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My diagnosing psychiatrist, Dr. Trachtenberg (I'm not sure that I have the spelling correct and I don't have a first name) in 1982, said that I suffer from "Schizophrenia, Paranoid-type". He said that if I could comply with treatment, it was expected that I could "do fairly well for a long time." He based this on the fact that I'd worked at jobs before I became ill; and he may have seen some other things about me that led him to this prognosis. 

But what does that mean? Does it mean going to college? Does it mean becoming an entrepreneur? No. When a psychiatrist says that a person with schizophrenia can "do well," the ceiling of this is low, such as you could clean toilets without supervision, or you could make scrambled eggs on your own. 

"Do well for a long time..." -it implies that after ten or maybe twenty years of being moderately "high functioning", we might be expected to go defunct in some manner. We could die, we could relapse, we could develop more severe illness, anything that follows a predetermined course. The doctors have the maps. There is no room in their minds for someone who doesn't follow a predicted outcome. I'm basing this impression on how I've been dealt with in the past ten years. 

Apparently, the consensus of treating psychiatrists was that I should continue with the same type of brainless, solitary work I had done before I got ill, a type of work that I knew, deep down, was bad for me and was one of the factors that had made me get sick. The psychiatric belief system is that a patient becomes ill due to the incorrect function in the brain; and supposedly the illness is not related to what you are or aren't doing in life. And the assumption of psychiatrists seems to have always been that mentally ill patients can't do intelligent work. 

The recommendation that I continue with the same work came from an outpatient psychiatrist at the same location as Trachtenberg. He was adamant that I should be treatment compliant. He believed I should do the same work I'd done before, apparently because he didn't want me to deal with something that would be too challenging. 

Before I became ill, I was rejected, in a humiliating, vicious and spiteful manner by peers, young adults who were headed for lives of fabulous success that included going to good colleges, having meaningful romantic relationships, and enjoying all the things considered by most people to be the really good things in life. And certainly, lots of sex, lots of money, and meaningful work are all privileges that not everyone can get. 

At age sixteen and/or seventeen, I was forced out of that circle of supposed friends. Then I went to work in degrading jobs, and my life would have been no more than garbage (as well as dealing with garbage) except that I found another group of people with whom to be friends, good people who accepted me and who were also in the top ten percentile of intelligence for the most part. People who were also socioeconomically high up. Most were middle aged and so there was a mismatch of ages, and that was the main barrier. 

In the work I did, I am referring to environment of being alone and cleaning up in an afterhours scenario. Referring to the those who were good to me, I am speaking of followers of the late Ken Keyes Jr., a spiritual teacher who promoted his own version of Buddhism. I later came to believe Keyes' belief system had some grossly incorrect parts to it. Yet, it saved my life to be around good people who were truly kind. It did not matter so much whether this would have been considered a cult. If it was a cult, it was a very kind, non-forceful, and gentle cult. 

When I relapsed in 1984, the cause of it was not taking medication and my life being threatened when two armed robbers had hidden in a store I serviced. My parents believed I was alone far too much, and this was an unhealthy environment. They had it right. Psychiatrists do not seem to understand the basic fact that if you are diagnosed with Schizophrenia, Paranoid-type, you still need to have meaningful contact with other human beings. And secondly, only having seen me for a few weeks, in the mode of a psychotic person at the very beginning of manhood, does a psychiatrist really have the right to tell me what my limits are? 

Within a few years I gave up on janitor work and received training in electronics, half of which I already knew because of my electronic background: reading and hobby projects I did as a teen. And in 1985, I began my career in repair of home electronics. This already surpassed the scope of my prognosis. Electronics requires brains and it is a category of work an intelligent person can sink her or his teeth into on a pure challenge level. I was fortunate that the place that hired me was tolerant of me being new to the field. And it was fortuitous that my work environment was close to ideal. Within a few years of that first electronic job, I worked for another television repair shop, and I did well at this for about six or eight months. I'd had mononucleosis and I'd kept calling in sick. This wasn't okay with the shop owner who wanted work and not sick days. 

I've always done best in job situations in which the employer has been unaware of me having a disability or working for someone who is not bigoted about it. Being mentally ill today, in the age of information technology, is the electronic equivalent of wearing an arm band, one that states something to the effect that I don't have useful thoughts and I should be ignored or avoided. 

Yet, in the paragraphs above, my accomplishments in the 1980's exceeded my prognosis. And today, in my writing endeavors, it is my belief that most editors don't care that I'm mentally ill; they are simply after good material and workable conduct. 

It seems to be the psychiatrists and those who work in the mental health field who, ironically, create a good chunk of the stigma. I've noticed less of this in recent years, however. I think it is a big mistake for a person with any disability to sell ourselves short. If you are alive, breathing, thinking, and making sense out of the world, why not do something with that? Basic competence is an asset, a renewable asset that can be spent. And the more it is spent, the more there is. 

A doctor may be able to observe that a patient responds to psych meds. The doctors can go ahead with helping me get treated for my mental health condition. Yet, I've taken back "seniority" concerning the direction and level of success I aspire to in my life.