Hi Everyone!

Welcome to the Forums @Gothgirl39

Sorry to hear that your friend cancelled plans. Sounds like it was a day you could have really done with their company. What are you up to tonight?

Hi Gothgirl39

Its good to meet you. Schizophrenia is a bit of an up and down ride for sure.

I have Schizoaffective, which is a type of mixed up schizophrenia and I jut got through an involuntary admission because it got on top of me. But I am absolutely fine now.

I find with my schizophrenia that the good days outweigh the not so good ones by a lot. I hope the same goes for you. Having a friend or friends to rely on is crucial for me as I feel you need another person for support and probably some empathy.

You can use this site to great effect when you want to share stuff and I find it great to communicate with other humans. Usually I just talk to my 3 cats.

Having gone through a torrid time myself recently I know how hard things can be, so my best wishes go to you in offering any support I can.

Hi @Gothgirl39

Welcome to the forums! It's lovely to have you reach out here, well done making your first post - that can take quite a lot of courage. There are lots of others about - we've all got different diagnoses but have discovered much common ground, @kenny66 also suffers from schizophrenia (although I still haven't got it straight in my head Kenny, is it shizo-affective as well?)

Sorry to hear about your mental health struggles. Having a MI can be very hard work. I hope you can catch up with your friend soon. These things, which we can weather ok on a good day, can really be painful when it's a bad day.

Feel free to search on things you are interested in (for instance "schizophrenia" will appear in several threads) and you are very welcome to join the conversation in any thread, or to ask questions.

As @Rick reminds us (and a few of us have taken to doing the same)

...hope endures

Take care of you, I hope to "see" you around the forum.

Kindest regards,

Kristin

Hi Kristin

Thanks @kristin for all your nice posts and very supportive thoughts. I love reading your comments.

I do have Schizoaffective Disorder which is a bit different to Schizophrenia, although I use both terms interchangeably just because its easier for people to understand.

The disorder has the features of both Bipolar and Schizophrenia and is indicated by the severe mood disorders that accompany all the stuff that goes with schizophrenia.

So in my case I have Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar Type as opposed to Schizoaffective Disorder Depressive Type.

Its quite distinct from schizophrenia, so much so that when I was being treated for schizophrenia as opposed to schizoaffective that course of treatment did not work.

Even the newbies at the MHU get confused by it all, as did I initially.

@Gothgirl All the buddies I know at the MHU and the Acute Care Clinic who are schizophrenic have their battles with it. They also have good days and bad.

Mostly they manage very well especially those with friend/peer support. I hang around these guys a lot of the time to help out with their need to download their issues and concerns just to be a sympathetic listener. So contact is very important.

I used to be an absolute isolationist until I discovered all of those amazing things that only people good people can give you like compassion, empathy and warmth. So its so its a very positive thing that you have a friend.

Hi @Gothgirl39

It's great that you went out on your own in the end. Sounds like you still made something of the day treating yourself San Churros - I love it there. What did you have?

sorry to be ignorant but what is San Churros?

Kenny