Schizophrenia Recovery at Mid Life

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I turned 50 last year. It’s a time that’s so challenging for a lot of us–yet it helps to see our lives in a cheer-view mirror not a rear-view mirror.

It’s a life lesson to realize that as I wrote here and elsewhere we should give ourselves a “life line” for making our goals real instead of an impossible must-do-it-by deadline.

Face it: at 50 a lot of us mourn unrealized dreams. We should be embracing the future and living in the here and now instead. Always an alternative exists that is just as good as the original goal.

I had wanted to get a diploma in image consulting from FIT. This dream disappeared quickly along with my idea to take up running that could’ve been stamped DOA–dead on arrival too.

Whatever happens, we’re not always going to achieve a goal we set. We can end it with grace and move forward with the courage and resilience to choose a new goal.

This is because our lives aren’t over at 50. It’s a myth that EVERYONE diagnosed with schizophrenia dies 25 years earlier. A MYTH. My friend is 72 and has taken SZ meds since he was 13. I kid you not–he’s 72.

The life lesson I give readers is to not give up on yourself or settle for the path of least resistance.

There’s still time to make positive changes and see the benefits of improving your life no matter where you are in your recovery or how far you think you still have to go.

I say: act with grace and kindness towards yourself and others. There’s still far too much ongoing hate and violence in the world. We shouldn’t be giving critics and haters the power to influence how we feel about ourselves.

In the coming blog entries I will continue to talk about recovery at mid life.

 

Non-Traditional Work

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I have famously celebrated Rite Aid cashiers in this blog and elsewhere.

An old SZ magazine news article of years ago talked about what to do if you have negative symptoms or other limitations that make paid employment not viable.

The analogy was that if you like to play guitar you could join a band. If you like to write you can try to get published in literary journals. And so on. And so on.

I have often made the case that only valuing work that contributes to the economic stream in society effectively undervalues people whose humanitarian work–and often the work of recovery–DOES COUNT as a worthy endeavor.

One of my saddest things is that parents with adult kids who are diagnosed with schizophrenia often have to mourn the loss of the son or daughter who isn’t going to be the M.D. or J.D. they hoped.

My contention is: it’s not our parents’ choice that should determine what we do in life.

I’ve been told of a woman who bakes cakes. I’d be willing to take the risk to pay her $100 to bake me cakes to take to a holiday party. Her father is disappointed that all she does is bake cakes. The identities in this story have been changed yet you get the idea.

I don’t value paid employment because I’ve worked with rude or lazy co-workers so I can assure you a robot could do their job better. It’s unfair yet they remain employed. I don’t hold these people up as role models. Ordinary people diagnosed with schizophrenia who get up every day and struggle to get out of bed are my true heroes.

I value the gifts people were given at birth to use to better ourselves and others in the world. Using the gifts we were given and not squandering them is indeed the foolproof way to have a full and robust life–regardless of whether you’re paid to do the work you do.

This is where I’m going to end this series of career blog entries. It seems I’ve detailed this as specifically as I can right now.

Stay tuned for topics in April related to finding joy in living in recovery at mid life.

Creating a Vision Board

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I’m writing a second book that I hope to publish within three years hopefully more like within two years.

One aspect of this I might feature is creating a vision board which I think is useful unlike certain critics of doing this.

My own vision board stands against a wall in the hallway. I tacked to it photos, postcards, and magazine advertisement–along with fortune cookie fortunes like “Fate Loves the Fearless” and “A Goal is a Dream with a Deadline.”

Anything goes in decorating a vision board. You can use a concert ticket, fabric, ribbon, most anything to visually represent a goal you have for your life.

I recommend viewing the board once a week.

While it can become wallpaper, a vision board is also an enduring visual memoir of the person you are and who you aspire to be.

For that, it can’t be beat. The vision board can certainly cheer you every time you see it–like a little thrill to discover yourself and your potential.

The color red and strong women in chic clothes figure in my own board.

This is just an idea for a tool for growth and change. Oprah Winfrey was a big fan of them years ago.

I’d be happy to hear from readers if they created a board.

Goal Setting in Recovery

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I make the case for setting goals. Instead of allowing yourself to be blown in any direction like a weather vane. Setting and reaching towards goals if you ask me is one way to have joy and contentment in life.

It’s possible that a person can be truly happy watching TV all day every day for the rest of their lives. I’m not that person. I’m not going to judge a person who watches TV all day. I’m not going to judge a consumer who is insecure about their abilities in relation to people they think are superstars who have it easy.

This is my point exactly: life isn’t easy. Life can be hard at times. Life is hard for everyone even if they don’t let it show. Taking control by setting goals to work toward gives our lives a purpose and a power greater than our pain.

