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Persons with mental illness are likely to have more visits with a general practitioner compared to mainstream people. The medications we have to take cause complications to physical health. Zyprexa and a number of other medications cause extreme weight gain and diabetes.  

I take Zyprexa because without it I become psychotic and verbally aggressive. I have tried to switch to something else, but this did not work out. Meanwhile, I am controlling the diabetes with diet. However, I am still about fifty pounds or more overweight.  

{To get a bit tangential: Type-two diabetes is a heck of a trap to end up in, and it creates a lot of revenue for the medical establishment. Taking metformin, glyburide, or insulin do lower blood sugar and may minimize the damage to the body from this disease. However, diabetes meds cause more weight gain. Diabetes medications increase the efficiency of sugar absorption by the cells in the body, and this is how the sugar in the bloodstream is lowered. When the medications make you gain additional weight, it means that in the future, an increase in diabetes medication will be needed. This in turn causes even more weight gain, and this continues indefinitely.  

{The level of Hemoglobin A 1 C is an indicator of longer-term blood sugar. When I was diagnosed with type II diabetes, I eliminated most of the refined sugar in my diet, and I increased my intake of fruits and vegetables (but not too many bananas--very high in sugar). This worked. For this strategy to work, the patient must catch it early and must not be excessively far into the diabetes trap.}  

Other than medical issues, persons with mental illness, if renting under Section 8, must deal with the Housing Authority every year, sometimes several times in a year. Their unit inspections require setting aside an entire day to wait for the inspector to show up. Often the unit inspector comes up with surprising little defects in the unit, necessitating another inspection a month later.  

In a recent instance of this, the inspector, who was a very big man and very ill-mannered, failed me on the first inspection and then was a no-show for the re-inspection. I phoned housing about this, and the head of the unit was willing to do the re-inspection right away, which was helpful.  

The presumption of HUD is that you do not have a job and thus are available whenever they want to inspect. The income certifications of late have been done by mail. Prior to this, we were put in a booth that could be locked from the outside.  

{On another tangential note: Intimidation seems to be part of the agenda of Housing. I am grateful for having housing that I otherwise would not be able to have on what little I get from Social Security. However, I would appreciate it if the inspection people would be a bit nicer.} 

If a person is mentally ill and has a history of being uncivil, it is important that we show up for our weekly therapy sessions so that we can show we are not going off the deep end, are taking our medication, and are not causing trouble.  

Going to the pharmacy for refills is continuous. Pharmacy staff may do part of the job of keeping mentally ill people monitored.  

The appointments and obligations to which we must constantly go, combined with other complications, cause mental illness to be the dominating factor in how we live.  

The agenda of those who are the architects of society is that they do not want disabled people to have excessive time, money and energy on our hands, for fear that we could do something that is a nuisance, and which could interfere with the lives of the good working people.  

Persons with mental illness, due to the huge number of appointments, might want to opt for a weekend job, or some type of independent employment in which the hours are up to oneself. Also, self-employment could be an option, although it is difficult to make this profitable. 

{When I tried self-employment, I structured the companies very simply, with no employees, I worked out of my home, and I set up the businesses to accommodate my disability and my idiosyncrasies. I would be doing something of that sort now had I not chosen to devote my time to writing.}  

The thing to remember is that there is always hope. Despite the restrictions and time suckage to which mentally ill people are subject, we can always try to do something to make our lives better.