Empty Spaces: Pushing Back the Boundaries by Virginia A. Tobin

Empty Spaces: Pushing Back the Boundaries

By Virginia A. Tobin

Reclaiming My Consciousness

Anything or anyone who demands your attention on a daily basis becomes personal to you. Before I became mentally ill, my personal identity was common place to myself and to the rest of society. Since then, my paranoid schizophrenia has demanded my attention generally speaking for approximately 19 years, and has demanded my attention at every level of my life for most of those years. My mental illness has occupied the empty spaces and has pushed back the boundaries so that the gaps of emptiness are much wider than that of a mentally healthy person. I have come to see that being passive about this invites the mental illness to become a parasite larger than the host. The time has come for me to push back the boundaries of emptiness and to allow little room for the uncommon demand.

My symptoms began in 1995, unbeknownst to me, creeping up on me with peculiar occurrences, all culminating in 2007 when I was hearing and seeing ghosts. The onset of my disability seemed to coincide with my one and only marriage to a man I had dated in high school. I only know this in retrospect because I had no clue I was mentally ill until being diagnosed in 2004. My suffering really commenced when my husband left me, without much explanation, after six months of living together as husband and wife. I had a profound feeling of not understanding, which stayed with me, growing for years to come. This feeling of not understanding eventually became about everything that I experienced on a daily basis and thus became MY personal definition of the self.

I would not say that I was lost. I wasn’t. It’s just that this feeling of not understanding became accompanied by beliefs that I adopted to explain the feeling itself. This is where I split from the common understanding of the truth. I began believing that everyone around me was talking indirectly about me or indirectly to me. Following this, I began believing that I knew things that the public did not know about local and world events. Everything I heard, and everything and everyone I met, soon seemed to be a part of a perfect world in which every last detail and generality was previously planned from the license plates of the cars around me to the changing names of countries on the world map. Putting it simply, I recognized everything in the world. It was like experiencing the awesome power of God from a demonic perspective.

One cannot imagine what this felt like, nor understand how demanding this was on my attention. I was in a continuous state of shock and not understanding. This is where my paranoia steps in. I believed that strangers around me knew who I was and that they were all in on some kind of great conspiracy concerning me. I believed that spies from all over the world were watching, listening and following me, that micro-cams were in my bathroom and a tracking device was inside my watch. I don’t know when I started to believe there was an implant in my thumb. This now all seems so gratuitous, of course, since whoever planned the world’s goings on was so advanced.

I was eventually caught be the authorities as only mentally ill people will truly understand. In desperation, I went to the police while I was delusional and traveling around the country thinking now that I was being chased and harassed by the mob. The police sent me to the public psychiatrist where I was officially diagnosed. I immediately noticed that I was now in a different class of people because I was institutionalized. I had just relinquished control of my entire life, as a prisoner would relinquish control to the authorities by being incarcerated. My instincts were correct. This was only to be the beginning of a long span of time spent in and out of the mental institution. It seemed that everyone viewed me as a mentally ill person whose sudden civic duty it was to control and detain. This is how my life crashed.

My paranoid schizophrenia voided my daily experience of true living and settled in with voices from the spirit world. My disability took on a new dimension as voices only came from people in the material world before this. These new voices took my time and my attention so that I was unable to measure my life and at some points unable to measure time. Life events were seemingly non-existent. The value and the meaning of life became shabby. Emptiness was my master and I was its slave.

During the time period directly following my life crashing, I began to finally gain a feeling of understanding through the spirit world voices. They explained a whole new domain of delusion to me which justified everything that I had previously believed. Finally, I began to relax because I no longer felt the desperation of not comprehending.

Currently, I have a more developed understanding and realistic relationship with my disability. The goal is to close the gap of emptiness with a hobby or interest that I can share with others and hopefully earn some money with. The concept that I am pursuing is to teach myself how to make wedding gowns and eventually to design originals. Of course, I will take this very personally as it will redefine who I am by what I think about and do routinely. My attention will be mine again.

