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Through A Different Lens – How A Person’s Diagnosis Can Distort Our View
I remember sitting in the car thinking, “things are never going to be the same. I will never be capable of the things I was capable of before.” Twenty minutes earlier, I had been sitting on the couch in my psychiatric nurse practitioner’s office hearing the word “schizophrenia.” After that moment, I never saw myself the same. And the longer I live with what is now diagnosed as schizoaffective disorder, the more I see how this shift in view is not unique to me or even only those living with mental illnesses. Parents, doctors – anyone really, can easily slip into viewing someone through a different lens once they receive…
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How She Helped Me – Small Things, Big Impact
To the coworker who helped me when I had a hallucination at work, thank you. When I told you I had a weird question and I didn’t know how to ask, you gave me your full attention. No discomfort, no judgement, you listened. You listened to me say that I had been sitting at my desk working and heard the sound of scratching from the inside of the server room door and I didn’t know if it was real or all in my head. Only a select few people in the office know that I have schizoaffective disorder, including you. But I had never approached anyone in the office with…
- Advocacy, Disorganized symptoms, Hallucinations, Medication, Recovery, Schizoaffective Disorder, Schizophrenia
On Speaking Up About Symptoms
We were still trying to get my medication right when it happened. Home alone, getting ready for the day, I heard a man snicker at me from the back corner of my bedroom. A chill ran through me like an electric shock. My first thought – No. No, this can’t be happening. Fear caught me in it’s grasp. I needed this to go away so I could go back to my normal life. Motivated by a mixture of fear, denial, and trust, I saw speaking up as my only way out. I don’t remember how I told my doctor about my first hallucination. It might have been in a voicemail…