Hello ...

Post Reply New Topic

Hi forums,

I've been lurking for a few months and decided to register. Not sure what for ... but trying to come to terms with my diagnosis might be a reason, to see if I can finally meet others who think like me (which I haven't been able to do in reality, so far).

I'm a native Swede who was diagnosed with Aspergers and Unspecified Schizophrenia Spectrum at around age 23. I say "around" because my life has been quite chaotic since age 21-22, when I gradually slipped into bouts of psychosis which still last to this day. I'm 31 now, live in Japan, work as an architect, married, have strained relations with people and not really any close friends. The more I think about my situation, the less I seem to be able to explain it, so I came here looking for answers (and, I guess, people to share life with).

My Aspergers diagnosis previously came second to my schizophrenia as the latter tended to completely wreck my life (once I kept flying back and forth between Poland and Japan because I was sure Interpol was on my heels, wasted a lot of flight ticket money there ...), but as there is medicine to be had against that (antipsychotics), but not for Aspergers, I figured it should help to read and talk about it here to gain insight into my condition and finding ways to alleviate my problems.

So, anyway, I don't want to talk too much. Just say hi. So: "hi". Hope we can get to know each other.

I suppose a first questions would be if anyone here has a similar diagnosis (Aspergers + Schizophrenia Spectrum), what their life is like, and how they find ways to cope.

Thanks.

Even though you have all these psychiatric problems, you're still working as an architect--in Japan, no less. You must be excellent at your job--because I would say it would be quite difficult for a non-Japanese person in Japan to make it as an architect.

Are you taking any medications for it?

Do you speak Japanese well? I bet you know quite a few languages. I know you speak at least Swedish and English well.

Hi kraftiekortie,

I'm not sure if I'm good at my job (I don't personally think so), but I can hold it down since my language skills are necessary for one of our projects in China to proceed smoothly. I speak English, Swedish, and conversational French and Japanese. Although the only one useful here is English, really.

I take Olanzapine (5 mg) for the psychotic symptoms, Akineton for the tremors, Etizolam for the anxiety, and Brotizolam for sleeping. Previously I've been on what feels like a dozen medicines, but the current configuration works fairly well to keep my (positive) psychotic symptoms at bay. I used to take up to 25 mg of Olanzapine during the worst years though.

Dunno what those names actually mean to people here though.

You're probably good enough as an architect....I bet you're something of a perfectionist. It takes lots of precision. If you screw up one quarter centimeter in something, it's possible that the whole building will go down in a heap. Then you and your company are doomed.

Herbert Hoover used to work in China as a mining engineer around 1900. He later became President of the United States.

I hear it's nice in Kyoto.

I know the northeast coast really got hit bad by the Tsunami of 2011---but I would bet that there's nice things there, too.

You've probably taken the Bullet Train a few times.

Yeah, construction drawings need to be really accurate, especially in this country. My coworkers tell me I have a good eye for details, which helps. The only time the boss gets really upset is when someone misses a detail that ends up costing the client money -- customer service is everything here. Luckily I tend to avoid that by being so obsessive about getting the details right that I triple-check the emails and double-check the attachments before sending them to the client.


Didn't know that. Did you know Thomas Jefferson was a licensed architect, too? Not a bad company.

Kyoto is nice, but I prefer Kobe and Hiroshima. More humanly sized cities to me. Tokyo is just huge, concrete everywhere even when you get up in a skyscraper. My wife is Japanese, and comes from Oita, Kyushu island. I actually like her hometown more than Tokyo, but it's too boring to her to live there, so ... Tokyo it is.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Thank you, mr. Anonymous!