Fortune Cookie Blues

Tonight:

The chocolate brioche pudding with caramel ice cream.

Too late I realized I should have offered to buy my friend the Buffalo jeans he coveted. I could have treated him. Feel like such a heel now that it didn't occur to me until after he drove me home. He would look good in those jeans.

Instead I'm rattling through the night in my own way: listening to the rock-n-roll radio and browsing the Sundance catalog Web site. It's like a hobby now.

You'll see I've edited the other blogs I link to on the right. I want JM to be as uncluttered as possible. I hope you enjoy stopping by.

It is a good night of good fortune.

I'm reminded of a wise lyric to the effect that nobody can hurt you unless you let them hurt you. I doubt it would be far off for me to tell you people with schizophrenia are more sensitive than others. We cannot go against this sensitivity and must use it in a positive way: channel it into compassion for ourselves and others in the world.

So tonight's fortune would be that I understand there are two sides to the coin of living with SZ: we can crack open a hopeful message when we use our talents to recover. This is how I see it: you can recover. You can do great things for yourself as well as for others. It is not selfish to want to better yourself.

Today I picked up the Style A to Zoe book to have on hand. I will tell you now and I would tell you a week from Tuesday that surely dressing well enabled me to recover. I used my love of fashion to create a persona that meshed with who I am.

That is the way you smash the stereotype of someone diagnosed with schizophrenia: you live true. I framed a green greeting card with a fortune cookie print out of which a fortune read: Who cares what everyone else thinks. Be true to yourself. This is my life's motto. It is the only way a person can truly be happy: to live in sync with her self.

You will only be miserable trying to be someone you're not. I have a failed business career that proves this and one failed romance with a guy who thought normal was the holy grail. I felt normal's overrated and was glad when we went our separate ways. Just the word normal rubs me the wrong way.

As AC touts in her blog: "Let's put normal on the shelf and give different a fighting chance."

Possibly a lot of us fear being ourselves because we fear others will reject us if we don't fit in to some kind of mold. I was aware as early as 11 years old that I wasn't like the other girls in the neighborhood. You can resist your nature yet you do so at your own risk to your mental health.

Log on to my Twitter account that I link to on the right and you will see that the latest news touts the link between creativity and schizophrenia. There is proof now that people with schizophrenia tend to be more creative than other people. A reference was made to Dali who was eccentric.

This accounts for my love of the unusual music and clothes when I was younger. It lets slip that maybe you could think you're different precisely because you are different in some important ways starting with your D2 receptor.

This solidifies my dream of wanting to publish fiction and be a writer not a social worker in the coming years. Look for a SharePost at the Connection on this topic of creativity and schizophrenia to post in early July for some summer reading.

D. told me once: "We have a different way of seeing things" and I have no doubt this is true. It comes down to how information flows through our brains and how we process it and synthesize it and turn it back out to solve problems.

The more you educate yourself the better you will feel about your prospects living with SZ. That's how I see it because reading about this link allowed me to once and for all resolve that hey: it's okay to be different.

For too long first coming up in recovery I was in denial that I could be sick because I was embarrassed to have schizophrenia. I felt guilty and ashamed because there was a negative connotation to someone diagnosed with this condition.

Only now: I see that there can be no shame when you live true to yourself.

So I urge you to reconsider everything you think you know about what it's like to live with schizophrenia. Define yourself. Decide how you want to live and hold your hope up as a lantern on the long road ahead.

Recovery is about the journey not the destination. Be where you are now. Know that tomorrow you could be in a different place. Nothing in life is permanent. You can rest easy knowing that you can trust yourself to be your own rock.

So express yourself. Be creative. Be yourself.

Just be.