10 ms·

Successful and Schizophrenic

97 points by uladzislau 14y ago

cdvonstinkpot 14y ago
Schizophrenia destroyed my first startup- It began & went undiagnosed while I was starting it, and it kept getting worse until the delusions affected my decisions and eventually activities related to them took priority over writing my business plan and securing funding. The venture ultimately failed because of its affect on me, and I lost the entire 6-figure inheritence I had invested in the venture. Now after being hospitalized for it, and having found medication which makes it so that it's like I'm not sick at all, I can attempt to learn how to code, and hope to try again doing that once I learn how.
- dllthomas 14y ago
  Good luck!
  - cdvonstinkpot 14y ago
    Thanks
- BAWAD 14y ago
  I hope you create something positive that is successful. And that doesn't have to be a startup. The cool thing is you were able to externalize the handicap (schizophrenia), address it (medicine, which is not just a pill or something physical), and move on (it's the past). Peace!
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Good luck! I have very close experience with a schizophrenic (a close loved one) and know that it can be hard; but I also know it is possible. The thing that has helped us is being open and honest when things are getting worse so we can all pitch in to help.
- rubyrescue 14y ago
  thanks for your honesty. do you mind talking about what medication you take?
  - cdvonstinkpot 14y ago
    It's Risperdol, works like a charm. I read a book about a guy who had luck with it working for him, too. Good stuff. It makes me nauseous sometimes, but that's a small price to pay for the removal of the delusions that come from the illness.
nerdfiles 14y ago
"Gaining acceptance into graduate school or medical school and achieving a PhD or MD and becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist means jumping through many hoops, all of which require much behavioral and attentional compliance to authorities, even to those authorities that one lacks respect for. The selection and socialization of mental health professionals tends to breed out many anti-authoritarians. Having steered the higher-education terrain for a decade of my life, I know that degrees and credentials are primarily badges of compliance. Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where one routinely conforms to the demands of authorities. Thus for many MDs and PhDs, people different from them who reject this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world—a diagnosable one." — http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-are-diagnosed-as-mentally-ill/ http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-... There are too many everyday people armed with psychiatric terms. Stop it. Many nootropic and psychotropic drugs induce many of those hallucinations. Accept it. And learn how to understand what your body is telling you, rather than treating it like it's some operating table experiment that you'd being graded to poke and prod. Your body is a diagnostician, albeit a cryptic one that has needs, demands and quirks of its own. Most of you simply do not know how to live in your skin because, for one, you were likely raised religious and you've learned how to spite your own "holy temple," not only with deeds but in your minds, your mental habits and cognitive hygiene. Read a book, like Food of the Gods or something about the organic complexity and biodiversity of this world. Understand. Stop fearing Nature, and understand how to become harmonious with it.
- DanBC 14y ago
  Psychiatrists are doctors; they can prescribe medication. Psychologists don't have to be doctors. They don't even have to treat humans. Perhaps they study humans, perhaps they study cats. The rest of your post is similarly ignorant of the very real harm that can come from ignoring severe and enduring MH problems. Perhaps Bipolar disorder is over diagnosed. Maybe a small number of people cope well without their meds. Meds do have unpleasant side effects. But most people with psychotic illnesses really need the meds to stay functional. > And learn how to understand what your body is telling you, rather than treating it like it's some operating table experiment that you'd being graded to poke and prod. I've talked to people who hear voices. They don't always want the voices to disappear, but they do want some techniques to use so they can know when the voice is just a voice and not real, and so they can cope with some of the negative affects of voices. Is that what you're saying? If you are, fair enough. But if you're saying that psychosis is just a different state of being, just a different part of the spectrum of normal and fine, well, you're wrong.
DanBC 14y ago
This is a great article. It tells us that people can achieve a lot even when they're medicated and ill. Old thinking was very much to "protect" people with mental health problems from the stress of the world. But as you know, a bit of stress is fun, exciting, exhilarating. Modern thinking is that people with MH problems can work, and should work. They might need a bit of help to get jobs, and they might need a bit of help to stay in jobs, and it can be a bit scary for employers and colleagues. But reducing stigma is going reasonably well.
reinhardt 14y ago
Too bad that most attention to schizophrenia has been on "positive" symptoms (delusions, hallucinations), not so much on the negative ones (lack of motivation, flat affect, withdrawal). The latter are more debilitating in the long term, even if those who experience them are less likely to end up in the news.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
gwern 14y ago
