A letter to encourage people with
psychical
problems!
As a young soldier I lived through my endogenous psychosis for the
first
time. After this in spite of my very good grammer school examination
grade
everybody discouraged me from studying at the university. Instead I did
it. I had to leave one semester as a gap due to the psychosis. After
less
than six years I finished my study at the university with a good grade
as an engineer. On starting the profession the psychosis also reached
me.
Not before three years later and up to the age of 48 I was able and
allowed to
work again as a fully established engineer. So please encourage
yourself
to not less than before your illness.
I can feel your disappointment, when media tell of mental ill people
and
of criminals within one sentence and when criminals tell of themselves
as victims of their illness. In official statements concerning my
illness
depending on the context I was either too healthy or too ill. The only
common point in these statements lead to the conclusion that the office
hat to face as little cost as possible. I was disappointed by
application
talks where the decision was fixed upon my past illness and not upon my
possible success. But I say thanks to that employer who gave me a
chance
although I answered him the truth about my illness when applying. I say
thanks to those psychologists and psychiatrists, who together with me
found
out what to do, and did not deaden the illness without telling me the
reason.
And I thank my family, who were desperate and patient.
While staying in hospitals I needed medicine in so high dose which a
healthy
person cannot imagine, not even full drunk. But in all day dose this
medicine
enabled me to do my job as an engineer. Ending the stay in psychiatric
ward must not end the treatment; this determined me getting healthy.
Two
institutions contributed to this, but I do not tell names, because each
of you himself must decide who is the person he can rely on in this
treatment:
I think it must not be done without psychotherapy, because only this
way
getting healthy is possible while reducing the dose of medicine. But
there
is no sense in it before the surface of the invisible wounds has
healed.
For me this took almost two years. In psychotherapy I had to change my
attitude to my own life. But nobody who suffers from endogenous
psychosis
needs to look for a guilt of his own. Other people are not guilty of
this
illness anyway. Today I can manage life and my weaknesses in intervals
without medicine. And I found new strong points in me.
After my first psychotherapy, where I was in-patient during the day and
at home during the night, my dose of medicine was so low that neither
me
nor others got aware of it. I lived and worked several years as an
engineer with
this medicine. During my second psychotherapy visiting a doctor once a
month in the evening after working I got aware of the benefit which my
medicine had done to me in these years. On ending the therapy I was
able
to do without this medicine. But sometimes until today it is as
necessary
for me as for you that I visit a doctor, when I suffer from head ache,
insomnia or tension. This well approved medicine brought me to my
maximum
weight. Today a much better medicine is helping me.
My wife has lived through a similar past as merchant. In her last acute
illness I had to watch that she nearly put an end to her suffering by
suicide.
Today she is glad that she did not succeed in it. She accepts her way
through
life in profession and family with success and we are lucky in it. I
wish
as much success in rehabilitation for each of you.
Last update on this page: April 20th 2013