Schizophrenia: Not a Death Sentence

This is an essay I wish to submit to Facts and Arguments (the Globe and Mail).

Many people with serious mental illness wind up on the streets, or are warehoused in boarding houses for ex-psychiatric patients. I have a friend who has a serious mental illness (like me) and resides in a homeless shelter. I was luckier than my homeless friend: my late parents were supportive (and my siblings still are supportive), I managed to graduate from university with a computer science degree, and I've had a couple of employers who were supportive and tolerant of my inconsistency (being absent). My mother passed away 9 years ago and I inherited some money, which helps. So despite my illness, which is somewhat debilitating but not overly much so, I've managed to lead a relatively normal life.

I have 3 primary symptoms: I'm an introvert, I have "conversations with Reginald", and my mood alternates between being normal and "feeling down". When I'm feeling down I lie on the couch or in my bed and have dark thoughts. Thankfully that only happens at most 25 percent of the time. The dark days of my youth, when I was more depressed than I am now, gave rise to my conversations with Reginald. Over the years those conversations become more elaborate and included additional characters such as Harold and Edgar, and led to my receiving a diagnosis of schizophrenia in my late twenties. Reginald is an imaginary person who is often involved in either torturing dogs to death or being tortured to death by "your mother and I" (another imaginary person). Do not be put off by the violent imagery, it's "all in my head", and I'm actually quite harmless. I have almost full control over that symptom (conversations with Reginald), so I don't do it at work or in public. I have done it on the TTC a few times but that was many years ago, and my present meds seem to work pretty well compared to what I was taking back then. Sometimes at work when I'm not too busy I find the conversations with Reginald occupy my thoughts, but lately I've been busy at work so that's not really an issue at present.

One of the aspects of my life which I find to be most therapeutic involves my working on a project that I call "my games program". This project, still in its infancy, will enable game designers to create multiplayer games, and gamers can play those games inside a web browser. I've been working on that project (very sporadically) for about 15 years, and recently began to implement it. My favourite part is the design part, designing the overall framework as well as the individual features, and my second favourite part is doing the actual coding (writing the computer code that my compiler translates into the binary ones and zeros that the computer understands). If I didn't have that project to work on, my life would be that much emptier.

Years ago I was intensely lonely, and for much of that time I was acutely dissatisfied with my lacking a girlfriend, but over the years I've made peace with my isolation. I have my siblings and their families, my homeless friend, and my boss/co-workers, and that's enough of a social circle for this introvert. My first supportive employer was a downtown charity that helps people who are marginalized (I worked there in the early nineties), and I currently volunteer there. Part of my volunteer job is teaching people how to use the computers, and that part of my job is very fulfilling. The actual interaction, especially if it's a new person, is always a little scary and daunting at first, but then I get in the groove of helping the other person, and rise above the shy loner within me. My second supportive employer is a computer company, and I've worked there for 14 years. (That's where I learned how to develop software for the Windows platform.) When I'm too depressed to make it into work, I call my boss and tell him I'm depressed, and he's OK with that. I'm only part-time, so I have to live rather frugally to make ends meet.

There's a statistic that 75 percent of people with schizophrenia who receive proper treatment can lead normal lives, with jobs, relationships, socializing, etc. I count myself among that 75 percent (although I'm not in a relationship, due to my extreme introversion). My symptoms of schizophrenia are the conversations with Reginald, flat affect, and lack of motivation. The amotivation aggravates my depression, since it makes it hard for me to get out of bed and stay out of bed. When I'm lying in bed depression rules, and my thoughts are often dominated by the conversations with Reginald.

Having a serious mental illness is not the end of the world, although people like me face challenges not experienced by regular folks. In my case, I not only experience symptoms of schizophrenia but also frequent depressive episodes, and yet I'm content with my lot in life, on the whole. Having the support of my parents and my previous 2 employers has obviously helped me a lot. Some people with schizophrenia don't have supportive parents, and many others are long-term unemployed. For 5 years I myself was unemployed, clinically depressed along with schizophrenia, and that was hell. Getting a job (and Prozac) helped pull me out of that dark period. In short, you need the right meds, but you also need to keep active (ideally with paid employment) to maintain a good mental health outlook. Bottom line: my periods of darkness fail to overshadow the positive aspects of my life, so I keep going. Everyone has his own cross to bear, although some bear heavier burdens than others.