Robin Lopez2 said:Maybe the topic shifted because people living with schizophrenia are staying quiet about their struggles. Lately, we’ve seen here that this illness is truly a matter of life and death. No one is suggesting calling the cops as a first resort; rather, we suggest seeking professional psychiatric help. For us, nothing works except medication—psychotherapy and talking don't cut it.
The real question is whether this thread can actually help anyone. Can those of us dealing with this really speak openly about our burdens when, during a psychotic episode, nothing seems to matter because we feel like we own the universe?
Take you, for example. You left this discussion saying you were taking 1mg of Risperdal, that you landed a job, and that everything was great. Then you vanished for a long stretch, only to resurface now with the shocking news that you attempted suicide.
I was genuinely happy and proud of you for doing well and finding the right meds. I assumed your absence from the forum meant you simply had nothing left to report because life was finally good.
At the very least, check in once a week. Even just a single sentence or a happy or sad smiley face would suffice.
I'll check in whenever I feel like it.🍿 Fine:😁, so I've laid out exactly what happened and how things spiraled. Perhaps hearing the other side of the story might be useful for those "healthy" caregivers within a family of patients.
jadeharbor81 said:I'm just kidding 😁 but seriously, how are you doing now? You actually managed to break out of that mindset or what?
I actually did break free from that mindset, though I’ll admit I lingered there for a while longer; believe it or not, if you read my previous posts, you'll see the evidence. In fact, I had already started drifting away from those suicidal thoughts way back before summer started. It turns out a little bit of intimacy can solve just about anything 🤣, though honestly, there's much more to it than that ☕ . On another note, I’ve realized I tend to be the ultimate conversation killer in this thread, but since I am technically the founder of this topic, I feel obligated to jump in and explain my recent absence 😁.
It seems like the guys have completely taken over the advisory role here; just a few posts ago, I was the one busy dropping links to relevant articles and trying to provide actual resources . But why has this whole discussion devolved into a situation where family members reach out for help, only to have "seasoned veterans" immediately tell them to call 911 or the police 🤦 every single time someone asks a question?
Nicole Barrett76 said:It is simply a self-defense mechanism. Please, try not to be quite so critical of others. We all had acquaintances who battled cancer or severe diabetes, and we could have stayed by their side until the very end. But did we? If we are being honest with ourselves, most of us didn't.
I personally felt completely lost on how to even approach a neighbor who was suffering from lung cancer before passing away.
Here is a poem dedicated to those of us broken by illness.
I also struggled with how to deal with a neighbor suffering from cancer; I felt the pain deeply even if I didn't show it, and when he passed, I couldn't even cry, though he kept appearing in my dreams... I’m not judging anyone, believe me, because I am the most Self-Critical person I know. My family knows exactly what to do with me when everything is going smoothly, but the moment I'm struggling, they are completely lost. Once again, I thank God that I'm no longer taking Seroquel 🙂, though I still get this monthly 50 mg injection (Xeroft). Then there’s the family situation... I called a friend recently and she told me, "Well, you were over at my place before the holidays crying your eyes out, and I had no idea what to do with you," to which I replied that I don't remember it at all. So SHE was the one who noticed, while my own family acts like everything is perfectly fine. I mean, I know when things aren't okay. 🕺 etc. ☕🙂 And to top it off, "we" lost three people in Jacksonville; one committed suicide with pills and alcohol, a girl hanged herself, and then there was someone dealing with PTSD... I just can't wrap my head around it anymore. I've really made a mess of things. But, as usual, I'll pull through and end up being all "lovely bubbly," if that's how you say it.
My family couldn't wrap their heads around why I didn't leave a suicide note. As if I actually wanted them to stumble upon some tragic manifesto. I just told them straight up that things had become unbearable. Apparently, through my circle of "subtle" friends, I heard they were bracing for the worst, finding it increasingly difficult to visit someone who is terminal 😲 But honestly, my family just doesn't get it—they look at me and see someone who has everything, all the material comforts, while completely ignoring the sheer magnitude of what I've lost over these grueling years. They act as if it’s easy to just move on, failing to realize how much mental fortitude it takes to finally say, "I'm done." And get this: I'm actually holding onto a sliver of hope that I won't end up back in the hospital. Coming back from the weekend, that unmistakable, nauseating hospital stench is just overwhelming. Now, instead of my loved ones struggling with the idea of visiting me, I was the one forced to be there. It was a miserable experience, truly.🙂
Aha, I haven't seen or heard a thing; I was just playing out scenarios in my head 🤦 Honestly, there’s a massive amount of it—it’s actually quite uncomfortable, and the fact that I can remember all of it still haunts me. But I’ve pulled myself up a million times before, and I’ll pull myself out of this mess one more time too. The willpower is still there, thank God, so knock on wood. You mentioned eighty pills. That idea has crossed my mind a million times as well, but I always talked myself out of it with the logic of "don't be stupid, you'll just end up destroying yourself," both physically and mentally. But then again, everything was already damaged back then, so what does it matter now 🕺? Now, it’s even worse. It doesn't really change anything; I’ve always been attractive, charming, smart, and articulate, and so on and so forth, and I have to admit, the thought doesn't even cross my mind anymore. I feel bad that Diego is such a mess; he’s such a great guy. And why did you take eighty if you aren't feeling too bad about it? At least the rest of us are still breathing 🎉
Harold Anderson3, why on earth would you do something like that? How did you actually manage to pull through, I mean, how was your recovery?
