Three years ago Five years ago I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, after being admitted to psych wards multiple times. Last year I was rediagnosed as being schizoaffective. Since then I’ve gone back to school dropped out of school as I was pursuing my bachelor’s degree in Business Management, restarted my business, put my business on hold, currently I’m a seasonal employee at a major electronics chain I’m looking for a job, writing my book and learning Spanish online. The strikethroughs are there for a reason, to sum it all up in simple terms to let you know as the reader how much I have regressed and how much I have progressed.
I’ve also had lung surgery for pneumonia and empyema, relieved from my job as a district marketing manager, and have had a colonoscopy to determine my ulcerative colitis, which I think I no longer have as I haven’t taken my UC meds for weeks and it is under control. I use a BiPAP machine every night for my sleep apnea. I successfully lost a hundred pounds by going on a very strict diet starting in late summer of 2016. I also walked a lot over the past year and a half. I went from 295 lbs. to 195 lbs. I have put on some weight since then but not so as being close to 300 lbs.
I take about 16 pills a day; anti-psychotics, anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, amphetamine salts, sedatives, among others. I regularly see a psychiatrist, gastroenterologist, pulmonologist, therapist, and have routine checkups with my physician. My physician was the one to tell me how important it is to lose weight as I was borderline diabetic. My uncle promised me 10k worth of gold during the Summer of 2016 if I was able to lose 40 lbs. by the end of the year… I’ve yet to see my pot of goal… LOL… but both were good motivators nonetheless.
Spiritual cleansing: hijama (cupping) and exorcisms have been a big part of my previous three years.
Three years ago I was diagnosed with ADHD. Last year, mid 2017, I was rediagnosed not as a schizophrenic but additionally as schizoaffective, which is a combination of Schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder. I had a psychotic relapse three weeks before the Spring 2017 semester ended.
I love traveling and photography. I’ve been to China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia while being a schizoaffective. It has helped me take back the control that I need in my life and regain my independence.
Adam Abraham is my pen name and it is to protect the privacy of myself, my family, friends, coworkers, etc.
There’s a stigma surrounding mental illness, I’ve run into several people who have jumped thinking that I will kill them when they got to know that I have schizophrenia. Many people are in jail for crimes that were committed based on their mental handicap because mental illness is a taboo. And then, there are those that are left untreated and walk away free after committing mass shootings and genocide. Those are the ones that ruin it for the rest of us as majority of people with mental illness end up hurting themselves more so than abusing or violently attacking others. Trust me I know as I’ve been in and out of psychiatric wards and have met others that inflicted harm on themselves rather than others. Ignorance is the cause of many problems and we need to start paying attention.
I had originally started this blog Summer of 2016. I ended up not renewing my hosting but was able to save my domain. Every post that I had logged had been lost. Thanks to The Wayback Machine and The Internet Archive I will be able to recover some if not most of the work I had written.
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