_______________________

I was diagnosed with schizophrenia twenty years ago when I was twenty-four. It took me a couple of years to accept that I had an illness and I have been in hospital six times since. At the time I was living in France having a hyper, and to me, enjoyable summer.

My schizophrenia was mixed with mood swings where I would be very high for a few months, usually during summer, and low for the rest of the year. During these high months I overspent, slept very little and had grandiose planes. I was writing a lot twenty years ago and had huge, unrealistic plans for this pastime of mine.

My illness was probably exacerbated by the use of soft drugs, mainly hashish. Apart from the high symptoms mentioned above I also had delusions. I believed people in radio and television were referring to me. I believed I was being filmed by satellite. While I was ill I would not disclose these delusions to anyone.

Schizophrenia was responsible for the break-up of three long-term relationships. I have been lucky however in that my symptoms are relatively mild. Medication works for me without side effects and on the whole I have been able to work full-time. In the past I taught English as a Foreign Language, worked as a programmer and technical author. I am presently working in the mental health field.

Whenever I did have to go back to hospital it was either due to stress bringing on the symptoms again or not taking my medication. At the moment my work is mostly stress free and I enjoy it. I am receiving a monthly injection means that I do not have to remember to take medication daily.

In the past I was earning a lot. Spending a lot and generally not facing my problems. I am glad I have found a niche in mental health and I also attribute this for no longer experiencing depressions.

Although schizophrenia is only a minor part of my life it has affected my life hugely. Relationships and work would have been easier and I would probably have settled into a career structure by now.

On the positive side however, it had made me more sensitive to other people. I feel I have integrated my illness into my life. Even if I do become ill again I will be able to bounce back more quickly than before.

Tim

_______________________

I started having false memories and hearing voices in 1998 when I was first diagnosed with a psychotic illness. I was living in the United States, and life was really great. I had just been promoted to a professional grade at a large investment company, one of the largest employers in New England; I was married for nearly six years, and I owned my own apartment. I was twenty-six.

Without warning over the course of a week or two, I started having false memories about social occasions with colleagues, and believing things had happened when in fact they hadn't. My husband told me nothing was wrong, but I didn't believe it and went to the Psychiatry department at my local health centre. I was taken to hospital and told that my memories weren't real, that it was a psychosis. During my time in hospital, my husband came and I believed that he had gone off to be a priest, that he was just visiting me out of pity. I was told my sister had a baby and I didn't believe it, I thought she had adopted the baby from her next-door neighbours. I started obsessing about the past and analysing everything I used to believe and putting a new psychotic spin on it.

I was put on medication and began to understand that the voices were really my own thoughts that I was hearing, so in order to get out of hospital I said I no longer heard them. I tried to go back to work part-time and attend day hospital part-time but the medication was making me too drowsy and I couldn't manage it. My doctor suggested taking a month off work, so I did, and one day I entered the building after hours and put pieces of a jigsaw puzzle on every single computer on my floor (around 200) and wrote a letter of resignation to my boss on a greeting card. She told me she wouldn't accept my resignation but before the month was out I told her I wouldn't be coming back, and she accepted that.

My husband got really upset with me when I told him I left the job, and he made it clear that I had to look for other work that might suit me better. I was still delusional. I managed to get a really good job at a Management Consultancy firm, but I left within five days because I thought a former colleague was going to kill me. During this time I was seeing a psychiatrist and a counsellor and they kept changing my medication because it was clear nothing was working.

One of the features of my particular illness is that I can manage to work on very complex projects while I am psychotic, and nobody knows there is anything wrong until I get so stressed out I can't function anymore and need help immediately. During my first year of the illness I quit three jobs and my marriage broke up because eventually I stopped taking my medication and my husband threatened me with divorce. I told him he could have the divorce and I moved back to Ireland to live with my mother, very ill, within five weeks of the separation. That was May 1999.

I managed to work on a telephone helpline for five weeks in Dublin before I went missing out to the airport one Sunday afternoon and was taken to hospital immediately when I came home. I had very strong false beliefs. I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and put back on medication. Back in Ireland, with my mother and my sisters around me, I began the slow road to recovery. My sister arranged for me to get Supplementary Welfare Allowance, and I could actually see that things could get better - I didn't have to work until I really got better and I could stay in my mother's home as long as I wanted, she made it clear the house would always be my home.

