Challenging the Stigma of Mental Illness

After four years of episodes with schizoaffective disorder I was twenty-five years old without any friends, a job, any meaningful activities in my life, or any sort of social life. Socialization was difficult for me and I struggled to make friends. I went to my doctor’s once per week to learn more about schizoaffective disorder and also to find ways to deal with my traumas. One of the most difficult parts of having schizoaffective disorder was knowing that what I wanted more than anything was to have some friends and at least some semblance of a social life but I wasn’t able to have one. When I was twenty four years old and left my second hospitalization at McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA I wasn’t able to speak a coherent sentence never mind carry on a conversation with anyone.

For a year or so I worked hard at learning how to socialize and I made some progress in therapy. My doctor said a number of weird and outlandish things to help make socialization easier. One of my main issues was that I was being far too critical of myself from having been criticized by so many other people. During my episodes I struggled immensely with socialization and I took a lot of flak from others who seemed to be better at it. They constantly criticized and ridiculed me for my social awkwardness and for a while I began to believe the mean things they were saying about me were true. I didn’t realize that my inability to carry conversations during my episodes had little to do with who I was as a person. I began treating myself the way they had been treating me.

Although I was not good at socializing I eventually learned that it was mostly the illness. I had to learn to forgive the people who had picked on me for my awkwardness because they had issues of their own. I realized that I wasn’t good at socialization however, no one forced them to be mean to me. I didn’t deserve to be treated so poorly for not knowing how to talk and interact with other people while having two episodes of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder simultaneously. In later years I learned that they had a choice. They could have been kind and tried to help, (which other people did make an effort towards doing), but they chose otherwise. This simply means that it was their choice to be mean and more importantly, it meant that I didn’t deserved to be treated so poorly. It also meant that I had a choice to treat myself well and not listen to them which I later learned how to do.

When I initially set out to make friends I learned that a lot of people liked me but I wasn’t necessarily close to them. I judged myself by the thoughts I had instead of the things I said and did. A part of schizophrenia is having difficulty discerning the external from the internal and this was another such instance. Reflecting back upon the first times I made friends after my episodes, (which was within a year of the second episode), I learned that I was criticizing myself for my thoughts and not my actions while talking to others. My doctor taught me about thought-action-fusion which is when people think their thoughts are actions, which I later learned is not true. Realizing this was critical to my success with my social life.

When I first started making friends I was afraid of them learning that I had schizophrenia. I initially struggled when I was learning how to talk with others again. I had been mostly in isolation for about four to five years and everything had changed since the time I was twenty so I had a lot to learn. I had a new group of friends for about eight to ten months until I fell out of touch with them. I was awkward when we hung out and I decided maybe if I disclose my diagnosis they’ll understand and give me a second chance to hang out. Disclosing my illness didn’t help rekindle the friendship and I became afraid to disclose my diagnosis.

For years the illness was barring me from expressing my truest thoughts to others. I had to figure out how to remove all the social traumas I had experienced so I could effectively communicate and interact.

A part of this had to do with becoming more empathetic with socialization. I learned the way I treat others when I socialize is the way I treat myself. I had to be kind to other people about the things I was criticizing about myself. I wrote things in my journal such as “Be nice to people about the way they talk”. For years I was critical of the way I talked and I learned if I’m kind to others about how they talk then I’ll reciprocate that same practice towards my own speech. Once I wrote things of this nature in my journal it made talking a whole lot easier because I was ridding myself of all the self-criticism that was hampering me during social situations. I learned a lot of my difficulty with interacting with others had to do with being overly judgmental towards other people and ultimately towards myself. Getting rid of some of these judgments made my life a lot easier.

As the years progressed I had more friendships where I did disclose my diagnosis and I learned that people weren’t discriminating against me for having schizophrenia. Losing friends was a result of the way I was acting and my level of health and not the fact that I had a diagnosis. Currently most of my good friends know I have schizophrenia and none of them discriminate against me because of it. It actually helps keep our friendships in tact because they know I’m socially awkward sometimes and there are things that I don’t always understand about interacting with others but they let them go. They like me for who I am and disclosing my diagnosis has helped me to make and keep more friends than it has lost for me. I realized I have to accept others for who they are in order for them to accept me for who I am. I also learned that I don’t have to be so afraid of stigma and once people have gotten to know me they treat me for the person I know and because of my diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Photo by Jim Simonson