Hi Donna,

I'm going to answer your questions first and then answer the other questions.

I also know a guy who has SZ, it takes him a long time to get going in the morning, he gives himself pep talks too.  He decided to go to work because he feels better about himself when he has something to do during the day.  So he works a part-time job and collects his government disability check.

That is the long lead-in to the truth that it isn't for any of us and I understand how hard it could be for you.  Sometimes I don't take a shower in the morning if I feel I can get away with this and I stay in bed longer and sometimes stay in bed writing in the journal before I get up.

I understand yes I do how you feel.  The diagnosis of schizophrenia itself is a lump of hard rocks to swallow.  We're supposed to swallow the rocks with little or no support from the outside world.

I recommend you consider attending the support group you talked about.

I turn 50 in three years and I find myself wondering how stable I will remain in my recovery throughout my life.

The trick that is easier said than done is to live in the present moment and take each day as it comes.  For a lot of us we have to live hour-by-hour and there is no shame in this.

Years ago I decided I wanted to abolish the concept of normalcy.  It is a rigid assessment of how a person functions.  I hoped that when my memoir is published people will read it and see that I was a person not a symptom and I was an ordinary person who had a terrible thing happen to her and it didn't destroy her.  To show that people like you and I are human beings first.

Your courage and your talent are remarkable.  I can only admire and respect the effort you make to cope with what goes on every day.

I told my first therapist circa 1989 that I wondered if my sanity were like a box held together with bakery string and my sanity were like that string that could be easily unknotted.

A metaphor kind of like your hinge theory.

I am acutely aware of this thin line, the string, the hinge.  It is why I'm grateful for the small things and strive to live happily and humbly in the world.  There's an expression: "just for today" that I feel could help you.

As in: "Just for today I'm going to be okay with where the day takes me."  To have no expectations.

The idea is to pull the string, open the box and eat the cookies.  To enjoy the sanity when you achieve it.  to know that life is not perfect and it's not an all-or-nothing affair.  As in the idea that we must always be well and never feel out of sorts.

You might want to read my Schizophrenia Tactics: Awareness and Mindfulness SharePost that I posted today.

I'm fond of saying I have the discharge papers that prove I was once not normal.  it's an endless swaying hinge for me too: the concept of sane-versus-insane.  that's the reason I titled my memoir Left of the Dial: because by virtue of my diagnosis I was in some ways cast out of society, I live my life Left of the Dial even though I live in the mainstream.

So I give other people a wide latitude to express themselves and I embrace their quirks because I too consider myself to be "Left of the Dial."  is this going off in a tangent?

What I mean to say is that so many outsiders get hung up over this and covet normalcy at all costs.  my question has always been "What is normal anyway and who gets to decide this?"

those of us who live with this internal debate like me and you know all too well about how easy it could be to cross that line.

I guess what I'm trying to tell you is to lighten up and be less hard on yourself.  I'm sure it's not easy for you.

this is what it's like living with schizophrenia: we wonder if we're living up to some ideal, yet that ideal is most likely impossible given what we were given.

I talk about this in the SharePost I linked to for you.

So my solution that I came about in my own life was to recognize and accept that I'm always going to live my life Left of the Dial.

and that means on some days I'm going to wear a hat or a fez or a cap to work because I'm having a bad hair day and don't feel like shampooing.

I will end by saying we all stand on this thin line. You are not alone, you are however the brave one who has come forward to describe something that not many people dare put to words. I can only praise you and cheer you on.

Regards,

Christina