Life is Good Even with Schizophrenia by Victoria

Life is Good Even with Schizophrenia

By Victoria

The Gift of Lucidity and the Lucidity of Giving

Being adopted is part of my story, as is teenage drug addiction, marrying at 22, and raising three beautiful children. At 38, I received the diagnosis of Schizophrenia. Each of these events have made me who I am today, and I am pretty pleased with who that is.

Problems are just unresolved situations whose solutions await seekers willing to work through them. Through all the difficulties in my life I have been able to overcome each one, at times simultaneously, and other times after many attempts. I find that which works for me in dealing with schizophrenia is no exception.

When I had my first psychotic break, I actually enjoyed it very much. I believed I was very special and that God was giving me messages to give to other people to help save the world. I will never forget how I came to believe very quickly that at last my life had meaning and that I was the most special person to ever live. With this new idea came a huge burden, though, and slowly I deteriorated until I was unable to function as a wife and mother.

It was then that I sought help. I diagnosed myself before being diagnosed by a team of doctors from UCLA. I had all the classic symptoms, though I did not fit the normal age. Thus began my life on anti-psychotics, and how my life began to return to normal. Today, I can honestly say that I do not believe I am the most special person in the world, although I often have to think it through and talk myself out of it, because there is the lingering idea that just maybe….

My psychiatrist believes I do have a very rare form of schizophrenia, in that I am the best judge of my mental status. I know when I begin to become delusional again, and can recognize quickly when a medication is working or not. Many people with schizophrenia do not have this ability. I am glad of this, for it has helped me to achieve many things in my recovery.

My greatest accomplishment is having earned a Master’s degree in psychology in 2012. I very much enjoy my current work in the mental health field with children and families who suffer from mental disorders. In addition, I have raised my three children to be responsible members of society, and have myself been married for 22 years.

Right now, I am having the best time of my life. I love my career, my kids are all doing really well, I have friends and family I enjoy, and I have some hobbies which help me to enjoy life at this new pace. Before being diagnosed with schizophrenia (although later after a severe bout with depression, was fine-tuned to the diagnosis schizoaffective disorder), I had many relational problems and had no motivation to finish things I started.

But now I enjoy many relationships and finish what I start. I recently wrote a book for people who suffer from this disorder and their loved ones. I also have a blog I keep up to date charting my ups and downs and the changes I still go though. My hope is to reach as many people as possible to help them in their recovery from this devastating disorder, which, if left untreated, causes much suffering.

I work very hard to make sure I take care of myself to continue to recover. I take my medication every night, try to exercise, get enough sleep and eat right for the most part. I go to church every week, have a spiritual adviser, pray every day and read uplifting things. I am constantly looking for ways to better myself through introspection and try to give back to my community.

I am not looking for a Nobel Peace Prize or great sainthood like when I was delusional. I am looking to make the most of my life and to improve life for those around me. Yes, life is good and does not have to be stressful. In fact, I hate discord and drama. I still get anxious at times, but deal with it by limiting contact with negative people and surrounding myself with upbeat and positive folk.

What I really wish to express through this essay is that life does not have to end when one gets a debilitating diagnosis. I can be the positive change I wish to see in the world. One way I can do this is by continuing to write and help others at my work. One day at a time, I can live a life worth living, a life that is remarkable because it is unremarkable. No great honors or awards, just a life that makes sense to me, one that I am proud of. I am happy to be me today, diagnosis and all.

