Chapter3

Starting Out for Younger Peers

This chapter leads off with a peer story to show that you are not alone. Get inspired by a person in recovery who has come through a challenge. It isn’t easy living with schizophrenia. Read on forhope.

Max’sRecovery

During the early phases of my recovery from schizophrenia, two things were important to me that I was unwilling to compromise because of a significant mental health disorder: working and further healing. I was tired, not just from the impact of my symptoms or side effects from medication, but from lying in bed and feelinguseless.

My parents, specifically my mother and father, were critical in dispelling the idea that my future was limited because of illness. They reminded me to take outstanding care of myself, and my career would follow. Well, they were right on themoney.

With the help of my therapist and a good psychiatrist, all reinforcing the concept of self-care, I went back to graduate school in social work. Within two years, I graduated from SUNY Binghamton with a Masters’ in Social Work. The same college I had my initial ‘break’ from first-episode psychosis (ultimately diagnosed as schizophrenia).

As a young licensed social worker, I taught my clients about self-care as well. Later, I would teach self-care at the level of education. Specifically, I taught social work education to new social work students as an adjunct professor at Fordham University at their Manhattan campus. I had come just about full circle since my initialillness.

When my illness was first blossoming, I was an English major at Binghamton University with dreams of becoming a professor. One decade later, I was teaching young therapists how to be future social workers. In some cases, these future social workers would be future therapists, reinforcing the importance of self-care to their patients, like how my therapist did ten yearsago.

Today, I am confident, knowledgeable, and polished in my education and skills. This wasn’t always the case. Schizophrenia had struck me at the most inopportune time, right at the peak of intellectual ability and personality development. Research indicat