Tag Archives: happiness

Experiences With Mental Illness Blogging

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I’ve been doing this blog for over three years.  And I absolutely enjoy every minute I spend blogging.  I enjoy it more than any traditional job I ever had.  I enjoy it even more than the classes I took in college.  I don’t have to be forced to write about mental illness.  I would do this for free.  I am doing it for free unless I get any kind of advertising revenue or sponsors.  I wouldn’t refuse any money that comes my way even though I am not delusional enough to think I can get off disability pension from blogging.  I have been doing this blog for three years and not made a cent off it.  In my twelve years of overall writing I have probably broke even between selling print on demand books and what I spent advertising my blog through Facebook.  I don’t suppose many people can claim they have a passionate hobby that almost pays for itself.

After spending several years with selling only a few dozen books of mental illness essays and poetry I really had no expectations with this blog.  I didn’t know what kind of a following I would have or even if I would have a following outside my mother and a few friends.  So I set up shop with a free blog site and started writing blogs about what it is like to have schizophrenia to people who can’t imagine it.  This isn’t the first blog I ever did.  A friend and I did a blog several years ago.  It never gained more than a couple hundred views because we were unfocused and not posting regularly.  I did a blog about my poetry for awhile before I found out I wasn’t much of a poet and there really isn’t a great demand for average poetry.

After examining what I liked to read, what I was good at writing, and what I gained good audiences from, I decided three years ago to focus on writing about my experiences with mental illness.  That’s when I gained more than a few readers.  After years of experimenting with styles and genres, I came to the conclusion I do best writing nonfiction essays from the first person point of view.  I had written rough drafts for two coming of age type novels both from first person view.  They didn’t really hold together and I later found out for fiction novels that first person is tougher than third person point of view.

Once I found my niche and style I had a few visitors coming in with every blog post.  After it became a weekly posting I had a few more visitors.  The thing that helped me gain more visitors was posting often.  A blogger simply can’t build any kind of audience by posting only once or twice a month or only when the creative muse moves them.  Most of my favorite individual youtube content creators post several times a week and have for several years.  I’m not at that kind of proficiency, but perhaps I could be if I keep posting material.  I think it helps to get a body of work of several dozen postings at minimum so that search engines can find your work easier.  As of now I have had close to two hundred postings over the last three years and a little over 9,500 visitors from 90 different nations.  There are bloggers (and youtube stars) who get that even on bad days, but I’ve been working at this for only a few years and haven’t done as much advertising as some people.  Being on a limited budget with a disability pension I have to be choosy about what kind of advertising I do as it still costs money to get truly noticed.

Early on in the first several months I got some audience from following other bloggers and leaving positive comments on their articles.  I left nothing but positive comments.  If I didn’t agree with a particular post I just didn’t comment.  I didn’t want to gain the reputation of a troll or troublemaker.  Having a good reputation on the internet is more valuable than gold.  I got some following from following other bloggers and I tried to direct some of my readers to bloggers who helped me out.  But leaving positive comments on other blogs, following other blogs, and trying to refer traffic to other blogs helped me out in the early months.

Even though I have a few years of blogging experience and some following I don’t consider myself established by any means.  I don’t think there can be anything really established as far as the internet and the current information revolution goes.  I was learning as I went when I wrote my first words twelve years ago and I’m still learning new things even today. I was a bit frustrated in the early years when I would get rejection notices in the mail several times a week.  I was also frustrated in the early postings when I wasn’t getting more than a few visitors per post.  But looking back on it, I see how rough and raw most of those writings were.  I’m glad they didn’t get published.  And I’m sure in several more years I’ll look at some of the things I’m writing now as rough and unpolished.  It’s a continuous process that never ends.  I hope to always keep improving as a writer so I can better explain to people what living with a mental illness is really like.

 

 

Positive Vibes and Mental Illness

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My exercise times are gradually increasing.  My stamina is slowing coming back.  I can now sleep in a bed every night with no problems.  Went to the park yesterday to exercise.  I exercised indoors today because of the heat and humidity.  I am still tracking everything I eat and I think that is helping.  I can tell I’m already eating less.  I get to see my nephews and niece tomorrow.  So I will get to do some socializing after weeks of primarily isolation. I feel like things are starting to get better after months of stagnation and problems.  I think it’s starting to look good for the first time in a real long time.

