-
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…
-
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…
- Adapting to life with schizoaffective disorder, Medication, Recovery, Schizoaffective Disorder, Schizophrenia
Adapting to life with schizoaffective disorder (part 1) – Self-acceptance
“It’s looking to be schizophrenia.” My heart skipped a beat when my doctor said those words. Part of me felt calm because it confirmed what I had suspected, but in the car I came apart. I didn’t know any success stories of people who went on to live perfectly normal lives. All I knew were stereotypes and stories with poor outcomes. I swore to myself that that would not happen to me. The first year The first year of my diagnosis was a mixture of struggle and denial. I was highly motivated to take my medication because I knew it was key in reaching and maintaining stability. I hated the…
-
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…
-
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…