Successful Schizophrenia Exchange

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Successful Schizophrenia Exchange

The following short messages are being shared, with permission. No communication to the "Successful Schizophrenia" site is posted without permission. Please visit our stories page for more personal accounts.

Note: December 2008. We are no longer accepting submissions for this section. Please see our links page for some resources for creating communities.

Name: Anonymous

Date: July, 2004

Weller Than Well is Possible!

I have had a diagnosis of schizophrenia for ten years and can resonate with the idea that weller than well is a possible experience. I have been living that very idea for an ample length of time. I am growing and changing and becoming an extraordinary person. I have learned many things in my life and I keep wanting to attain states of higher enlightenment as well as transcendence. I have come to realize that personal development plays an important part in healing and compassion and deeper understanding of human culture. All my struggles have been immense learning experiences and working through them has brought me greater awareness and lovingness for my self and others. Truly this lifepath is one of great rewards when I am open to opportunities.

The advice that I would give someone having similar experiences would be that if you have a chance to educate yourself on the concept of mental illness or to participate in cognitive therapies I could see the outcome being only beneficial. Also I have developed a rich spiritual life that carries me through my day. It's my own personal philosophies and affirmations that are unique to my experience. I embrace my episodes as learning times and believe that there is a reason for everything. The most important suggestion that I could make is to communicate everything and anything that is on your mind. Being open, letting go of the past, and knowing that you always have a choice with a wide variety of consequences. These mantras have brought me back to self-responsibility and given me a greater awareness to myself in this society.

You may use my letter on your website to send inspiration to others who may be in different or resonating situations. Also if you would like more input I am available to offer more insight.

Name: Anonymous
Date: February 18, 2004

I Broke Through!

In 1980 I was diagnosed as a chronic schizophrenic. I was heavily medicated for years. (1200 mg largactil a day, 62.5mg of modecate a week) I was told I would never recover.

My "schizophrenic" episodes during 1981 to 1984 are the reasons I survived. Sure I have had visual halucinations, heaps of em, some terrifying some greatly rewarding. I don't know why I had to be punished for seeing things others don't see. My so called schizophrenia has been my guide. The medication couldn't stop my voyage of discovery.

I managed to escape the business enterprise of psychiatry in 1985. Of course pyschiatry exists, how else would people who are not willing to participate contribute economically. Mental illness is the economic tool of the meliorist/capitalist that ensures everyone contributes to cash flow. That's how stupid it is.

I see things from another perspective. It's like the world is playing rugby and all I've got is a soccer ball. I can't play with them, only myself. Do you KNOW how brilliant that feels? I make up my own rules to suit myself. I will never cooperate and play rugby. I'm fixated on that. My "hallucinations" and learning have taught me rugby is wrong.

I'm glad shrinks don't have breakthroughs, the miserable barstards. Shrinks always said I would never get well. I never told about my latitudinarian dependencies. I will never stop growing.

I am a "schizophrenic," latitudinarian INTJ and this equates to I am free. I broke through!

Name: Tessa Manning
Date: February 8, 2004

Hello,

I've been reading through your site on successful schizophrenia. Two years ago today I began a journey that led into psychosis and back out again.

In the two years since that experience I have done a lot of quietude, a lot of healing, a lot of reading. At the time, it felt very lonely and painful to go through it alone, but I'm glad now that I never brought a thereapeutic presence into it, aside from the imagery, mythology, and clues that naturally emerged on their own. Neither have I had any form of medication, during or since. I felt it was necessary that I allow myself to feel the depth of that grief and fear, and didn't want to numb it.

Am I well? I ask myself that all the time. In my mind, heart and soul, yes, I believe I am. Initially I allowed myself a year to heal. When that year passed and I still didn't feel I was well, I allowed another year. I'm discovering that it takes as long as it takes, but mostly, when I ask myself if 'I am well?' these days, I'm able to say, 'I'm getting better and better.'

I just wanted to share a bit about my experience and express my thanks for your site. I've since published my story to the net. You are welcome to read it if you like, or share it discreetly with other caregivers in the field: http://thefifthbody.homestead.com/ It's about the equivalent of a novellette for length because it covers the entirety of what unfolded in that six week period of my life.

Regards,
Tessa Manning

Name: Martyn Kauri
Date: October 2003

I am a support worker who helps people with schizophrenia. I am currently looking for information about the needs of sufferers in the community. I currently work in a nursing home, but that is soon to change over to a rehab. I follow an easy going philosophy of "we are who we are,"but what I am looking for is the daily stumbling blocks faced by people in daily living, be it stigma or just motivation exercises.