Optimism, Delusional Thinking, and Schizophrenia

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Optimism and schizophrenia are two things that normally wouldn’t go together.  Few who suffer from this mental illness would tell anyone that their hallucinations and delusional thoughts are conducive to optimism.  Most of my personal hallucinations are voices telling me all the things I’m doing wrong or how I’m angering the people in my life.  Fortunately for me my hallucinations aren’t usually loud or overbearing.  They are often whispers or low volume, much like the play by play commentary of a ballgame on television.  My hallucinations have never told me to hurt anyone or myself.  So for that alone I can be optimistic that my schizophrenia is manageable.  It does cause me irritation and anxiety that the voices are almost always there.  But, in my case, the paranoia has to be the worst.

I have had issues with paranoia even before I was diagnosed with schizophrenia.  I didn’t keep journals or do any writing on my own when I was growing up because I saw my brother reading the journal I kept one summer while in junior high.  I was afraid to record my thoughts as I didn’t have a lock on my bedroom door and my parents often entered my bedroom when I wasn’t there.  Once when I was in junior high I lost over $60 in birthday money.  For years I was convinced my brother stole it.  I never confronted him about it because I was paranoid the problems it would cause would be even worse than suffering in silence.  I was paranoid enough to believe my parents wouldn’t take my side in the argument and I still wouldn’t get my money back.  To this day I never found that money nor have I ever confronted my brother to see if he took that money.  I don’t know if he did or not and probably doesn’t remember it anyway.  My paranoias involve fearing people are going through my trash, people are listening in on my phone conversations, that I’m being watched every time I step out in public, etc.

I could have worse delusions.  I met some schizophrenic when I was a guest speaker at the state mental hospital that was convinced people were trying to poison his food.  I met another mentally ill man one time when I was in hospital that was convinced he was going to prison for a minor offense and wanted to hang himself.  He was on suicide watch and that was scary seeing someone that distressed.  I have met people who had great careers and families and lost them both once their mental illness took full effect later in life than mine started.  In my case my problems started in my late teens and for years I was under the delusion that I would overcome my illness and still go on to have the career and family I had dreamed about since I was five years old.

I realized I was having problems that weren’t going away on their own when I was a junior in high school.  I didn’t think much of my problems at first because most teenagers I knew were often moody and mean. It was when it was constant and interfering with my school work and activities that I decided to self medicate.  I didn’t turn to marijuana or alcohol, I turned to herbal remedies.  A friend of mine who had a rather unhealthy distrust of modern medicine recommend I try things like St. John’s Wort, Ginseng, multivitamins, and fish oil pills.  I try numerous combinations of these for two years with no noticeable effect.  Non modern medicines may work for some cases but my case wasn’t one of those.  I may have been delusional enough to believe I could treat my mysterious problems on my own.  But I have to be optimistic that I wasn’t delusional enough to believe that modern medicine was ineffective and some elaborate conspiracy.  Some people I know are delusional enough to believe that even without schizophrenia.

Some people I met were religious people who believed that I needed to pray more and be more faithful to God.  I was already the most knowledgeable student in my Sunday school classes since I was four years old.  I read the Bible almost daily to where I had read the entire book at least a few times.  I was more faithful to the teachings of the Bible than most people three to five times my age as a teenager.  For a short while in junior high I even thought about the ministry as a career.  But none of the prayers eased my anguish or calmed my delusions and fears.  Even though I went to a Christian college I was attending church maybe only two to three times a month.  I got to where I was aggravated watching people I knew who didn’t take religion as seriously as I did just seemingly coast through college and life.  I was thinking, ‘Alright God, what are they doing that I’m not.’