To read more about my recovery from Schizophrenia check out my blog:

http://mypersonalrecoveryfromschizophrenia.wordpress.com/

Steve Bets on a Vehicle Fueled with Faith and Recovery by Carl Blumenthal

Steve Bets on a Vehicle Fueled with Faith and Recovery
By Carl Blumenthal
Stick to Your Shtick, Boychik, And You'll Go Far
We meet in a Dunkin Donuts, near Steve’s “program” at the Jewish Board of Family Services (JBFS) on Coney Island Avenue, just north of Kings Highway, in Brooklyn.
With a whorl of white hair on his head, matching trim beard, and wire spectacles perched on his nose, Steve resembles a modern-day “tzaddik” or wise man.
He buys me a cup of coffee—I refuse a donut—because generosity is part of his nature. America may run on Dunkin, but we’re here sitting on stools to discuss the often bittersweet subject of “faith and recovery.”  
Steve would never pretend to imitate Mel Brooks’ rendition of the “2000-year-old man.” Nevertheless, Steve is fond of scriptural-like irony, and paraphrases the lyrics of that major musical deity, Bob Dylan, who accuses the listener “You ain’t lost your faith; you never had any,” on the song Positively 4th Street.
Or there’s Steve’s quip, “How many psychiatrists does it take to screw in a light bulb? That depends on whether the light bulb wants to change itself.”
These two insights bracket Steve’s life, one of mental illness from an early age, when he “ditched the theory” that all was right in heaven and on earth. He more or less wandered alone in a faithless wilderness for 40 years.
However, when his two sisters and brothers-in-law turned to Orthodox Judaism in the early 1990’s, their example rubbed off on him: “I thought about everything I’d been through and decided I needed to be more conversant with my tradition. I began to think about religion, life, God, the universe…how things happen.”
Steve was attracted to the meaning of suffering in Judaism, particularly in terms of his own life. He began to understand that suffering can bring you closer to God by identifying with the plights of other people, a notion which reminds him of the book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” by Rabbi Harold Kushner.
Then, through “mitsvot” or good deeds, you may alleviate suffering; thereby empowering yourself in the service of God. This thinking may sound circular, even paradoxical, but that’s what faith is all about.
If this reasoning also seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy, everyone who has survived bouts of mental illness knows recovery is like an engine that needs a constant supply of gas—an image Steve appreciates because he can tell you the horsepower, not to mention the fuel efficiency, of every car on the market.
Like Albert Einstein’s famous maxim, “God does not play dice with the universe,” Steve is equally emphatic: “God is not lax; he’s not oblivious to what goes on; He’s just and merciful. If you rob banks or mug people, there will be a reckoning.”
This transformation of his attitudes about things earthly and divine over the last 20 years has alleviated some of the sadness and uncertainty from his earlier days. Steve explains, “It’s set the table for what I have to do. I’m a Jew with mental illness, and I have to be the best person I can be. I try to help others on a daily basis. I’ve never been good at planning the future.”
Through his work as a peer counselor, his loyalty to friends, and his compassion for the members of his self-help program at JBFS, he’s on the road not only to recovery but also to “discovery of who I truly am.”
Then, he lowers his voice, as if to say out loud the following will jinx him: “If I ever relapse to the point where my only resource is the program, my belief in myself and in God will give me the strength to try something else, to put something forward.” It’s a nascent belief that hope will grow.
Or as Mel Brooks might say in a Yiddish accent, “Stick to your shtick, boychik, and you’ll go far.”



     

 

The Day My Life Stood On End and Changed Forever by Stephen

The Day My Life Stood On End and Changed Forever

By Stephen

Accepting My Life With Mental Illness

One day, in the middle of drawing storyboards for an advertising job, I picked up the phone, my face drenched with tears, and told my agent that I was in danger of ruining all of our reputations, and to remove me from the agency roster.

Then I drove to a remote Orange County parking lot, locked my car door and marched into the desert.

At some point during this woozy wobbly haze, I was on my cell phone, telling some man that no, I could not make it until Wednesday at 3:00 p.m.

I was finally in a room with someone who seemed to hear me. The words out of his mouth seemed a true response to what I had just said or exhibited, not just like reading off of some cue cards.

Over the next few months it was no work and all therapy.

Although the details varied from doctor to doctor, (PTSD, schizoaffective lapses, clinical depression, etc.) the verdict was clearly unanimous and solidly official. I was broken.

Not a year later, increasing suicidal ideation and time spent glued to the bed turned into admission into a psychiatric emergency facility, followed by a month in, shall we say, a very quiet place with scheduled meds.

