Relapse in Recovery

Does a person always relapse, when they are trying to recover? It happened to me twice. The first time it happened I was out of the State Hospital for two months. I had just started college, and on my second day there a Tuesday I was sick again. I remember that day. There were 1,700 students on campus in the fall of 1993. It seemed that I had to walk through all of them to get downtown to catch a bus home. I was new to the bus system then and did not know any other place to catch a bus. As I was extremely paranoid with all those people it was not easy. I finally reached downtown and a bus. That Thursday they picked me up to take me back to the State Hospital. I thought at the time it will be along time before they let me back to Denver. Although all they did was increase my medication and I was there for the weekend to stabilize. On Monday they dropped me back off at campus. I had to rearrange classes and start a new class. I had already missed too many days in the other class. The professor let me start late in the new class. After that semester I never took a full load of classes again just went to school half time. The second time I relapsed was not as bad as the first. At the time of the second relapse only my granddaughter was born. I had a turtle my only companion for about a year and a half. Well he died and the symptoms came on. Although I knew what to do this time and took a PRN. (That is extra medication) and lay down to sleep and I was O.K. the second day. Then when I had my next appointment I told my doctor what happened. Those relapse happened with an older medication called Moban, which is not manufactured anymore. Today I can say that is good, although at the time it was the only medication that worked for me. I had tried them all. As I’ve said in earlier blogs, I could not even drink coffee with that medication without the symptoms happening. I am extremely happy with my new medication Geodon.