Finally a couple years after college I stopped going to church entirely.  It wasn’t because I was mad at any one person, but because it no longer made sense to invest that much into something that had no results.  None of the prayers or Bible studies did anything to alleviate my delusions or allow me to cope with my paranoias.  It just got to where it seemed senseless, unproductive, and even delusional.  I don’t know if God exits or not.  But I do know if the only thing keeping someone from hurting and abusing others is fearing God, than that person is indeed a sorry excuse for a human being.  I do find it just lucky that of all the thousands of beliefs that existed all over the world and throughout history that I happened to be born into the one that was most approved by God.  If I was born in India I would have been a devout Hindu.  If I was born in ancient Egypt, I would have been all for Osiris and Horus and regarded the Pharaoh as a god.  So it just gradually came to me the idea of burning in hell for all eternity just for the crime of being born into the wrong religion, wrong time, and wrong culture was delusional.  Most of my friends won’t agree with me but let them.  I won’t convince them that if there is a God that God is indifferent (that’s what the evidence I’ve seen so far convinces me).  And they won’t convince me that God will send someone to hell for losing the guessing game of picking the right religion.

As far as delusional thought goes, I am open to the possibility I could be wrong on anything.  I never got the memo that said I had to form my philosophy on life by my early twenties.  I am also not delusional enough to defend an idea I have that is being proven wrong.  Even though I am schizophrenic I have to be thankful that I don’t have the delusions of defending an idea I know to be off base.

 

To The Stars With Difficulty

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The road to the life of our dreams is seldom a straight and smooth one.  I admit I don’t remind myself of that enough.  But life is mainly about how many times you get up after being knocked down.  I have been knocked down quite a bit in the last several months as my previous posts have shown.  But I have to keep getting up and moving forward.  Yes I lost a grandmother who was one of my closest confidants.  Yes my back got messed up in a car accident.  Yes I got lazy about losing weight and gained much of the weight I lost.  Yes I had difficulties and relapses with my schizophrenia.  Yes I became lazy in my social life.  Yes I developed a negative attitude about many things.  Yes I became depressed and lazy in my personal habits.  It’s all true.

But that does not define me any longer.  I won’t allow it to define me.  I do have problems I’ve been dealing with.  But I will solve them and keep moving forward.  I have solved problems in the past and I will solve my problems again.  No I may not make my goal of being at my high school weight within the time frame I set for myself two years ago.  But I won’t give up on pursuing that goal.  No I haven’t been able to exercise for two weeks because of my bad back.  Yes I made excuses not to exercise because the weather was lousy this spring.  Yes I lost a lot of my social safety net when I became paranoid and thought I could do all things on my own.  But that is changing starting here and now.  I am not going to go out without a fight.  I am not giving up on improving my health.  I lost seventy pounds in a little over a year only to gain at least forty pounds back in a year.  But I am stopping the bleeding.  I lost weight before and I will do it again.  I had good mental health before and I can gain it back even with a mental illness.  I have had good friends and lots of acquaintances before and I will have them again.  It starts here and now.  It starts today.  I am no longer going to be my past failures.  I have been through difficulties, some beyond my control and some even self inflicted.  I am going to be better all around.  And the road to the stars for me restarts here and now.

Getting To Some Kind Of Normalcy

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After six weeks of being on a different medication I am now adapting to the changes brought about.  I usually don’t need as much sleep so I now usually wake up earlier.  I have found myself slightly more sensitive to caffeine.  So I usually shut off the coffee and black tea after four p.m. unless I want to be up most of the night.  I have been spending more time outdoors and restarted the exercise routine a few days ago.  I am still kind of rusty but I hadn’t been doing much exercise for three weeks because of the weather and medication changes.

I am also regaining some of my lost emotions. I have felt a little loneliness over the last few weeks.  For months I have been content to spend the vast bulk of my days in isolation with as little interaction as possible.  I never did well at socializing, especially growing up in a small farming village where most people didn’t share my type of interests.  But I am now wanting to socialize again.  I find myself leaving my apartment at least a few times a day.  Previously I used to leave my apartment only once or twice a day if at all.  I have had days I didn’t leave my apartment, especially in the winter. I also feel a little more happiness.  Used to be the only real feelings I had for a couple years were anger and quiet contentment.  I didn’t relax and feel happiness because I didn’t know how.  But the ability to feel happiness is beginning to come back.   I am now able to feel a little anger and irritation without fear of going psychotic.  I haven’t had a psychotic break since I changed my medication.  I switched back to an old medication I had been on for several years.  The DNA tests I took shown that this medication worked really well for me.  So it confirmed something I already suspected.  I’ll see my psych doctor again at the end of the month and we’ll look into changing a second medication then.  I knew this would be a long process when we started.  But it’s certainly better than having psychotic breakdowns every six weeks.