I attended groups, slowly trying to get used to the idea of being a member of a community. Surely, it was like being a member of a stranded castaways club, but it was a club.

Even if I didn't feel completely understood in these groups, the beauty of it was that nobody pretended to. Nobody acted like they knew more about my experience than I did, or that my experience was some kind of laziness or put-on.

I haven't experienced as much grief from the “stigma” of mental illness as I have the proselytizing from people who think they can relate to me because they were once really bummed out for having lost some really great job. They've never slept in a bed next to a guy who screamed all night because of the voices in his head. They've never had a med side-effect that made their body feel as though it was trying to shake its skeleton out of it.

I now seem to spend whatever lucid time I have strategizing how to make whatever I'm doing with my day reinforce my recovery, maximize my chances at functionality, at happiness. I seem to do best when working from a "to-do" list. It gives some shape to my day and a sense of measurable accomplishment.

One thing that is a marvel to me is this: before the freak-outs and the meltdowns, I saw gauging this sort of thing as one might with a thermometer. Just how mentally ill are you? What's its level? Is it high? Is it low?

By now, I have been through an astonishing variety of experiences, wildly differing levels and flavors of mental pain, motor functionality, fuzzy thinking, speed wobbles, a mind of firecrackers, foam, wheels locking up, feeling like a glop of tar...the list goes on.

I now live in a one-room cabin duplex in a flood zone in the Northern California Redwoods. I share a paper-thin wall with an angry and volatile neighbor. It is the only place I can afford. I rarely leave the house, and when I do, it is truly an ordeal. I hobble to the kitchen or bathroom with a cane. Bathing is a laborious and bizarre spectacle. Groceries and other goods are purchased online and delivered. Doctor visits are now only for the most urgent and dire instances. I haven't attended a group in nearly a year.

These days, I'm limited to mostly poetry writing. My head can't seem to handle the stress load or sustain the focus to do much in the way of drawing or writing of any real length. I can sometimes play my guitar or keyboard for 15-20 min. at a time. Any more and my brain just locks up.

I take whatever meds are my doctors' current best guess and struggle with my now considerable weight.

My thoughts are mostly dark and it takes effort to repeat more positive phrases during certain types of meditation, but I do it.

I don't sit, wishing and hoping for the restoration of a former quality of life. All I shoot for now is a good day. Sometimes, a good day is made up of a temporary reprieve from pain, a few good laughs from a TV show and getting the dishes done.

Saved By a Cat by Shannon

Saved By a Cat

By Shannon

How My Pet Kept Me From Committing Suicide

In 1982, I was diagnosed as having a “problem.” I was twelve. At that time there were no real medications, or much therapy, for juveniles. I suffered with periodic depression until I reached college and was able to get some therapy at the campus’s mental health center. Right after college, I chose to get married—instead of attending Graduate School for a master’s degree in counseling—for the mere reason that someone asked me to. I had such low self esteem that I figured I might not get another chance. BIG mistake. Though the man was patient with my issues, he never fully understood and simply flew quietly under the radar when I was at my worst.

In my thirties I began to experience extreme mood swings. I would go from frustration to full outrage in twenty seconds. I would throw things, scream, and once I tried to stab my husband in the throat with a screwdriver during the process of hanging a ceiling fan.

When I visited a psychiatrist and described the instances, I was prescribed my first mood stabilizer. Later came an anti-depressant before an anti-anxiety drug was added to the cocktail. I began intensive therapy but was getting nowhere with my bouts of depression. I began to take the anger and sadness out on myself.

I would have irrational thoughts, such that if I cut myself I could bleed out the pain, as if I were accidentally injured. Though for most of my life I was unaware of the name for this illness, I had been suffering from Dermatillomania, a disorder where someone can't stop picking at their skin. I had always been a “picker,” as it was a self-soothing mechanism I had developed early in life. I hated the results, but was comfortable enough to do so. With all of these things combined, I was finally diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which put everything else under that umbrella into perspective, and subsequently changed both my medication and therapy protocol.

