By Caroline
My name is Caroline and I am 34. I currently live in Canton and work as a cashier. I find solace in reading and photography, which is fueled by my Kindle and audiobooks. My favorite place to spend time is at the library.
I am diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. Starting in high school, I experienced extreme mood swings, but assumed it was normal because I wasn’t educated about mental health conditions. After I had my daughter at 20, I experienced psychotic symptoms, which I ignored because I thought everyone dealt with them.
2015 was a turning point where the mental health symptoms I was experiencing forced me to seek help. Things had been building but it got worse when I was unable to sleep. In the hospital I was diagnosed with bipolar type 1, which was an incorrect diagnosis of what I was actually dealing with. During that episode, I had an excess of energy, believed things, and saw and heard things that weren’t real.
I continued to experience mood swings and psychosis and was hospitalized multiple times from 2015-2019 because of my refusal to accept my illness and also my providers didn’t realize I had schizoaffective bipolar instead of bipolar type 1. With schizoaffective bipolar, you can have psychosis outside of mood episodes. My psychiatrist, who I began working with in 2017, was patient with me even though I refused to accept my illness. At the time, I felt a lot of shame due to my psychosis because I felt like it was a moral failure, but I later realized it wasn’t. There is no shame in having a mental illness. Having a mental illness isn’t a personal or moral failure. I want people to know there is no shame in seeking out therapy and seeing a therapist.
In 2020, I found the right medicine to help me cope with my mood swings and psychosis and I began to understand that I was sick; that was the turning point for me. Having a good psychiatrist and therapist on my treatment team makes a huge difference. When I was first diagnosed, I didn’t understand how individualized the process of finding medicine can be. I didn’t understand it sometimes takes years to find the right meds. I also didn’t understand how meds don’t take away all symptoms like a magic wand. I still live with some psychotic symptoms and small mood swings.
I began to get serious about managing my illness with both medication and developing coping skills in therapy. I have had the privilege of working with the same therapist for the last nine years. Having that therapeutic alliance with him has helped me heal. I have friends that help look out for symptoms that I might not realize I’m experiencing. Weekly therapy has helped me maintain the progress I have made. Therapy helped me get well and stay well. I also have a sleep schedule that I stick by and a mood tracker I give to my providers that helps them get an idea of what I’m experiencing.
Once I got the help I needed, I felt like my illness was no longer in the driver’s seat. For the longest time, schizoaffective defined a major part of my identity, but now the illness is just a small part of who I am. I’m able to parent and work full time now, which is something I’m incredibly proud of. The advice I would give younger me is “don’t be afraid to reach out.” I wish I would have reached out and gotten help sooner.