Steadying the Ship: Staying Afloat Amidst Stress with Schizophrenia

Navigating the stormy seas of stress is a voyage I'm all too familiar with, especially as someone living with Paranoid Schizophrenia. On my latest podcast episode, Schizophrenia as I Live it, I, Diana Dirkby, recount a chapter of my life where stress loomed like an uninvited guest, knocking on the door of my mental stability. During this candid discussion, I peel back the curtain on my recent struggles with a barrage of unforeseen stressful events. I share the intimate details of how I managed to maintain my equilibrium, employing a strategy that involved meticulous prioritization of tasks and a keen awareness of my need to occasionally retreat into relaxation and distraction.

Medication, often a cornerstone of managing my condition, served as a faithful ally in the battle against stress-induced relapse. Yet, it's the delicate dance of staying abreast of responsibilities while vigilantly protecting my well-being that I believe can resonate with many of you. This episode isn't just my narrative; it's a beacon of hope demonstrating the resilience one can muster in the unpredictable journey of mental illness. As I continue to grapple with the aftermath of these events, join me in understanding that while we may not always have control over the stress that finds us, we do have a say in how we respond and persevere.

#mentalhealth #mentalhealthmatters #mentalhealthawareness #schizophrenia #schizoaffective #mentalillness #psychosis #depressionsawareness #fictionwriting #family #relationships #nomorestigma #fightthestigmaofmentalillness #letstalk #schizophreniaawareness #mentalillnessrecovery #mentalillnesstreatment #motherdaughter #brainhealth #australia

Pastime With Good Company by King Henry VIII, played by The Chestnut Brass Company 

Pastime With Good Company, composed by King Henry VIII, played by The Chestnut Brass Company

Transcript

Diana Dirkby: 1:04

Hello, my name is Diana Dirkby and I live with Paranoid Schizophrenia. You are listening to my podcast Schizophrenia as I Live it. Today I wanted to talk about the topic: when stress finds you. Stress is a real enemy of good mental health I think for everybody but if you live with Paranoid Schizophrenia, as I do, you are in danger of that stress triggering the symptoms of schizophrenia, in other words, threatening you with a possible relapse. It's very important, therefore, if you live with schizophrenia, to do everything you can to avoid stress.

Diana Dirkby: 2:08

The problem that can arise and this happened to me recently is that stress can find you. You can't necessarily dictate everything that happens in your life and, no matter how careful you are to live in a healthy way and a relaxed way, sometimes stuff just happens that interferes with that plan. Over the last month or so, I was in the unfortunate position of undergoing a series of stressful events which I did not cause. There was really nobody to blame, but if there had been, that wouldn't have helped. It was just a bunch of things that happened, and every day I woke up I felt there was a fresh thing for me to worry about because of what happened during that day. It just added one more thing. So I was faced with the situation where my stress level was above what I consider safe. I feel this quite physically. When I'm overstressed, my mouth and tongue freeze and go very numb. I find it hard to sit still and looking for answers as to why so much stress is coming my way can lead me to have thoughts of persecution.

Diana Dirkby: 3:48

Now, fortunately, this last time, this last month or so, that a series of stressful events occurred in my life, I did manage to stay healthy on the level of my mental illness. So what did I do? Well, the worst event happened at the beginning of this period and I'm not going to describe it in detail because there's confidentiality problems surrounding it and I'm not at liberty to give details. But it was a shock to me, and a shock that I hadn't expected, and it immediately put me into a high stress mode. So I had to do a number of things to cope with the stressful situation, things I could not get out of. And how I managed, was that I prioritized? I made a hierarchy of things I had to do, starting with the most important and urgent, going down to things that can wait a week or two. I attacked that hierarchy day by day, gradually working through the top priorities and then getting down to the bottom ones.

Diana Dirkby: 5:24

Now, what was absolutely essential in this process was that, on any given day, when I felt in danger of letting my stress level get so high that my tongue was numb and my mouth was numb, I simply stopped. I asked myself, you know, can I wait this out until tomorrow? Do I really need to do anything else today but relax? And most of the time that answer was no. It was important to get the thing done in a timely fashion, but I didn't actually have to do it that day, so I just stopped, I put my feet up on the bed and I watched some movies, talked to my spouse, went out for a drive, just anything to distract me and relax me, and tried to forget for the rest of that one day about what I had to do the day after. This method worked quite well in the beginning.

