Overall, life has been pretty good these past couple weeks since I last posted. This is not due to the fact that I have closeted myself at home and not ventured out for any “adventures.” I’ve had some big adventures and goals met! more…
Author Archive
Who Rescued Who
27
Jan 2012
When I first met Sheriff, I was told he was an Irish Wolfhound puppy…my dream dog. Once I saw him, I knew this was not true. However, I still felt drawn to him. He was at the vet clinic for an adoption event…however not many people want a big, black dog. I took him outside to let him run around and I sat down on an overturned 5 gallon bucket. Instead of sniffing around, running, exploring, etc, Sheriff simply sat next to me and leaned against my legs. For several minutes I simply pet him…each pet solidifying my interest in him. After the adoption event, I asked if Sheriff could stay at the vet for a few weeks or so. My first year anniversary with my boyfriend was coming up…I thought Sheriff would be an excellent gift.
When I took my boyfriend to meet Sheriff, he was no longer the calm, laid back dog I had originally met. Even making eye contact with him caused him to urinate in fear. Not a good sign. Frankly, a horrible sign. This dog had some serious issues. The kennel workers told me that he was probably not far off from being euthanized. Not only do people tend to avoid big, black dogs…they tend to avoid dogs that pee everywhere in a panic. My boyfriend likely thought I was nuts for wanting this dog, but my mind was not changed. Over the next couple weeks, we were allowed to take Sheriff to the local park. He rode in the car great and his fears were not as severe once he was leashed and outside the kennel environment. But, he was still a very fearful and under-socialized dog.
At one point, while I was at work at Petco, my boyfriend decided to bring Sheriff to Petco since my shift was ending soon. At the same time, a local rescue was setting up for an adoption event. One of the volunteers dropped a folded metal crate right next to Sheriff. Sheriff was so startled that he backed out of his collar and took off running. My boyfriend and three rescue volunteers took off after him. They followed him across a very busy road and to the back of an ancient apartment complex…which ended with a drop-off about 8 feet down into the next shopping strip. Sheriff paused long enough at that drop-off without leaping for my boyfriend to approach him and get him leashed again. That experience really cemented the fact that this dog needed a lot of help. I don’t know how I did it, but I convinced my boyfriend that we were his forever home…with my dog training knowledge, I could turn this dog around. more…
Category: Dogs, Schizophrenia, Service Dogs
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You Are Not Broken
14
Dec 2011
“What is the point of being complete on the outside, but broken on the inside?” states motivational speaker, Nick Vujicic. How right he is! Physically, there is nothing wrong with me. Mentally, I fight a battle on a daily basis. more…
Category: Schizophrenia
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Thanksgiving 2011
25
Nov 2011
Okay, I’m a day late for Thanksgiving. My brother brought home five international students which is always interesting (and hectic). My favorite part is when we actually eat dinner and they eat foods they have never encountered before. This year, a guy from South Africa tried cranberry sauce for the first time and he liked it! This is good because I LOVE cranberry sauce.
Anyways, I didn’t start a blog to ramble about cranberry sauce. I started a blog to talk about Thanksgiving. more…
Category: Uncategorized
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Where My Passion Leads Me
14
Nov 2011
I long ago came to the conclusion that I’ve had to struggle with schizophrenia, aspergers, and generalized anxiety disorder for a reason. I am religious so I do give God the credit on this. He is orchestrating something in my life that is larger than I can know.
One of the opportunities that has recently popped up is a way for me to express my passion about mental health recovery/management. This is just in the very beginnings of getting started but I really hope it grows bigger. I want to be a motivational speaker. I want to inspire people, mentally ill or not, and show them that they can get through whatever life throws at them. This message is important for all age groups and something I really want to help people with. I believe that, once I get my brain organized into speeches, I could have a powerful message to share with people. Scratch that. I KNOW I have a powerful message to share with people. Finding the outlet and fine-tuning my speaking are the obstacles I have to resolve now.
