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In my experience, the worst part of schizophrenia is having episodes of psychosis. Losing touch with reality can be terrifying. For me, psychosis always involves hearing voices, delusions, and paranoia. I usually stop eating, which most likely makes the symptoms more severe. To complicate my experience with psychosis is a symptom called anosognosia.
As a writer, I’ve found creativity is one of the first things to be affected when my depression rears its ugly head. Depression makes it harder to motivate myself to write and harder to express my unique creative voice—the thing that brings me the most joy.
You may have heard some variation of the famous saying, "perspective is everything." While many people believe this is a good life philosophy, I disagree. Perspective is vital, but it is not everything.
As I tried to come up with a topic for this blog, my mind spun a web of negative thoughts. I realized that the deadline for publication was looming. Like many weeks, I scolded myself for procrastinating. Then I started thinking about unrelated issues like my work performance, unmet goals, rejection, friendships, and relationships. Depression tortured me with lies that I will reveal in this post. Here are five of the lies my depression has told me and what I have learned from them.
I’ve never described it in these terms, but I hacked my skin-picking disorder. It used to control every aspect of my life—physically and emotionally—and I was certain I’d suffer forever. Today, I can share with you that this is far from reality. I might have skin-picking disorder, but it doesn’t have me.
For a very long time, I wasn’t comfortable with myself. During my journey to healing, I quickly realized that it’s a lot easier for us to make friends with strangers than our own selves. It took me such a long time to make friends with myself and slowly learn to love who I am. Now that I’m here, I hope to help as many people as possible find their way to self-love.
Recently, I have noticed a disturbing diet-talk trend whenever I am with a group of women. Last week, for example, someone at my job said they eat less than 1000 calories while dieting. Another is preparing for her upcoming wedding by eliminating all carbohydrates. Constantly, I hear things like, "I'm trying to be good, so I'm not eating sugar," or "I was so bad last night because I ate ice cream."
In a perfect world, it would be nice to avoid adversity altogether, but unfortunately, everybody has to face unfavorable circumstances at some point. However, dwelling on adversity only leads to dismay, and focusing on the potential positive outcomes in any situation is much more likely to work in your favor.
When facing repetitive verbal abuse, you may wonder if abusers can change and become loving and supportive people. Can a verbally abusive person change and stop using hurtful words and intimidation on others? Of course, the answer will depend on the individual and their dedication to embracing change.
My schizoaffective disorder tells me a lot of bad things about myself and makes me think I’m a bad person. Here are some of the ways that I feel like a bad person because of my schizoaffective disorder and how I fight back.

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Pia
Dear Tonie,

I just want to say that what you are talking about in your videos resonates with me, and that gives me comfort. I was diagnosed with ad(h)d about a month ago, and it threw me into an identity crisis and deep anxiety. The reason I wanted to get the diagnosis was to gain a deeper understanding of myself. But getting the diagnosis felt like a label on my forehead saying broken /disordered. I stigmatized myself heavily. Now I'm not thinking about the diagnosis every minute and try not to Google every day. I will make this an opportunity to cut myself some slack and give myself some self compassion, but it will take time and practice, I think. I have friends with the diagnosis, but it seems like they didn't take it so "heavily" - but that's me.

So reading about your experience was sort of comforting, to know that there is someone out there who has experienced a similiar reaction. I also recognise the feeling of polishing up and wanting to be "normal", not have depression and anxiety etc. But now that I know that it might be because of how my brain works and not that I'm just being "weak", maybe I will be able to accept myself better from here on. Maybe I'm much stronger that I think? So thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing <3
Brooke
Good luck to you. I really resonate with what you've shared. Thank you. I wish you the best.
Monica Eberz
Hi Sandy. Wow. I can relate to SO much of what you are saying and I wish I'd seen it in 2016!

Believe me, if you are holding down a demanding job, being a wife and mother (no matter how well or badly you think you are doing this), then you are doing, very, very well! And even if you're not, you are still doing SO much successfully.

I live in a rural area as well and it makes so many things harder. Keep advocating for yourself with therapy and doctors! Because of the pandemic and virtual therapy, we have SO many more choices! Look for someone who really focuses on ADHD and Cognitive Therapy.

I have felt my whole life that there was something wrong with me, but I didn't know it was ADHD. I just felt broken, a scatter brain, undisciplined, etc. I finally was diagnosed this year at the age of 57. It's going to take a while to undo the low self esteem issues.
alexander
I'm 16 and 2 days ago I got blackout drunk for the 1st time at a fair and I don't even remember getting brought home, I hardly remember what I did but I remember enough to know I lashed out on my mom and her friend, it's shameful but I know I was screaming and crying , I really don't remember pretty much anything but from what I was told by friends and my mom how I acted was just shameful and I feel bad like really bad I remember at some point for some reason I was down the street talking to to no one very loudly I wouldn't be shocked if I woke my neighbors up
I don't remember even walking down the street or going home and what I do remember is very blurry
I lost my phone to and a few other things mostly just upset about my phone though
but I'm not planning on drinking anymore addiction runs in my fam and I know I'm going down a bad road with how much I be drinking all the time but getting black out drunk and acting like I did really just proved I'm going down a bad road
my grammar is def bad while typing this bc I don't feel like going over it lmao but end of story I'm not drinking again and even if my mom offers me just 1 shot I'm not accepting that anymore
kk
I am with you. I feel your pain. My image of myself is really dependent on what I accomplish. The expectations I have for myself are always to do more and try harder. I have a chronic inability to be satisfied with the status quo.

It is hard... but I've found it helpful to focus on the future and enjoy what you have. I think composing a new narrative for yourself may also help you. Instead of labeling yourself as the person who goes above and beyond, maybe think of yourself as someone who cares about what they do, but has boundaries