Hi Everybody
I was delighted to find on Facebook today that Rethink made a very perceptive and succinct post listing the five chief myths re schizophrenia. I couldn't resist commenting, and linking to here, so I just thought I would say to anyone who has arrived from that source - go to the early posts if you want to find out about my story. I have recently been considering trying to order the posts in some way, so that people could see at a glance what is relevant to what they want to know - assuming that any of it is.
For now, all I can say is that when I started this blog, I wrote it anonymously to work through the issues I had dealing with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, and trying to keep it secret from anyone who knew me. Two years later, I have come a long way, to the point that lots of the blog posts nowadays are not particularly about mental illness, although it is still a subject that interests me, and which will probably always have a bearing on my life.
So I am afraid that newcomers may have to trawl through a bit of a backlog - if you want to. |Go back to the early posts. Alternatively, look for my ebook on Amazon Kindle - 'Surviving Schizophrenia: A Tale of Sound and Fury' by Louise Gillett. You can download the first eight or so chapters to your computer, Kindle, or any reading device, free of charge, with no obligation to buy the rest of it. It should make you smile (sounds strange for such a subject, but take a look!)
Louise x
I love your courage. I too have "the diagnosis." Mine, like yours, could be in error. Those over-zealous docs and the ever-widening lasso of the evolving DSM-X.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Smitty. I am not sure at times whether I am brave or just stupid!
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether the diagnosis was wrong exactly - I was very, very unwell, I had 3 psychotic episodes and was sectioned three times. But I think the term 'schizophrenia' itself is wrong - it is far too damning. And obviously the psychiatrists were wrong to tell me I would never get better, etc.
As far as I am concerned, I am better now, and the message I (and lots of other people) want to spread is that recovery from serious mental illness is possible. The diagnosis is not helpful to anyone who is trying to heal!
It is interesting, that still I feel we are in a minority. And when I speak up about what the research is finding about mental illness, and how it is possible to recover and wean off meds, the ones who use meds get quite angry. Once I felt I had no hope and was all alone in my opinion. I had to fight hard, alone, within myself to believe in recovery. Now I speak up so others have hope and those that believe the medical model feel invalidated, threatened and think I am discounting them. Such a fine line we walk as more of us speak out! (I feel we are still in the minority, as many others who have recovered are happy to disappear into the fabric of our culture...)
ReplyDeleteHi Smitty. It is a difficult one, isn't it? I think people who have been on meds for a long time may be in a different position - it may be harder for them to stop taking the drugs without relapsing, because of changes to the brain chemistry. And there seem to be a lot of degrees of severity of mental illness. Can everyone recover without medication? I think so, I hope so, but I just don't know. I suppose at least now we have the internet, so hopefully people will become more aware of their options, and hopefully be able to draw on their inner strength to recover, when the time is right for them.
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