From Fears to Trust in the State of being schizophrenic

[kayzumfelde]

The main problem in schizophrenia from a psychological point of view is the lack of trust in others. At the beginning I didn’t believe that I was ill. That’s very common to schizophrenic people. So this was the first thing why I didn’t trust the psychiatrists. My first psychiatrist, who I met when I left the hospital, said I can work eight hours per day. I knew that this was impossible with the dose of Haldol I got. But I wasn’t telling him that, because I got the feeling that it wouldn’t change anything. However I was also been so overdosed that I wasn’t able to concentrate more than a few minutes. Again I wasn’t able to tell this the psychiatrist. I didn’t trust him. I changed the psychiatrist. I was able to tell the second psychiatrist that I had problems with Haldol. She said that we could try another medication. I didn’t trust her, that it could be better.

What did I really feared? I wasn’t sure about this for a long time. At the beginning it was the fact, that I couldn’t do my work; that I couldn’t live a normal life. The fears changed while living my life. In 1995 I started to work under the influence of a new not so high dosed medication. The fears became more and more existential when I started working again. First they only appeared as something that I defined as a ‘crisis.’ A crisis? Yes, I couldn’t identify fears as fears. When the crisis appeared I was in a state in which I wasn’t able to act in any way. Thus I have put myself into bed. I waited until the fears disappeared. That could take awhile. Usually at the beginning a few hours.

My new psychiatrist said that she can solve the problem within ten years. For me ten years was an infinite time period. With the statement that ‘problem’ will be solved she meant that schizophrenia would be gone. But the real problems behind all this are fears, fears that are not visible to people who don’t suffer from schizophrenia.

During a psychosis delusion of grandeur or paranoia for example are based on fears. Why is a delusion of grandeur based on fears? In my case I thought I was the most intelligent person in the world. The fear arises because you fear that something would happen to you if you are not so high intelligent. You fear that if you are not high intelligent society wouldn’t love you. Moreover, that you for example cannot say or do what you like, because you think for example Einstein was able to say or do whatever he wanted or liked. Paranoia is another form of delusion based on the fear that someone is after you and wants to do something bad to you. You think you cannot escape something really bad. You don’t trust nearly anybody. I trusted only the stars in Hollywood, but I have had no connection to them.

If you are taking your medication these fears and delusions are covered by the medication. That means they are still there, but the medication just calm your fears down.

The big question is: How can the fears disappear? In order to get rid of the fears, you need to trust people. You need to find people who are not cynical. Usually you can trust your therapist or psychiatrist. Why? Because people get help from her/him. It’s their job to help you. On the other hand, if you don’t trust her/him because of reasons you cannot explain don’t hesitate to change her/him. It could take some time until you find a therapist with whom you have or can build up a fruitful connection.

I started to tell my new therapist in 1995 some basics about myself. Usually you go through hard times when you open your heart more and more to the therapist, because you think the person you already started to trust can work against you. This is from your point of view logical, since you may haven’t trust anyone before. During the psychosis you got to the idea that people didn’t really help you. You think you could loose this person. For example, you think you can loose the contact to the therapist, when you have a dispute with her/him. You need to learn that this is usually not the case.

Disputes can be a common thing within relationships. Some people argue less some more, but it is likely that you have disputes. Usually after some time the actual dispute evaporates. If not, something is really wrong.

You should avoid cynical people. Those are in general people that discriminate or judge you and who are selfish and/or dishonest. I discussed in this post how to find out who is cynical.

Everyone usually has sometimes setbacks while getting to know new people. For schizophrenic people this is an even more sensitive issue. If you are schizophrenic it is dangerous to be too open too soon. This is only possible if you are strong enough to do so. Don’t worry too much about what I said, because your intuitive inner voice will tell you what do to. To really trust someone, you need to trust yourself first. If you don’t start trusting someone you will not solve your problems.

Trusting someone means, that you risk something. You risk to be disappointed by that other person. So at the beginning you should not invest too much. By investing too much I mean you should not invest too many feelings. Is that true? Is it possible to invest not too many feelings? It depends what do you feel for this other person. If you are instantly fell in love with this person, than how can you not start to invest a lot feelings into that person? That’s life. And can you always be sure that you won’t be disappointed? Can you see always through this person soon to find out if this person really loves you? At the beginning you will be probably very enthusiastic. ‘Love makes you blind.’ At the beginning this could be the case. You will find out, when you listen to you inner voice, your intuition, your heart. You will find out, if this other person loves you, if you want her/him as your life partner or if she/he really likes you. Listen to what she/he says, what she/he does and check how you feel about these statements and actions.

Don’t worry you are no sociopath if many people you get to know aren’t falling into the category close friend or even possible life partner. It’s not common that one has many close friends. But you should feel comfortable around the people that you meet in daily life to stay healthy.

Back to the fears that are essential during medication. These are existential fears. Fears like not having enough money to live from. The fear that I could be dying in an accident while walking down the street. The fear that the bridge I am walking through could break down when I was actually walking across. A person in a sane state wouldn’t usually thinking about this, maybe only if it came up in the news channel.

How to get rid of such fears? By becoming aware about what you really fear and making yourself clear, that the actual incident is not very likely to happen. How can this be helpful? It makes you feel comfortable. You loose your fears if such facts like the non-likeliness of the bridge breaking down enter your consciousness.

Also what was very important to me to get rid of the fears was the fact finding out, with the help of a friend, that I have a purpose in life; that there is something of value what I can contribute to society. That was even the biggest insight for me. Yet, I didn’t really understand why this makes me feel so good, but I found out it is the feeling of positive self-worthiness that put me on track; the faith that what I write down and what I communicate to other people is giving only myself but also them a good feeling.

 

The mechanism, how the fears disappeared, is not quite clear to me yet. Time is a factor, since as time moves on I became somehow more convinced that everything will turn out fine. Also nothing seriously bad happened which improved my positive self-worthiness and someday back in October 2016 the fears finally vanished.