Thought I would write out my experience with schizophrenia (trigger warning)

Welcome to the forum @Zam.

I felt immediately triggered reading your post and had to come back a little later. Still I am glad to have read it.

I dont think it was too long.

I can relate to it with my own experience of isolation and how busy our mind becomes ... but for me my 2 younger siblings were much more obviously psychotic.

It also made me think of my father's journey with MI and his feelings about being separated from us.

And my feelings of being separated from my daughter.

Glad you are doing well and have regular contact with your child.

Glad you are studying ... I think peer support is a good way to go ... the problem with MI is getting bigger and there need to be more people who have walked that very difficult path.

Thank you for sharing your story. As a parent I was glad you were able to get stable and get to spend time with your son. So often someone with a mental illness gets doublely 'punished'. Keep well.

Damn sorry, I maybe should have posted trigger warning. Sorry, I never thought of it at the time

sorry to hear about your separation with your daughter. I truly know how horrible that is and I hope you are in contact now

yeah most definitely there needs to be more people in the field with actual experience. In my experience professionals that have to actual experience themselves just completely rely on medication and nothing else @Appleblossom

@NP0094 thankyou, I completely agree

Welcome to the forum @Zam, that was really quite a debut post! I want to thank you for being open and brave enough to share your experiences with us. For someone with little experience of schizophrenia, that post was a real education for me. I'm sorry to hear that you've found the services that have been available a bit lacking. Good on you for beginning that Diploma in mental health and doing your bit to make a difference.

I'm curious; with your experience of schizophrenia, how would you go about your duties that may be different to how a professional without that first-hand experience may go about it?

I've done a bit of a search for other threads relating to this topic and found a few that you may be interested to read. This forum can wonderful for the scope it provides for people to share their experiences and benefit from the experiences of others.

This thread from Schizophrenia Awareness Week contains a number of posts in which people share their experiences, click here to see it.

@rimemariner29 has asked for some tips on this issue here here and received some advice.

@Sunlight_Seen has shared his experiences here here

The moderator Acacia posted this in a previous thread:

@anthariamac has shared an experience about discrimination within the psychiatric system here.

@Annabellehas talked about struggling to find understanding from her family here

And the thread that excerpt is from is here, in an interesting and rather confronting description of schizophrenia and the way it is perceived by authorities.

I invite @Moon @kenny66 @kato to share their experiences in this thread if they're still active on the forums.

No worries @Zam ... it was just the instant I started reading ... I braced and prepared myself and returned to it... I am ok ... I have been on the forum nearly 6 months now and getting better at anticipating my triggers ... it didnt get out of hand ... I trigger at a lot of things that others think are "nice" so it wouldnt have mattered to put a warning on it ... it is better to know others' truths.

My family of origin and family of creation were both very complex ... but NO ... I have not seen my biological daughter for a year ... seen her less than a dozen times in the last 15 years .. it is why my pain is still very raw.

I would also like to do work in the field .. but am not sure the best way for me to proceed ... maybe being a straight peer worker isnt for me .. perhaps a broader advocacy role would suit better ... I am still working it out.

@JoseJones wow thanks, I will check out those links right away. Yeah I am pretty open about it all I guess. For the first few years I was diagnosed with it I just didn't believe I had it at all ( didn't even know what it was when I first read the diagnosis on a dr referral letter ). Not believing in it led to me constantly not taking meds and going straight back into hospital.

It took a while for me to accept it and that I need to be on medication. I used to self medicate with other things to try to just ignore everything that was happening, but all that did was make it much worse..

You asked what I will do different in that professional field and firstly I wouldn't judge anyone and I know medication is not the only answer to recovery, sure it's a huge part of it but medication alone doesn't fix everything..

I want to work in hospitals and try and be what I myself wanted so desperately when I was in there ( and other patients said they wanted it ) just someone who doesn't treat you like anything you say doesn't matter and so on. So like a consultant or something in that role maybe

@Appleblossom oh ok, I put a warning up anyway just in case.

Damn, in, I don't know how that would feel not to see your child in a year and only a dozen times in 15 years. I went about 6 months with no contact at all from my son and things just got bad for myself. You certainly must be a strong person for sure.. So sorry to hear about that

if you want to work in the field you should look into it. I'm sure they could always use more people in whatever role you would choose.

I have dealt with a lot of grief and the loss of my daughter adds to it. It has taken a lot out of me to even accept it. Today I was performing with my choir for the rotary club christmas do ... and a girl was playing flute ... it made me think of my daughter ... she played flute too ... my daughter is doing ok at the moment ... she is strong and capable ... I am very proud of her ... she will always be in my heart ... but it is not right that my family is so broken.

I have to stay strong for my son .. he is 23.

@Zam your idea about accepting people without judgment is important. There are always reasons behind our struggles ... I am sure you will make a valuable contribution.

@Appleblossom how old is your daughter if you don't mind me asking? Does your son live with you?