I’ve been feeling this heavy cloud of depression hanging over me lately too. Between the stress at university, keeping up with work, and just feeling like there aren't enough hours in the day, I can't seem to get any decent sleep. The people I hang out with can tell I'm struggling, but they tend to keep their distance—maybe because they don't want to overstep, or maybe because they honestly just have no clue how to reach out or help.
I find myself spiraling into these dark thoughts about what happens if everything falls apart—if I lose my job, get kicked out of college, get denied disability benefits, or if I lose my mom. What am I supposed to do then?
Should I just fill up the bathtub with warm water, climb in, and slit my wrists, or maybe just go out to the shed in the backyard and hang myself?
I’m not joking or being dramatic here; I am seriously thinking about this.🤦
Well, you've already laid out all the reasons and the context, so just keep reading... Honestly, it was an incredibly hard recovery for me. Don't do anything stupid; you're young, you've got your whole life ahead of you, and you're a smart guy. And look, forgive my sarcasm when you're clearly not in the mood for it, but whatever you try to do to end it, you won't succeed—modern medicine has come way too far for that. Personally, I don't know what I'd do without my grandma; she's basically my mother, and even though she's getting older, she's sharp and truly understands and loves me. But I get that it isn't easy for you—balancing college, a job, and looking after your mom is more than most people could handle, let alone someone navigating life on medication. At the end of the day, you clearly need to make it to your follow-up appointment. My God, after three years, I'm finally off Seroquel, thank God.
Part two I wake up at the hospital feeling absolutely miserable. I’m constantly fighting to get this awful catheter removed, eating nothing but tiny crumbs of food, and trying to move my body through a literal web of wires. They have me restrained at night, and by morning, physical therapists are hovering over me, trying to get me walking and getting my heart rate back to something resembling a normal human rhythm—all under the care of Dr. Bear 😲. I’m not even in psych; I’m in the ICU, so the nurses give me a full bath every single morning. Bear treats me like a specimen, handing me Haldol and using me as a "what not to do" example for the medical students. After about ten days—give or take—they tell me I’m being transferred to the Brooklyn facility. When I first hit the ER, crying about going to Brooklyn, I spotted a famous patient there who looked like she barely weighed 110 pounds; she just stared at me in total disbelief, so I actually had the nerve to ask her for a cigarette 🤣. After a quick smoke, they haul me off under lock and key. It’s the same old crowd I used to know, and while I can't quite find my footing yet, everyone stays relatively quiet, with a few exceptions who tell me I look like I just stepped out of a concentration camp. Then it’s just one IV drip after another. Eventually, I move to the open ward. Some of the poor patients there try to be sweet, telling me how great my weight loss looks and all that nonsense. My doctor keeps cycling through different medications like she's playing roulette. While I'm stuck there—though she does let me go home on weekends—I find out from a handful of patients that practically half of them tried to end it all in the past, which they hadn't mentioned before. Discharge isn't happening anytime soon, but I’ve started attending these intensive group sessions. There are eight of us plus two doctors, and the group consists of people who have all attempted suicide, ranging from guys to girls with every diagnosis you can imagine. My doctor still hasn't nailed down the right cocktail, so she’s constantly tweaking things. After New Year's, she lets me head home once a week, though I don't plan on doing much. I’m still staying with my dad. In February 2015, I finally get discharged, and the very first thing I do is move back in with my grandmother—where I've stayed ever since. By the time I finished moving all my stuff... people in the group couldn't wrap their heads around why I was being so lazy, and they'd mock me 🙄. At home, food is my only solace. I don't even have internet because my ex cut the lines and trashed everything. My doctor keeps adjusting my meds; the best I ever felt was on Wellbutrin, which made me feel like I could sprint from Queens to Manhattan. Anyway, things aren't great, so the doctor decides I'm manic and puts me on 400mg of Seroquel XR and 60mg of Zeldox before my trip to the coast. I just broke down crying. While I'm at the beach, I try talking to friends, but they clearly know what happened and have no idea what to say. So I just sit there crying day after day. Finally, I visit a friend, and when she tells me, "In case you didn't know, I have depression too," I start sobbing for an hour straight. She just stares at me, calls around to get some 10mg Xanax, and mutters that my medication must