living in a group home

I've been wanting to write a  blog for several days but I've had full body pain and insomnia making it difficult. It's very hard for me to organize thoughts after not sleeping well. I don't know why I have such pain. My psy thinks it might be depression related. Can your body really hurt this much just b/c your depressed tho?

I've been wanting to write about group homes. I've already taken my sleep meds but couldn't sleep so I hope this all makes sense. 

When I got out of the hospital for the first and only time, I was sent to a  group home. It was 24 hr 'care.' Previous to this I had been living on my own independently for 12 years. Some times with roommates, most of the time alone. It is a massive shock to the system to go from being a independent 32 yr old, to being hospitalized, to living in a group home where basically you have zero freedom. My disability pension was taken away to cover the cost of the housing, I then received a 90$ 'care package' installment each month. How is anyone supposed to live off 90$ a month? This is justified by saying meals are provided. However the meals were not exactly filling or balanced. I would use my 90$ to buy food-which was then promptly stolen every time by other residents no matter how hard I tried to hide it in the fridge. They were spending all their money on cigs. You can't often go out to eat on a 90$ budget per month either. I also needed to buy toiletries and clothes.

This home was all girls who were quite...I don't know how to put it. I think a lot of them on top of having mental illness had mental retardation. They were extremely difficult to talk to. Some as if they had never talked to anyone before. Others just can't carry a thought. Some just snobby as well I suppose. Even tho I still had psychosis I was much better off then these girls. They were all obsessed with pop music like gaga and blasted it all day and night. This is not my style at all. I was desperate to get out. It was making my mental state worse to be with these girls in such small quarters. There was more to it of course. They would watch murder shows all the time. In my psychosis I thought any violence I saw would happen to me as well. I was stuck on the main floor with these people. Even if I wasn't in the tv room there was no where to go to get away from it. Not even outside b/c it was winter and freeeeeeeezing. A lot of the time they would have the tv blasting and the cd blasting at the same time and didn't bother them a bit. I was going through a time where I really needed quiet. there were also set meal times and bedtimes. I felt like I was being treated like a 4 year old. Breakfast and lunch weren't even made for us-so why a set meal time? We were not allowed out of our bedrooms (which were shared)  for any reason at night.Someone would come in our room and shine a flashlight in our eyes waking us up every single night.

I was scared of my roommate. I'm unclear of what she did but she was sent to the big institution for a crime against someone else. I'm assuming physical violence b/c of a phone conversation I over heard. I was having psychosis about being murdered before I even moved in and they paired me with her. She defiantly was having psychosis of some kind and had possibly tried to or did kill someone. She was not fully discharged from the hospital. She lived part time there still. As much as I get mad at people who assume schizophrenics are violent I have to admit I've been scared of some.


The biggest problem I had was that no one acknowledged my lack of freedom and what a big change it was.  They thought I should be grateful to be there. I find that people who work in group homes don't expect you to have the same kinds of dreams that they have for yourself. I had the feeling that when I talked to them about what was normal for a 30-something to be doing with their life it was always 'but not for your kind' No one talked to me about the trauma of finding out you have schizophrenia or losing your freedom and home. They just expect you to adjust in 5 mins b/c how dare you have dreams for yourself anyway?

The most disturbing thing I saw was a girl who was moving from another group home into ours had changed her mind on move in day. She showed up with her stuff (which would not fit in our tiny shared rooms) and decided she wanted to move on her own-which she had been told would happen after living two years at this other group home. The staff then changed their minds and said they would not help her get housing except for another group home. While she was waiting for her parents to pick her up the staff and support staff gave her a lecture that she needed to stay. They said if people didn't want to move into these homes they would lose their jobs. They pounded this into her trying to guilt her into moving in. No compassion for this girls feelings or what she had been promised or what was best for her-just the staffs concerns for themselves. The girls left with her stuff making sure they knew she was not moving in. Well the group home told welfare she was moving in and when she tried to rent some where else she was denied her disability money b.c it had gone to pay rent at the group home when she was not living there.

I will write about the 2nd group home another time.

filmed

I was doing exceptional on abilify for months-now there are some cracks. On Monday I was waiting in my parents car for them to come out of a store. I started to wonder if the car was hooked up with cameras so they could spy on what I do when they are not around. It seemed completely normal to me to think this for several hours. I began to question it. Is this the normal thing for people to do? Or is it not something people do? My mind gets confused.

