justanotherguySenior Contributor
Schizophrenia support
How many people out there are struggling with schizophrenia diagnosis/support/care? I just saw a recent YouTube video that had an appalling title stating schizophrenia was a dangerous mental illness. I mean, what!? After all these years, this illness is still being victimised for little reason.
After being vaguely diagnosed with schizophrenia years ago - "We think you might have schizophrenia" - I began the life of somebody who would be gradually shunned by society. For a long time it didn't feel right - How was I supposed to act? Could people tell? Should I tell people? I was generally told not to tell anybody. Hmmm. If I had depression, or cancer, or diabetes, that's ok to tell, but not this?
I started understanding the stigma around it, and felt ashamed. But truthfully I didn't know why. I was always a considerate person, tried to do the right thing, but felt like a criminal. I admit I had been through a period of extreme distress and did display some quite pronounced irrational behaviour that worried family members, but at the time of my 'diagnosis' I was actually pretty stable. It just didn't add up.
It took a number of years and real fight to extract myself from the system as I gradually realised it was not the true picture.
* @moderator - I am not advocating rejecting diagnosis. It became apparent, with support, that I was misdiagnosed. Please get proper advice*
My main concern has become the total victimisation of this 'illness'. Still it is shunned and not understood. I felt like I was expected to crawl into a corner and disappear.
People with schizophrenia are generally caring, even sensitive, and would rarely hurt another person. But society has somehow changed over time and has become more aggressive and tribal than ever before. The rawness of society is a shock to people with schizophrenenia and, depending on how serious, many struggle to accept it. Being cast as a social villain with little explanation hurts even more. The MH service is either not aware, or doesn't care.
I would like to see people with this illness be taught how to cope with society better, rather than just medicated and shuffled off to the side. The reason so few people in society seem to care anymore is because most of the carers have been dumped into the 'psychosis' pile! Caring people can empathise with others, but society is so twisted it is now seen as weak and undesireable and label it as 'mental illness'.
I'm not sure how this is supposed to play out. All societies need a level of empathy to function, no matter how callous. Even Vikings had empathy in different ways.
Feel free to comment if you like.
