Columns

A psychiatric condition by itself doesn't necessarily make a person "disabled." Millions of Americans suffer from depression or other conditions, and often they do not wish to see a doctor for it. Usually, they can work, interact, and function in society despite their condition. For some, the mental condition contrarily makes them do better. Depression can cause a person to try harder. Eventually the person is taking refuge within effort. This creates a workaholic who often does better in life than someone who is more balanced. The depressed, driven person may feel miserable, but they may end up with more achievements. 

In my case, I'm hindered by the condition and by the medication that I have no choice about taking, which treats the condition. If there were any way I could possibly get by without medication, I would do so. Medication for a psychotic disorder allows function with a semblance of normal. Yet it restricts brainpower. The only reason I can write fairly well is that I have repetitively etched that neural pattern into my brain. If you put numerous hours into something over a period of decades, you'll get good at it regardless of taking brain restricting medication. 

If you were missing a leg and played badminton every day for three hours, and if you did this for ten years, you'd be the champion badminton player even though you might have to get around the court on one leg or possibly with a prosthesis. Effort and practice almost never fail. 

On medication, there are a lot of things that are out of reach. I'd say that I and millions of others with a psychotic illness are hindered by medication as much as we are hindered by symptoms of a mental illness. Medication if it were given to a normal person would make them disabled. A person who needs medication is helped by many of its characteristics, while other effects of the medication create additional impairment. Thus, a medicated mentally ill person gets a double whammy. Not only do we have to deal with symptoms, we also must deal with how the medication limits the entire brain and central nervous system. 

Medication can make it painful to concentrate. Brief periods of concentration with frequent breaks are less uncomfortable. However, on antipsychotics, sustained concentration can become very painful and, in some instances, can't be done. Academic or technical material, or heavy literary material, are hard to read, much less write, even for the ordinary unimpaired person. For someone who takes antipsychotics, the level of study expected by college may not be possible. (But if you respect yourself, you won't be stopped by me saying this, or by anyone saying you can't do something.) 

If a person on antipsychotics is on a fairly low dosage and can put forth ample amounts of effort, if their intelligence is naturally high despite the disability--and if they are young, they could achieve most of the same things as an unimpaired person. The impairment of medication is not absolute, and neither is the impairment of the illness. Readers with a disability should not be discouraged from trying. 

Part 2 

I'm in my fifties and I've lost a lot of the capabilities I've had when younger, due to the cumulative effects of being medicated and other environmental factors. When you get older and you are a "geriatric psychiatry client" like me, your options and your abilities have become less, due to burnout and/or atrophy. 

If you feel that your brain can't do very much, you could still try to do creative, clever things that are not so brain intensive. Not all human pursuit involves massive amounts of brainpower and/or massive athletic ability. You could practice at something that could at first be considered useless. But then you could figure out ways to turn it into money. 

Colonel Sanders invented his fried chicken with eleven herbs and spices--and became a multimillionaire in his old age. Rodney Dangerfield got his first big break as a comedian at age forty-three. Neither person was necessarily a brainiac. They were both clever. 

(Tangentially: to make it big with your unique idea or your unique invention, you need to have the know how to move in fast and maneuver rapidly to a position of dominance. Facebook is a nice idea. But having the idea and becoming a multibillionaire from it are two different things.) 

If you did sculptures or paintings, it might be that with no significant training, you could make something that people will admire. 

Older mentally ill people need a lot of peace and quiet, and we are not able to survive rough conditions. We need a place to call our own, a home, or an apartment. If we have that, and if we have time on our hands, we can create something. 

If we do not have a space to call our own, and if we do not have any assets or any resources, there isn't much we can do until we create that. A bed in a shared bedroom, meals provided, medication handed to you, supervision given, and your money handled by someone else, comprise extreme levels of restriction. It is better than being on the street and trying to survive the elements. That's all I can say for it. If I were in that position, I'd get computer access at the library and do some work from there. A shared computer, however, has a number of problems that you must overcome. But there are some things that you could do. 

As you can tell by reading this, I am still at the stage of trying to make something happen. When it does, I'll let you know.