When I next became ill I was prescribed high doses of Prednisone. BIG MISTAKE. It resulted in an obsession with death and eventually a suicide plan. I was miserable in my marriage, at work, and had recently lost a very special pet. I was simply in more pain than I could ever imagine. More than anything, I wanted to end the pain and kill the painful parts of my being. I had no clarity that efforts to cease that would end all my future. I just did not see that they were all intertwined. I had a complete nervous breakdown, went on a manic spree, and then planned my suicide.

The morning I was to complete my act, one of my cats intervened. As I began to take the pills I had been stockpiling after doctor hopping for weeks, she literally swatted at my hand. SMART CAT! It shook me into a reality that made me realize how many joys I would be missing. I called my therapist and my husband and was admitted to an acute mental health care facility. I was only released after plans had been made to transfer me to another facility in another state that provided DBT therapy, which was the protocol for BPD (borderline personality disorder) patients.

After four months at the facility, the staff and I felt I was ready to resume life. My husband and I decided to divorce in that time. I had met another wonderful man while in treatment. After several months I moved to the state where we had met and we began a new life together.

I was doing really well for one of the longest periods ever. Meds were right, therapy was fitting, and things were going smoothly. During a five-day vacation period from my job, I somehow developed agoraphobia. I literally feared going outside, avoided sunlight and kept my curtains closed. Thus began another hospitalization, this time for about two weeks. My meds were again readjusted, and I was released. Since then, that boyfriend and I eventually broke up, and I moved back to my hometown.

I’m currently suffering again from deep depression and anxiety. Yet, now I have no health insurance and have to rely on state funded care, which is minimal at best. I am able to hold a part time job and socialize with two of my lifelong friends. I have a new pet that brings a level of peace and responsibility to my life, which helps to keep me together. I only pray that simply surviving will continue.

Some Hidden Links to Mental Illness Uncovered by Scott

Some Hidden Links to Mental Illness Uncovered

By Scott

I turned 37 years on January 7^th, and I have a heartfelt story to share. In January 2007 I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a mild form of schizophrenia, but when I opened up more to my therapist. She agreed with me that I was slightly misdiagnosed and that what I have is schizophrenia. I have lived with it ever since.
From 1993 to the year 2000 I had lived with undiagnosed mercury poisoning which stemmed from having had 16 mercury fillings by 2000 at the age of 24. My dentist helped diagnose me and I had him replace all 16 fillings (paying $900 out of pocket for work that was not covered by my insurance) and he put in white composite fillings, I underwent detox in 2001, and after three months of detox my symptoms of depression, stuttering, and panic attacks were gone for good. It was miraculous, and I feel my prayers to God led me to my diagnosis and recovery.
Six years later I faced so much stress that my brain broke, and I have had schizophrenia ever since. My regret was that I did not seek help sooner because I went eleven months in 2006 with full-blown schizophrenia and I suffered. I learned that in 2010 through a blood test that I had Vitamin D deficiency, and according to the Vitamin D Council's website there is now an accepted clear link between Vitamin D deficiency and mental illness. Mercury fillings depleted my Vitamin D and I will have mental illness for the rest of my life as a result, which is kept in check with a miraculous medication, the generic brand of Risperdal called Risperidone, one pill daily. I am trying to get the word out that the American Dental Association is a major lobbyist in Washington, DC, and because of that fact it’s hard to get many sponsors for the bill to ban mercury from use in dentistry.
After 2000 I became a mercury dental advocate trying to get mercury fillings banned nationwide through law, and you can go to this amazing website: www.toxicteeth.org which is run by the main non-profit in our country who has worked with legislators to get mercury fillings banned, Consumer's for Dental Choice.

For further information, you can contact Scott via scttrss@juno.com.

