I'm sorry...

Willow--I haven't read through the whole thread, I was just wondering if you've been on APs ever and how did u feel on them? I don't see what anybody would achieve by faking sz. I don't think I understand maybe? Weren't u diagnosed when u were at the university? Sorry I just don't understand and want to be supportive if I can....

I like the quote, thanks! At the moment, I am just keeping quiet and so far there has been no more mention of the GP...phew!

Thanks for taking the time to read and post Sunshine. I was never diagnosed as sz, but sza bipolar type (one of many diagnoses over the years, most of the time I was at Uni). The thread has moved on quite a bit since the first post and, while I'm not sure if I've faked it or not, I'm not doing anything about it right now. I was going to go back to Uni cos I'd get a better job and pay more tax and my Mum calls that 'paying it forward', though I don't know if that would ever be enough if I faked the whole thing...

Anyway the current concern dominating my thoughts are about subjectivity and meaning. I have been on 3 APs in the last few years: risperidone, aripiprazole/Abilify and quetiapine/Seroquel, along with a combination of quetiapine and aripiprazole. Risperidone was a no go. The first 2 days I felt so calm, but didn't give a cr@p about anything, and then became a zombie who couldn't talk, even on 0.5mg, so stopped after a week. Aripiprazole helped with the voices, but not the things I were told were delusions. And quetiapine was a complete waste of months of my time that just made me fat. I do not feel they would be helpful at all given that I have been told that I have never been psychotic and I have no desire to gain any more weight.

I started my voluntary craft group today at the MH drop in centre. It was scary, but I did it. I honestly don't understand what my parents are so concerned about?! On Friday they were talking about me ending up sectioned again if I didn't take meds and/or see a T, but that is catastrophising because we cannot predict the future. And it is highly unlikely because that would involve the same set of people who said I was faking the whole thing changing their mind about me faking and deeming me a danger to myself or another. My concerns are existential, not MI, and while at times I wish that I could cease to exist, I have no intention of hurrying things along at all. I don't understand why they are being so dramatic!

*Willow*

I think I'm going to go back to Uni anyway. I know that it's just an illusion of purposefulness, but it's socially acceptable so I won't have to lie about what I'm doing with my life, and being productive makes me feel better about myself.

That decision does bring a whole load of stress with it though. The biggest one being finding a Max-friendly place to live in the small catchment area for my old GP. I want to move back there for a number of reasons, but the main ones being I don't feel safe anywhere new (not that I'm actually 'safe' anywhere because they always know where I am 24/7, but I feel less anxious in familiar places), and, because my parents are insisting I have a pdoc in place in case things 'go wrong', I would want to live in the area that my old pdoc covers, because he listened: even if I have no respect for his profession, I respect him as an intelligent man.

The next biggest one is that the MH people at the Uni keep hassling me about applying for funding: they can only support me if I get a grant from the Govt to pay them. I contacted the grant people, but they want a new application done, which will require a supporting doctor's letter stating that I have a MI, and the whole thing puts me in an ethical quandary. I found it helpful seeing a MH support worker each week of term because it was someone to talk to and because we would make a plan of what I was going to do work-wise each week, and that would motivate me because I felt organised and I didn't want to have to go back the following week and admit that I hadn't done anything...but does that justify the expense? Do I really need that support? Do I deserve that support?

I don't have a MI label. I don't think I have a MI. I don't think my existential concerns coupled with laziness and an inability (not as in can't, but as in won't) to cope with the normal stresses of everyday life deserves an illness label to validate it, or special treatment to get through Uni. It doesn't feel right to me to ask my GP to lie and say I have a MI when the truth is that I'm just too lazy and stupid to manage the course without special treatment. So then I don't deserve to get a MSc, and I'm just wasting a lot of money to fail again, so I shouldn't go...but I sort of want to go. And if I'm just lazy then I don't deserve to get paid benefits and I should just get a job. Loads of people do jobs they hate just so they have money to survive, and it's not fair that I'm taking their taxes because I'm too lazy to do the same...

I just go round in circles

I know it's very repetitive to read and this thread started weeks and weeks ago so I should've reached some kind of conclusion by now, but I haven't and I don't know what to do. Some part of me wants to have a MI label because I don't want to be the kind of person who fakes something like this and who has defrauded the Govt and who they spy on so they can (deservedly) send me to jail. And it would validate my laziness and coping failures into symptoms rather than character weaknesses...who wants to be a pathetic excuse for a human being when you could call it an illness that's not your fault?! But I don't think that's true. I don't think I have a MI. The CMHT said I don't have a MI, and even though psychiatry is not an objective science, they're supposed to be able to tell. So I should stop all this MI nonsense; benefits, Uni support, trying to understand myself, even posting here...but the thought of all of that makes me cry. I wish I could read the messages written by each tear as it falls down my cheek to know it's reason, but life is hard and crying is not abnormal, so why does it matter?!

I'm lost in a maze with no map and no signposts

*Willow*