Fighting Schizoaffective Disorder - Andrew D. Gadtke - 1.800.707.4756
Fighting Schizoaffective Disorder

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Recent Posts

  1. Marked by Joy
    Wednesday, June 22, 2011
  2. Eine Kleine Nacht Paranoia
    Tuesday, June 21, 2011
  3. Ordway Interview
    Tuesday, June 21, 2011
  4. Basic Presentation Given to the Wayzata Rotary Club
    Tuesday, June 21, 2011
  5. What's in a Name?
    Tuesday, June 21, 2011
  6. Back to Blogging . . . Again
    Monday, June 20, 2011
  7. Sick with a Cold
    Monday, October 04, 2010
  8. Stress-induced Paranoia
    Tuesday, September 28, 2010
  9. Upcoming Speech at MACMHP conference in Duluth
    Saturday, September 25, 2010
  10. Much is New
    Monday, November 02, 2009

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  1. Jodi Wishart on Ordway Interview
    8/26/2011
  2. Ellen Hadley on What's in a Name?
    7/27/2011
  3. Ellen Hadley on Eine Kleine Nacht Paranoia
    7/15/2011
  4. Carrie on Eine Kleine Nacht Paranoia
    6/21/2011
  5. Carrie Serna on Sick with a Cold
    10/4/2010
  6. Paula DeSanto on Stress-induced Paranoia
    10/2/2010
  7. deb Markert on Much is New
    7/1/2010
  8. Randy on Much is New
    12/18/2009
  9. debra s on Contentment is Short-lived
    10/31/2009
  10. Stacy Dennis on Andrew_Gadtke_200881392554.flv
    8/23/2009

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Marked by Joy

A Testimony by Andrew D. Gadtke
 
    
Up until the age of twenty-four, I had always considered all religious thinking to be delusional. I was a scientist who sought after truth, after all, and I knew better – I had an impeccable mind for sifting through these ill-conceived ideas of faith. But all of that changed when I was told by a psychiatrist on October 15, 2004 that I had paranoid schizophrenia, an illness characterized by a person’s inability to understand the truth about reality. My lifelong goal had been to find truth, but the psychiatrist told me that my mind was cut off from the truth, imprisoned inside a world of delusion. What followed was the beginning of my quest for spiritual truth. The important aspects of this quest, ranging from my life at the outset through identifying my need for Christ and conversion to my spiritual growth after salvation, occurred over a period of several years.

     To properly comprehend my quest, one needs to understand who I was before the outset of my spiritual journey. One word encapsulates my previous self – pride. I was the master of my own universe; I was completely self-sufficient; and I was absolutely arrogant. I was an atheist through and through, but I studied philosophy and the Christian apologetic arguments so I could better defeat Christians in lay debates. Nevertheless, I also recognized the usefulness of what I considered the delusion of Christianity as a psychological crutch to help those with weak minds.

    
Still, there was something in me that envied the “blissful ignorance” of the Christians. I saw the world as it really was, devoid of meaning and morality; I saw emptiness. And yet these Christians, who were not very different than me in life circumstances, seemed to be experiencing something else entirely. I saw life as a sort of accidental cesspool to be endured, and they saw it as a loving gift to be rejoiced in. I kept finding that my atheistic worldview was out of sync with how I felt about and experienced the world – how could I experience the world as terribly evil when there was no objective morality? I started nightly prayers to an unknown God to reveal to me the truth. After three years of nightly (or near nightly) prayer, God began opening my eyes.

    
     To discern what was real after I realized I had been delusional, I began rereading old philosophy texts and Christian apologetics arguments I had become familiar with, but upon rereading them I started drawing different conclusions; the same old arguments that I dismissed previously with a wave of the hand were now compelling to me. After I grew comfortable enough with the persuasiveness of these arguments, and when I was convinced I wasn’t committing intellectual suicide, I started believing in the being of God. After more study and reflection on personal experiences, I concluded that Jesus was the Son of God. This conclusion not only brought truth into my life, but also brought with it the seeds of repentance – if Jesus is actually God, then I had a lot of explaining to do for my exceedingly sinful lifestyle. I begged for God’s forgiveness, and I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.


     Immediately after my conversion, I told everyone I knew about God. I was overcome with a newfound joy that I wanted to share with others. Later, I was baptized. My passion to tell people about God persisted, and I started focusing my thoughts on my personal holiness. After living the atheist’s lifestyle for so many years, I had many entrenched sins to fight against. Many of the sinful thoughts and actions I had previously enjoyed were now abhorrent to me. With prayer and determination, I began a lifelong process of change. Comparing who I am today with whom I was, I see a change so great that I’m no longer the same person.


     All-in-all, I have to admit that I have regret that I came to Christ so late in life; I endured so much time without the conscious presence of God – so many Godly things I didn’t get to do and experience, and so many unholy things I did do and experienced. But the one thing I don’t regret is God opening my eyes through the process of me becoming severely ill. I cannot conceive of a more compelling way to convince my old self of the truth of God than by crushing all hope of finding truth apart from God. As I struggle daily with my illness, I have hope for a heavenly future where I’m whole and holy. Until then, I am comforted and encouraged by glimpses of heaven – short periods of worship marked by joy.

