Mental Illness In America

With so much stuff going on in the world today fear of people with mental illness has grown. Most people fear what they don't understand and to some people they can't comprehend the concept of being mentally ill.

I'm no stranger to talking about my own struggles with it. I spent a month in a psyche ward twice in my life. I have paranoid schizophrenia and bi polar. It was very difficult for my mom to get me help when I got sick. I knew there was something wrong with me and so did she. I saw several doctors but couldn't get a clear diagnoses.

Schizophrenia generally strikes in your late teens early 20's women get it later in life then men. This illness isn't a state of mind. People that get the illness have normal brains until it is triggered. There have been lots of studies and tests involving this illness. Doctors have actually seen the illness from start using MRI's. It starts in the back of the brain near the cerebellum and spreads like a wild fire to the rest of the brain. It causes a form of brain damage.

For me I was seeing and hearing things that didn't exist. I was also paranoid thinking everyone was out to get me. My own mind turned against me with delusions and hallucinations. I believed the things my mind was creating were real when they weren't. I got the illness when I was full blown when I was 20. Looking back in retrospect I remember having symptoms as early as 17.

I've never been a violent person but this illness caused me to act out in ways that I wouldn't have prior to getting sick. People with schizophrenia lose grey matter their brains shrink. I was acting out because of fear of the things my mind was creating. People that get schizophrenia are highly unorganized. I have a hard time following conversations with people.

When I started having auditory hallucinations my mom took me to the hospital. I was 20 years old with no health insurance. My mom had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get me medicaid.

I spent a month in the hospital drugged to the max with 1950's era antipsychotic medication thorazine and haldol. It's some nasty stuff. It turns you into a drooling zombie but it stops the hallucinations. The reason they still use it today is because it's cheap and effective. I was so far gone the doctors told my mom I'd have to be institutionalized for life. The doctors did not thing I would recover.

I spent a month with a lot of other people with mental illness. I've seen bi polar to the extreme. I watched a lady that would be laughing one minute and crying the next. I saw a woman that would just rant in some made up language. They call that word salad. It's when schizophrenics make up their own langue. There's like 6 or 7 different types of schizophrenia. I saw a another girl she was about 18. She had catatonia schizophrenia. She would sit all day and just stare into space. There was nobody home.

Mental illness is real and the drugs used to treat it work. I know first hand because I've been on the same medication since 1997.

There are good doctors in psychiatry and bad doctors. Some barely qualify to be called doctors. It's all about finding the right doctor.

There's a lot of talk about medications used and a lot of misconceptions. There are tons of drugs on the market. What works for one person might not work for another. One person could react totally different then another person. These are mind altering substances. I got lucky and found a drug that worked on me. Some people with schizophrenia never find a drug that works. With this illness the longer it's left untreated the more damage it does and the harder it is to come back from it.

On the topic of depression it is real and some people can't function without medication. I know people with it and it can make a person miserable to the point they get no enjoyment out of life. They still use electric shock therapy in severe cases to treat it.

The problem is some people with minor problems decide to see a doctor and they run into the wrong doctors. I've seen some real quacks in my day. They had of gotten their degrees out of cracker jack box. My current doctor is a MD at a local hospital. I've been seeing him for 20 years. He's good and he know's what he's doing.

Most mentally ill people shouldn't be feared because 99% of them are not dangerous. You'd have a better chance of surviving being put in a room with a 1000 mentally ill people then walking through Detroit at 2 am.

I've become a master of hiding my illness because of the stigma it carries. Being labeled crazy isn't very fun. I see a lot of mentally ill people on the streets. They don't get the help they need and end up in prisons or homeless. It's deplorable that these people get swept under the rug in society. Instead of getting them help we lock them up or kick them to the curb. A lot of these people have no one looking out for them. I credit my mom for getting me the help when she did.

Heres a quick story of what happened to me in the workplace.