The tone of the whole article is a little odd... I'm not sure what exactly her underlying view is. > Over the last few years, my colleagues, including Stephen Marder, Alison Hamilton and Amy Cohen, and I have gathered 20 research subjects with high-functioning schizophrenia in Los Angeles. They suffered from symptoms like mild delusions or hallucinatory behavior. Their average age was 40. Half were male, half female, and more than half were minorities. All had high school diplomas, and a majority either had or were working toward college or graduate degrees. They were graduate students, managers, technicians and professionals, including a doctor, lawyer, psychologist and chief executive of a nonprofit group. ...At the same time, most were unmarried and childless, which is consistent with their diagnoses...how had they managed to succeed in their studies and at such high-level jobs? 20 subjects is a lot? Less than half getting a college degree is success? With mild symptoms (as opposed to catatonia)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Epidemiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Epidemiology gives a lifetime risk of 0.7%. LA has ~4m people, giving 28k who have, had, or will have schizophrenia. It'd be impressive if all 28k could not cope at all and none could hold down any kind of job (and wouldn't we expect just from timing of schizophrenia onset to see plenty with degrees and jobs?).
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Having a loved one with schizophrenia, the tone is not odd at all (it is an opinion piece, not a journal). There are many people who believe schizophrenia is a sentence that means you'll be living under a bridge. I see that attitude regularly. In some cases, it is not possible to function, due to the disease; but there are a lot of people who can function, but they are told they cannot. Of course the 20 people are not a research cohort, but they are anecdotal evidence that people with schizophrenia can succeed regardless of their disease. And if you have schizophrenia, that can give you hope. And hope can bring change.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
orionblastar 14y ago
I suffer from schizoaffective disorder, it is like having bipolar disorder and schizophrenia at the same time and having normal, depressed, manic, schizophrenic and a mix of them at times every two weeks or so. I had earned $150,000/year as a programmer, but because of the stress I was under at one job I developed the mental illness and was fired for being mentally ill (I had panic attacks at work, and was ordered to 'snap out of it or you are fired!' and when I couldn't snap out of it I was fired) I tried other jobs but I was just bullied and harassed for being mentally ill. When they know you have a schizophrenic illness they make all kinds of loud noises to distract you and then pretend they didn't make them to trick you into thinking you are hearing things. Like playing wav files on their speakers turned way up, yelling, singing, ringing a bell, one place they bribed an ice cream truck to drive by every 15 minutes and ring the bell and play music near my window. Of course you can't work under those conditions and you file complaints and they are ignored and eventually you get fired because you are mentally ill. I ended up in disability being too sick to work a job. There was really three ways it could have gone. The only way I could find a job was to become a software contractor on a 1099 form with no benefits and be shuffled around every six months to finish projects nobody else can finish (spaghetti code debugging) and either have to go off medication as they are too expensive without insurance (when you apply for personal health insurance they use pre-existing conditions to deny you, but if you had a W2 Job with a group plan they'd accept you, but as a contractor you aren't allowed on a group plan) or go homeless and wander from one mental hospital or even jail to another. The alternative is to get accepted on disability and avoid that madness. Not unless the right company wants to hire you as an employee with a W2 and keep you on despite the problems with your mental illness they can accommodate you for it. The problem is a mental illness is a disability, but when most companies or organizations plan for disabilities they think people in wheelchairs, deaf or blind people, and never someone with a mental illness like schizophrenia, they only see that as a weakness and character flaw. They think he/she is a potential criminal/terrorist a ticking time bomb that will go off on a violent spree that will kill people because most of the people who go on murder sprees are labeled mentally ill by the news media. Even if you are not violent, you will get classified as potentially becoming violent and thus a liability. If you had autism or downs syndrome you would find all kinds of support, even get college scholarships and job placements. But as a schizophrenic you are seen as a sub-human creature that should be gotten rid of, and confused with a sociopath or whatever. They even confuse you as having multiple personality disorders even if that is not a part of schizophrenia. Anyway I am on geodon and clonazapan if anyone wonders what I take to be treated. I went on disability in 2003, and learned meditation in Buddhism to control it better. I am re-learning how to program all over again as well as writing some ebooks and hoping to self-publish them when I am finished. When I went online for support of my mental illness, I was faced with trolls and people harassing me and bullying me, once even found my home phone number and kept prank calling my house at 3am every night using a VOIP software to create fake caller ID numbers like 666-666-6666 and 123-456-7890 and my wife couldn't take it anymore and changed our phone number to a private number to prevent that after the police failed to do anything about it, even if the caller did threaten to kill us all as well. It is really difficult for me, as my community does not give me any type of support for it and just generally avoid me because they don't understand my mental illness or even how to talk to me. So I am excluded from things, I lost most of my friends, and my family most of them cut me off after I became mentally ill. I have two college degrees, one in computer science and the other in business management. Since nobody would hire me, I plan to do work at home and slowly earn income with writing ebooks and maybe doing some small programming tasks.
xijuan 14y ago