Bruised Skies and Lost Lies by Samuel

Bruised Skies and Lost Lies

By Samuel

A Cast-Off Kid Grows Up to Share the Trauma of His Childhood

It was cold and the sky was black and blue with winter’s punch. A 16-year-old child drifted anonymously, heading west across PA Interstate 80, looking over his shoulder continuously, although he had a strong sense of his own solitude. He was not frightened, nor aware that he should be, for this was his life and his reality. His relationship with his mysterious father, whom he barely knew, had somehow begun to unfold. He had never laid his eyes on him.
A momentary thought passed through, as he reflected: “How dare you challenge me for living like that?”
Daylight was slowly fading and Christmas Day was approaching. Rides would be scarce, if at all. He barely weighed eighty-five pounds that year and carried all his material possessions in a small duffel bag. “Save the sleeping bag.” Thank God he had enough common sense to steal an army-issue down-filled bag. With no fond memories to keep him warm, the sleeping bag was his safe place as he searched for the next bridge to sleep under. The bridges provided dry shelter and kept a great deal of the wind chill to a minimum. As they provided a flat surface to sleep on at the very top of the incline that supported their weight, he realized too, nobody would ever notice him resting up there. He was alone. He was safe. He was at peace. Serenity had been bestowed upon him—again, by the simple art of locomotion.
Damn it! Tears streamed down his face and froze on his cheeks. How could the commonwealth of Pennsylvania allow this to happen? He knew people and their loved ones were settling down to meals, warm homes, family, friends, gifts, Church, and the seemingly endless celebration of love, music, and tidings of great joy. Merry Christmas? He swore he saw his black and blue marks reflected in the wintry sky for the last time. The only way to not see those bruised colors in the sky again was to leave this place forever.

Life was so much like he had been told Hell would be, at the age of 8, that he didn't consider suicide because Hell only seemed like more of the same. Now that's one unusual motivation to keep on living, he thought. “My God, is this how it’s going to work for me as long as I agree to keep on living?” The concept of suffering had not yet been bestowed upon him. However, he did wonder, “Where have I gone so wrong so soon?” “God doesn't put anything on your plate you can't handle,” he heard in response.
The professionals would have most certainly labeled his black and blue marks as “SAD.” This truly was his personal seasonal affective disorder this year for Christmas. He knew he wouldn't allow his affection to manifest itself into an infection. He already knew how to forgive and love the person appropriately. Parenting was no easy task for himself. Didn't folks say it in itself was a full time job?
He knew “Chaucer and Beowulf have nothing on me.” School had already taught him that. Thank goodness the public education system was providing him with the knowledge he needed to survive. “You have got to be kidding me. What is so wrong with these people and this system?” Too frightened to speak, because when he does, “some adults become angry and treat me poorly because I have challenged them.” “OK, it's all my fault. I can deal with the responsibility because you won't.”
There would be no welcome food-source tomorrow, Christmas Day, and tomorrow was nearly an eternity away. Plan ahead for food? The concept of planning ahead for anything except cigarettes was something people who sensed they had a future would have thought of.

Time didn't seem to exist yet it seemed to keep happening. This was all he seemed to know, so he never considered contemplating to any great length, “Why me?” Surviving much like a parasite would, seemingly lower on the food chain than a barnacle, he had found nothing to cling onto that lasted.

He shook as the coldness of reality migrated throughout the bag. The cement was hard, much like life itself, so it was comfortable, because it seemed familiar. So was crying.

Then his mind drifted to the thought for the day: Would anyone consider him immature for crying? He didn't think God would. At least he had one good friend to talk to. He was having difficulty however hearing Him speak. But he didn't give up on his chosen approach. And that was that.

“Life seems okay.” Already he thought, “nearly complete.” His communication skills were being honed, though he had no clue. Sleep was at two to three hour intervals at the most, and neither the weather nor hunger pangs had a thing to do with his inability to rest.

Note: The author was the 16-year-old in the story. He was living in an orphanage at the time when the State of PA revoked their charter and closed it down. His option from the system was to return to foster care and he wasn't willing to do that so he spent two years being homeless until he was emancipated at the age of 17. This is part of a larger story. Samuel's diagnosis is PTSD and in essence there is no end to the story.