I rarely talk about my mother's illness publicly, as I think she feels embarrassed for people to know about it. However, I know that it's because of the stigma that goes with mental illness, and as a way to fight against that stigma I feel it's my place to educate those who may not know all the facts about schizoaffective disorder.
SD is a mental illness that involves the hallucinations and delusions of Schizophrenia, combined with mood disorders like bipolar disorder. It's treatable, but not curable yet.
The stigma that goes along with just the schizophrenic part of this disease is frustrating enough. Schizophrenia is not "multiple personalities". It's also twice as common as HIV/AIDS.
My mother suffers from this disease, and while she's normal 99% of the time thanks to her medicine, every once in a while her body builds up an immunity to her medicine and it has to be adjusted. Sometimes this requires a hospital stay. The last couple of days she's not been doing so good and I worry about her constantly. I'm praying that she won't have to go back into the hospital. Any prayers would be appreciated.
For anyone that wants to learn more about mental illness, check out www.nami.org. NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Also, I'm feeling very stressed out about school. I thought I wouldn't have to be paying back my student loans until I graduated, but I'm already having to make payments a year before I graduate. And I thought that since I got $998 back from financial aid money, that I was covered and wouldn't owe anything else for this payment period, but I just received a bill for over $3,500. Its not due until March and I'm calling monday to see if I can make payments. If not I'll have to take out a loan, which will be frustrating. I'm glad I got this job at The Voice because I couldn't have been able to make these payments before. When the cafe sells and I get my backpay it will go towards paying for school either way.
I'm trying to stay positive through prayer and the support of my loved ones. It helps to have a blog to vent it out to.
"Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." 2 Timothy 2:3
I don't pray but I will and hope that it helps. I really mean that. I'm going to write this on my own blog soon but try to see bad situations as defining ones. Ones that make you wiser, stronger. I don't know what will happen in the future, but I have complete faith that you will be fine. Take care.
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