מייקל ב

Managing Full-Time College: Michael B

In my first two years of high school, academics came easily to me and I was an honors student. As a member of the National Honor Society, National Technical Honor Society, and student council, my future looked bright. I made plans to major in computer science in college.

However, during my junior and senior years of high school, I started struggling academically and losing interest in the hobbies I had always enjoyed. I began experiencing extreme anxiety and alternated between sleeping hours on end and being unable to sleep for days at a time. My teachers, family, and friends began to notice something was different, but they did not know what it was. At the time, no one in my life realized this was the beginning of my journey into the world of mental illness.

בקושי הצלחתי לסיים את התיכון. למרבה המזל, בשל הישגי האקדמיים הקודמים, כבר התקבלתי למכללת האוזרק עם מלגה מלאה.

בשנת 2016, במהלך הסמסטר הראשון שלי בקולג', חוויתי את האשליות הראשונות שלי ותחושות הפרנויה. חשבתי שהמורים שלי נגדי. האמנתי שמסרים סאבלימינליים משודרים מהטלוויזיה ומהרדיו. התקשיתי להירדם ולא יכולתי להתעורר בזמן לשיעורים. כשהכנתי שיעורי בית, מצאתי את עצמי קורא את אותו טקסט שוב ושוב ללא הבנה.

לא יכולתי להתרכז, דילגתי על השיעורים והתבודדתי בחדר שלי. לא הצלחתי להבין מדוע הלימודים בבית הספר הפכו לקשים כל כך. נכשלתי בשיעורים וחזרתי הביתה באותו קיץ מבולבל ומיואש.

Over the course of the next several months, my mental health continued to decline. I wasn’t sleeping and I experienced cognitive issues. I began having visual, auditory, and tactile hallucinations: hearing voices and experiencing extreme fear. I was no longer able to study or work. My parents sought treatment for me, and in November 2016 I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.

We tried numerous medications and treatment options for improved cognition and anxiety control: clean eating, gluten and dairy free foods, supplements, vitamins, and holistic and naturopathic medicine. Nothing worked. Finally, in my desperate and confused state, I believed that more medication might work better to relieve my symptoms, and I took a two-week supply of medicine all at once. This resulted in me being picked up by ambulance and hospitalized with multiple organ failure. This was my fourth and last hospitalization.

After 13 failed antipsychotics, numerous mood stabilizers and antidepressants, and four hospitalizations, my parents finally found a doctor who was unwilling to give up on me. This doctor started me on a rarely used medication called clozapine, for treatment-resistant patients.

On clozapine, my concentration and memory began to improve. I began to experience less anxiety and fear and I started to enjoy old hobbies like reading. Over several months, the delusions, hallucinations, and voices faded away. As these schizophrenia symptoms began to fade, my cognitive abilities slowly improved. I enrolled in community college and each semester proved a little easier than the last.

I have now been in meaningful recovery for five years. I am back at my previous college, which is three and a half hours away from home, and I am living in a dorm on campus again. I work 15 hours a week in the campus library. I have made friends and am enjoying college life. My grades are excellent.

In 2019, I founded a NAMI peer support group in my hometown for people living with mental illness (NAMI stands for National Alliance on Mental Illness). In 2020, I started a NAMI on-campus support group for the Metropolitan Community College of Kansas City. I am a board member of NAMI of Greater Kansas City and the program director for all NAMI on-campus groups in Kansas City colleges. I have been arranging Zoom meetings, and people from all over the United States attend virtually. I was featured on the PBS Documentary, “The Hidden Pandemic.”

לאחרונה שיניתי את התואר שלי ממדעי המחשב לעבודה סוציאלית. לאחר סיום הלימודים, אני רוצה לעבוד בתחום בריאות הנפש. אני מאמין שאנשים החיים עם מחלת נפש זקוקים לעזרה, תקווה והבנה, ואני רוצה לעבוד עם מטופלים כדי לשפר את חייהם. אני רוצה שידעו שהחלמה אפשרית עם התרופות הנכונות ושהם לא לבד.

אני מקווה שבאמצעות שיתוף הסיפור שלי, צעירים נוספים יחפשו טיפול מתאים כדי שיוכלו לבנות מחדש את חייהם כפי שעשיתי.

 

כתב ויתור: שורדי סכיזופרניה אינם נציגים של קרן CURESZ.