Diana Dirkby: 6:32

The problem was that a series of other things happened, so that I would wake up ready to take on the day with what had already happened to me, only to find that that day brought fresh stress, something that couldn't be helped. So, again, what I did then was I rewrote my list of priorities, starting with the most important and urgent, going down to the things that could wait, and I didn't hesitate to change that list as a function of this rather volatile situation I was in, of stress coming my way, stress finding me without me asking for it. I do take, as well as my antipsychotic medication and medication that I take for epilepsy, I do take a small dose of what's basically a tranquilizer, and I found that that was very helpful during this period. Now, where am I now? Well, I still have some problems related to the stress and the story isn't over. The initial story that started.

Diana Dirkby: 7:57

The stress is far from over, but I have gotten things to a stage where they are manageable and I'm living by getting done what I can, what's the most important thing for that day, and then simply stopping when I begin to feel tired. Now, I'm a very early riser. It's not unusual for me to be up by two or three o'clock in the morning. I've always been like that, even as a child, and I'm finding lately that I get as much done as I can to address the stressful events, to address the other things I have to do in my life, to do my shopping or whatever it is I have to do and I'm finding by about one or two o'clock in the afternoon that I'm done. You know, I simply can't do anymore.

Diana Dirkby: 8:53

I have a very, very understanding spouse and he understands that this is how I'm managing my life. He also stops what he's doing at about the same time as I do and we spend time together relaxing. So I'm sharing with someone. He understands that I just want to have a nice time, want to watch a movie, want to go out for a drive, want to go for a walk, maybe do some mundane thing around the house, and that I, for example, won't be at my computer or asking him to leave me alone because I've got more work to do. He understands that I'm turning off because I must relax for a good part of the day. I expect this to continue for some months more as I sort through these various things that have happened to me. One of them I mentioned last time is that I broke my big left toe at the end of December and it's still giving me a lot of pain. And we are now up in Alaska where it's very cold and if I go outside the toe hurts a lot because of the cold. So that also gives me an excuse to put my feet up, because the foot doctor told me that the more I can put my feet up, the better it would be for the toes. So when I finish my day around 1pm or 2pm and put my foot up, I feel that I'm being nice to my big toe, so I have some kind of justification for it.

Diana Dirkby: 10:40

Now, how you manage stress, especially stress that you don't invite it, depends a great deal on your personality. As I'm always saying, for every person living with schizophrenia, their experience of it is unique. Everyone has their own personality, which is something quite distinct from the mental illness or the brain disorder that they may live with. I tend to be very goal-oriented. I tend to push myself to do as much work as I can. In any one day, I'm inclined to overdo the worry about what I have to get done. So these are all aspects of my personality that I need to be careful about every day, because every day I live with schizophrenia.

Diana Dirkby: 11:47

Now, when there's a lot of stress around, these bad aspects of my personality play up, when it comes to stress management. I have to, in some sense, by managing my stress, not feel guilty and not feel that I'm not achieving what I want to achieve, because the foremost thing is my health and the next most important thing is my relationship with my spouse. And the next most important thing is getting done what you have to get done, but not pushing yourself to do more than you can. So I wanted to talk about that, that I'm in the middle of such an episode and that you can manage, if you're very careful, without getting sick. Now, had I begun to feel that I was relapsing, I would, of course, have contacted my psychiatrist. I wrote her an email about what I was going through, just so she's up to date. I do have weekly sessions with a psychologist and we are discussing the stress management plans that I have and what has caused the stress and how I plan to cope with it. I discuss that at length with her and that's tremendously helpful.

Diana Dirkby: 13:19

I try not to discuss my stress too much with my spouse unless he can help directly, because it doesn't help somehow. It just means that I to spoil his day. I have found over time that talking to family and friends can often just make the problem worse if they're not in a position to really help you, and that it's better to talk to a professional psychologist and psychiatrist about issues you may be having in your life that really only you can control. But, of course, that's a personal choice, and some of you may rely on sharing heavily with family and friends. That again depends on the individual.

Diana Dirkby: 14:16

Ok, so I'm still here, as you can hear, and the podcast goes on and my blog goes on, and I'm very excited because I just finished incorporating the changes to the first complete draft of my new book, Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies, and so within a few weeks or a month, that book will be published and available, and that's very, very exciting to have this new project being born, so to speak. Well, as always, thank you for listening and please check back frequently to the podcast and consider buying my book, The Overlife A Tale of Schizophrenia, or to listening to the audio version, for example on the Audible app or whatever app you like to use for audiobooks. Ok, then, have a great day and I can't wait to speak to you next time. Bye.