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The Importance of Hope in Recovery
Receiving a mental health diagnosis isn’t the end of your life, it’s just the beginning of a new chapter. But it may be daunting or terrifying. When I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, I had no idea what my future would look like. Would I go to college? Would I have a career? Or would I live out my days in my parents’ home or a residential facility, unable to care for myself? I honestly didn’t know, and I’m not sure anyone else did either. While my mind went spinning into denial, fear, and acceptance that life as I knew it was over, a part of me clung to hope…
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Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorder – How they’re alike, how they’re different, and what it felt like to get each diagnosis
During my mental health journey, I originally received a schizophrenia diagnosis It sounds strange, but I was a little excited when I received the schizophrenia diagnosis. Not because I wanted to have schizophrenia, but because now I had a reason for why these things were happening to me. I had documented treatment methods. And it was something I could research and learn more about. That was something that was very important for me. Possessing knowledge about it made me feel like I had more control at a time when my world was spinning out of control. The diagnosis also crushed me. At that point, all I really knew was the…
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When All You Can Do Is Try
Receiving a diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder is life changing. It can turn your entire world upside down. I would love to tell you that I’ve always handled my diagnosis and living with schizoaffective disorder with dignity and grace, but that’s just not the case. Despite my ability to articulate what I’ve been through, I don’t have myself entirely together all the time. I would like to believe that I do, but I don’t. I’ve been bitter, I’ve been angry, and I’ve been in denial. It’s feelings not unlike that which some people with diagnoses of other chronic illnesses or terminal illnesses go through. I used to try to…
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The Trauma of Experiencing Mental Illness
Trauma is often a trigger for mental illness, but experiences had due to mental illness can also be traumatic themselves. I’ve had near death or serious injury experiences. I’ve been threatened, manipulated, and emotionally abused by an ex-boyfriend. I’m a rape survivor with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While my PTSD is triggered by things that remind me of my traumas, I’ve also discovered that I have a similar response to fears about experiencing symptoms and actions related to my schizoaffective disorder. For much of my life, I have battled depression At certain points in time, beginning at a very early age, I would think about suicide. Sometimes it was just…
- Adapting to life with schizoaffective disorder, Cognitive Symptoms, Disorganized symptoms, Hallucinations, Negative Symptoms, Recovery, Schizoaffective Disorder, Schizophrenia
Adapting to life with schizoaffective disorder (part 3) – symptoms
I didn’t know what to expect. Deep down I had suspected that it was schizophrenia, but getting confirmation from my doctor made it real. I was scared. None of the stories I knew about schizophrenia ended with someone being symptom-free. I sat in the car after my doctor’s appointment with my head spinning. Were the hallucinations going to get worse? Was I going to become delusional? Would I largely lose touch with reality? At that moment, I decided that that was not going to happen to me. It was more denial than anything else, but I had my mind set on it. I was not going to lose my life…
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Adapting to life with schizoaffective disorder (part 2) – Stigma
That’s me in the photo – multiple ear piercings, blue streaks in my bangs, looking confident. It was my high school graduation and I had done it. A year earlier, I would never have doubted that I would graduate, but a few weeks before I started my senior year, my world came crashing down around me when I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. I thought my life might be over. But mostly, I was afraid of what others would think and how they would treat me, and I knew my parents were afraid of the stigma I might face as well. Convinced that I was different I fully expected people…
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Schizophrenia – Taking the power from the word
For a very long time, I lived in a cloud of shame and fear brought on by my diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. I made my parents promise not to share it with my extended family. For a bit, I even kept my diagnosis from my brother, who was away at college. By the end of the first year with my disorder, less than 20 people knew, including my parents and doctors. I was so afraid of the power of the word schizophrenia. Fighting the fear I was afraid that the word alone would make people see me in a different light. Could it wash away years of friendship? What did…
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Life as a high functioning person with schizoaffective disorder
There are a few different ways to define what high functioning means for someone with schizophrenia – the ability to work full-time or function as a stay-at-home caregiver or as a full-time student, good interpersonal skills and relationships, and just generally being able to function in society the majority of the time. Throughout the course of my life with schizoaffective disorder, I have always been considered high functioning. But high functioning doesn’t mean my life is normal or even symptom-free. There still may be symptoms Residual symptoms are common in people with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder even with medication and can occur frequently. For me, this occurs as disorganized thoughts…
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Supporting a loved one who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia
That moment where you hear the words “schizophrenia.” Heart wrenching, gut turning news. What do you do? How do you help someone fight such a complex illness? What’s going to happen to them? And what is your own life going to be like now? In no way do I have all the answers, and this is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are a few things you can do to help a loved one who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Educate yourself Schizophrenia is a complex illness that affects both the brain and mental health. Medication for schizophrenia can also be confusing. One of the…
- Anxiety, Depression, Eating Disorders, Medication, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, PTSD, Recovery, Schizoaffective Disorder, Schizophrenia
Preparedness for people with mental illnesses
It can be hard to feel prepared for anything when you’ve got a mental health disorder. Below is a list of things that I’ve done to prepare myself for events ranging from forgetting the details of my medications to the possibility of being unable to make decisions for myself. Keep a list of medications with important personal information I take many medications for both mental and physical issues daily, but it was hard to keep track of them. To make that easier, I started carrying a list with me in my wallet. This way, when doctors asked about my medication, I could just give them the list. It turned out…