During my episodes of schizophrenia I tried as hard as I could to make my life good. I did my best to do the right thing. Despite my efforts I still spiraled into my first episode where I was alone in the world, sleeping on a tile floor while nearly starving to death. I had lost most of my friends from social dysfunction and I had psychosis, neurosis, auditory and visual hallucinations, and a number of other symptoms. Shortly afterwards I was temporarily stable but I spiraled into a second episode which caused a number of other problems in my life. Throughout both episodes I was constantly trying to do the right thing and put my life on track but it simply wasn’t working. The illness was too much without medication and I wasn’t able to handle it at that stage in my life. Because of this, I lost a great deal of faith in my willingness to do the right thing and to be a good person.
All my mental rigidity started from the practice of being a perfectionist.
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During those earlier years the main problem that I didn’t realize was that I had a lot of trauma from middle school from being picked on a lot. My brain wasn’t in a place to make decisions that were logical enough to keep me healthy while younger. Mental health wasn’t even on the radar during those years, although I was constantly looking for ways to improve at being a good person. In later years I realized I don’t have to be overzealous and punctilious about being a great person but it is definitely worth while and pays dividends.
All my mental rigidity started from the practice of being a perfectionist. When I was nineteen before I began developing mental rigidity and symptoms of schizoaffective disorder I pledged to myself that “I would do the best I could at life and at being a good person. Beforehand I had been good at everything I had pursued and I figured if I did this my life would turn out fairly well”. Unfortunately, I lacked the guidance required to keep this lofty, and worthwhile goal, in check with some normalcy and human error. I constantly strove to be as good as I could at just about everything and this was the beginning of my mental rigidity. For example, during episodes I used to think I had to save as many steps as I possibly could while walking from place to place to train my mind to utilize my resources to the best of my ability, that resource being energy. However, I learned that I can walk any which way I want and it’s not going to make any bit of a difference. This is an instance where I’m allowed to have flexibility and just walk any which way. It was more a practice in not micro-managing my own life and allowing myself to have more mental flexibility and fun. The great part about incorporating fun into a day is there doesn’t have to be much structure to it. It’s mostly unregulated and there are no consequences for mistakes in fun activities and that’s a truly healthy thing. This allows my mind to take breaks and relax and it keeps me refreshed for when I need to be focused. I was unwilling to deviate from my ideals to live a more practical life. My lack of practicality was a main factor in my mental rigidity.
In the years following the episodes I remembered this and I was afraid to make a full commitment to living a good life. I had a misperception that I had to do some good and some bad in order to stay healthy. I was afraid of trying to be the best person that I could because of the prior consequences I had experienced. I fought every day to gain a foothold on stability and I experienced a lot of turmoil. Some days were great and I did well with social interactions and other days were extremely difficult. I had anxiety that was painful mentally and physically in my heart at times and I didn’t know how to work my way out of it. I continued to learn and progress but I ultimately felt that this was the way my life would be. I had difficulty committing to doing the right thing as much as I could.
I think mental flexibility is the key that allows me to make mistakes and be accepting of them.
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As far as being afraid of spiraling into more episodes because of mental rigidity I’ve come to realize that continually making good decisions is the key. I don’t have to be perfect and make the one right decision but instead there are a number of decisions that will produce good results that I can choose from. I think mental flexibility is the key that allows me to make mistakes and be accepting of them. I found that I need to allocate time to allow my mind to be healthy and to just unwind instead of always striving to do my absolute best. Being good enough allows me to realize that there are situations where I need to focus and put forth effort and there are others where it simply doesn’t make much of a difference.
I finally concluded that if I keep putting good into the world then more good things will happen and I’ll be able to work my way out of the trauma from schizoaffective disorder that has hampered me the past six years. As I was searching through my thoughts one day I crossed the thought that nothing in life is guaranteed. Thinking this completely changed my view on life. Previously I felt I was destined to have a difficult and troublesome life simply because I had schizoaffective disorder. For years that was the case but realizing that nothing is guaranteed, in the sense that I’m not guaranteed to have a bad life, my life was changed. I realized I can have as good a life as anyone else if not better and I set out to make certain that would happen. This is a practice in Logos Therapy (Victor Frankl; Man’s Search for Meaning) where the patient changes their self-perception thus changing their own life. Learning this was a great alleviation because of all the hope it provided for me. My previous focus was searching back through my life for traumas that I could fix and one day just cure myself of the experiential part of schizoaffective disorder. The greatest cure for me was simply a change in attitude. The change in attitude resulted in the change in expectations I had for my life. This change uplifted my spirits and instead of focusing back on all the difficult times I had experienced I realized I can move forward into a much better life as I had been working towards doing.
Instead of focusing on all the hardships I had experienced my vision was turned forward towards all the great years I could have ahead of me.
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Instead of focusing on all the hardships I had experienced my vision was turned forward towards all the great years I could have ahead of me. One of the main reasons for this was realizing that if I kept putting good into the world then good things would happen. If I did enough good things I’d eventually overcome all the burdens I’d been facing. I learned a lot about putting good into the world and how good karma is a true thing. I think in part good karma shapes the way I feel about myself. When I’ve helped do good for others it has made me feel that I am worth taking care of and doing good things for myself. I think it also shapes my self-esteem which changes my emotional health. Feeling good about myself changes my social interactions and it helps me to be positive and uplifting when I’m talking with other people and it has helped iron out a number of socially dysfunctional practices I have had. It also makes me feel deserving of having a good life. And in terms of organic living when I have treated other people really well they’ve reciprocated that practice towards me. I feel good karma is more of an intangible however, it has had tangible results in my social life and life in general. People treat me differently when I have good self-esteem and when I’m conscientious of others. It’s not just a mythical force that finds its way back to you through universality. I think the way good karma reciprocates is more psychological, in that people notice that I’m helping others or they realize that I’m a good person so they become more willing to help me when I need it, even when I’m not aware that I need a helping hand.
Photo by Alfredo Mendez
Thanks for sharing! Great thoughts!