Would a schizophrenic be able to realistically hold a job as a translator after six years of CBT?

I don't think responding to Jack Asher is a good idea, guys. It's called "feeding the troll," and the rest of the thread is what will be called a "flamewar."

 

Good point. I don't want to be involved in that kind of thing, but I believe Jack can be reasonable, and if so that the conversation can continue respectfully.

 

It sounds to me like Jack has been in some bad places and wants to blame it all on his mental illness, so when other people come along and report that, no, they don't obsess over it and haven't been in fights to the death or whatever, he feels like he's being attacked. It must suck to be in that situation, you have my sympathy, Jack.

 

I am trying to impart on you (anybody) that dealing with a mental illness is not a some of the time thing, it's an all of the time thing. Pretending that it doesn't define you moves it from "all of the time"
to "some of the time" and that's incredibly detrimental to the management of the disease.

Schizophrenia has a 13% successful suicide rate, Bipolar is 20%. These diseases will literally kill you if you are not careful.

 

Somehow I have a hard time believing that making "every second" of your life "about your mental illness," as you put it, helps very much.

 

Just for posterity sake, since I treated many psychiatric patients both in the forensic as well as adult acute setting, and some in quite a long-term context. While it is true that people with certain psychiatric illnesses are more likely to have a run in with a law during relapses, even if it's only to be picked up by police while profoundly psychotic and or intoxicated, and taken to a place of safety overnight which is often jail, I have to say that in a general population, less than ten percent of all patients I knew personally, had a criminal record. Obviously, the likelihood of someone with severe mental illness becoming homeless or so ill that they end up shooting a neighbour because they think he's spying on them, can be due to the nature of the illness or inadequate medical care.

So while it is true that some mentally ill people have extremely disorganised lives, and do spend nights in jail, and some of them even commit acts for which they have to endure much longer sentences (or involuntary incarceration under the Mental Health Act in one of the inpatients forensic psychiatry centres) overwhelming majority of people with mental illness that at times warrant hospital admission, have no issues with criminality, law or indeed safe living environment.

 

If you lived with a poisonous snake, that you couldn't keep in a cage, and had to carry it around with you, would it help if you were watching it "every second"?

What I'm saying it that these diseases are an indelible part of us, like hair color, or height, and ignoring or trying to diminish that is a seriously harmful philosophy.

EDIT: I'm not sure how Jazzabell's post is relevant but it's nice that someone pointed out that getting arrested with a mental illness (while somewhat common) isn't a serious threat to their record.

 

I struggle with mental and physical illness everyday, and what many people don't understand is, many times they overlap and become cause or magnification of one another. It's not often you find someone with a verifiable mental illness that does not have some kind of serious physical illness that is caused from it.

The problem that we have in our society today is, it's much easier to just brush a person with mental illness under the rug than to have compassion for someone that we may not understand.

 

Yes, but what I was trying to say was that not all mental illnesses were the same, or of the same degree of seriousness. One guy can handle his mental illness well enough on his own, while another would need counseling and medication. It depends on the mental illness, and the severity of it. It's not a walk in the park for either of them, I'm sure. They both would likely face difficulty and stigmas attached to their mental illness, but depending on the severity, one of them would have it just a mite bit easier. To use your snake analogy, some carry snakes that are not poisonous. While they would have to watch to make sure the snake doesn't bite them, they don't have to worry about the toxic venom, or, if it were a boa constrictor, be squeezed to death. If I had to carry a snake around, I would rather carry a snake that wouldn't inject lethal venom in me if it bit me.

And just so you know, depression and OCD can be very troubling as well. Severe chronic depression can lead to suicide, and excessive OCD can, and will, stifle the life of the person who has it.

@Lewdog - That's what gets me as well. It seems society would rather put all mentally ill people into one category called "People to laugh at, or fear" and call it a day. >_>

 

@Lewdog, that's what a few psychiatrists and psychologists have told me as well: quite often there's a physical illness/chronic ailment behind a mental one.

Those can be dangerous situations because e.g. in my case, I was mentally perfectly healthy, even strong, but after dealing with pain 24/7/365 for several years, you kind of start taking it for granted that you're not in a very good mood, you don't want to do anything that aggravates the pain, you start yearning for the pills that provide you even a bit of relief etc.

And then you're diagnosed with mental illness. The sad fact is, at least around here, a lot of psychiatric care revolves around constantly changing regulations and preferences that have little to do with what's best for the patient. And you need some luck on your side to encounter a doctor who actually cares about their patients on a more personal level and is willing to bend a few rules or turn a blind eye to a thing or two if it's what's best for the patient.