I was fired from Ford Motor Company when my boss found out I had schizophrenia. I let it slip and told a co worker. For 3 years my attendance was perfect and I did my job well. Once my boss found out I was called into the office with my boss and union rep. My boss demanded to know what medications I take. I told him it was none of his business. I also told him my work record is excellent so what does it matter? I started receiving write ups after that. About one write up a week. I didn’t know it at the time but they were building a case against me. Every time my union rep told to sign the write up and say I agree with the companies statement. In his words I’m coming out cherry with no suspension. They were writing me up for stuff I didn’t do. One day they called me in the office and fired me.

My union rep told me he was going to have it turned into a lay off and to file for unemployment. So I did and told unemployment it was a lay off. After receiving 2 unemployment checks unemployment told me I lied and that I was fired. They wanted the money back and I’m not joking 10x the amount I collected. I called my union rep he said the company will give me unemployment but I have to sign away all my rights to coming back. I royally got screwed.

I like it.

auditory hallucinations can be caused by certain kind of seizure activity, but usually that kind of auditory hallucinations does not sound like someone speaking, mostly it is like a dong, someone mumbling, crickets, or a multitude of other combinations. I suppose if you were to try to make sense of the mumbling it might sound like speech. I know because I have had that happen over the years, I learned quite a while ago to look and observe when I hear something. It was hard to get used to at first. I know it is not real, so I guess I am not nuts.

On occasion a real sound occurs and I ignore it thinking it is just head noise. My wife will ask me what the noise was and I have to go look, most times it was just the cats or something that fell.

And even the CEOs of major corps tend to be PSYCHOPATHS

Wonder why.

a reply to: wantsome

Star and Flag.

Brave of you to come forward.

It's true, there is still a massive stigma against persons suffering from mental illness. It's starting to get better as more awareness is being raised and more and more people are coming forward with their own mental health concerns.

For the record, I'm schizoaffective and on Haldol, it's killed every spark of creativity I once had but it's the only thing that has worked for me so I continue the regime.

I'm sorry to hear about what happened at your job, I had something similar happen to me years ago and it still makes me angry when I think about it. Some people can be very cruel especially when they're uninformed or prejudiced.

a reply to: wantsome

If you've seen JOKER already I would love to read what you think
on that one. If you haven't seen it you should, and I won't say any
thing else.

SnF from me to, well done.

originally posted by: carsforkids
a reply to: wantsome

If you've seen JOKER already I would love to read what you think
on that one. If you haven't seen it you should, and I won't say any
thing else.

SnF from me to well done.

I watched the trailer the other day for the first time. It looks pretty interesting.

originally posted by: GENERAL EYES
a reply to: wantsome

Star and Flag.

Brave of you to come forward.

It's true, there is still a massive stigma against persons suffering from mental illness. It's starting to get better as more awareness is being raised and more and more people are coming forward with their own mental health concerns.

For the record, I'm schizoaffective and on Haldol, it's killed every spark of creativity I once had but it's the only thing that has worked for me so I continue the regime.

I'm sorry to hear about what happened at your job, I had something similar happen to me years ago and it still makes me angry when I think about it. Some people can be very cruel especially when they're uninformed or prejudiced.

Haldol is some nasty stuff and long term can cause serious health problems. I switched from haldol after getting out of the hospital to Zyprexa. It's been a miracle drug for me. When I was in the hospital they gave me an injection of haldol. I couldn't tie my own shoes on the stuff.

I've got a story form when I was in the hospital. My first night I was in my room all by myself. I was laying awake having auditory hallucinations (hearing voices). Another patient came into my room naked. He was hopping like a bunny rabbit saying meep meep meep. An orderly came running in and tackled him. He dragged him out of the room and all I could hear is meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

originally posted by: wantsome
I've got a story form when I was in the hospital. My first night I was in my room all by myself. I was laying awake having auditory hallucinations (hearing voices). Another patient came into my room naked. He was hopping like a bunny rabbit saying meep meep meep. An orderly came running in and tackled him. He dragged him out of the room and all I could hear is meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Oh that is so funny, despite it being tragic to a degree.
Thanks for the chuckle. 😆

Also thank you for the honesty in your thread. I wish you good mental health in the future.
I’m so sorry you had to go through what you went through at your place of employment.

borderline BPD here.

i have effed up my life beyond repair. the outlook is bleak.

hospitalization sucks.... i hate the psych ward.


