Lived Experience Forum

[JPEG1998]

I am 26 years of age. I was diagnosed with Delusional Disorder - Schizophrenia at age 22.5. Mentally, I am on the decline. I have noticed that I am not longer as intelligent and as capable of the things that I previously was capable of doing, such as assignments for adult school. It has always been a dream of mine to get my certificate of education, but that dream is slowly slipping out of my hands. I was bullied relentlessly in mainstream high school over my physical appearance, and it got to the point where I had no choice but to quit mainstream school altogether. The teachers and leadership did completely and utterly nothing about the bullying that I copped from Year 8 to Year 12. I was an A and B student who used to be very studious. I was the 'perfect student,' as so a few teachers had labelled me as. I couldn't do it all anymore - I felt too much pressure to be perfect all the time, and being hard on myself never helped either. I slowly became a D, E and NA student. Going back to adult school, I started off pretty well. I went back up to being an A student again. Then, I met a completely and utterly awful individual who led me on romantically. He had an ex-wife on the side who dictated who he could and couldn't date, let alone speak to. Quite frankly, I believe this man was in a DV relationship with this woman,

TW: DV, Abuse

Content/trigger warning

and I felt that he was too scared to expose her. He told me bluntly that, 'whatever medication that I had been taking clearly wasn't working,' 'I had more issues than previously thought,' 'you're not very clever,' [edited by moderator] I could be wrong, but I feel that he was being coached into saying these things. I wanted to cry, because I used to be very attracted to the man.

Well, not anymore. Someone else has come along and I am not even going to bother with this man because I will reject him if he dare comes up to me and asks me out on a date. Why should a delusional, nutcase, schizophrenic with no future ahead of her go out on a date with a good looking man with a good career? Exactly. Going back to my health, I am now having problems with my breathing. I have done some research on this, and COPD is a symptom of Schizophrenia. I cannot breathe at full capacity anymore. I also always feel dizzy and sleepy. The Centrelink worker wants me to test my eligibility for the Disability Support Pension, as I am mentally unfit to work. Why can't I be normal? And don't tell me that there is no such thing as normal, because there is. 

[tyme]

Hey @JPEG1998 ,

There's certainly a lot in your post. I'm sorry you had to endure all of that for many years. I can see how what happened at school has eally affected you up until this day.

I sense that there is a longing for things to be 'normal'. What does 'normal' look like to you?

I always felt I wanted to be 'normal', and when I was well on my recovery journey, I realised that my sense of 'normal' reallly changed because what I thought was normal was not actually normal, and there was an even better sort of normal!

Hence my question, what does normal look like to you?

Do you have supports you can talk to about the thoughts you are having?

[MermaidHair]

Hey @JPEG1998, thanks for sharing this. I can't imagine this is a easy thing to live with and you've articulated everything really well. 

I just wanted to say I can relate to this a lot, especially the part about being on the decline intellectually. For me it's a part of my disorder and also the medications I take to control it. I spent a long time mourning that person who used to be so bright, bubbly and intelligent, who now struggles sometimes with basic word recall and can't remember what she had for breakfast. It took some coming to terms with but also the realisation that I was being too hard on myself, like I had been my whole life. 

I was also heavily bullied in school for my appearance so a lot of my self worth come from being intelligent and high achieving, like it was the one thing I could pride myself on. I have a feeling you might be able to relate to that. For what it's worth there is so much more to value in people than looks or smarts. In life, over time, both of those things will fade for most people, even "normal" people don't come out unscathed. This realisation allowed me to focus on and strengthen other aspects of myself.

I have found happiness and a bright future in being abnormal if that helps?

I hope you get answers about your breathing problems, and pursuing disability payments might give you some space to relax and focus on yourself without the stress of having to find work or maintain employment, it sounds like you really don't need that right now.  You could always do further study, part time work or volunteer in the future.

[Honey5]

First up no you should go on that date you deserve happiness and everything else F Them please I have Schizophrenia- paranoid extreme when yes it's hard because I'm literally paranoid of everything but I don't like that win because life is game and you can't let anyone else, win but yourself please tell yourself YOUR BETTER THEN ANYONE LET BE FOR REAL WE BOTH Superior individuals who suffered from the most insane mental health no one else would be able to be us so you just have to have a different mind so it come to schizophrenia also 20 year old female so I absolutely relate I really recommend you check out the counsellors and do the program and go with Kerri she's an amazing person and she's really helped me out of everyone with my mental health. And I've gone to every psychiatrist and psychologist since I was nine. and please some life here take the appointment with Centrelink when they call you to let you to a disability provider trust me, it will make your life so much easier and they actually will help you if I was you. I would contact these people and explain the situation and they will push for you to go to the disability side of Centrelink and they will also help you CoAct Employment
And if you can get the disability pension to get it for schizophrenia it will help you more and the end of the day. Centrelink are useless
Also, you should try this one day pretend like you don't have mental health pretend like you don't have schizophrenia. I like to do that and play games like to wake up there's nothing wrong with me. You know what it's actually fun you should try it for a few days. Please try again ur a bad b you deserve everything in life and happiness. Don't let anything else get in the way of that.

[marchhare]

Hi there Honey5,

We wanted to take this opportunity to welcome you to the forums.

We hope that you find the forums a great place to connect with other members, share stories and ideas, and find the support and connection you deserve.

Feel free to Introduce yourself here if you haven’t already!

We look forward to seeing you around on the forums!

The SANE Forums Team

[JPEG1998]

Hi @MermaidHair , @Honey5 and @tyme ,

I just want to start by THANKING YOU ALL for helping me get out of yet another frustrating, suicidal episode. I have to admit, I am glad that I reached out to SANE and didn't act on anything.

I think that I should mention that I will bee seeking support from a new psychiatrist (as of next week), although she is a psychiatrist in training, meaning that she will rotate in six month's time (along with other psychiatrists in the mental health clinic), which is a bit frustrating. Another thing that has been frustrating me is that my care coordinator and social worker is moving on to another role in a couple of week's time. She has been a brilliant care coordinator to me. So that is a real shame. Unfortunately, there is no reliability in the public health system. I am also receiving support from an NDIS funded company, and I am trying to get the NDIS for the third time now, so that I can actually receive support from this particular company.

I apologise for not responding to people's replies to my posts. It takes a great amount of energy to respond to you all - and this not only tires me out, but I find it to be overwhelming too. I am not sure if that is part of my Schizophrenia diagnosis or not. I feel that my Schizophrenia diagnosis was brought on from ongoing bullying in high school, and then the trauma that I faced with this particular man. I wish I could expose him, but that would be against the law (from my understanding). And there would be no point in getting into further trouble with the police again. I just can't be bothered with it all. I don't have a good rapport with the police, as they have discriminated against me for my mental health condition and possibly due to my cultural background, too. 

I will get to responding to the comments on my other post now.

Take care, y'all 💕

[tyme]

We are glad to have you with us @JPEG1998 

You mean a lot to all of us. We recognise you are going through a lot at the moment and there is a lot of rumination going on. 

That's why we are here - hopefully, that vicious cycle of thinking can break at some point.

The darkness is a place many of us here have been before - including myself. 

We are glad you are here 🙂

[tyme]

How are you today @JPEG1998 ?