Can Schizoaffective Disorder Be Cured?

Personally, I do not believe that there is a cure for mental illness in the form of a magic bullet or miracle pill that will make the illness go away.  From that viewpoint, the illness can only be managed with medication for a lifetime, as the mainstream understanding says.  However, I do believe, based on my own experience, that healing is possible.  There are tools, such as homeopathy, that may help move us in the right direction, but we still have to do the growth work.  It’s not easy.

I distinguish between “healing” and a “cure” because a cure implies that the illness is a “thing” that can exist and then not exist, rather than a spectrum of symptoms.  Also, I look at it as a set of symptoms with actual causes that are not the “mental illness” itself.  For example, if heavy metal toxicity is a cause of psychosis, then would psychosis be the root of the illness, or would it just be the symptom of an underlying cause?  In that case, if the heavy metals are detoxed, then wouldn’t you be curing heavy metal toxicity, not mental illness?  However, the illness may heal overtime, and we may be able to piece our life back together, heal the trauma and emotional wounds, and move forward.  Of course, if mainstream science doesn’t understand what causes it, they’re not going to know how to heal it.

Additionally, the word “cure” implies that one minute you have it and the next you don’t, whereas healing is a journey with steps forward and steps back, but ultimately you move in the right direction and your life improves over time.

I considered myself healed from schizoaffective disorder when I no longer needed to be on medication.  At that point, I was able to function enough and manage my life in a way that worked, met my basic needs, and satisfied my relationships.  However, my life has continued to improve, and the “illness” is moving further and further behind me.  I describe how I healed from mental illness throughout this website, but that does not mean that what I did is the only way to heal.  Someone else may find a different way that works for them to overcome an illness.  In that sense, what I experienced is not a “cure”, but it is a healing path that provides insights and tools that may be helpful to others on their journey.