ATS is a very helpful distraction.
cheers to ATS.

I always found it weird how some people were judged to be mentally unemployable and eligible for disability. I've found that most times unless youre slathering yourself with poop, either on purpose or just because your crazy, theres no way youre ever going to qualify. I've met a few who acted up during the interviews in order to get it because they knew they wouldnt otherwise. Meanwhile, someone like me who's been unemployable for over half of his life is eligible to get any help whatsoever. Sure, if your a child with parents who have means they will use you as a guinea pig and smother you with attention. But as a adult, LMFAO good luck. It IS possible to be coherent and even intelligent and still have major crippling mental illness. But hey, maybe next time I need to crap myself and smear it around while clapping and dancing like steve martin.

In the early 70's there was a push to close the institutions and mainstream people. Good bad idea. Thousands of jobs lost just in my area and thousands that needed help sent home with their families without any training for them.

This is what we have now.

I bet it felt good to get that off your chest ! 👍

If you wanna talk about mental illness in America, the discussion starts and ends with birth control, IMO.

Oh, and most of this mindless chatter about "mental illness" that is everywhere these days is really about thoughtcrime and silencing people and invalidating their rights, thoughts, opinions and just generally oppressing them in a sly, roundabout way. It's just the same old story of what has always happened in totalitarian societies (which is where this one is going). So it totally makes sense that TPTB are all about the "mental illness is an epidemic!" narrative.

Look up "Sluggish Schizophrenia" and get back to me after you've read it.

a reply to: tgidkp

Wait a minute.

You mean to tell me you're here voluntarily?

I'm serving court-ordered community service and on that note I'd like to give everyone a friendly reminder that shotguns are not landscaping tools.

I was misdiagnosed once upon a time. I was being harrassed but that wasn't blantantly clear to the good doctor so they get no fault. Recently, I've realized I have some genetic defects. I have always had some ADHD and also am on the autism spectrum. Both come directly from my father who still cannot sit still. Didn't realize my own being on the spectrum until I found out my son is autistic.

Things started to finally make sense. I never needed the meds old doc threw at me, so it cpuld hace turned out so much wprse than it did. Very grateful I have finally figured this stuff. Should have figured long ago but better late than never.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I've always been torn as to the closing of long term mental health institutions here in MI and "mainstreaming" these people to group homes. Very often they wind up unsupervised and clients to the criminal justice system. Some people need to be warehoused, and as harsh as it sounds, the alternative is just as bad, and more expensive.

originally posted by: wantsome
With so much stuff going on in the world today fear of people with mental illness has grown. Most people fear what they don't understand and to some people they can't comprehend the concept of being mentally ill.

-snip-

Wow, thanks for your willingness to share, sounds really tough, and no one who hasn't experienced can ever understand what you've been and are going through.

One thing I would like to point out though, is that there is no one single form of 'mental illness'. Yours was obviously an extreme case, but thankfully not the most extreme (cases like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy come to mind).

But there are also a lot of less severe cases, some very minimalistic, to the point that no one would even notice.

Also, my own personal belief is, some (many? most?) cases of mental illness are caused by one or more external factors, from malnutrition (some people live off of 'dead' food from the day they were born) to exposure to toxins, both environmental (lead is a huge cause - research the term 'mad hatter', and there are many others) and specific (some people find out there homes were built on top of or near a toxic dump site), hormones and hormone mimickers in the food supply, GMOs, etc etc ad nauseum.

One question I have though:

Every time my union rep told to sign the write up and say I agree with the companies statement. In his words I’m coming out cherry with no suspension. They were writing me up for stuff I didn’t do.

Why on earth would you sign something saying you did something you didn't do?

Anyway, sorry you ended up getting screwed like that...