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Treatment practitioners do not have a mandate and probably do not have an incentive to be invested in the success of those they treat. Proper clinical work seems to consist of good documentation of how sick a person supposedly is, how hopeless we are, to what extent our inappropriate behavior can be remediated, and to what extent not. Documentation is everything. It keeps the money rolling in. It demonstrates that work is apparently being done. It shows how the sick people can be kept under restriction, and, if not, where to funnel the person into the criminal justice system, as well as how to do that. 

Second to documentation is clinical technique. This is where, mostly through dialog, a patient's wild ideas of doing something in the world can be bobbed. And it is a method for neutralizing a person's anger or other difficult emotions, those that could make someone difficult to manage. 

Our success in life? Our happiness? It doesn't seem to enter the picture. If we want to be helped in gaining better living conditions for ourselves, we must sell ourselves to treatment professionals, and we must demonstrate that we want to do good, perhaps great things--and that we could be capable of accomplishing that. Yet not all treatment professionals will greet this with enthusiasm. On the other hand, if we can show that we are both constructive and unstoppable, more will join our side. 

On our side of the work, we need to be invested in our own success, irrespective of other agendas of treatment practitioners. This will be helped by keeping our appointments as much as possible. It will be helped by being medication compliant. But it will also be helped by seeking enlightening experiences outside of the treatment system. For example, interaction with teachers at a Buddhist temple. Or, if that doesn't work for you, you could go on a trip to Barnes and Noble and look at some books. If broke, there is also the library, which loans books free of charge--you have to bring them back on time. 

The internet is essentially limitless. But we should realize that it does not replace those outside experiences. People contact is difficult to pursue in our present-day period of coronavirus; and this can create stress. 

Defying my prognosis in my twenties meant learning more electronics, beyond what I had learned as a young hobbyist, and turning that knowledge into the ability to repair televisions and make money at it. I didn't make a lot because I wasn't good enough or fast enough with the repairs. Yet the work conditions were far better than those in unskilled jobs. And I had interactions at work that made my personality more rounded out. I needed that. (And I still need more of that.) 

In my initial prognosis, given when I first became ill, I was told I could probably do "fairly well for a while." This apparently meant that the psychiatrist believed I could do janitorial work until a bit older, at which time...I don't know, because the doctor didn't say. It was supposedly a better prognosis than the one for my older brother who had become schizophrenic at the same age. 

In the case of both my brother and me, we have exceeded our prognoses, especially as we've gotten older. Schizophrenia is said to ease up when you get older if you can survive that long.  

However, the view of many psychiatrists is that people with schizophrenia don't have much going for us between the ears. We are perceived as extremely limited people. The reader should realize the symptoms limit what we can handle, yet the symptoms are like a yoke limiting a person who would otherwise be much greater. If we can work around the symptoms, we may have the potential to do great things. 

I resented the prognosis I'd been given and those who gave it. This challenged me to do better. I decided that I am a highly intelligent and capable person whether the world acknowledges this or not. I've been determined not to become molded by others' false beliefs about me. 

High I.Q. people with mental illness have it rough because we feel capable of great things, but we keep getting knocked down by the folly produced by the illness, and by other people's prejudgments. 

Should you defy your prognosis? Or should you accept it? If you decide it isn't good enough to live according to the definitions of others, you could be in for a rougher ride than otherwise. It isn't always for the faint of heart. Additionally, while on your quest to do great things, you should include a dose of realism. Yet, your version of realism could differ from that of the people who gave you a prognosis.