My friend and I were discussing about this this morning! She is diagnosed with bipolar disorder; and this morning she asked me whether I think she could still be successful career wise with her conditions. I said "Of course, you will! Other people may stigmatize people like you! But you should NEVER stigmatize yourself!" Of course, I talked to her more than just few sentences. This article just proved everything I told her! For those who have suffered depression, here is a list of well-known people who have suffered major depressive disorder. If you google, there is a list for every mental disorder! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_major_depressive_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_major_depre...
andy 14y ago
I've been diagnosed with Schizophrenia and I'm able to work as a software engineer. I was diagnosed when I was 27, and I'm 29 now. I have a Computer Engineering degree from Northeastern University. I'm currently working from home on an Android application and getting paid via 1099.
tokenadult 14y ago
Remarkable. Schizophrenia was once called "dementia praecox," and with good reason, as most people diagnosed with it never got better over the long term. I can remember very stark stories about young people felled by schizophrenia, written by their parents, during the 1960s. Now with better prescribed medications and better cognitive therapies it is possible to be "high functioning" person with schizophenia, and more research on that issue will help more suffering people function better. And the first small number of successful cases of persons with schizophrenia achieving professional success, family togetherness in a new family, or even both, will give hope to more suffering patients. A seminar video produced by the University of Virginia, Divided Minds: Twin Sisters' Journey Through Schizophrenia," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzDPlktZrGI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzDPlktZrGI tells the story of sisters Pamela Spiro Wagner and Carolyn S. Spiro, M.D., one of whom has schizophrenia, and one of whom does not, even they are identical (monozygotic) twins who were brought up in the same home. They also have a book about their story. http://www.amazon.com/Divided-Minds-Sisters-Journey-Schizophrenia/dp/0312320655/ref=tmm_pap_title_0 http://www.amazon.com/Divided-Minds-Sisters-Journey-Schizoph... Some of my perspective on these issues comes from knowing Irving Gottesman, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Gottesman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Gottesman who was credited as the main adviser on schizophrenia relied on by the author of the biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind. Gottesman has spent much of his career researching schizophrenia and debunking former theories about the origin of schizophrenia. Twin studies, especially studies of the unusual cases of monozygotic twins reared apart, and adoption studies have consistently shown that schizophrenia develops from an underlying genetic vulnerability (probably varying greatly from patient to patient, according to the best evidence from genome-wide association studies) that makes a patient all too likely to develop full psychotic symptoms over the course of childhood without careful treatment. Gottesman's research goal is to define "endophenotypes" that can be reliably measured clinically to identify patients who need one kind of preventive or supportive treatment rather than another. But we are nowhere near identifying endophenotypes for any major mental illness.
kephra 14y ago
We all construct our world. It does not matter if those constructs are called sane or insane by others. Our construct is the key to the real world outside of our minds. So the only thing that matters for those who are called insane, it to find an other niche in the world where their key fits. For the Germans here: I advise everybody to notary register a PatVerFue. This is a legal trick using an advance health care directive to forbid any diagnosis of ICD-10 F00-F99 or DSM, that takes effect at the moment a doctor claims that you can no longer make own decisions due to illness or incapacity. The result is that they could only put you in jail, but not into an insane asylum, and can not force you to take any medicaments. A doctor who sends you to an asylum can be punished for false imprisonment up to 10 years! A PatVerFue is a must have for everybody who is political subversive, working creative, and even for those who work for the tax office, as there had been cases, where tax officers had been locked in an asylum, to prevent that they follow black money of a Hessian CDU politician, in Germany. Read at http://www.patverfue.de/ http://www.patverfue.de/ (sorry this page is German)
- larve 14y ago
  > "We all construct our world. It does not matter if those constructs are called sane or insane by others. Our construct is the key to the real world outside of our minds. So the only thing that matters for those who are called insane, it to find an other niche in the world where their key fits." this is so misleading... it is not about the way you see the world, it is about how your perception of the world is out of your control. my experience of psychosis was that i was both aware of me being delusional, and still having to believe these thoughts. it is immensely stressful, and very easy to put yourself in danger. do you want to find a niche for yourself if you believe you are god, or believe you are persecuted by aliens? the first thing i want (and i am saying this at a moment of sanity) is to be committed by force if i turn delusional again.
INTPenis 14y ago
I think everyone is hurting a bit inside, some more than others. The problem is that we're shown these masks that make us believe everyone else have it better than we do. In my case, this is what drove me from acceptance of my quirks and issues. So my first rule is to turn that damn TV off, ignore media and advertising as much as humanly possible while still living in this world and meeting real people. It's a monkey see, monkey do type of world. Everyone thinks they know how they're supposed to behave based on what they see around them, and that becomes a circle of masked behavior in society. So the few of us who can't wear those masks feel even more outcast for being ourselves.