I do have an opportunity coming up in the next couple months in which I could talk to anywhere from 20-50 people. Sort of a baptism by fire test drive.
I find it amusing that this is where life is taking me right now. I used to hate public speaking. I’ve always been awkward at it. However, one thing I have heard over and over in my research for motivational speaking is that even if the presentation is a little wonky, the passion of the message is what really shines through and sticks with people. I have passion. Deep passion. Therefore, I can do this. I already know that I can talk about what I am passionate about. That is easy. And if my message reaches only one person…only changes one person’s life, then I’ve done my job. Because passion can spread like a wildfire. Once you set fire to your own light, it begins to set fire to others. And then they spread their own light.
I can do this. This is where I am being led. It sounds good to me. I’m ready to change the lives of however many people want to listen to me.
Category: Schizophrenia
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Contractions
04
Nov 2011
This semester I am taking a class called Introduction to Animal Science + Lab. Nearly every week in lab we go out to the farm and do something hands on with the animals. This has ranged from taking blood from the jugular of a cow to practicing Artificial Insemination with pigs. This week we got to stick our whole arm (gloved of course) inside the digestive track of a living cow. We did this to get an idea of how their digestive system works.
When you stick your arm into the digestive track, you angle towards the head of the cow so that you can find the reticulum and the esophagus. This particular cow was eating grain while we messed with her so her digestive system was actively working with the new food that was entering her body. That meant, that sometimes her muscles would contract as the digestive system worked. When they contracted, you literally could not get your arm out of the cow. You had to wait for her to relax.
This made me think about how we sometimes handle life. more…
Category: Schizophrenia
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Glimpse 2: In the Beginning
23
Oct 2011
Every so often, I’m going to start posting a “glimpse” at what life is like in a psychiatric hospital. These are true stories that I have lived through. Some of the dialogue may not be word for word but will capture the events as accurately as I can remember. These glimpses will also be in no particular order…just whatever I feel like posting. Names of other patients and nurses are also changed for privacy.
In late February 2009, my first psychotic episode occurred. I had seen a psychiatrist a couple weeks previously and she had told me that she wasn’t sure of a diagnosis yet but she decided to try me on Risperidone, an atypical anti-psychotic. On the last weekend of February, I saw my therapist. Looking back I suppose that was the day that the psychosis first started to get me. The session was rough and when I left, I had strong suicidal urges. I got home and emailed my therapist, telling her that I wanted to kill myself. She immediately tried to call me but I refused to answer the phone. I was too scared to hear what she might say. She emailed me back promptly and asked me to come back to the counseling center but I refused. I told her I had to go to work.
As I drove to work, an ambulance went speeding by me. I was afraid that ambulance was for me and that it was going to my apartment to try and save me. When I got to the entrance to the shopping center that Petco was in, a police officer also drove his car into the parking lot. I was positive that officer was looking for me and was going to arrest me so that I couldn’t harm myself. I believed that all over town, police officers and paramedics were searching for me, trying to stop me form killing myself. I was psychotic. I was paranoid. I was terrified.
I got through my six hour shift. I tried to avoid the customers in the store because I was afraid that they were all undercover and would take me away if they figured out who I was and what was going on. The next day, a Saturday, I went to work in the same condition. Unfortunately, it was impossible to completely stay away from all customers on such a busy day. I don’t really remember what went through my head that day. Sunday morning, March 1st, I had to be at work at 7 in the morning to open the store. I woke up at six and knew that I couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted to kill myself. I couldn’t bear the idea of another paranoid day at work. I was exhausted from constantly fearing that people were out to get me. I was not thinking clearly at all. I woke my fiance up, Adam, and told him that I wanted to kill myself…I needed help, badly. He called the crisis line at the local psychiatric hospital and they told him to bring me in to get evaluated. I got dressed and away we went to the hospital.
