"Successful and Schizophrenic" Hate to challenge the conventional viewpoint, but ...
... it seems that many of us with mental health issues are perfectly capable of having actual lives after all. We're not all Adam Lanzas in waiting, despite what some have said.
I personally was never told that I had any limitations on what I want to do with the rest of my life by any mental health professional, only by a few lay persons whose advice was worth what I paid for it, and whose advice I generally got without wanting it.
The problem with prejudging anyone lies in the fact that they have a propensity to prove you wrong.
I hope that examples such as this one help to dispel the myth that a serious mental health diagnosis is an automatic one way ticket to the bottom of the socioeconomic heap. As with Downs Syndrome and Autism, I would like to think that both mental health professionals and the general public will change their thinking about what is actually possible.
By ELYN R. SAKS
Published: January 25, 2013
THIRTY years ago, I was given a diagnosis of schizophrenia. My prognosis was “grave”: I would never live independently, hold a job, find a loving partner, get married. My home would be a board-and-care facility, my days spent watching TV in a day room with other people debilitated by mental illness. I would work at menial jobs when my symptoms were quiet. Following my last psychiatric hospitalization at the age of 28, I was encouraged by a doctor to work as a cashier making change. If I could handle that, I was told, we would reassess my ability to hold a more demanding position, perhaps even something full-time.
Then I made a decision. I would write the narrative of my life. Today I am a chaired professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. I have an adjunct appointment in the department of psychiatry at the medical school of the University of California, San Diego, and am on the faculty of the New Center for Psychoanalysis. The MacArthur Foundation gave me a genius grant.
Although I fought my diagnosis for many years, I came to accept that I have schizophrenia and will be in treatment the rest of my life. Indeed, excellent psychoanalytic treatment and medication have been critical to my success. What I refused to accept was my prognosis.
Specifically in terms of possible achievement in life, though, I have witnessed even some mental health professionals have a condescending attitude or an air of inevitability of failure when discussing future potential with patients. Including myself. While, as I said above, I was never told that I had to expect any kind of limitations on what I want to do with my life, I have been warned, or, perhaps reminded is a better term, that I have what is possibly a degenerative neurological condition .... oh, joy. But, I can't live my life in fear of "what if", I will deal with it if and when it happens.
THAT is why it is so distressing when doctors tell their patients not to expect or pursue fulfilling careers. Far too often, the conventional psychiatric approach to mental illness is to see clusters of symptoms that characterize people. Accordingly, many psychiatrists hold the view that treating symptoms with medication is treating mental illness. But this fails to take into account individuals’ strengths and capabilities, leading mental health professionals to underestimate what their patients can hope to achieve in the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/opinion/sunday/schizophrenic-not-stupid.html?_r=1&
I had to work hard to dispel these myths and fight my deep fears about what my diagnosis of bipolar II would mean for my future, and I'm not entirely there yet, I still have times when I fear that I may end up in such a not-so-nice place, digging my dinner out of dumpsters. Pretty much a completely irrational fear, but I admit it pops up, based on the common stereotype of the homeless mentally ill man drifting past the edge of any social safety net. I guess that is something anyone in my position should fear, and should actively work to avoid as a future. My personal goal to avoid such a fate is to continue to accumulate real-world job skills and credentials. I currently have two bacherlor's degrees, but I would like to enroll, roughly a year from now, in a masters degree program in my current field, paralegal studies/legal administration. Better goal to strive for than collecting enough cardboard to make a lean-to shelter in some Detroit alley.
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