Eine Kleine Nacht Paranoia

Here is my first attempt at a Vblog. In this clip I very briefly discuss the paranoia I was feeling last night.


Ordway Interview

Here is the video of the interview I gave before the performance of Next to Normal at the Ordway in St. Paul. Enjoy!

Basic Presentation Given to the Wayzata Rotary Club

A couple of years ago I gave a basic presentation on mental illness to the Wayzata Rotary Club. I have posted the video below. Enjoy!


What's in a Name?

               You may have picked up on my changed diagnosis – from paranoid schizophrenia to schizoaffective disorder. For those unfamiliar with the label schizoaffective disorder, it is simply the compound of two terms: schizophrenia and affective (mood) disorder (such has bipolar disorder or major depression). Psychiatrists now conceptualize there to be a spectrum of disorders, with a classic schizophrenic presentation on one and a classic mood disorder presentation on the other. My changed diagnosis indicates that it appears that I’m not really at the end of the schizophrenic side of the spectrum like previously thought, but rather somewhere more near the middle.

               This was first hinted at early during my treatment due to subclinical mood swings. However, it wasn’t really confirmed for many years, as I had been relatively stable on meds and my dominate symptom has been paranoia. However, a little over a year ago I had gone off my medications (a story for another day), and within days I started becoming manic. Severe paranoia set in following the mania, and forced me back on medication. It was then that my diagnosis was changed to schizoaffective disorder, due to the presentation of a mixture of symptoms of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

               Due to the close relatedness of these disorders, our approach to treatment hasn’t been any different due to the new diagnosis. However, the prognosis for schizoaffective is better than that for schizophrenia and worse than bipolar disorder, so I suppose the change should spark some increased hope for me. To be completely honest, it hasn’t given me any new hope, but it has allowed me to understand better some of the impulsive things I had been doing, e.g. drinking, gambling, etc.

Back to Blogging . . . Again

Welcome to my new blog!

I haven't written in my blog for nearly a year, and I apologize for that. I have been struggling with my illness and have endured many ups and downs. Now that I'm quite stable and healthy again, I will be blogging once again.

As you have likely noticed, I've changed up the design of my blog a bit. I hope you like the new and improved look. I will try to write regularly, so please look for new blog topics, but please keep in mind that it is a struggle for me to keep on a schedule and please be forgiving if entries are added sporadically.

Warm Regards!

Sick with a Cold

Hello All,

I'm back from my trip to Duluth. For all intents and purposes, it went really well. I spoke on Thursday morning, and although I missed some information I wanted to cover, the audience responded well to what I had to say. Afterward, many were informing me of how good the presentation was. So I was pretty thrilled.

Now that I'm back home, things are a lot less stressful and relaxing. The only problem is that I know have a really bad cold. I suppose it is from being around so many people at the conference . . . sort of like going back to school in the fall and getting sick for the first few weeks. I'm drinking plenty of fluids and will try to rest over the next couple of days. That's about it.

I also met a very nice young lady at the conference, and . . . NOPE, I'm not going to write anything about her. She deserves her privacy.

Anyway, things are going well. I'll write again soon to let you know what is new this week.

Warmest Regards,
Andrew D. Gadtke

Stress-induced Paranoia

I have an interesting new development in life: some heightened paranoia. I have not had paranoia of this intensity since earlier this spring. I suppose it is the stress of my upcoming speech at the MACMHP conference in Duluth. I’ll explain what’s going on.


About four hours ago a couple of squad cars pulled up to my condo building. I was just going to go to bed, but was curious as to why the police were here. I didn’t find out, and they came and went. If that had been the end of it, perhaps I would be sleeping now. Instead, they have been patrolling outside my building with drive-bys every few minutes. This has gotten me paranoid that they were coming for me, and so I have been refusing to let myself rest, lest they come to kill me in my sleep. After about two hours of paranoia and anxiety, I picked up my cell and called 911. I told the dispatcher that I had noticed the police patrolling outside my building and was wondering if I were safe. She told me the officers were looking for someone earlier, and now just happened to be driving by to go to other calls.


I don’t know what to make of that. I think she . . . well, I don’t know what to think. The police might still be coming to kill me, and so I’m going to have to stay awake. This is just what I don’t need right now. I’ll try to get some sleep later today.

Upcoming Speech at MACMHP conference in Duluth

As of late, I have felt a little unmotivated. I guess I’m always a little unmotivated; what I mean is that I’m a little more unmotivated than usual. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be too much of a problem, since I don’t have much in life depending on me. This time is different.

In less than a week I will be giving a speech at the Minnesota Association of Community Mental Health Programs’ annual conference in Duluth. I’ve been working on my remarks, but they are not polished as of yet. Over the next few days I will really have to put my nose to the grindstone and overcome this unmotivated state, all the while trying to keep my stress levels low so that I’m healthy enough to give a good presentation in Duluth. If you are in the area, check out the conference and be sure to stop by and say hello.

Much is New

Hello Faithful Blog Readers,
Much is new and a lot of has been happening lately. No worries, mostly good stuff, and I will write about them very soon. Please look for them.
Regards,
Andrew D. Gadtke
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