As someone who has endured multiple psychotic breaks due to living with schizophrenia, I know that you cannot always “return to normal” if that means going back to where you were before a psychotic break. Even upon returning to good stable mental health, some of the trauma of the psychotic break remains. I seek therapy from a psychologist and medication from a psychiatrist to help deal with that. In recovering from a psychotic break, I always emerge as different from who I was before the relapse. Some differences can lead to disappointment, but some can enrich how I view the world and my place in it. It has happened to me that the only way forward is to go somewhere new with my life rather than trying in vain to repair myself to lead the same life as I did before relapsing. After all, environmental factors always help trigger a relapse, for me usually associated with stress. They contributed to my bad mental health, so I don’t want to return to a situation where they are again present. Those factors have to be contained if I am to retain my health. “Failure” is an option, and the best thing to do may be to go somewhere new with your life where the ingredients that lead to that failure are no longer present. You will still live with schizophrenia, but you can make the symptoms more unwelcome. Sarah, in my forthcoming novel “The Overlife, A Tale Of Schizophrenia,” has to reinvent herself several times.
