Coming to Terms with RealityNEW YORK CITYVOICES: November/December 2001
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By Sarah Rand
In 1982, I attempted suicide at college. Since then, I was hospitalized several times, both inpatient and outpatient, and lived for a few years in supported housing. My early behavior, including self-destructive acts and difficulty with intimacy, indicated a diagnosis of Borderline Personality. But when several psychotic episodes occurred making everybody realize I was out of touch with reality, my diagnosis was changed to schizo-affective disorder. When delusional I typically developed a crush on a man in a position of power in school or work or in a treatment setting. If the man got angry with me or said something, which implied he was not in love with me, I got really disappointed and, almost overnight, began to believe he and I would be married.
One way I coped with my delusions was by assuming that everybody else believed in my delusions too. I became frustrated, confused and angry anyway. Why wasn’t anybody talking about my supposed “wedding,” which, according to my delusions everyone knew about? Then I exploded and my psychotic thoughts came out and everybody could see that my reality was different from their reality.
My recovery really started when I became distraught enough to express my beliefs. All of a sudden my thoughts were identified as psychotic and my doctors could see what my illness was really about. I’ve experienced psychosis of this type with teachers, doctors and bosses. It’s hard to get away from because I am always in a community setting where there are people in different roles, each with expectations of proper behavior. The reason I had so much trouble functioning at all when acutely ill was that I could never understand how to behave in a world where nobody else believed what I did.
I have relied on medication and psychotherapy to help me graduate both college and graduate school with honors. Since 1991, I have been employed full time as a secretary. Medication helps my perceptions to be more accurate. In the community, I spend my days with other people, both fellow consumers and non-consumers. I interact with others and together accomplish things based on the ideas we share. Now I see what the world sees, but I can still choose to form my own creative ideas that I express in forms such as creative writing.
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