If you ask me there’s a benefit in “picking the brains” of successful people to see how they did it so that maybe we can learn from them and create our own success in our own way.

The point is that we don’t have to copy that person exactly. We can take ideas and translate them into our own mode.

One example is that I tear out fashion advertisements from magazines and insert them in a fashion binder. I won’t be able to replicate the exact look yet when I go in my closet I can create a similar look or mood with clothes I already own.

In this way too we can fashion a lifestyle that works for us. The Aveeno skincare advertisement tells us: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

This is what I’m saying: we can create a better life for ourselves when we take action every day in the direction of our dreams. That’s goal-setting in its simplest form. It can start by writing down a To-Do List–the simplest form of setting a one-day goal.

I wrote about goal setting at HealthCentral years ago. I’m no longer the HealthGuide there so I won’t link to those news articles. I will continue in here to pick up where I left off there.

Tennis champ Serena Williams I’ll quote here again:

“You have to believe in yourself when no one else does. That makes you a winner right there.”

Like I said it’s possible to start out with the mindset that you can achieve a goal instead of talking yourself out of doing something.

I believe it’s possible to have a full and robust life. I believe that people diagnosed with schizophrenia bipolar and other mental illnesses have the potential to create a better life for ourselves.

I’ll end here by saying that tearing pictures out of magazines is a great way to begin. If you want to move into your own apartment post where you can see it every day a photo of an apartment from an interior design magazine.

Creating a vision board is another way to visualize your goals. I’ll talk about this next.

 

Getting Mentally Strong

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I see things differently.

As the prelude to talking about careers I want to limn the number-one secret to success in recovery and in life: getting mentally strong and engaging in goal-seeking behavior.

I wanted to talk about this after listening to the end of an interview with Amy Morin, LCSW on the radio. She said that mentally strong people refrain from talking about what they can’t do.

The interviewer asked her if this stigmatizes people with mental illnesses. The therapist said “No” because everyone living on earth has potential. Morin referenced Marla Runyan, the legally-blind athlete who competed in and won races in track and field. From Wikipedia:

“Marla Runyan…is a three-time national champion in the women’s 5000 metres.”

Do you really want to compare yourself to other people? Being jealous of other people is not the way to live our lives. We shouldn’t compare ourselves to ordinary, average people because to do that would be lowering our expectation of ourselves to conform to people who aren’t driven to excel.

Think about it: we’re capable on our own of doing great things and setting the world on fire. You and I have it going on in our own way. Other people who are content not to strive to have a better life shouldn’t be our benchmark.

No one else holds us back: only ourselves. I make the case for setting our sights higher and dreaming bigger and setting challenging goals.

To this end in here I’m going to talk about setting goals in the next blog entry.

My secret is simple. Instead of telling myself “That’s impossible!” or “I won’t be able to do that!” my first automatic response is “How can I make this happen if I really want it?”

I urge readers to take up this question: “How can I make this happen?”

Imagine: a woman who was blind competed and won in track and field.

3-Point Guide to Mood-Boosting Food

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I have developed a 3-point list of what I think makes sense when choosing what food to eat:

Eat well–you’ll feel better.

East mostly food that comes from God’s green Earth.

The best stuff on earth truly comes from Earth.

Not a bottle or frozen box. Pass on chemical-laden drinks and foods with unnatural “natural flavors.”

Nix sugar.

Remember: sugar is sugar wherever it comes from. Refrain from drinking chocolate milk–it has 33 grams of sugar in an 8 oz glass. Not good if you take an atypical medication for schizophrenia or bipolar that can increase the risk of getting diabetes.

Bonus point:

If memory serves it was Michael Pollan who wrote: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

A friend is now going on an eating plan geared to a person with diabetes even though he doesn’t have diabetes. This could make sense as a possible plan for individuals with mental illnesses to adopt.

Lastly: I do NOT endorse drinking sugary sports drinks or Power-Ade type drinks. Not at all. Nor do I endorse drinking Red Bull or other type energy drinks. I DON’T endorse eating power bars of any kind except every so often in a crunch when you have nothing else available. And the shakes available at gyms aren’t the most healthful option either. I only have a shake once or twice a month.

The goal is to remember that when you eat light and healthful there’s almost no restriction so you’re not depriving yourself: you can then have a pastry every so often.

The 80 Percent Guide

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Pamela Peeke, M.D. in her book Body for Life for Women talks about her Mind-Mouth-Muscle trifecta for obtaining optimal health through the four Milestone periods of our lives.

Her foolproof advice is to follow her eating plan 80 percent of the time. That’s right: you can eat healthful food 80 percent of the time and that’s perfectly okay according to Peeke.