I admit my physical health and exercise has taken a lower priority since I started this medication change.  I have gained a few pounds in the last few weeks. My endurance has really dropped off. It’ll probably take several more exercise sessions before it really starts coming back. But I’m getting back into exercise again, especially since the weather is warming up.

 

Happiness, Love, and Mental Illness

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Happiness, Love, and Mental Illness.

Looking Forward To Spring’s Rebirth

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handhearts

Spring will officially begin in a few days.  In my part of the USA, we’ve had unbelievably nice weather for the last week.  Got to do some outdoor activities like watching the migrating cranes and geese a few miles from my hometown.  My part of the country has literally thousands of birds like Sandhills Cranes and Canadian Geese flying through this time of year.  The lakes, rivers, and fields will be covered with them.  It’s a sight to see for anyone remotely interested in bird watching.

I’m now exercising more outside as I’ve already done two walks in the park already.  I managed to lose 12 pounds in the winter months, even with less activity.  I was concerned how well I would do health wise with the forced inactivity.  Looks like I survived the first winter of this lifestyle overhaul quite well.  I’m down 70 pounds overall in the last year.

Been to a couple cookouts already.  Since I live in a complex with sixty other people, it’s pretty easy to get those organized with almost no advanced planning.  There were ten of us at the one tonight.  All you had to do was bring something to share with everyone else.  And it wasn’t one of those things organized by the manager of the complex.  The tenants did this entirely on our own.  We’re pretty good about organizing get togethers with no notice.  It’s almost like my freshman dorm over fifteen years ago, minus the loud music at 2 am.

One thing I have neglected during the winter months was my social life.  I didn’t go out much nor did I chat with friends as much this winter.  While we didn’t get hammered with as much snow as our East Coast friends, we still had a pretty cold winter.  Yet using the cold as a reason not to socialize was a poor excuse.  It is easy to socialize in spring and summer.  But when it’s cold, not much is going on, the nights are long, and some people are more depressed in the darker days, that when socializing with living and breathing people is needed.  There are only so many computer games and podcasts I can do before I just have to get out of the apartment.  Anyone with a job and a family knows there is more to life than just going to work everyday, spending a paycheck before it’s collected, and counting off the days and years until retirement.  I often get so rapped up in the day to day living that I forget to have a life.  Or even worse, get so wrapped up in day to day struggles that I forget how much we’ve accomplished or how much fun we’ve had with friends already.

In line with being lost in the day to day struggles, I have to keep reminding myself how far I’ve come just in the last twelve months.  Losing 70 pounds, writing a few dozen blog entries, getting outdoors some everyday, staying in contact with old friends while making a few new ones in the process, simplifying my life and decluttering my apartment, etc. are not small accomplishments.  This was all in the last 365 days.  I can only imagine what the rebirth of spring and the next twelve months will bring.

Happiness, Love, and Mental Illness

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Happiness, Love, and Mental Illness are rather difficult topics for me to write about.  Not just because they bring up emotionally difficult concepts, but because it is often tough to explain to other people, neurotypical or not, what these things mean to someone like myself.  While I cannot obviously attempt to speak for everyone with a serious mental illness diagnosis, I simply was never mentally hard wired to have a universally accepted definition of happiness.  My personal definitions of happiness is “a sense of calmness and peace about myself and my surroundings” and “a state where depression, sadness, anxiety, anger, and stress are not my dominant emotions for any set period of time.”  I cannot obviously comment on what happiness means or is interpreted by others, simply because it is impossible for me to get into someone else’s mind and see the world exactly as they see it. I was not made in such a manner as to know what constituted most pleasant emotions such as love, happiness, joy, etc.

