Managing my Schizophrenia

It is well known and well understood that any physical disease with external manifestations gathers a lot of community support and understanding for the patient. The same cannot be said, unfortunately, for mental diseases. More often than not, the victim of a mental health condition gets negative feedback from a community that can reinforce the psychiatric issues. 

Therefore, even before a professional mental health professional can intervene, it is of the utmost importance to be very patient and compassionate towards the sufferer. If the victim in any way feels that he or she is being ostracized by society, their chances of recovery diminish significantly. In that case, they may continue to believe that the problem is with others and not with themselves, and therefore they may not even be willing to accept that they have a problem in their own thinking patterns. On the contrary, if a patient is shown that their paranoid thoughts or hallucinations regarding others are bogus, they are much more likely to first accept that they have a problem, and consequently agree to have therapy with a mental health professional.  

It’s the fear of the unknown that makes everyone so scared of dealing with a patient. So even if one cannot do anything to help the patient, the goal should be to not make it worse by taunting or making fun of them. In my own personal journey of dealing with major episodes of full-blown schizophrenia, I have been very lucky to have a loving family behind me like a rock at all times, and friends and teachers who did not disown me or made it worse. Of course, there is a lot of silent suffering for everyone around who really cares for the victim. But even in the darnedest of circumstances, I believe that the victim should not be punished for their behavior and sometimes the best thing to do is just protect the physical security of the diseased person and ‘let them be’. 

This can be a very frustrating wait indeed, and I was very lucky to have people around who took the blows for me and gave me a chance to recover fully. Not just once, but through three major episodes that happened to me throughout my schooling years. Now I am a proud holder of an advanced PhD degree, and I indeed have a very positive future to look forward to.

Once such community support is assured to the victim, the next level of support is at the professional. Here in the US, there are excellent facilities devoted exclusively to mental illness patients, especially in universities. A relative or close friend of the victim should seek out the best nearest facility, and refer the patient there as soon as possible. Again, I was lucky to have such referrals made and for getting very professional help from psychologists and psychiatrists in my university setting. These are the only people who can get to the bottom of any issue, and around whom a patient will not feel like he or she is being judged or criticized for how they currently think.  It is of the utmost importance that a patient willingly takes the medications prescribed for them, even after a full-blown episode has ended! My second and third episodes were due to neglecting taking my medications on a regular daily basis in between the episodes.

Ultimately though, even after receiving community and professional support, a victim’s full recovery depends on their own willingness to accept that there is a problem, and to recognize that their best interest lies in changing their own thought patterns. Momentum has to be built towards such a tipping point where the switch occurs, and this process is only possible with constant ‘lack of negative reinforcement’ by the community and therapy along with medication. 

To be continued...