be wrong. My dad thinks it's not even that bad. My friend eventually drives me to San Diego to see a psychiatrist, and even though I told her I didn't want to stay, I ended up being rushed from San Diego to Brooklyn via the ER, where I laid out my whole history. On 100mg of Zeldox, I sleep like a log, mumbling incoherently and sleeping half the day away. The doctor clearly has no clue what she's doing, so she just hits me with a 50mg injection of Xeplion. Suddenly, I'm coming back to life. My sentences actually have beginnings and ends again. I talk, I draw, I walk—everything goes back to normal. She gives me one more shot and sends me home. But I insist on asking for certain little extras; it's not much, but I know exactly which drugs I need to stay level . Now, I'm functioning. I cook, I clean, I tidy up, and I have internet 🙄. I go into the city, I've started wearing makeup and actually caring about my appearance, and I occasionally go to the movies or shopping. I still have to attend those groups, but it's fine. One of the points of the group is that if they notice I'm slipping, they can adjust my meds in an outpatient setting so I don't end up back in the hospital . That's the state of the world, and here I am worrying about the quality of my own life. 🍿🎉 etc. etc.☕🙂
I’ve read through this entire thread just to see what the state of things is 😳. Honestly, there’s no point in trying to steer the conversation back on track, and if I actually tried to catch up on every single comment, it would take me a month. So, here’s the breakdown... Back in the spring of 2014, everything just fell apart for me. I was on several medications at the time—Seroquel XR and others—and I had a complete mental breakdown. It wasn't just a bad day; I was seeing hallucinations, losing my grip, and ended up smashing mirrors and setting things on fire. To make matters worse, my ex-husband—who, mind you, had been living in a guest house on the property for over six months following our divorce—was being incredibly difficult about the cars. He was acting like he owned the place, insisting on certain vehicles, and since the neighbors were complaining about the friction, I eventually just handed him the car 😵 to keep the peace. I'm still on medication, but I frequently lose touch with reality. I actually volunteered to go to the hospital because I knew I needed help. I haven't seen my regular doctor in three years, and this new one has been drugging me so heavily that I barely know who I am. I spend most of my time sleeping, and she keeps administering an injection that she claims is an antipsychotic (actually via injection, which is wild) that just sends me into a spiral. Eventually, my regular doctor went on vacation, and her replacement sent me over to Restekica on Ward 10. While I was on Ward 10, I tried to talk about my hallucinations—since that was the whole reason I was admitted—but instead of help, I just got lectured for every symptom I described. After all that condescension, they decided the best move was for me to go live with my father. Even though I wasn't exactly "put together" yet, staying there allowed me to see how life actually functions in that household. I started realizing that my father, my uncles, and my aunts are all essentially broken; they've aged, they've become cynical, and they have absolutely no clue—or perhaps they've simply forgotten—about my actual medical needs. The only person I can truly talk to is my brother, who has lived there for a long time and possesses enough patience to actually listen to me. I feel like he's the only one who loves me, so he's my primary connection. He tells me things like, "Don't take them too seriously; you have to understand how they are," but I already know that—they've always been this way. About two weeks before I was supposed to head home, I realized I wasn't satisfied with the situation 🙂 when I discovered a lump in my breast. I kept quiet, but after the doctors ran some blood work, they found my prolactin levels were around 2500 (when a normal range is roughly 300–400). Apparently, the stress and constant lecturing from the staff caused it. I completely spiraled and went back to my old doctor once she returned from vacation. She reacted normally and suggested we discharge me so I could get testing done at Sunce or Medica. But no. My father insisted I stay put and head straight to the MD Anderson Cancer Center. My doctor just gave him a blank look and allowed me to have outings once a week. At the MD Anderson Cancer Center, they determined the cyst was benign, but they still wanted to remove it. My legs started shaking just thinking about it; I’ve never even had surgery, let alone something involving my breasts 😲. The comments from my family were classic: "Well, I have both breasts and I only married twice," or "My friend had one just like that and didn't get it removed, then it turned malignant." Still, I managed to scrape together enough willpower to endure their nonsense. I stayed on a routine—rolling with the punches, cleaning, cooking, sticking to a diet—and managed to drop