The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Well I'm fucked.
I developed schizophrenia with a sudden onset and lost my partner, work, and health. Wife was first to leave me and has cut all contact. Lost my job and most of my ability to work. Most of my friends have drifted away.
Could be worse. I did some crazy shit due to my delusions but managed to avoid even worse consequences. I now have meds that have fixed the so called positive symptoms like delusions and hallucinations. I have a lot of money saved up. I think my cognitive abilities are slowly coming back. But I have intense negative symptoms: a lack of emotions, motivation, and joy. These are probably due to both the illness and my high fall from grace. My life now is almost entirely suffering.
One friend has been coming over to my place with her dog once a week to bake. I'm infinitely grateful for this and it's one of the only things I look forward to. I told most friends about my situation but she's the only one who has made any effort to try and support me.
I feel almost entirely lost and ruined, but do have some stubborn hope and desire to try and rebuild my life. I've been forcing myself to try new hobbies but they have all felt empty so far. Have zero motivation to exercise (and am gaining weight due to the meds). Don't have enough concentration to read books or watch movies. Hard times.
My condolences, schizophrenia is terrifying, and even if well managed with medication. I'm glad that the medication is working, even if with unpleasant side effects (there are some antipsychotics that have a less pronounced effect, aripiprazole being one that comes to mind).
Antipsychotics suck, the only reason we prescribe them is psychosis sucks harder.
I can only hope that your symptoms resolve, and your wife changes her mind or you find someone who understands and accepts you better.
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If you have the insight to post this here you are not fucked.
A few things to keep in mind.
Your ability to tell what is real and true is going to be compromised at times. Involve your family and your doctor in your care. Get a therapist. Outsource some things to them. Don't make certain types of decisions (like stopping medication) without involving them. Others may be able to tell you when you are declining better than you can self-assess because losing that is part of the illness. Establish safe guards and personality structure that allows you to get help while you are doing well so you can be protected when you aren't.
Negative symptoms are harder to treat, but they can be treated. Let those caring for you know about the negative symptoms. Don't bottle it up.
Many illnesses (not just mental illness) involve stepwise decline. Further episodes, longer episodes can compound. So do whatever you can to decrease the frequency of episodes and their duration.
You have met people in your life with serious mental illness and not known about it. Many people do well, and then you never know unless you catch them in an episode. There is hope.
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