I was evaluated by a very kind lady, she has evaluated me many times sense. I don’t remember how this particular evaluation went. I was too disconnected from reality. I was shutting down. The evaluator called the on-call doctor (who happened to be my psychiatrist). My psychiatrist remembered me and stated that she wanted me to be hospitalized. They allowed me to give my cell phone, wallet, and jewelry to my fiance before they took me back on the ward. more…
Category: Schizophrenia
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Looking Through The Mirror
12
Oct 2011
First off, I want to apologize to anyone who noticed that my blog went down for a few days last week. Second, I had an idea for a different topic to write about but the experience I am going to describe is much more prominent for me right now than the other topic was. more…
Category: Schizophrenia
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Glimpse 1: Safety
03
Oct 2011
Every so often, I’m going to start posting a “glimpse” at what life is like in a psychiatric hospital. These are true stories that I have lived through. Some of the dialogue may not be word for word but will capture the events as accurately as I can remember. These glimpses will also be in no particular order…just whatever I feel like posting. Names of other patients are also changed for privacy.
For two days I did not leave my hospital room. Psychosis had hit rather hard and I was convinced that if I left my room, one of the other patients would attempt to kill me. Only two patients were exempt from this thought: my roommate, Liz, and a particularly kind woman, Sarah.
I stayed curled up in bed, not even leaving at meal times. At first the nurses brought me trays of food but eventually they just left me alone in my room. In order for me to see my psychiatrist, one of the techs would wait until all the other patients were in group. He would then come tell me that no one was in the open area and it was safe to come out. Repeatedly, the nurses, techs, and doctors told me that I was safe…no one would try to harm me.
On the evening of the third day, Liz came in and told me that only her and Sarah were in the day room if I wanted to join them. My increased dose of medicine was kicking in and the psychosis was losing its grip. I decided to try my luck at leaving the room. Before this paranoia had hit me, I’d been working on a 500 piece puzzle in the day room. When Liz and I walked in, it was still there just like I had left it. Eagerly, I sat at the table and began working on it again. I was making good process. The puzzle was of a garden full of pink flowers and ropes of climbing ivy.
There was a commotion in the hall. Another patient, Rachel, had been in bad shape the entire length of my stay. She frequently became confused, sometimes stripping off her clothes or wandering into the nurses’ area. She babbled words that did not make sense and was never in a good mood. She was out in the hall, making some sort of ruckus. Suddenly, she came into the day room and headed right towards my table. I stood quickly and backed away from the table. She picked up the edge of it and attempted to throw it at me. Puzzle pieces went flying. A carton of milk spilled all over the floor. I disappeared…crammed into a tiny nook between the wall and a row of lockers.
Nurses rushed in, restraining Rachel and removing her from the room. I had immediately gone into a panic attack. The nurses, Liz, and Sarah could not calm me down. I’d been repeatedly told that no one would harm me, yet another patient had just thrown a table at me! Physically, I was unharmed but not for a lack of trying.
One of the nurses came in again to check on us. By then I had calmed down some but had not left my nook of safety. The nurse offered to put in a movie for us to watch then told us that she was going to lock the door so that we could leave the room, but no one else could come in without a key. After the movie, Sarah went to bed by Liz stayed with me. I didn’t feel safe enough to leave the room. Who knew when Rachel would attack again? She could simply walk into our room and strangle me if she wanted! The nurses never came to tell us to go to bed. Liz and I ended up turning out the lights and sleeping in chairs pushed together into tiny beds. Not until 6am did we finally return to our room. Even without the tendrils of psychosis, my paranoia was fed by the incident.
Category: Uncategorized
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Planting Seeds
14
Sep 2011
“I wouldn’t want to be in the same room as a schizophrenic because I got to protect me and the other people in the room.”
This is a direct quote from a woman in a college class called Personal Health. There was an assignment in which students were asked to research a psychological illness. This was the reaction to schizophrenia. more…
Category: Schizophrenia
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