down to 120 pounds. I lost my appetite, but I’d still eat whatever was cooked with them. Meanwhile, my dad and the rest of the crew are watching the World Cup (yes, we are still stuck in 2014), drinking wine, eating finger foods, and laughing without a shred of empathy, all while forcing me into bed by 10 PM. I’d listen to my dad and stepmother arguing, snap, and end up right back in the hospital. My doctor didn't know what to do with me anymore, so she just kept prescribing this cocktail of about eight different meds, including 400mg of Seroquel XR, mostly "new" drugs that I had never encountered before. Being "home" felt like a joke; I couldn't believe why I was back in the hospital. As for the people in the hospital, they're okay; I socialize with everyone a little bit. I sneak some cigarettes, though I don't smoke weed like the rest of the crowd 🤣. After five months, I was finally discharged. I went to the beach at 120 pounds, carrying a pharmacy of eight different types of pills, accompanied by my father. I asked my stepmother to come along, but she insisted I’d have a better time with just him. I could barely walk, though I tell myself I was just being lazy. So, it's now July 2014. I got divorced in July 2013, and my ex didn't move out until after Easter 2014. I’m still living with my dad. At the beach, I don't really socialize; I just do crosswords, listen to the radio on my headphones, watch TV, and try to convince my dad to let me go to sleep by 11 PM. The neighbors stare at me, wondering what's wrong. They ask things like, "What are you afraid of?" but most realize it's better not to pry. I communicate to a certain extent with people I've known for years. However, three days before heading home, the idea hit me: I wanted to die from the sheer embarrassment of it all. I had been receiving far too many "depressive" suggestions. I had plenty of medication—enough for a month, but in my mind, more than enough to end it all. I decided I wouldn't do it at the beach; I'd wait until I was home to avoid causing too much of a scene. In those three days, I went out for coffee, acting cheerful because I felt like I had finally solved my problems. I chatted with everyone (essentially saying my goodbyes), but of course, I kept my mouth shut. I had my last coffee, said goodbye to the beach, and we arrived back at my dad's. There it was again—the same scenery. I didn't feel accepted, let alone understood. Then came that evening; it felt like the middle of the day, and I sat on the bed and laid out EVERY single pill I had. I didn't have any left from before because I had thrown those away earlier. It was hard, but I saw no way out. Even with the thought lingering in my mind that suicide is forbidden, I just started taking them, one by one. There must have been over 300 tablets; I washed them all down with a liter and a half of water and fell asleep..........
Larry Lewis said:The one thing I just can’t wrap my head around regarding this girl's mother is why she hasn't snapped out of that psychotic state yet—because, in my experience, coming back to reality is actually the easiest part of the whole ordeal. It’s what happens afterward that really guts you... I’m talking about the crushing stigma, the way friends and acquaintances suddenly vanish from your life, and even doctors who look at you like you’re some sort of walking disaster zone just waiting to lose control. Then you’ve got the depression, the crippling anxiety, and all that other misery that follows once the dust settles.🤷
🙏🙏🙏🤣🎉
I honestly had to take a moment to catch my breath because reading this sent me into a complete fit of uncontrollable laughter. Kudos to you, man—I honestly couldn’t have put it better myself.
I’m honestly not sure how many people in this circle are part of that specific neighborhood gossip circuit, but around there, everything eventually boils down to whether someone is riding high or hitting rock bottom. I have a mountain of other drama waiting for me, but I really need to finish reading through this thread first; I’ve been hooked on this app all day, which is a bit embarrassing considering I’ve barely managed to get anything done. 🤣🎉 I've got nothing but love for this group. 🙂
Chris Robinson25 said:Just a heads-up for the newcomers if you're feeling brave enough to join us. We’re hanging out today—meeting up at Grand Central Terminal around 5:20 PM. See ya there! 🙂
If anyone actually dares to show up, 🤣 🎉is it going to be anything like the chaos when I left? ☕
Dieting has essentially been my entire personality since the very first time I picked up an Apple Watch to track my macros. As for when that actually happened? Honestly, my memory is a bit hazy on the exact timeline—I’m pretty sure I’ve already rambled about this on here before...🤔🤣
Larry Lewis said:That’s not quite how my mind works—though I suppose I can see why one might think so—but frankly, I have absolutely no reason to feel ashamed of my actions or who I am as a person.😉
Honestly, I’m not feeling much shame either—except maybe when I look in the mirror and realize I've let myself go.☕