A Schizophrenic and a Dog

“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…

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.

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…

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…

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…

“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…

Three days ago, (Thursday) I was discharged from the psychiatric hospital.  I’m still recognizing and learning the various signs that led to me needing additional help. more…