I didn't go into my psy on Thursday. Every time I have an important place to be I can't sleep the night before. I was also having another health problem as well. She called me on the phone unhappy I wasn't at the appt. She said she 'needed to get a look at me.' She was worried about the car cameras. I don't know if I should be worried or not. Yes I shouldn't have thought those things-but within a few hours I had figured out I was wrong. That's a good thing-insight.

I'm having trouble budgeting money. My parents even gave me extra money this month but it's gone and am running out of some groceries. I'm using money I should have used for my utilities bill. I'm going to cut off my utilities for a short bit then sign up with a cheaper company. I dread the stress of workmen from two different companies coming in my apartment. I hate having people in here. It's going to be an uncomfortable time. I think the budgeting is a sign of my mental health not being at it's best. I'm usually very responsible and don't let myself have extras.

The kitchen looked like it was on an episode of hoarders yesterday. I had to order pizza b/c there was no way to cook. I couldn't make heads or tails of it and I just kind of shut down and couldn't deal with it. I get very stressed out with clutter. esp. if it's dirty. I made some headway in there today.

The only good news is my tomato plants have tiny green tomatoes on them now. This is the first time I've grown tomatoes and I usually have a black thumb.

ideas again

So my mind is going but I'm having creative ideas again.

I think it is true when they say people with mental illness are more creative than 'normals.' The more out of it I get the more ideas I get for art and writing. After starting medication I did not draw or write anything until around 1 1/2 weeks ago. I started the meds in Sept. 2009. I don't really know how to finish any of the writing I've started-that has always been a big problem for me. Ideas can rain down but at some point you need the endings to come to you. So this is the good news.

The bad news. With this comes the fear that I may slip back into psychosis so bad that I'm unable to look after myself or recognize that I'm sick. Every time I slip I think of this. I finally have a apt I can afford after being in a  group home; before that the hospital; before that a basement suite that was so much I couldn't afford my own groceries. I had to go to the food bank. It was the cheapest suite I could find and I only had 2 days to find a place. I do live in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I'm settled now and I don't want anything to change.

Some of the things I'm dealing with:

voices, the feeling bugs are on me, hearing random things, fear of being secretly video taped as well as some others. To be honest if I had the assurance these things wouldn't get worse I could live with them. Before meds I lived with this stuff for years. It's not the little things it's hitting the bottom. I'm sort of prepared to go to my psy tomorrow and tell her I don't want to change my meds. I'll just live with this stuff and see where it goes. I don't know if that's wise or not. I'm afraid to see where it goes but I want to be creative. What to do?

goals

After my last blog I decided I need to try harder with writing and art. Maybe things just wont come to me the way they have in the past. Maybe working harder for it will? I have a small sketchbook and old journal with which to write something or draw something everyday. The writing can not be about me-only characters outside of myself.
When I was psychotic I threw away all my art and writing I had been collecting my entire life. I remember vaguely a few fantasy pieces of writing I could pick up on. That might ease me into this again. Or should I start new? I don't know. Time will tell. 
I feel like this is something essential I have to do for myself-but I doubt my psy would understand it. Most people wouldn't understand it thinking it's just me being lazy and focusing on 'hobbies.'

On a different note in a earlier blog I talked about my new eating plan which I'm happy to say I have stuck to! (there have been a  few treats here and there) I really feel better after adding veg to half my diet.

no art and hallucinations

Since starting medication I have not done any creative writing. I started meds in 2009. Before that I had one story published in an anthology. It has always been my dream to be a writer/painter but it seems like that has been taken away. I feel no creativity anymore and it used to come so easily. When I try to paint nothing comes out even partially right. It's as if I've never painted before. Has anyone else experienced this? I think this is one of the reasons when I was diagnosed I felt as if I really lost myself. Things I thought were real for 17 years were no longer real. I began to like different foods. My passions in life were gone. My outlet in writing vanished. My drive wiped out.

I've been having hypnagogic (sp?) hallucinations. This is when you experience hallucinations while waking up or falling asleep. It's not related to schizophrenia and apparently 37% of the populations has them. This makes me wonder why no one talks about them. Is there so much stigma around hearing voices and seeing things that a disorder that affects 37% of the population can't be discussed? Mine has been minor things from hearing voices to more serious things like seeing a man in my bedroom. That one was scary b/c I really thought it was real.