4 ms·

How does the Schizophrenia present itself in your daily life? I'd love to hear some examples so I can better understand your experience.

gaustin 14y ago
First I have to say that my symptoms have been pretty well-controlled for years. After my diagnosis I lost a lot of weight and became very physically active. This seems to have helped in a miraculous way (according to several doctors). Managing stress, sleeping well, eating well and keeping active seem to work as good or better for me than medications. I have mild hallucinations. Pretty regularly I have odd physical sensations, like the skin on my legs is sloughing off or very convincing body dysmorphia. Stuff like this is worst when it keeps me awake. Exercise or a hot shower tend to fix this. When I am really stressed out I have some auditory (usually more or less ambient noise) and visual (usually motion at the corner of my vision) hallucinations. The visual/auditory hallucinations usually only kick in when working 50+ hours a week for extended periods and worried about personal things. To minimize these periods, I work super hard when I am working and try to keep complications to a minimum. I'm sure it has held my career back somewhat not to have the same capacity for work hours as others. (Yes, 50+ hours a week is minimal for a lot of people, but for me I need that extra time to relax and recuperate.) The last visual/auditory hallucinations I had were pretty recent. The past couple of months required some 60ish hour weeks, I had a good deal of disrupted sleep and my wife had some health problems. I have strict routines. When they are broken I tend to get upset. For example, I have a rigorous exercise routine. When it snows and it makes it harder to get to the gym or out for a run, I get disproportionately angry. I eat things in a very particular way, if someone disrupts this I get angry and will probably tell them about it. I don't like it when people repeat what I say unless I explicitly give them permission. An example is that my wife might discuss something with me and then discuss that with someone else, and include my view on the subject. That upsets me. I do not struggle much (at all?) with paranoia or catatonia. There is some more, but I'm not super comfortable sharing in a public venue where potential future employers are likely to see. I recognize all of these things are not normal. Over the years I've built up a good set of filters that keeps most people from even noticing. That's not to say I bottle up the reaction, it's just that I've built in some mental processes that help keep the keel even.
- Benferhat 14y ago
  Thanks for sharing! You seem to have found a way to live in both worlds at once quite nicely. Feel free to delete the post while you can btw, if you're concerned about privacy issues.
  - gaustin 14y ago
    I'm glad you appreciate it. I thought about deleting the posts. I'd really rather practice not worrying about what people think about it. It's a part of me and if others can't accept it, that's okay.
    - Benferhat 14y ago
      Right on, that's the only way to live.
    - MartinCron 14y ago
      That is one of the most moving things I have read in a long time. Thank you for sharing.
- stan_rogers 14y ago
  In a lot of ways, that sounds very like the way I manage my dementia. It helps a lot to understand that the hallucinations, as I experience them, are simply a failure of the "normal" ability to simply not pay attention to ordinary signals (things "moving" in the extreme periphery of my visual field either while I'm reading or just doing the regular saccade thing, minor skin irritations being misinterpreted and taking on a life of their own, etc.). As long as I can interpret them at a higher level of thought and classify them, they're merely an annoyance (although, like that one mosquito in the tent with you all night, it can be one hell of an annoyance). Before I understood what was going on, and before I found medication to help me deal with the worst of it, those little unsuppressed signals were absolute hell—both on me, and because they affected my behaviour and beliefs, on the people around me. Unfortunately, my condition is progressive, so there will likely come a time when the meds can no longer help, and I'll find myself back in that world. Not looking forward to that at all, to tell the truth.

gaustin 14y ago

First I have to say that my symptoms have been pretty well-controlled for years. After my diagnosis I lost a lot of weight and became very physically active. This seems to have helped in a miraculous way (according to several doctors). Managing stress, sleeping well, eating well and keeping active seem to work as good or better for me than medications. I have mild hallucinations. Pretty regularly I have odd physical sensations, like the skin on my legs is sloughing off or very convincing body dysmorphia. Stuff like this is worst when it keeps me awake. Exercise or a hot shower tend to fix this. When I am really stressed out I have some auditory (usually more or less ambient noise) and visual (usually motion at the corner of my vision) hallucinations. The visual/auditory hallucinations usually only kick in when working 50+ hours a week for extended periods and worried about personal things. To minimize these periods, I work super hard when I am working and try to keep complications to a minimum. I'm sure it has held my career back somewhat not to have the same capacity for work hours as others. (Yes, 50+ hours a week is minimal for a lot of people, but for me I need that extra time to relax and recuperate.) The last visual/auditory hallucinations I had were pretty recent. The past couple of months required some 60ish hour weeks, I had a good deal of disrupted sleep and my wife had some health problems. I have strict routines. When they are broken I tend to get upset. For example, I have a rigorous exercise routine. When it snows and it makes it harder to get to the gym or out for a run, I get disproportionately angry. I eat things in a very particular way, if someone disrupts this I get angry and will probably tell them about it. I don't like it when people repeat what I say unless I explicitly give them permission. An example is that my wife might discuss something with me and then discuss that with someone else, and include my view on the subject. That upsets me. I do not struggle much (at all?) with paranoia or catatonia. There is some more, but I'm not super comfortable sharing in a public venue where potential future employers are likely to see. I recognize all of these things are not normal. Over the years I've built up a good set of filters that keeps most people from even noticing. That's not to say I bottle up the reaction, it's just that I've built in some mental processes that help keep the keel even.

Benferhat 14y ago
Thanks for sharing! You seem to have found a way to live in both worlds at once quite nicely. Feel free to delete the post while you can btw, if you're concerned about privacy issues.
- gaustin 14y ago
  I'm glad you appreciate it. I thought about deleting the posts. I'd really rather practice not worrying about what people think about it. It's a part of me and if others can't accept it, that's okay.
  - Benferhat 14y ago
    Right on, that's the only way to live.
  - MartinCron 14y ago
    That is one of the most moving things I have read in a long time. Thank you for sharing.
stan_rogers 14y ago
In a lot of ways, that sounds very like the way I manage my dementia. It helps a lot to understand that the hallucinations, as I experience them, are simply a failure of the "normal" ability to simply not pay attention to ordinary signals (things "moving" in the extreme periphery of my visual field either while I'm reading or just doing the regular saccade thing, minor skin irritations being misinterpreted and taking on a life of their own, etc.). As long as I can interpret them at a higher level of thought and classify them, they're merely an annoyance (although, like that one mosquito in the tent with you all night, it can be one hell of an annoyance). Before I understood what was going on, and before I found medication to help me deal with the worst of it, those little unsuppressed signals were absolute hell—both on me, and because they affected my behaviour and beliefs, on the people around me. Unfortunately, my condition is progressive, so there will likely come a time when the meds can no longer help, and I'll find myself back in that world. Not looking forward to that at all, to tell the truth.