Realisations of my reality/s

Hi @Carasmatic Thank you for sharing your story with us, it does seem like there is a lot going on.

Diagnosis can be tricky sometimes, hoping your doctor and you are able to figure out the best support for you.

Happy to hear that you have a baby that you love so much.

@Carasmatic

Hello and congrats on your Bub and being a mum.

There is still a lot of debate about symptoms and diagnosis and medication.

There are hearing voices networks. I’d post links etc but not on this device.

I would encourage a view towards “therapy” being important rather than only labels and meds. They may be necessary but are unlikely to be the whole answer.

Glad you feel the love for your child. Work on that and expand. I do hope your family appreciate you.

welcome to the forum

Hi @Carasmatic,

Thank you very much for sharing and welcome to the forum, it's lovely to meet you! 🙂

Something that really stands out for me is how self-aware you are, and that you have a really deep understanding of yourself and your mental health. Which I really respect and am in awe of.

I can completely understand how tricky and dangerous potential misdiagnosis can be and how difficult and exhausting finding the right balance of treatments, therapy, and medication can be.

That's beautiful that you have your son to shower with love, I'm sure he's a very lucky bub.

And regarding what @Appleblossom mentioned, I found this online Hearing Voices Support Group with the Mental Health Foundation Australia (MHFA), which may be worth checking out.

• https://supportgroup.mhfa.org.au/hearing-voices-support-group

And there is also this Australian Hearing Voices Network Facebook Group, if you're interested.

Please know that you're not alone and that we're all here to help support one another as best we can.

Take care and wishing you all the best,

defaultusername

@Appleblossom thank you for your advice life has been so busy lately I’ve slipped on my psychology appointments, you have given me the urge to get in contact with my last one I emailed them this morning after reading your post so thank you.

Hey @Carasmatic ,

Meds can be a tricky one. I certainly know people whose condition started as depression, but ended up as schizophrenia brought on by life changes. It comes to a point for these people to decide whether it's worth reducing meds if it could jeopardise things going well and you functioning to a level you want.

Let's just say, according to doctors, I can go off all my meds if I wanted to. However, I've made a choice to reduce my meds so that they do what they need to, without affecting my functioning. There have been many times where I considered whether I should just not take them anymore (as per dr's advice), but then, if things are going well, why change?

On the other hand, I know people with schizophrenia where medication doesn't help. This is where it gets hard.

It all depends on what you ideally want for your life so you can then share this with your doctor and come up with a tailored plan.

@defaultusername

I never really thought about how aware I am of myself before so thank you.

As for my Diagnosis I am yet to tell the dr about what’s been happening so a professional opinion maybe different to mine but all symptoms lead to the fact that something isn’t right.

thank you for the links also I’ll definitely go check them out tonight. the more support and understanding of what’s going on seems to normalise in my own brain that it’s ok not to be ok and to not be so ashamed of having mental health issues.

I’ve only shared my condition with my partner and a small part of my family and opening up on this forum was the first time I actually was truly honest about how I was feeling and what I’m going through… so big steps I think this is definitely therapy in its self somehow.

look forward to chatting more to you all and supporting everyone else also.

🥰

Good on you for taking this huge step and reaching out so honestly. It's certainly not easy @Carasmatic

For me, I can relate to what you are saying because these forums was a place I could truly feel comfortable with myself. I could open up and share what was going on for me - without judgement. And this was key to my recovery. Because it helped so much, this is why I'm here today.

@tyme I honestly think expressing in a raw way being your true self is definitely good for healing, on here cause it’s not your actual name you feel so much safer and can be venerable where as I find talking to a professional I tend to hide things cause of the fear of judgement or shame.

Can I ask about you and your recovery? I’m really interested in listening to things people have been through and experienced just cause it amazes me how powerful the human mind is and how resilient people are.

don’t feel you have to at all just because I asked I can be a bit forward sometimes apparently.

TW: Self harm

Of course I'm open to sharing @Carasmatic !

My MH went down down down at the end of high school. I was about 17 then.

I tried various meds, but I can't say they did much.

I ended up in a state where I was living to die. I needed an out. I packed up my things and moved interstate to get away from everything and everyone I knew. Things were rosy at first, but then it was downhill from there.

It was then that I realised that I, and only I, was the problem. I continued this was for another 6 years or so. By this time, it was nearly 15 years from when symptoms first started.

By the time I reached my 30s, I'd had enough. I finally knew only I could make a change. It was up to me. I was sick of being in hospital. I was sick on police coming. I was sick of being sick.

I finally reached out and was fortunately accepted into an MBT clinic. From there I received therapy for about 18 intense months. It was so hard to stick at it, but it was my last chance.

And I'm glad i did. Since then, it's been better every day. I can't believe how much I've changed. I could have never done it otherwise.

I've always told people I did think I'd make it to my 26th birthday, but here I am.

It's hard work, but it's worth it.

Just hold on.

Of course this is a very condensed version... there's so much more 🙂