Some will no doubt think that my stated definitions of happiness are very odd. Others may even think I am a liar when I state that I literally don’t know what others feel when they are happy. In fact, I usually cannot tell when others are happy. I especially cannot tell when others are happy or pleased with me unless they specifically say so. Even though I have the ability to know how others are likely to act in certain situations, I simply cannot tell what others are feeling. It is impossible for me to read any non verbal queue. The only way I can tell for sure is through their actions. I have a very hard time telling when someone is being deceptive, manipulative, or when a person is being sincere and honest just by their non verbal queues. As I tend to feel paranoid and threatened even on a good day, my usual default mode when dealing with people is the assumption that others are malicious and untrustworthy unless they prove otherwise through their actions and reassurances. The only people I know I am in good standing with no matter what are the handful of people that I’ve been confidants with for more than several years. Growing up with the early stages of schizophrenia that had not made themselves manifest, I never knew with any kind of certainty where I stood with friends, classmates, teachers, adults, and especially my own family unless I was specifically told where I stood. To this day, I just assume I’m out of favor with someone unless I am assured otherwise. To me, that is just as natural as the sky being blue and the sun rising in the east.

As tough as happiness was in writing about, talking about an emotion that is a very tough one for even neurotypicals like love is like climbing Mt. Everest without supplies or a guide. I simply do not understand the neurotypical ideas that are entailed when they state the word ‘love.’ I have no real basis or understanding of the word love. I don’t know how to interpret it from others, I have no built in way to tell if someone loves me (especially if it’s a member of the opposite sex that peeks my interest) and I don’t think I even know how to send out the idea that I love someone. In fact, there really is no hard definition in the English language of the word love. I like how the ancient Greeks had several different words for different types of love. The Greeks had separate words for love between a husband and wife (eros), love for a nation or group of similar people (philios), and unmerrited or Divine love (agape). Having something like that would make things easier for people like me who have difficulties understanding cliches, vague ideas, and things that lack a hard definition.

We live in a civilization that is obsessed with the idea of finding true love and how to preserve such love. Yet there is really no hard and accepted definition of what love truly is. To someone like myself, it is aggravating that there is no hard set definition. It is especially aggravating to me that when I do feel something special for a woman, I have absolutely no sure fire way or instructions as to how to let someone like that know exactly how I feel about her. In the vast majority of cases, what I felt for a girl and what she felt for me where nowhere near close to the same feelings. As a result, I have been on very few dates over the course of my life. With my mental make up being what it is, even though I assume the worst about other people I really don’t know well, the rejection I get from others is still painful deal with. I simply am unable to read non verbal queues. The verbalized ones I do receive, I often interpret in my mind as very likely being far worse then what the person talking with me ever intended. Thus the idea of even casual dating, let alone marriage, scares me so much I won’t even attempt it anymore. It is not within my definition of love or friendship to be in any kind of relationship or partnership where there is any real strife.

People think I’m lying when I say I’ve had friendships that have lasted for around 20 years where I have not even had a real argument with the friend. Others may argue that this a sterile friendship that lacks any substance and character. That is far from the truth. The best friend I currently have, who is by the way a woman I have known since my junior high years, we probably have a better, more fulfilling friendship than most friendships or even marriages could imagine as possible. The only serviceable definition of love I know of in the English language comes from St. Paul’s second letter to the early church in Corinth (2 Corinthians, Chapter 13 I think). Even that wasn’t originally written in English (it was originally ancient Greek) and it was written almost two thousand years ago.

In closing I have much chaos in my mind due to my mental illness. That is why I crave stability and absolutes in my outer life and when dealing with others. Yet, I have rarely found any lasting stability in my relations with other humans. I have certainly never found any stability and absolutes when trying, and failing miserably, when trying to secure the affections of a woman I have feelings for. I have failed so miserably in looking for stability and reason in my dealings with other humans that I have essentially accepted this as a futile and pointless task. And that continues to cause me a great deal of stress, sadness, anger, and strife to this day. As I stated earlier, having such feelings dominate my mental outlook is my standard mode of operation because of my mental illness. By my own definition, I am typically not sensing what I understand to be happiness and certainly I don’t know what it is to feel loved.