Ways to avoid relapses.
You definitely want to keep away from people who may cause a mental trigger, or a person,
place, or thing.
Know your limitations ahead of time, about what sets you off.
For instance, specific family members in my family trigger my disease.
It just drives me up a wall that I can't get a certain amount of affection from my mother,
from my brother, from my sisters.
What I do is I love them from afar I see them when I do see them, I love them, and I give
them all my best.
But, self care, as we mentioned earlier, is key.
Self care is a first step in living a healthy, normal life as a person with schizophrenia,
or a schizoaffective, or bipolar, or something like that.
That's the first step in a clean lifestyle.
For a while, people who had disabilities mentally were often pushed aside, mistreated, abused,
sexually abused, mentally abused because they were just, I don't want to say different,
they were just in their own category of personalities.
So, we must think of ourselves first, as opposed to somebody else's welfare.
I mean, how can a person who has a health disorder think about another person who is
completely "healthy" first?
If I suffer from an ailment, I need a bandage to bandage that wound up.
So, I have to approach the fence from my side of it first.
I can't jump on both sides of the fence.
The expression is called people pleasing.
I'm already sick.
I can't help out another person if I'm not well.
I have to be totally healed or close to being healed before I can heal somebody else.
Avoiding certain people, places, or entities.
Relapses are a crucial part of our recovery, having a mental illness.
Someone doesn't like me and everybody's not going to like me, then that's just something
I have to learn to accept.
My way of taking care of myself is keeping my mind in a positive, spiritual essence.
For instance, my paintings.
I self heal myself, mentally, through painting.
I might go to church.
I might talk to a good, close friend.
I'm spiritual.
I believe that there's something out there greater than myself that can assist me in
any problem.
I have that type of faith.
It's all about self care.
It's all about treating the body as a temple.
I know a lot of my friends who were diagnosed do not like taking their medication.
And there is a certain entity involved in the get well syndrome.
They take their medications for a while.
Life is pretty good so, "Hey, I don't need this medication."
You must take medication.
What I would advise is that you interact with your psychiatrist to the T, explain to them
what is the side effects of your medication.
Honesty in a diagnosis and in therapy sessions is great.
"This is making me feel this way."
"I hear these voices."
'I'm seeing auditory hallucinations."
Don't go into therapy sessions lying, because you're not getting anywhere.
Nine times out of ten I believe the psychiatrist can figure out what's wrong with you anyway
just by looking at you.
Being completely candid with your doctor and building a relationship where there's trust
is most important, where you can disclose information that you just can't disclose anywhere
else.