Before long I got a job two bus-rides away on a good wage and I worked for a year until one day I was told to go home and take a break by the managing director's mother. I was very stressed out and I was up against important deadlines while the directors of the company were getting married. I went to my consultant and told him I had difficulty coping with work so I went on sick leave for a while. The managing director called me and asked if I was fit to come back to work. He seemed very concerned about me, although he didn't know anything about my diagnosis. I agreed to go back to work, only to find out that they had given my job to the receptionist and had made me the receptionist in my absence. I stuck it out for a week, believing the computer was giving me messages and the newspaper articles were directed at me. I answered calls from my clients who wanted to talk to me and I had to direct them to the other Clare, the old receptionist. I was the old Claire, the new receptionist. It was further messing with my head, and it didn't help that I was still having false memories and beliefs. The following Monday I went to my doctor and got a letter stating I needed time off work until further notice and I sent it in with my resignation in lieu of notice.

Again I went on Supplementary Welfare Allowance and realised that the job really was too hard for me. I chilled out at home and considered that I just might not be suited to work. I knew from the clinic that many people with schizophrenia didn't work, and I considered that I might never find anything that suited me. I knew I couldn't keep quitting jobs as soon as I got stressed or psychotic. Granted, I had false beliefs at the time I left work, and a whole plethora of unresolved issues with my time in the States which haunted me.

By this time I was studying part time with a distance learning University in the States for a PhD in Public Administration. I don't think it was a very well respected university, but it was affordable and drew upon knowledge and a style of thinking that I had developed in the States. As I got deeper into Public Administration, I knew I wanted to work in the civil service - I already had a degree in Politics.

While I was off work, I worked on my thesis, and sat for a clerical officer exam a few months after I had quit working. I was blessed that day because I was offered the job the very day I completed the examination.

I knew the civil service was my final chance in the world of work. If this didn't work, with all the Equality legislation, flexitime, part-time opportunities, leave entitlements, I really didn't think anything else would. If I hadn't got the civil service that time, I think I may have spent a lifetime on disability, so battered and bruised did I feel by the private sector, both in the US and at home.

That was 2001, the same year I travelled to Washington to get my divorce.  I've worked steadily since, except for three months sick leave in 2002 when I was hospitalised again. I even got promoted last year, and I have every intention of applying for promotion again the next time I am eligible.

I went through a hard time last year: my mother was ill and later died, afterwards I had regular psychotic episodes for months and found it difficult to work. With help and support I have got through that time, and feel well again. I have recently applied to work a four-day week, not because I find it difficult to cope, rather because I have become so busy with connections and interests outside of work. I am also in a very supportive relationship and we have plans to travel abroad next year.

Claire

Withdrawal was the most agonizing experience I ever suffered. It felt like daggers were going through me. During the many times I was admitted to hospital I kept asking for the memory of it to be erased. I spent a lot of time in Limerick. My mother and sister would drive down every weekend to see me.

During the periods I was at home I was afraid to go out socialising. My mother would take me out but every bone in my body was against it and I would fill up with fear. At night I would feel so bad that I would threaten suicide and I think my parents knew I really meant it.

They were so good to me emotionally and financially. I was never allowed to be short of cigarettes as they were my lifeline. My parents did not expect me to work too much around the house. On the whole my parents were very lenient and put up with a lot from me.

After six and a half years the depression left me. I remember the actual time as clearly as if it was yesterday. The day before I was cramped up in fear and feeling violently ill. The following morning a bird flew down the chimney and I said it was a sign of bad luck but in fact it was a very good omen. That day I played a song and I lifted my head and said ?hey I am feeling different.? To this very day I remember the actual words and the change that came about in me at that very moment.

Unfortunately this lasted roughly for about three months. I had not taken any medication and I ended up back at square one. I developed schizophrenia. It lasted for another ten agonizing years.

During that time I lost my sense of identity and kept asking my mother when was the real me going to come back. I felt this dreadful sense of stigma and that everybody knew and was laughing at me. Every time someone would come to the house I would run to the room, ashamed to be seen. I became very heavily medicated and felt so weak and the need to just sleep and sleep. It was awful to go to bed and wake up with that tired feeling.

Through out it all my parents and family were there for me. Eventually I began to get better after numerous trials I was given a medication which suited me. It has been a long lonely road to recovery but thank God I now feel that I have my life back.