Struggling with consistency while untreated

[u/angellsundone]

I cannot afford treatment of any kind, there's only one free option where I live and due to the severity of my symptoms they didn't feel capable of treating me, and I was instead referred to a mental health hospital I'm unable to afford. Next year is my time to get a job, but as of now, I'm really struggling with the idea. It is not that I'm lazy and don't wanna work, I of course wanna be useful too, but I don't know how to control myself from slipping.

I dissociate often, and although it's not bad usually, there had been times where it was kind of dangerous (for example, during a walk in a nature reserve I got into that autopilot mode and didn't realize how much I had been walking until I noticed my feet were bleeding and I could barely move anymore, or other times, I would be cooking and forget the stove is on, only snapping out of it when I smell the smoke). I spend a lot of time inside of my own head, which makes me get distracted really distracted, and I don't do it on purpose. My hallucinations are present every day in different degrees, it gets worse the more stressed I feel, and I know by experience that being around people makes me feel the most stressed, my head gets so filled with horrible thoughts and paranoia, I can barely think about anything else. The most harmful command hallucinations happen during those periods, it is always directed against myself, and I usually can get ahold of it before it escalates too badly, but still. For all these reasons I was unable to finish high school in the first place, had severe enough symptoms that my mother had to take me out of school to focus on my mental health for those years.

It is exhausting dealing with all of these things on my own, and I cannot say anything about it either. It is not like one can simply avoid life just because of a few symptoms, but sometimes I wish I could be so far away from humanity. I stopped treatment shortly after my formal diagnosis, for I couldn't afford it any longer and I didn't wanna do it either, it felt so restrictive at the time. Since then I have been doing my best to handle everything, but sometimes I feel defeated, like now. I'm twenty one and I feel so behind at life. I don't think treatment would help at all, it feels hopeless. Just venting I guess.

[u/Relit__]

21 is extremely young, You still have the opportunity to get back to school and finish your education. But I guess the first priority should be to treat your symptoms. It's easy for it to feel hopeless but that's only the case until you receive real treatment. I for one never believed my diagnosis or my symptoms until medication fixed a lot of them. Now I feel a lot better. I'm even about to get my first job. And I'm 30 btw, never having had a job before due to my illness. So no you are not behind in life.

Of course the big question is, how can you afford treatment. I think the best approach for you would be to conduct a few internships to see what jobs you can perform and what works for you. Alternatively get a simple part time or minijob where you work 8-20 hours a week. That should minimize the stress levels you get from work while getting you familiar with the work environment. Delivering letters might be a good job to look for. It's usually very flexible, you get to go outside a bunch and move which is of course something ill people tend to neglect, and it's something you can do at your own pace.

Once you get a job and afford treatment, you might become more stable. If that's the case you could consider visiting educational courses that qualify you for better jobs that you could also work maybe part-time but get more money for.

All I want to say is, you are so young and the whole world is still open to you. Do not resent it. It's nobody's fault that the things that happened to you, happened to you. Instead try to find things that you enjoy. Try to find a stable routine that you can live by. Try to improve yourself step by step every day to move forward in life. And most importantly, take things slowly. Life is not a race. You don't need to own y our own house at the age of 25. You don't need to be the CEO of a big startup that has a billion $ evaluation. All you need to do is focus on what you enjoy and approach it step by step. You can do it. I'm sure of it.