Well, I’m probably not the best judge of that, but to varying degrees most people would say yes.
Here’s a bit of my history and you can draw your own conclusions:
I had a long prodrome in college where I became increasingly isolated, and had trouble with school. I had trouble concentrating on classes and had an erratic sleep schedule, so I often missed classes and/or pulled all-nighters for project deadlines and cramming for exams. My grades were all over the map and I often dropped or withdrew from classes. At the same time, I was keeping a front up to my parents and family and covered up my academic issues. Eventually I kinda ‘faked’ my undergraduate graduation, since they allowed you to walk in the ceremony at the time, even if you hadn’t finished your degree.
I then had the burden of trying to support myself while going to school and hiding it all from everybody. Under the pressure, I began to believe I was being followed and became increasingly paranoid and had delusions that the police and/or FBI were following me. I enlisted the help of my brother who lived in the next state, and asked him to help me turn myself into the authorities. Instead he put me on a plane back home and thinking it may help my situation with the authorities, I requested that my parents get me psychological help.
I wasn’t keen on medication, so I started out with Jungian talk therapy. I had a disastrous first session with a psychiatrist my therapist referred me to, so I went without medication for a year, while I attended a local college and worked a part time technical job (at the insistence of my mother). My delusions intensified and escalated since I’d crossed state lines and my perception was I was under surveillance at home by the FBI. I managed to hold onto my job and stay in school while this was all going on, and planned to go back to my college to finish off my undergraduate degree.
In talk therapy, I thought I was close to working out my issues and realized my ‘watchers’ were not real. But under the stress of preparing to go back to college, cover for the time off I was going to take from work, and various interpersonal problems, I rebounded. I didn’t sleep for three or four days, started vividly hallucinating and having florid delusions. I was placed under a 72 hour psychiatric hold, then hospitalized, but voluntarily signed myself in for treatment at a hearing.
I was diagnosed as SZA and submitted to taking a mood stabilizer, because I was aware they could detect that I was compliant with a blood test, so they’d let me go back to college. They let me out, and I attempted to finish my classes but when I heard some classes I’d taken wouldn’t transfer, and I couldn’t finish in that term, I despaired and had trouble with classes and dropped them. I stopped taking the medication after the hospital, I was supposed to be evaluated for an AP, but somehow the follow up wasn’t communicated to my psychiatrist and I didn’t see the need to address the error.
I returned home and went back to my job unmedicated for a while, but started having trouble concentrating and keeping things together, so I asked my psychologist for a referral to a different psychiatrist to explore medication options. I did this, because I realized I was likely to lose my job otherwise. I was prescribed a relatively low dosage of a typical antipsychotic, and improved.
I won’t say I was symptom-free or I took my medication religiously, but I have been steadily employed in white collar positions ever since. I took a couple short breaks to go back to school and between jobs and had a mental crisis or two and a few year or two long delusional periods, but nothing I couldn’t handle. It’s been about 35 years since my first and last hospitalization. My first Jungian therapist said I always had a small piece of my psyche holding onto reality that guided me. You may call it insight if you like, but I’ll just say I was very lucky.
