I still feel like this guy. Seeking, searching for someone else who gets it. Who wants to talk about it and get into it.

Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 9:14 AM, Miguel Manalo mmanalo@gmail.com wrote:

Hello Emily,

I really liked your talk with Paul Gilmartin on his podcast this past week. I learned a little more about what exactly schizophrenia is and what symptoms are like and I learned that there are varying levels of severity. I’m scared to research that sort of stuff on my own because I’m scared of what I’ll find out.

My mother has schizophrenia and I have been so consumed these past few weeks (since the start of 2013) with the dread of maybe I’ll end up like her. I feel a lot of guilt for not being more helpful when I was younger (I am 24 now). Her brothers and sisters (my aunts and uncles) would always ask me to take care of her but doing that and growing up and dealing with my parents' divorce was hard to do. We eventually got a restraining order on my mother about a year ago because she kept coming to the house (my father’s house) and wouldn’t leave for hours without talking to either me or my sister and talking to her is really hard.

I wrote to you in August 2012 and you made me feel heard and spurred me to talk to a counselor here at my college in NJ. He is so great and I look forward to my hour with him every week. He told me that in his professional opinion he doesn’t see signs of schizophrenia in me and that I am leaving the window for when it would occur but I’m still scared.

On a recent Indoor Kids you talked about the game “Depression Quest” and that made me feel like maybe I was depressed and my depression may be getting in the way of my studies. The ‘emotionally healthy’ options crossed out in red in the game and the less healthy choices your left with made me feel like I was looking at my own brain and the choices I give (and not give) myself. I’ve been scared about talking to the school psychiatrist about medication because it seems scary that my brain is off and needs some help. I’ve tried journaling 750 words freestyle everyday, exercising consistently every week, meditating for 20 minutes a day, hugging my dog multiple times a day, reaching out to my support network and going out and talking to new people, but this dread and hate of the major I’ve chosen (accounting) and fear of what my genetics might turn me into turn up the volume of the critic in my head and he wins. I want to talk to friends about this but like you said on the show, maybe sometimes I’m too much, too raw and I get that is unfair to people sometimes to make them have to be my sounding board in an intense way.

I have my appointment with the psychiatrist tomorrow morning. I’m nervous and scared and excited.

I think my fear and guilt and all those complex emotions have been getting in the way of me finishing up this last semester of undergrad. I’m worried that my missed assignments and half-assed written assignments and half-assed online quizzes are too poor for me to turn around and turn into a passing C grade.

Um, I guess my question is: What other things can I do to feel less alone and more connected?

Thank for for encouraging me again to get back into talk therapy and for making this lonely guy feel listened to by someone he respects.

Miguel Manalo

Your Mental Illness Happy Hour appearance

Ask Gynomite <> Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 3:12 PM

To: Miguel Manalo mmanalo@gmail.com

Hi there. Thank you for writing and I’m so glad you’re already taking steps to protect yourself. I have a couple of things for you in no specific order:

  1. I don’t know if you’ve done drugs (I don’t recommend doing a ton with your genetic background), but in the same way that if you think you’re going to have a bad trip, you WILL have a bad trip, don’t focus too much on your fear that you will develop more severe symptoms. Instead, focus on all the ways that you are not schizophrenic (the fact that you’re making so many self-care decisions for yourself is a great start). I play a game with my genetics where I try to kinda make fun of them, and exert my own will over them. When I feel myself getting in an anxious rut, I go “Oh come on, dumb ass DNA, I don’t have time for this”. It sounds weird, but it works for me.

  2. Seeing a psychiatrist today is fantastic. Always keep a psychiatrist and therapist on hand- as great as podcasts and reaching out to people like myself may feel, having someone actually work with you professionally is what you need. It’s another way you take care of yourself.

  3. I always recommend people get involved in some kind of volunteer work. You may think you don’t have time for it, but you do, and it’s really helpful to get you outside of your own head for a while and into the problems of other people. I also recommend support groups for people with depression, or family members of people with mental illness. You are not alone in being scared of your genetics.

Good luck to you!

Emily