I used to have a cheerful and joyful personality. I would love to travel, spend time with my family. I was a calm, patient, and very happy person. But you wouldn’t have known this if you’d met me in 2016, just before I was sent to prison for fighting with a stranger at a grocery store.
My family didn’t know what to do either, because I had never been in such trouble before. They knew it wasn’t the real me.
How A Teenager Recovered from Schizophrenia
I’m Raina. I was in grade 10 in my high school in 2014. One day in the break time my friends asked me to bring them some snacks, I went to the canteen to get them, and when I was coming back I noticed that my friends were laughing and giggling. At that moment I felt paranoid [ I thought that they were making fun out of me]. Slowly and steadily symptoms like these kept on increasing. My parents observed that I used to talk to myself as if someone was sitting in front of me, I started hearing voices. I was unable to clear my mid-term exams. Because of this, I came under more stress and my condition was becoming worse day by day.
Finally, my parents decided to take me to the psychiatrist. I was not ready to accept the fact that I was undergoing a mental illness. Due to the fear of being diagnosed with a mental illness, I didn’t tell all my symptoms like the hallucinations [ voices] and the paranoia. After asking all the questions, the psychiatrist diagnosed me with a bipolar mood disorder and gave me all the medications required. Then I came back home and was on medications, but I was still not accepting that I was mentally ill. I isolated myself in a room, stopped going to school, didn’t talk to any family members, and was not taking my medications on time. My condition was not improving at all.
In 2016 once my mother asked me to join her at the grocery store thinking I might need a change and I would talk to her. But there I met with a fight with a stranger and because of that, I was in prison for a few days. As soon as I was out, I was taken to the psychiatrist at The State Hospital. There when the psychiatrist asked me about what all is happening to me, I answered all his questions honestly. Then I was diagnosed with schizophrenia syndrome and was given all the medications as well as was sent to the rehabilitation center for five months. There I used to have my day’s planned schedule of all the things I was supposed to do based on my likings. This was done to make me comfortable socially, outside the rehab. Doctors and my parents could see me improving within a month and my parents would visit me twice a month. Now I was taking all my medications on time and was following all the instructions given by the doctor. I kept on improving month by month, and my family was very happy to see me like I used to be before the illness.
In February 2017, I was back home and recovered from schizophrenia. I was again a happy, cheerful, and loveable person who used to enjoy living life. After the two years gap in my education, I decided to take admission again and complete my education further to build a successful career ahead. I was again in school and this time I didn’t isolate myself, I made new friends as my old ones have already passed out. My performance was pretty good. I even talked about my schizophrenia journey with my peers to make people aware of mental illness and to not feel ashamed about being mentally ill. I also made a small social welfare group, to help people who were going under any kind of mental illness and for the people who had no one to talk about their mental health. This turned out to be a great help because in this I used to talk about my journey by which people get motivated and this also helped people to accept the fact that being mentally ill is not a matter of shame.
Now I’m doing fine, and aware of my triggers. I even tried to work on my trigger points and was able to cope up with them. I got so self-motivated that I topped my school, and further pursued the career of my own choice. I opted for fashion designing at The Fashion School and there also achieved so many rewards for my work. Everyone there used to praise me for my potential, my parents used to feel so proud. I’m still in fashion school and after one year I will graduate. Besides this I continued my welfare group, we all used to meet every Sunday evening and talk about the problems. As time passed my welfare group also developed. I have around 35 members to take care of the people out of which five are professionals. There are always 5-10 consultants available who work in shifts besides Sundays to resolve people’s problems.
Due to the covid-19 pandemic, we also made this welfare program available online. In which the members connected with the group are provided all the help they need.
After three years of my recovery, when I was asked about my schizophrenia, how am I doing now? Do I experience the symptoms sometimes? Or do I feel paranoid? My reply was that recovering from schizophrenia was a beautiful journey, I did learn a lot more about life and myself. The experience I’d gone through was tough but also lovely. Now I don’t feel any symptoms like before such as paranoia or hallucinations. I told that now I enjoy each moment of my life and the things I used to enjoy before my illness. I feel very proud talking about my schizophrenia journey with others. Schizophrenia has given me a new way to live my life to its fullest.
In my opinion, people who are undergoing any mental illness require more affection and care. Still are many patients out there who don’t even know that they are in trouble and their families are also not aware of the same, my suggestion is whenever someone feels that there is some problem going on with them whether be it on a mental level or physical they should immediately reach to their doctors and consult them and should tell them all the things which are going wrong honestly.
As in my case initially, I didn’t tell my doctors about all my symptoms and didn’t even answer the questions honestly, which made my case worse. I’m today here telling out my story, doing all fine, is just because of my parents and my doctors who believed in me and knew that one day I will be over this mental illness and in those tough times besides being under stress, because I [their daughter] was ill, they handled me with love and affection that helped me more to get over schizophrenia.
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