free. To compare, at my last crappy job delivering pizzas, I earned minimum wage, plus tips, as a part-time worker. That came to about five thousand dollars a year, waaaay below the poverty level. Half way through the year, I've already earned about six thousand dollars, with another check coming next semester in September. In one sense, I'm a total failure. In another sense, I've come up in the world. Since I like to spend money, I am going to see this as a positive step.
Perhaps I'm way behind the rest of the flock. Perhaps I'm fooling myself with the illusion of job prospects. Perhaps I should just give up....but then how would I afford expensive computer software like Ableton Live music mixing software? I could either give up here and now and refuse to get out of bed, or I can wake up early tomorrow, brew some coffee, and start my homework, knowing that there is a check waiting to be deposited into my bank account if I successfully complete my work. AND if I raise my GPA by .1 (cumulative GPA is a measly 2.9 right now, due to  mental illness requiring in-patient treatment, but my University GPA is 3.6), I qualify for even MORE money. No, money isn't a reason to live, but it sure makes you feel better in the short run. Along with the money there is also my bachelor's degree, which I should obtain by the end of next spring. There's also the allure of a graduate program. At the moment, my GPA is the minimum for entry into the program of my choice at the State University, but with some hard work I can boost it up with the two classes I'm taking now, plus the next two semesters.

A friend of mine from high school gave me the best advice on coping with loss: distract yourself. Study, read, do whatever you need to so that you don't start wallowing in pain. I have found this to be true. That's actually the reason I started this blog; to distract myself, to vent, to heal, to accept what I cannot change and change what I cannot accept. Oops, I wrote an oxymoron, well, you get what I mean.

My aim for these blog is to bare my soul to people who empathize or relate to my situation in life, thereby making it easier for them to feel like they are not alone. I want to create a safe spot where I can grow to accept myself and to strive to better myself, and hopefully, by showing my struggles, other people will find ways in which to cope and grow. Does that make sense? I'm not doing this for profit. I haven't monetized this blog, though there is a little button that allows me to do so, nor am I hoping for a lucrative writing contract (I actually penned an erotic e-book through a publisher already and I know all to well that it's next to impossible to make a living off writing). What do I want from this? Attention? Maybe, if you're that cynical, maybe, but I was hoping for change. Not drastic, go-on-Oprah-show-and-be-an-inspiration-to-millions change, but to bring change to a couple of people would make me happy. It would be another reason to live. Yeah, you are the reason I choose to live. Well, you and that three grand I get every five months, and my mother, and my grandmother, and my cat who would be very hungry without me, but you get the idea.

Aftermath of a Suicide

So I started off this blog on a sad note: my cousin died last week and he was only 24. The viewing was especially painful. Just seeing him so lifeless was overwhelming painful.

I'm sure you're probably wondering why I don't just talk to a psychologist instead of rambling on in front of complete strangers. If you must know, she went on vacation and won't be back until the end of July. So, until then, please put up with my random references to my cousin.

In the last blogs I wrote about bras and the book "Wasted." There was some comfort in relating totally trivial material. It lifted me out of this cloud of doom and anguish. Stay tuned, because I plan on writing more trivial blog entries on breasts, bras, food, and literature. The human mind can only take so much pain, so I have to take a breather now and then, as do you!

If you're the suicidal type, please rethink your actions, mostly for yourself but also for those around you. A suicide in the family can increase everybody's risk of suicide at least twofold. For myself, having backed out of an attempted suicide at age 19, I feel the shadow following me, the painful family legacy of self-murder.
Add to this my cousin who did not survive, and well, my chances are pretty high. I am not, nor do I plan on being, suicidal, but there is that chance that life will seem so bleak and painful that I can't stand it. I hope that if that happens I will find a therapist or a friend to confide in, along with a year supply of Zoloft, but until then, I'm living life for myself and for the cousin who I lost to a totally preventable death.

I ordered a book in the mail. It's by the famous psychiatrist and writer (who also happens to be bipolar), Kay Redfield Jamison. It's called "Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide." It received rave reviews by critics and readers alike. I'm a big fan of her other books, "Touched By Fire: Manic-Depression and the Artistic Temperament" and "An Unquiet Mind." Whenever I'm down I find a book on a subject, be it madness, depression, binge eating, or body image. I never thought I'd have to read this book. Now it has become important for me to read it. I don't know what I'm looking for. Closure, there will never be closure, but acceptance or hope or something like that might come out of it.

Also, read "The Savage God" by A. Alvarez. Or Durkheim, who was a sociologist that studied the social attachments (or lack thereof) of suicidal people.

I've been looking all over the place for support groups online for family members of someone who killed themselves and there is surprisingly little. Most of these forums are private and require a lengthy application process to join, or else they're for people who are at risk of suicide themselves. There is one group that seems reliable. It's called "Survivors of Suicide: or SOS" and they operate in many cities across the States.

I'll add a link to this site, just in case.
www.survivorsofsuicide.com

Here's one for the mayo clinic and their writings on coping with the grief of a suicide.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/suicide/MH00048

If you're the suicidal type, please click on the link below. There is much to live for, like playful kittens, Autumn breeze, romance, a new hobby like kayaking, a different environment like Amsterdam, and the people who love you. You might not realize that they love you, or worse, you think they'll be better off without you, but you are wrong. I've experienced my fair share of emotional, physical, and psychological pain and hearing my cousin killed himself has got to be up there at number one most painful experience.

www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

The first step is accepting that you're going to have to suck it up, plop down in a chair, and start talking to a complete stranger about your most private feelings. Trust me, it's like ripping off an old band-aid. Momentary pain followed by relief. Yes, they may put you on drugs. Yes, they may hospitalize you. Yes, life will never be the same, but if you were on the verge of suicide, who would want their life to be the same? I promise that if you seek help and that person you go to is at least half way decent, your life will improve over time and you can start building a new life for yourself of kitties, puppies, pizza, and love.

I don't mean to get all preachy and tell you what to do, but I was lucky enough to have somebody tell me what to do at the right moment and I'm still alive because of it. Besides, I'd feel like I'm part of the problem if I just minded my own and tended to only my personal grief.

Oh yeah, and art therapy really helps. I knew a schizophrenic who found hope through making bracelets with beads. He was kind of a manly man, so he often gave away his creations to females, but it was really amazing what he could do with some colored beads and string. I found painting to be helpful. Nothing fancy like oils, just regular poster paint, brushes, and some thick paper.

There's a whole world of positive experiences out there! I wish I could have made my cousin believe that. I knew he was troubled when we lived together, but I didn't peg him as the type to go through with it. I just assumed he was slightly autistic since he rarely spoke, stared into space, and would make cryptic comments to me out of nowhere. There was a point when he lost his job and I tried to convince him it was in his best interest to call a number for psychological services, but he resisted. He never threatened suicide in front of me. Legally, my options of having him committed weren't viable. The system demands that the suicidal person make explicit suicide threats. Then they can 5150 them. My cousin wasn't verbal enough or psychotic enough to give me cause to call the police. What would I have said, "He's more silent than before"? But here I go, trying to justify my lack of action, trying to defend myself when I had no contact information for him for 2 years and then out of the blue...death. My point is, don't do it. Please.

Well, that was a stark post. Next up: a blog on bras.