I seriously agree with your philosophy and it is one I use with my own son. The people whom I care for react well to it also. It is hard, I feel, for someone who is stuck in a home with an illness that creates a lot of loneliness and isolation when they have no family around and are not willing to accept that they have schizophrenia. I find that with the older clients they accept that they are here as they have been institutionalised for most of their life, whereas the younger clients (25-35) suffer from a lot of loneliness and tend to isolate themselves much more.

What I do is try to bridge the gap. I never talk about their illness to them, but just try to be a friend as that is all that is needed sometime. I have been in a similar situation, but through drugs and the help I was given was very similar to the philosophy you described and what I have seen on your website.

I would very much like to hear from people living in homes or the community on their experiences.
Please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thanks once again.
Martyn Kauri

Name: Vincent Marshall
Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2002

Hi, Al

You may remember me, I wrote a couple years ago and you stood up for my right to call myself non-schizophrenic, at least to myself. My program manager and my good friend (who works at out clubhouse) both call me the "Health and Wellness Guru" there! I read your book about the "Survivor Personality" twice and have realized, fortunately, that I am a 100% survivor! I gave a presentation at out "Mental Health Awareness" meeting based on some of the material in your book about the power of the subconscious.

I have purified my intuition (subconscious) to the point where I can get answers to life's questions, automatically. That really keeps me out of trouble! The people in the crowd all said that I looked like a professor standing there. I try to keep their attention with humor. I just wanted you to know that, with my prayers, each day gets better than the last and that now, I'm so well, my doctor gave me a new diagnosis--"worry wart," not "schizophrenic"

I still just wanted to let you know that you put me on the right track by showing me how to choose the positive over the negative in the role of being schizophrenic! Thanks for being my "online-psychologist!"

--Vinny

Name: Joshua

I became weller than well. I was diagnosed in 1988 with three different diagnoses. These were in order of diagnosis; (1) paranoid schizophrenia (2) manic depression (3) psychotic depression. I have been medication and psychiatrist free since April,1989.

If you want further info contact me at my email address.
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Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997

Okay, I can't write my story. I tried. I've deleted it three times. I read your "survivor's personality" article. I think I may be schizophrenic, but I know I'm not mentally ill. Before researching schizophrenia I thought that the flood gates that seperate the thoughts that run through everyone's mind-- Seperating the imagination, the subconcious, etc-- Were broken. I thought that's why I thought things were real that no one else heard or saw. I thought that was why my mind raced so fast I couldn't think about one thing, or look at one thing, or keep my head still. I would ask people, "Does your mind feel vast? Like there is no end, no begining, no definition, no structure. Do thoughts come from every direction and colide together in the center only to create shattered jumbles of disconnected nothing--But-was-something-once? Do you think there's a time machine under the haunted house at disneyland that the government uses to alter history and keep the money in the hands of the rich?"

My delusions changed though. When I was little I thought a new day never really happened. Like the movie "Groundhog day." Everyday was the same day lived over and over. My memories were not real and the human race was some other beings experiment. Everyone was reprogrammed at night while we slept. I love people, but being around other people is incredibley draining. Just from the way they put their words together I can hear so much of their privateness. That makes me very uncomfortable. I know what parts of me will make them uncomfortable and out of respect I divide myself. I feel nothing. Or very little. I tell my husband there is a callous covering my soul. I feel a great deal of emotion somewhere private, but it never touches my mind so I remain unable to feel it--But, I know it exists. This, I need to change. In time, the callous needs to be removed. Up until now I've always told my own story as if it were someone elses. I knew it was something to hide. But, now, I'm curious. Have other people experienced this?
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Name: Betty Eldridge
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997

This is a wonderful site. In the past 13 years I've been involved in, or engaged by a process of thought that I believe anyone can experience, and I believe there's a lot more to this 'mental illness' thing than anyone has understood yet. I would like to know where and whom to talk to to develop a study group to evaluate the 'strange' symptoms I found written on medical charts scientifically. This is not psychosis unless the person doesn't get good help and validation.
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Disclaimer: Material found on the Successful Schizophrenia website is for your information only. We are not able dispense specific advice for your situation. If you are under a doctor's care, you should talk with him or her about your mental health goals and if they are not on the same page as you, ask for a referral to a doctor or counselor who is. It may mean interviewing several. If you are on your own, you may wish to contact your local county mental health department to ask for local resources. Our site exists to show people that there are all varieties of mental states and assessments of those states; that sometimes 'mental health' is in the eye of the beholder; and that the mental health profession needs to continue to open itself up to the new paradigm ... progress is being made!

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