97 points by uladzislau 14y ago

Schizophrenia destroyed my first startup- It began & went undiagnosed while I was starting it, and it kept getting worse until the delusions affected my decisions and eventually activities related to them took priority over writing my business plan and securing funding. The venture ultimately failed because of its affect on me, and I lost the entire 6-figure inheritence I had invested in the venture. Now after being hospitalized for it, and having found medication which makes it so that it's like I'm not sick at all, I can attempt to learn how to code, and hope to try again doing that once I learn how.

dllthomas 14y ago
Good luck!
- cdvonstinkpot 14y ago
  Thanks
BAWAD 14y ago
I hope you create something positive that is successful. And that doesn't have to be a startup. The cool thing is you were able to externalize the handicap (schizophrenia), address it (medicine, which is not just a pill or something physical), and move on (it's the past). Peace!
SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Good luck! I have very close experience with a schizophrenic (a close loved one) and know that it can be hard; but I also know it is possible. The thing that has helped us is being open and honest when things are getting worse so we can all pitch in to help.
rubyrescue 14y ago
thanks for your honesty. do you mind talking about what medication you take?
- cdvonstinkpot 14y ago
  It's Risperdol, works like a charm. I read a book about a guy who had luck with it working for him, too. Good stuff. It makes me nauseous sometimes, but that's a small price to pay for the removal of the delusions that come from the illness.