I don’t follow her eating plan to the letter because you have to remember the right combinations of food to eat. If you photocopied the pages with the eating plan and committed to reviewing it every day so that you could choose from it: you might start to remember the plan without looking at the pages.

Stellar advice she gives is that eating too much of any food even healthful food is not good. If you eat better food and choose quality over quantity you will also save money because you’re not buying as much food.

I don’t eat a lot of food. I try to switch up: eat organic Fuji apples when they’re available, pears and raspberries and other fruit when it’s in season (because in-season fruit IS cheaper.)

Buying seasonal produce is cheaper so it makes sense to do this. Yet I buy organic bananas year-round and I do eat bananas.

The 80 percent guide makes sense to me. I can’t resist the macarons at a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop. Or every so often I will have a chocolate crepe. There you go.

Keeping a food log and writing down what you eat for two weeks is a great way to keep track of what you’re eating if you want to lose weight. The equation is simple: burn more calories than you consume.

Life isn’t always easy and doesn’t always go as planned. That’s when it makes sense to forgive ourselves and move on and recommit to healthful eating.

I want to quote an advertisement in Women’s Health magazine. Jillian Michaels the trainer is pushing Krave jerky in it. I don’t recommend eating any kind of jerky or beef or meat at all. If a person does only one thing, not eating meat would be the one thing to do.

While I don’t endorse any products at this time the advertisement is right-on about the reality of life. I didn’t read the rest of the advertisement because as soon as I saw the word jerky I didn’t think the product could be healthful.

Here’s the tag line:

“I’m going to do the best I can given what I have today. I’ll never settle.”

I’ll end here with those words. They’re so apt for what happens when our lives take a turn and we have to ride out a hard time:

“I’m going to do the best I can given what I have today. I’ll never settle.”

The Mediterranean Table

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I want to return to talking about nutrition. I recommend buying or installing on your device The Mediterranean Table cookbook-and-nutrition guide.

Right now I consider it the best book of its kind ruling over any of the others I’ve reviewed. Angelo Acquista, M.D. shares detailed info about themost healthful foods in an engaging, simple, easy-to-read fashion.

Read only this Mediterranean Diet book if you read no other–it’s that good. I can’t help be proud–after all, I’m Italian.

Circa 1993 I bought and read the original Mediterranean Diet book. This so-called “diet”–actually a sane eating plan–has been around forever.

With this time-tested way of eating I ask you: why do most people go on any of the fad or extreme diets outlined in the endless glut of diet books at the library?

Have some filet of sole oreganata with a side of broccoli rabe. Keep the portions slim.

That’s the secret right there: you don’t need to eat meat and [white] potatoes.

You want to impress an Italian [or other] woman on a date: cook a simple meal of pasta with tomato-basil sauce and a salad of kale and cherry tomatoes with a squirt of olive oil and vinegar or olive oil and lemon.

Perfetto.

Mourning and Moving Forward

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The stages of grief can happen at any time. There’s not always or often a quick start-stop to bereavement. The reality of this ongoing nature is what’s so unconscionable about leaving older adults and senior citizens with mental health conditions in the dust when their elderly parents are gone.

The Stages of Grief

I will use the diagnosis as an example–yet mourning any kind of loss is likely at any time in our lives. The day our loved ones are gone is possibly the most sad time of all. The stages of grief can happen at any time.

Shock:

You’re not fully conscious of what has happened.

Denial: You cannot believe that the loss is real.

Anger:

You wonder: “Why this illness? Why me?”

Bargaining:

You attempt to maintain the status quo even though it is no longer possible and you can’t go on the way things were before.

Depression: You can no longer deny the truth of the loss.

Acceptance: You have had time to work through these stages and it is here you come to terms with the loss. You take action to move beyond it.

Grieving is a natural and healthy response to your diagnosis and the circumstances of your changed life. It is by mourning the past that you clear the way to a brighter future.

Living in anger for the rest of your life is no way to live. Anger takes a lot of energy to maintain. It keeps you stuck. Working through your anger can motivate you to make positive changes.

It’s truly possible to have a better life after some of us get sick than we had before.

Like any loss we have to mourn there’s also not always a quick start-stop to the hard time we experience after we get a diagnosis.

“Move along” we must as the All-American Rejects sing in their modern rock song.

Moving along often takes time. It’s often a long and winding road we go down.

Yet remember this: our loved ones will always be with us even after they’re gone.

An Appointed Time for Everything

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There is an appointed time for everything,

and a time for every affair under the heavens.

A time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to tear down, and a time to build.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them;

a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.

A time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

A time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to be silent, and a time to speak.

A time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace.

 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8