In my case, the mental problems didn't become a daily nuisance until the use of prescription meds also became a daily affair (note: they weren't antidepressants, but strong painkillers that hit the CNS). Then you're on a seemingly endless rollercoaster: either you're coming down or you're "getting high," and to keep the doses from climbing too much, you need to stretch the time between the meds as long as you can and because those meds affect your mood/temperament/frame of mind, even personality, you can imagine that when the effects wear off, that's when your worst qualities tend to crawl out (along with truly aggravating physical withdrawal effects) until the next batch of chemical relief kicks in.

And heaven help you if you run out of meds and can't immediately get a new prescription...

 

Imagine that but times 100, because the meds are controlled substances, in the states they are wildly expensive, they have a wide range of side effects (those might need other meds to control, and those have more side effects), and when you don't have them you get fired because you can't get out of bed.

 

Also a quote from my wife,
"Oh course it defines me, I just try not to let it consume me."

 

@Jack Asher, I believe I can imagine. My meds probably aren't the most expensive, but I still spend roughly half of my yearly income on them. And then they wonder why so many people around here are depressed. Maybe a part of it is because everything is so damn expensive, they can't afford to pay their fucking bills?

 

Before I had insurance I was on a program with the medical suppliers where they would send me free meds. The program was a nightmare of inefficiency, redundancy, and completely ridiculous bullshit. If I had been buying them without insurance it would have cost me about 3,000 dollars a month.

 

If only my forefathers had had the foresight to set up a pharmaceutical company...

Oh, and insurance does cover roughly 50% of the price of the meds, but since one of them is so new that the patent is still in effect, they cost an arm, a leg, and half of your ass.

 

Yeah I was part of that same deal, and the doctor's office didn't find it at all to be a problem when I would almost run out of my medicine before I would get replacements. Some people just don't understand that once you are on psych meds, if you run out complete cold turkey it is 1,000 times worse than never being on them in the first place.

 

a-fucking-men

 

Only if they are pretty exceptional

it could be that she gets ill again later on? most are episodic

i'm schizophrenic and i can't work at all - that is probably the most common for 'us'

 

1. 
   
2. ↑
   Some people just don't understand that once you are on psych meds, if you run out complete cold turkey it is 1,000 times worse than never being on them in the first place.
   a-fucking-men

these people do not know what they are talking about!

 

This has been a very interesting thread for me to read. It started out being a simple question about a character, and has opened up into how chronic illness of whatever kind can take over your life completely.

I have a friend with fibromyalgia—she's the lady who introduced me to the writings of Terry Pratchett—and she suffers excruciating nerve pain every single day, 24/7. Her good days are merely days when she can think about other things for a short time, and maybe even get out to do something fun. However, she has no control whatsoever over when these milder spells will occur. Of course this disease defines her, and she is very angry about that. She's in her early 50s now, and remembers back when she was 'normal' and would give just about anything to get back to that. Fortunately she has a magnificent husband who does everything possible to make her feel loved, valued and cared for. She says she often wonders if she'd even have the guts to carry on, if she didn't have him in her life.

And of course the medication she takes for pain has played havoc with her system, to the point where her kidneys and liver are starting to pack in. So she has to cut down the medication, which means her pain-filled days are more frequent and more excruciating.

I just feel so damn sorry for her, and for anybody whose physical and / or mental condition interferes with their lives to this extent. If it happens to elderly people—which will be me, very shortly—at least they've had a life. When it happens to a young person, it's just so unfair.

Anyway, thanks to all for the contributions. I feel I've learned quite a lot today.

 

That sounds all too familiar. My good periods are those when I can focus on other things besides the pain/the next dose of meds. The bad ones... well, are bad and all I think is the moment I can take the next dose to get a few hours of lesser pain.
That is, if I'm not in the process of cutting the doses which always means a few weeks mostly without any pain relief. It sucks but those periods are pretty much a necessity or eventually the doses would climb dangerously high as they have in the past and coming back from that is just a nightmare; a nurse once told me a few heroin addicts had told her that withdrawing off these drugs is worse than kicking heroin.

Also, sometimes the pains get better and worse depending on how much I aggravate the back, but often also for no reason at all, so by now my family and friends have learned that when we agree to some get-together, it's always a "if we can" -kind of deal since two hours before we ought to head out, the pains can suddenly get worse and we have to cancel. Again.

The last thing in common I have with your friend is an incredible partner. It's a fact that I wouldn't be here anymore if it wasn't for Kat (literally: the two accidental ODs would've been lethal if she hadn't been there to call an ambulance) and even if it hadn't been for those occasions, I don't think I'd have the strength to carry on alone because so often during the darkest moments, all I can think is what's the point of enduring all this?
And then I notice the ring around my finger and remember that yeah, I do have a reason to keep fighting even through the worst moments and a bloody good reason at that, one that will always overcome whatever challenges life throws at either of us. After all, ever since the day we started dating seven years ago, our motto has been "if we go down, we go down together."
I know, we're both such hopeless romantics.