nerdfiles 14y ago

"Gaining acceptance into graduate school or medical school and achieving a PhD or MD and becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist means jumping through many hoops, all of which require much behavioral and attentional compliance to authorities, even to those authorities that one lacks respect for. The selection and socialization of mental health professionals tends to breed out many anti-authoritarians. Having steered the higher-education terrain for a decade of my life, I know that degrees and credentials are primarily badges of compliance. Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where one routinely conforms to the demands of authorities. Thus for many MDs and PhDs, people different from them who reject this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world—a diagnosable one." — http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-are-diagnosed-as-mentally-ill/ http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/02/why-anti-authoritarians-... There are too many everyday people armed with psychiatric terms. Stop it. Many nootropic and psychotropic drugs induce many of those hallucinations. Accept it. And learn how to understand what your body is telling you, rather than treating it like it's some operating table experiment that you'd being graded to poke and prod. Your body is a diagnostician, albeit a cryptic one that has needs, demands and quirks of its own. Most of you simply do not know how to live in your skin because, for one, you were likely raised religious and you've learned how to spite your own "holy temple," not only with deeds but in your minds, your mental habits and cognitive hygiene. Read a book, like Food of the Gods or something about the organic complexity and biodiversity of this world. Understand. Stop fearing Nature, and understand how to become harmonious with it.

DanBC 14y ago
Psychiatrists are doctors; they can prescribe medication. Psychologists don't have to be doctors. They don't even have to treat humans. Perhaps they study humans, perhaps they study cats. The rest of your post is similarly ignorant of the very real harm that can come from ignoring severe and enduring MH problems. Perhaps Bipolar disorder is over diagnosed. Maybe a small number of people cope well without their meds. Meds do have unpleasant side effects. But most people with psychotic illnesses really need the meds to stay functional. > And learn how to understand what your body is telling you, rather than treating it like it's some operating table experiment that you'd being graded to poke and prod. I've talked to people who hear voices. They don't always want the voices to disappear, but they do want some techniques to use so they can know when the voice is just a voice and not real, and so they can cope with some of the negative affects of voices. Is that what you're saying? If you are, fair enough. But if you're saying that psychosis is just a different state of being, just a different part of the spectrum of normal and fine, well, you're wrong.

DanBC 14y ago

This is a great article. It tells us that people can achieve a lot even when they're medicated and ill. Old thinking was very much to "protect" people with mental health problems from the stress of the world. But as you know, a bit of stress is fun, exciting, exhilarating. Modern thinking is that people with MH problems can work, and should work. They might need a bit of help to get jobs, and they might need a bit of help to stay in jobs, and it can be a bit scary for employers and colleagues. But reducing stigma is going reasonably well.

reinhardt 14y ago

Too bad that most attention to schizophrenia has been on "positive" symptoms (delusions, hallucinations), not so much on the negative ones (lack of motivation, flat affect, withdrawal). The latter are more debilitating in the long term, even if those who experience them are less likely to end up in the news.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

gwern 14y ago

The tone of the whole article is a little odd... I'm not sure what exactly her underlying view is. > Over the last few years, my colleagues, including Stephen Marder, Alison Hamilton and Amy Cohen, and I have gathered 20 research subjects with high-functioning schizophrenia in Los Angeles. They suffered from symptoms like mild delusions or hallucinatory behavior. Their average age was 40. Half were male, half female, and more than half were minorities. All had high school diplomas, and a majority either had or were working toward college or graduate degrees. They were graduate students, managers, technicians and professionals, including a doctor, lawyer, psychologist and chief executive of a nonprofit group. ...At the same time, most were unmarried and childless, which is consistent with their diagnoses...how had they managed to succeed in their studies and at such high-level jobs? 20 subjects is a lot? Less than half getting a college degree is success? With mild symptoms (as opposed to catatonia)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Epidemiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Epidemiology gives a lifetime risk of 0.7%. LA has ~4m people, giving 28k who have, had, or will have schizophrenia. It'd be impressive if all 28k could not cope at all and none could hold down any kind of job (and wouldn't we expect just from timing of schizophrenia onset to see plenty with degrees and jobs?).

