A question for the Schizophrenia Community

If your or your loved one’s experience living with this condition were a book, what would its title be and why? And what would you name the chapter you are currently in?

Answers from the Community

I can’t really think of the title of a book of what my life would be like if it was a book, but I do know that the chapter that I would currently be in would be titled “A Sense of Calm.”

If this disease well, if this part of my life was a book, it would be called, “Schizophrenia” and “Dealing with Schizophrenia” and “Living with Schizophrenia,” and the chapter would be, “Empathy.” And I think that’s a big thing in dealing with this mental health disease that I suffer from.

“A Trip to Hell and Back” would be the title of the book. The title that we’re currently, the chapter that we’re currently in, thank God, would be “Feeling Hopeful.” I think that’s our chapter right now.

Well, it was a long, hard journey. In a lot of ways, it was troublesome and heartbreaking, or bad news or something. But at the same time, it was more or less a positive all through, that slowly grew and grew. I’m more or less on the final chapter. I got a complete turn around, from totally stuck in my illness, to no end, to I’m not even considered disabled no more, even though I still have the illness. They don’t consider it a disability no more. I’ve been in the workforce. I’ve worked by myself on a low income. I’m more or less all on my own. I don’t need people doing this or that for me. I’m just like a normal lifestyle. Except the thing is, people do not see, to recognize it. My mind thinks different than a normal type of person now.

If my loved one’s experience living with this condition were a book I would call it, “I Am a Mother of a Schizophrenic.” And I would say that we’re currently in the chapter of, “We’re Almost at the Finish Line.”

A couple of names come to mind for me. The first one is called “Half-Tamed,” and I feel like I’m always in flux in some way. My story has never been super linear, as in I will explore one area of my trauma or mental health, and it starts to feel man’s form. And another thing comes up or I feel pretty well-adjusted to the world, but I’m still continually hearing voices. And so I guess the way I would describe it as that my illness seems to be half-tamed at all times, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but that’s just the way I think I would describe it. And then the other one that comes to mind is “The Paper Room.” And that really relates my realization that some of my experiences were not necessarily normal. My mom also struggles with mental illness, but nobody in my family ever put words to it. So growing up, she had a paper room, which was essentially a room where the walls were covered with receipts or tickets or bills or other random things that she taped to it. And I don’t know what the purpose was. I guess it made sense to her. It fed into the way her delusional thoughts were about the world to have this paper room. And so it was one of the first thing that I experienced that showed me that some of the ways that I think or experience might not line up with the experience of those without this illness. And it’s still a reminder of how far I’ve come on my journey with my illness, because of the fact that because I chose healing and have sought treatment and the things that I’m doing, I don’t have a paper room. Not in a bad way, in the sense that I know nobody chooses illness, nobody chooses the course that they’re going to take, but for me, overcoming trauma and addiction, and to a degree mental illness, breaking that cycle, not having a paper room in my house is a part of that. And then, I’m not really sure what my current chapter is. Maybe something along the lines of like “Regulation.” I feel like I’m becoming stable maybe for the first time since developing symptoms. And so this is my process of regulating, which comes with positives, like stability, but also challenges like blunted emotions, for example. And so I’m learning what it means to navigate the world in a normal way, and all that comes with that. And so that seems like a title that might be fitting for where I’m at right now.

First thing that comes to mind is “Hell House” and I’m in chapter 24 of his 24th year and we’re on the road to recovery. That’s what it would be called, “Road to Recovery.” Thank you.

The name of the book would be “Mental Fog.” And the chapter of my book right now would be “Homelessness” because my son is experiencing a lot of homelessness. He’s jumping from shelter to shelter. He’s practically a nomad. So my book would be called something to the extent of “Foggy Life” or “Foggy Mind.” And the chapter would be “Homelessness” right now because that’s what my son is going through and all the hardships and how common it is for persons with mental illness to up homeless.

Oh, the first thing that came to my mind was “It Just Doesn’t End.” There’s no cure. For us, things never got miraculously better. It’s always been difficult. And the struggle right now is that, I would say … I don’t know. It’s always going to be hard. Every time you think that the next hospitalization or something, you’d be able to deal with better than one five times ago, it’s not true. Just always, its difficult. It always hurts. That he’s ill, he gets more ill. So just acceptance that this is my life and I have to do the best I can with it and for him. There’s no rainbow, no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s just a daily struggle and it’s a difficult illness to live with.

“A Day Inside Crazy” and I think that’s what it would be called.

If my experience living with this condition were a book, the title would be “Reality is Hard,” and the chapter that I’m currently in would be “Figuring It All Out.”

The title of my book would probably be called “God’s Grace and Blessing.” And the title for this chapter I’m in right now would be “Getting Through Life Knowing That It’s a Challenge, Even Though God’s by Your Side.”

I would call it “Not Faking It” because everybody thinks that I am and that I make it up or that I’m crazy.

I will call it “You Can Do It,” and the chapter I’m in is “Healing.”

I would name the book, “My Schizophrenia,” and the first chapter would be, “How I Look to Others.”

I would just call it “Kind of a Rollercoaster.” And the chapter that we’re on right now is “The Uphill Battle.”