Hello, from Japan
Hi! I'm liyn from Japan.
At the beginning of this year, I got hospitalized because of my schizophrenia.
After 3 months of hospital life, I'm now attending day care programs for the patients of mental disorder.
I don't know whether my experiences in Japan help a lot of readers around the world, but at least you can find some new things in this article.
Through the information you can find here, I hope you stay and make yourself positive to get good treatments for the problems you are suffering from.
Got hospitalized
Before getting into my experiences at the day care facility, I'm going to show you what my schizophrenia is like.
You can read more information about this in the article below.
What is my schizophrenia like? Some explanations from a Japanese patient. - History for a Break
The main symptom I'm suffering from is auditory hallucination. I hear good and bad responses to my thoughts and actions in my right(not left) ear.
However, I rejected to take a medicine, which resulted in having got hospitalized in January, 2024.
After I got back home, I started to get the injection treatment called LAI that controls dopamine once every month.
My symptoms are not completely eliminated in spite of LAI, but I feel it is effective as or more than a pill.
I tend to get tired, but I can say my life is comfortable enough in terms of the auditory hallucination due to the injection.
Day care I attend
Now, I understand the importance of the medicine for my schizophrenia.
Moreover, I want to say that you have to understand the importance of two more things to control the schizophrenia ―enough rest and healthy conversation.
It can be said that the day care service is for these two things for me.
Roughly speaking, the programs of the service can be divided into two types.
One is just for fun.
For example, you can play table games with other patients together. In adittion, you can talk with others about some themes, cook, sing Karaoke, experience tea ceremony, learn PC, play an instrument and so on.
Another is called the psychological program.
In this type of programs, you can learn about the mental disorder and medicines for it.
Anger Management can be included in them. The program where you can share and discuss your problems is important too.
I need to say that you don't have to join some programs in the facility. If what you need is taking a rest, you can sleep in a quiet room for it.
My experiences①
If you need to share your ploblems and get some solutions from others, it is effective to join the psychological program that we call SST.
Individually, I feel what I need now is a rest and something fun, so I'm now practicing the guitar and drums as my free activity.
However, I don't want to miss a chance to share the importance of the psychological program here too.
When I was hospitalized, I attended some of them and I found them meaningful.
SST I mentiond above requires you to keep the secret that someone shere, so I can't tell you what the conversations I joined were like.
All I can say is that one of my friend made use of SST and got back to his job. He is okey now!
My experiences②
I attend the day care service four times every week now.
At first, it's my duty that my doctor set, but it' okey now to attend the service three times or less(when I'm tired) every week.
However, it's a little bit difficult for me to get back to a job before the application for the financial support from the government is done due to its process.
This is one reason for that I attend the service four times every week.
In addition, it's just fun for me to attend it because I have some friends there. I can also sing a song and play some instruments as my free activity.
The service has a program where you can join a band too. There was only one band at first, but there are three bands now.
I experienced a live performance at the facility in March this year as a vocal. In the next live, I'm going to play the drums and I'm now practicing and enjoying it.
Carefully, but In an easygoing way!
In my opinion, it's meaningful to attend some day care programs unless you get too exhausted from attending them.
I attend the facility that the hospital where I was hospitalized has, but one of my friend saw three or more facilities before he decided to use the one.
I knew him in the facility we attend and he told me that its atomosphere is more cheerful than any other facilities he saw.
I'm just a Japanese in Japan, but I hope my experiences will help you to know about day care service to overcome your ploblems.
Thank you for reading!
