So I visited this other psychiatrist the other day. I was referred to her as part of my immigration application to Canada. She was impressed with how highly functional I was. She told me that it is extremely rare for schizophrenics to be so functional and normal.
Indeed, you wouldn’t know that I was a schizophrenic from the way I act or from my life. I work. I study as part of a graduate program and online. I interact with friends (although I could use a wider social circle). And I don’t have symptoms. I don’t hear voices or see things. I do have this mild tactile hallucination that I have lived with for years. I sometimes feel like a drop of rain fall on my body and sometimes hear a tick in my head, but I ignore them and go on about my life. Psychiatrists call my condition “insight”. In other words, I know something is wrong with me and I overcome it. If I were to stop my medication, I would lose the insight and then I would lose this insight and plunge into delusion. So medication is great? Right?
Well not so fast. Indeed, I can’t live without medication. But I have fought a lot to keep this medication at the lowest possible dose. Indeed, one of the psychiatrists I had seen wanted me to take twice the dose I currently take. And if that had happened, I would have never had a career in computer programming or would have never studied anything or done anything aside from sleep. And indeed, at the time my symptoms were a lot more severe. In addition to the tactile hallucinations I had sleep paralysis where I would have vocal hallucinations. I resisted upping the med and as a result the sleep paralysis and vocal hallucinations went away by themselves.
Now, maybe my condition is not as severe as others. Maybe. But I think keeping my medication low had something to do with my getting better.
Indeed, you wouldn’t know that I was a schizophrenic from the way I act or from my life. I work. I study as part of a graduate program and online. I interact with friends (although I could use a wider social circle). And I don’t have symptoms. I don’t hear voices or see things. I do have this mild tactile hallucination that I have lived with for years. I sometimes feel like a drop of rain fall on my body and sometimes hear a tick in my head, but I ignore them and go on about my life. Psychiatrists call my condition “insight”. In other words, I know something is wrong with me and I overcome it. If I were to stop my medication, I would lose the insight and then I would lose this insight and plunge into delusion. So medication is great? Right?
Well not so fast. Indeed, I can’t live without medication. But I have fought a lot to keep this medication at the lowest possible dose. Indeed, one of the psychiatrists I had seen wanted me to take twice the dose I currently take. And if that had happened, I would have never had a career in computer programming or would have never studied anything or done anything aside from sleep. And indeed, at the time my symptoms were a lot more severe. In addition to the tactile hallucinations I had sleep paralysis where I would have vocal hallucinations. I resisted upping the med and as a result the sleep paralysis and vocal hallucinations went away by themselves.
Now, maybe my condition is not as severe as others. Maybe. But I think keeping my medication low had something to do with my getting better.
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