Hello!

[jc8rw8]

Dear all,

Recent joiner of the SANE forums and have learned a fair bit so far and look forward to learning more and contributing. 

I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in a mental health ward following a major psychosis episode triggered by self employment stress during Covid and a relationship breakdown six years ago. 

I've had a love-hate relationship with my schizoaffective diagnosis, because the meds had given me mixed effects. It had managed the delusions but also made me unable to keep jobs for longer than six months. 

I weaned myself off all my medications slowly and I felt like I was finally turning my life around when I passed probation in a job and had a good performance review.

But recent sleep issues and some unexpected physical health issues triggered traumatic memories of my time in hospital and the difficult times leading up to and during my psychosis, which triggered a lot of shame and guilt and fear for me. I had suppressed a lot of those memories and having them come back was not pleasant. It also triggered the return of my psychosis symptoms. 

Thankfully I visited my private psychiatrist early enough to restart medication that is better suited to me (so far) and I am getting more tailored help from my psychologist to manage my delusions. 

By joining the forums, I feel like I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that I do live with a long-term psychotic illness that needs careful management. I've also had to come to terms with how difficult it has been for my immediate family and the broader community around me to help me, given this condition is very misunderstood and stigmatised. 

However I have hope from the stories, resources and forums here that you can still live a good life as long as I'm equipped with the right strategies for self care and have my support network. So I'm profoundly grateful for that. 

And I also have a strong belief that I didn't have before that I am always capable of doing what needs to be done to take care of myself and those around me. I just needed to identify and remove the barriers so I can realise that capability. 

Thanks for reading, much appreciated. 

[EternalFlower]

@jc8rw8 i was happy to read you have a private psychiatrist, gave me some relief, having also been in the public mental health system and not always felt that my meds were dealt with such care. how was your inpatient experience?

I have been once in an ipu, and many times in the ED, i have coplex trauma. I lost my priate psych and ended up in the public system with mixed results. Your illness doesn't define you, and i get how hard it is to come to terms with. Welcome. The forums are transitioning a bit and very quiet, plesae tag me if I can help in any way

You tag people by putting an @ sign and then a list of options for tagging come up, or you can type in their username if the person you'd like to tag isn't in the pre-filled list.

[jc8rw8]

Dear @EternalFlower 

Thank you for your speedy response and for your warm welcome. I'm sorry to hear that your experiences have led to trauma. I haven't been officially diagnosed with any trauma yet but i do feel what I've been through has been quite traumatic to me. 

My first inpatient experience (I've been admitted twice, the last one was four years ago) was very difficult. I had to try three different medications over 6-8 weeks before something finally worked for my delusions. At one point it got so bad I turned over chairs and tables in the lunchroom area in terror and frustration and I had to be moved to an extra secure ward for my own safety and the safety of others. I often engaged in mild self-harm [edited by moderator] as I was going a bit crazy in my head. Thankfully nothing more serious than that in terms of self harm. 

Terrible food, constant noise, dealing with other inpatients who were shouting and screaming when not well, not being able to sleep because of torches shone in your window at night to check you're safe in bed and also being cold and not being given adequate blankets, being interrupted from sleep at the crack of dawn for mandatory blood tests, not being able to get your own laundry done and needing to ask permission to get clothes washed or ask your own family to do it for you, embarrassing to have to ask permission for basic necessities like sanitary pads for my period (I'm female), constant rotating cycle of specialists and health staff with no consistency whatsoever. 

On the brighter side I did do a fair bit of art therapy like colouring and painting, I got interested in gardening in the small garden patch we had in the enclosed courtyard, I helped out with the weekly barbecue cutting up vegetables for salad (with plastic knives lol), I did attend some DBT classes, I also did some exercise classes. Although I did all of that work in the motivation of wanting to get out of there rather than actually improving for my own health at the time. 

The public health system saved my life but it wasn't exactly a great time there either. I'm extraordinarily lucky and grateful that I actually met my current private psychiatrist in the public system first and was able to go to him for private care later. 

[pangolin]

Hey  @jc8rw8 

Firstly I would like to welcome you to the forums! 

It sounds like you have been sitting with some reflections on your experience with schizoaffective disorder and how this has shaped your life. The stigma and misunderstandings around a diagnosis can understandably make it challenging to receive the support that is most meaningful for us, so I am glad that you are reaching out to the community here to share your experience.

It is great to hear that you have a private psychiatrist and a psychologist who are supporting you here, and I hope you have found this support to be valuable. 

I can see that you have received some lovely support here and I hope the gentle reminder that you are not dealing with this alone and there are others who understand you has provided some comfort tonight. 

[EternalFlower]

I likd the art therapy too @jc8rw8 and i was impressed they had it in the ward. It wasn't the worst place. I am female and they had a female only area, which was good, the screaming didn't bother me too much

The nurses didn't really talk to me like iexpected - no "how are you today" it was just containment, a place to be