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Having a loved one with schizophrenia, the tone is not odd at all (it is an opinion piece, not a journal). There are many people who believe schizophrenia is a sentence that means you'll be living under a bridge. I see that attitude regularly. In some cases, it is not possible to function, due to the disease; but there are a lot of people who can function, but they are told they cannot. Of course the 20 people are not a research cohort, but they are anecdotal evidence that people with schizophrenia can succeed regardless of their disease. And if you have schizophrenia, that can give you hope. And hope can bring change.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

orionblastar 14y ago

I suffer from schizoaffective disorder, it is like having bipolar disorder and schizophrenia at the same time and having normal, depressed, manic, schizophrenic and a mix of them at times every two weeks or so. I had earned $150,000/year as a programmer, but because of the stress I was under at one job I developed the mental illness and was fired for being mentally ill (I had panic attacks at work, and was ordered to 'snap out of it or you are fired!' and when I couldn't snap out of it I was fired) I tried other jobs but I was just bullied and harassed for being mentally ill. When they know you have a schizophrenic illness they make all kinds of loud noises to distract you and then pretend they didn't make them to trick you into thinking you are hearing things. Like playing wav files on their speakers turned way up, yelling, singing, ringing a bell, one place they bribed an ice cream truck to drive by every 15 minutes and ring the bell and play music near my window. Of course you can't work under those conditions and you file complaints and they are ignored and eventually you get fired because you are mentally ill. I ended up in disability being too sick to work a job. There was really three ways it could have gone. The only way I could find a job was to become a software contractor on a 1099 form with no benefits and be shuffled around every six months to finish projects nobody else can finish (spaghetti code debugging) and either have to go off medication as they are too expensive without insurance (when you apply for personal health insurance they use pre-existing conditions to deny you, but if you had a W2 Job with a group plan they'd accept you, but as a contractor you aren't allowed on a group plan) or go homeless and wander from one mental hospital or even jail to another. The alternative is to get accepted on disability and avoid that madness. Not unless the right company wants to hire you as an employee with a W2 and keep you on despite the problems with your mental illness they can accommodate you for it. The problem is a mental illness is a disability, but when most companies or organizations plan for disabilities they think people in wheelchairs, deaf or blind people, and never someone with a mental illness like schizophrenia, they only see that as a weakness and character flaw. They think he/she is a potential criminal/terrorist a ticking time bomb that will go off on a violent spree that will kill people because most of the people who go on murder sprees are labeled mentally ill by the news media. Even if you are not violent, you will get classified as potentially becoming violent and thus a liability. If you had autism or downs syndrome you would find all kinds of support, even get college scholarships and job placements. But as a schizophrenic you are seen as a sub-human creature that should be gotten rid of, and confused with a sociopath or whatever. They even confuse you as having multiple personality disorders even if that is not a part of schizophrenia. Anyway I am on geodon and clonazapan if anyone wonders what I take to be treated. I went on disability in 2003, and learned meditation in Buddhism to control it better. I am re-learning how to program all over again as well as writing some ebooks and hoping to self-publish them when I am finished. When I went online for support of my mental illness, I was faced with trolls and people harassing me and bullying me, once even found my home phone number and kept prank calling my house at 3am every night using a VOIP software to create fake caller ID numbers like 666-666-6666 and 123-456-7890 and my wife couldn't take it anymore and changed our phone number to a private number to prevent that after the police failed to do anything about it, even if the caller did threaten to kill us all as well. It is really difficult for me, as my community does not give me any type of support for it and just generally avoid me because they don't understand my mental illness or even how to talk to me. So I am excluded from things, I lost most of my friends, and my family most of them cut me off after I became mentally ill. I have two college degrees, one in computer science and the other in business management. Since nobody would hire me, I plan to do work at home and slowly earn income with writing ebooks and maybe doing some small programming tasks.

xijuan 14y ago

My friend and I were discussing about this this morning! She is diagnosed with bipolar disorder; and this morning she asked me whether I think she could still be successful career wise with her conditions. I said "Of course, you will! Other people may stigmatize people like you! But you should NEVER stigmatize yourself!" Of course, I talked to her more than just few sentences. This article just proved everything I told her! For those who have suffered depression, here is a list of well-known people who have suffered major depressive disorder. If you google, there is a list for every mental disorder! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_major_depressive_disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_major_depre...

andy 14y ago

I've been diagnosed with Schizophrenia and I'm able to work as a software engineer. I was diagnosed when I was 27, and I'm 29 now. I have a Computer Engineering degree from Northeastern University. I'm currently working from home on an Android application and getting paid via 1099.

