This inaugural Recovery Café features a conversation between Robin and me about an aspect of recovery from schizophrenia. I came up with the idea of the Café—where two people interview each other—after reading Listening is an Act of Love, the StoryCorps book. In Story Booths across America, people could sit and record conversations into a tape recorder, which were then published in a book. I'd like to do this with two peers, a mother and son, a person diagnosed with schizophrenia and someone he disclosed to, you get the picture. So pour yourself a cup of java, pull up to the computer, and listen in on the dialogue.
CB: Would you like a latte or a cappuccino?
RC: A cappuccino.
CB: So I thought we'd inaugurate this series with a talk about anxiety as it relates to recovery. I know you're on an anti-anxiety medication, and I also have bouts.
RC: Sounds great. You start with anxiety and could go off in a hundred directions.
CB: Tell me how you knew you needed an anti-anxiety medication and what brought that on.
RC: Originally way back 52 years ago when I came down with schizophrenia, I had a lot of anxiety. The basis of it is physiological, and like the schizophrenia, there are triggers that will set off bouts of it. I remember my first attacks came when I was put on medication. I've learned over the years myself and talking with others that medications like neuroleptics often increase anxiety. For a long time there wasn't anything to treat it and what they have now—my daughter suffers from it terribly and we've had a very hard time getting any psychiatrists to prescribe her medication for it. I've fired five or six doctors because they wouldn't do it. I don't blame the psychiatrists because the kinds of meds you use to treat anxiety have been abused in the drug community. People get these drugs and take them without a prescription and doctors—at least in New York City especially—have to be careful about prescribing these things.
CB: How does the medication help?
RC: From about 1967 to 1987 I went for a period of time where I didn't really have any trouble. Then it started up in 1987 for reasons I don't know, and I've been taking the meds ever since. I still have anxiety today. If I wasn't taking medications I'd be anxious all the time, and I don't know but I would be because the anxiety was pretty constant. Right now I get anxious at four o'clock. I take the Xanax-XR at four in the afternoon and four in the morning. By four in the afternoon I'm starting to get anxious again. The drug is time-released so it takes a while to kick in. I generally have anxiety from four o'clock until when I go to bed at night. Sometimes it prevents me from sleeping.
CB: The medication does, or the anxiety?
RC: The anxiety.
CB: So you can talk to me about anything, I'll tell you my experiences. Before I do I want to recommend a great Health Central Web site, www.anxietyconnection.com. I went on it this morning. I fell asleep at 9:15 last night and woke up at five in the morning so had nothing to do before work and decided to tootle around it. The site features Jerry Kennard—an expert at SchizophreniaConnection as well, and other experts and also people living with anxiety. One article talked about how the symptoms come on out of the blue, yet there's always a trigger and if you know what the trigger is, you can deflect from the anxiety by not having an automatic response to it. That's something fascinating. I wonder how you experience the anxiety, is it shortness of breath, dizziness, the feeling you're having a heart attack? Aside from the medication, how do you cope.
