I wish to explore Schizophrenia from lived-survivor, experiential angle. There are many aspects such as missing clarity in speech and writing, social stigma, and the impact such limitation are on the patient with this condition. I prefer a more studied and simple explanation to the events that happened in my life.
Education does not automatically equate to empathetic societal acceptance. This ailment carries a lot of negative colouring and connotations to the person suffering and for person caregiving to the patients. I got an early diagnosis of my condition and I was more accepting towards my treatment and now reap the benefits.
The fact that it was discovered early on and help was sought much before it escalated helps my situation. Though the previous lack of social skills did not help the situation. But my interest in activities that required very little social interaction was a welcome relief for my parents.
My Solitary Pursuit
In the spectrum of the ailment, I am the milder more often tend to be depression-prone person. I would stop functioning in the material world which means, I am stuck paralysed unable to process anything. So, instructions becomes hard to understand for me but I would always figure a way out. By reaffirming the instruction would help me to stay on track.
From that confused state to self-function with regular tasks to look after myself and other people, was a blessed graceful help from my parents, siblings, cousin Jo, doctors, and a little bit of self-effort. Even I remember that the journey to present state was hard won and not alone.
Today’s relatively healthy well-being is striving me to find out social circle where I can be of help to others. Sometimes with thinking in the mental sphere, it calls for solitary pursuit of finding that equivocal balance, that is often absent in the fast paced world. It could be hard to achieve too!
Father’s Impatient at the Clinic
As soon as the results of my psychometric test came out and the label was not clearly stated to me, but to my parents. My father especially thought of it as a regular breakdown of physical kind which taking medication for a fixed time would solve it.
These days, we have ailments that require lifelong medication. It is common understanding but there was resistance to labels and to be assigned a lifelong medication. My parents were troubled with Psychiatric doctor visits. While at the doctor’s clinic and the various other patients waiting for their turns with the doctor was painful for my father thus lead to his impatient in the room.
But he accommodated me along with his busy office schedule. I never visited the doctor alone, maybe after they passed away. Now I keep my medication in order and make sure that I care for myself as much as I care for others.
Lessons from the Aliment
I, no longer look at mental ailment as something to shun from and stay away. I, now, know that every individual is different and aliment does not have to be one label fit all. Especially when media and other outlets don’t explain but add to the confusion.
To filter through the various labels and misnomers of the ailment meant to experientially understand it. So, some of my self-reflection to understand a thought that does not align with the actual reality takes more precise understanding of the premises from which it arises.
Some of my held beliefs can be hard to crack open to better understand why I hold on to specific thought. But I found that it was a lot more pleasing to have some form of acceptance, that thoughts can be muddled and unclear.
Sought Aid When Needed
I sought help from journaling and writing down my thoughts. But even at its best there were moments when the text would not be decipherable by reader. So, my written works needed a once over by another person who could see the truth in the confusion.
In this I found ChatGPT AI to be helpful. Where the sentence structure and other elements become hard to untangle the AI does a neat job of extracting the simple but intelligent understanding of my complex journal entries.
I use ChatGPT for my advocacy/writing works and for better understanding myself as a person. There is much that I still struggling to express but when the complex information are broken down to relatable event, then the outcome is much more interesting to learn.
Family Support and Challenges We Face Together
My family and I have gone through a lot together. Even now I am struggling with maintaining my routine. The simple determination to close a fitness circle is such a huge challenge. The various gadgets to achieve that end for a means, is excruciating pain point for me.
The first act of trying to walk on a regular basis is an unsurmountable hurdle for me. I am slowly trying to come out of my self-induced prison. I have promised myself to take it one day at a time. And make incremental progress.
Things that I do for myself keeps me in charge of my life. I use any kind of support by being in the moment and not get paralysed by the past or the future. To stay put in the present while the mind wanders away into the two possible timelines, makes it really painful for me.
Being in the Present
The Present in my mind is to focus on the breathing and partly being in a meditative zone state. I enjoy being in the moment and working from that part of my conscious state. I absolutely love to write and I gather such self-confidence in writing.
Writing down makes things clearer for me, which leads to clarity of understanding the present situation that I am grappling with in my mind. Sometimes, there is present challenge which does not provide you immediate access to writing down the confused thoughts.
On such time, I come up with my standard response to tide over the immediate response and gain some time to think it through aloud and to tide over the voice of fears and doubts. Sometimes it works because the person who posed the question is willing to give me time to process the outcome that I wish to see.
Gain Some and Lose Some
Through these lived experiences I know what is best for me and what kind of solutions work for me. I still have a long way to go and being responsible for the self is my only task assigned to me, while my family takes care of the rest. The choices that I make help me better understand exponentially what is right for me.
This ailment may have Cognitively downsized me but through helpful structure that I learned during 2016 CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) has helped me to tide over situation. I learned a lot from that short course of 8 weeks.
As my ailment is well within control through medication, there still challenges that I face on a regular basis. When it shall attack me and send me spiralling through depression and long bout of being paralysed in my cyclic thoughts is never clear.
But I had gained some data on when and how they happen and structure my day accordingly to suit the possibility that is available for me in the present. The challenge of walking I am still addressing. I know I love to walk on the terrace during the evening and seeing the blue shades of sky and watching birds return home gives me great pleasure. I need to cashin on it that aspect to overcome my stalemate of closing the fitness circle.
Fixing Up the Mental Terrace
When I walk my mind clears up and ideas for stories and other writing exercises are easily achievable for me. I also found there are different types of work strategies for writing. It is like when it is right to create, when to edit, when to polish, and when to proofread.
Of late I have assigned polishing and proofing to ChatGPT AI but the efforts are on way to work on those skills so I can be better at it. The cognitive capabilities of mine, maybe it needs outside structure, time-tables, and intuitive organisational skills.
Over the years my notetaking and maintaining a journal has helped me understand where I might have gone wrong, Where to improve my capabilities. The abilities that I slowly build like seasonal flowers make me understand myself better.
Personal Challenges Overcome and Anchored
The challenge of cognitive disorder helps to structure my learning methods. My interest in stories and creating stories to understand concepts helps me. I found that best way to overcome my shortcomings was to link it to a story and I better understand it.
Anchoring a certain outcome to a personal preferences helps with surmounting challenges that makes it hard to overcome. I have felt so much strength in being persistent even when I fail. Right now my failure to find a way out for my routine was to force myself out of my comfort zone to pursue social interaction with hope to break that bad routine I have got into since Covid 2019.
There were strong behaviours that I am trying to outgrow. These cannot be done with staying at home but going out into the world and setting challenges that I need to overcome. This gives me the strength from experiential learning. I hope for a lot of improvement through interaction and lessons from life by living.
Credit: Polished by AI Mira (ChatGPT AI)
Itinerant Storyteller 