tokenadult 14y ago

Remarkable. Schizophrenia was once called "dementia praecox," and with good reason, as most people diagnosed with it never got better over the long term. I can remember very stark stories about young people felled by schizophrenia, written by their parents, during the 1960s. Now with better prescribed medications and better cognitive therapies it is possible to be "high functioning" person with schizophenia, and more research on that issue will help more suffering people function better. And the first small number of successful cases of persons with schizophrenia achieving professional success, family togetherness in a new family, or even both, will give hope to more suffering patients. A seminar video produced by the University of Virginia, Divided Minds: Twin Sisters' Journey Through Schizophrenia," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzDPlktZrGI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzDPlktZrGI tells the story of sisters Pamela Spiro Wagner and Carolyn S. Spiro, M.D., one of whom has schizophrenia, and one of whom does not, even they are identical (monozygotic) twins who were brought up in the same home. They also have a book about their story. http://www.amazon.com/Divided-Minds-Sisters-Journey-Schizophrenia/dp/0312320655/ref=tmm_pap_title_0 http://www.amazon.com/Divided-Minds-Sisters-Journey-Schizoph... Some of my perspective on these issues comes from knowing Irving Gottesman, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Gottesman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Gottesman who was credited as the main adviser on schizophrenia relied on by the author of the biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind. Gottesman has spent much of his career researching schizophrenia and debunking former theories about the origin of schizophrenia. Twin studies, especially studies of the unusual cases of monozygotic twins reared apart, and adoption studies have consistently shown that schizophrenia develops from an underlying genetic vulnerability (probably varying greatly from patient to patient, according to the best evidence from genome-wide association studies) that makes a patient all too likely to develop full psychotic symptoms over the course of childhood without careful treatment. Gottesman's research goal is to define "endophenotypes" that can be reliably measured clinically to identify patients who need one kind of preventive or supportive treatment rather than another. But we are nowhere near identifying endophenotypes for any major mental illness.

kephra 14y ago

We all construct our world. It does not matter if those constructs are called sane or insane by others. Our construct is the key to the real world outside of our minds. So the only thing that matters for those who are called insane, it to find an other niche in the world where their key fits. For the Germans here: I advise everybody to notary register a PatVerFue. This is a legal trick using an advance health care directive to forbid any diagnosis of ICD-10 F00-F99 or DSM, that takes effect at the moment a doctor claims that you can no longer make own decisions due to illness or incapacity. The result is that they could only put you in jail, but not into an insane asylum, and can not force you to take any medicaments. A doctor who sends you to an asylum can be punished for false imprisonment up to 10 years! A PatVerFue is a must have for everybody who is political subversive, working creative, and even for those who work for the tax office, as there had been cases, where tax officers had been locked in an asylum, to prevent that they follow black money of a Hessian CDU politician, in Germany. Read at http://www.patverfue.de/ http://www.patverfue.de/ (sorry this page is German)

larve 14y ago
> "We all construct our world. It does not matter if those constructs are called sane or insane by others. Our construct is the key to the real world outside of our minds. So the only thing that matters for those who are called insane, it to find an other niche in the world where their key fits." this is so misleading... it is not about the way you see the world, it is about how your perception of the world is out of your control. my experience of psychosis was that i was both aware of me being delusional, and still having to believe these thoughts. it is immensely stressful, and very easy to put yourself in danger. do you want to find a niche for yourself if you believe you are god, or believe you are persecuted by aliens? the first thing i want (and i am saying this at a moment of sanity) is to be committed by force if i turn delusional again.

INTPenis 14y ago

I think everyone is hurting a bit inside, some more than others. The problem is that we're shown these masks that make us believe everyone else have it better than we do. In my case, this is what drove me from acceptance of my quirks and issues. So my first rule is to turn that damn TV off, ignore media and advertising as much as humanly possible while still living in this world and meeting real people. It's a monkey see, monkey do type of world. Everyone thinks they know how they're supposed to behave based on what they see around them, and that becomes a circle of masked behavior in society. So the few of us who can't wear those masks feel even more outcast for being ourselves.