Talking with People Living with Schizophrenia - Episode 1: What it's Like Living with Schizophrenia

JOIN OUR ONLINE PEER SUPPORT COMMUNITY Schizophrenia Peer Support Community: www.schizophreniapeersupport.com/ General Mental Illness Peer Support Community: www.onlinepeersupport.com/

I’m a medical school professor. I’m gonna share this with my students. This is excellent. We need to see the true faces of this disease. Not just when folks are unstable during a hospitalization.

You're such a gift, Lauren. Your gentle light is flooding the shadow of stigma surrounding schizophrenia. You are a brilliant communicator, and what you are doing is vitally important. I really admire you.

I think it is important to show articulate, intelligent people discussing their insights into their own schizophrenia.

When she mentioned "that scary word" it automatically resonated with me because there is so much stigma around schizophrenia and it's often treated as diagnosis that is basically a death sentence to any dreams, hopes, aspirations you may have had and you'll just be completely unable to live life without having caregivers. And it's so so so wrong.

I love what you are doing ! Ppl need to know we are not monsters

I live in Auckland New Zealand my youngest son was diagnosed @ 25 years old with Schizophrenia. We had very little support in the Community we didn’t know what to expect and the trigger signs. I had to push for help from the psych team. It was frightening, lonely and an anxious time.Unfortunately our son died 6 months after he was diagnosed. I took his death hard. The guilt I felt was enormous and it’s taken me 8 years to accept he maybe he didn’t want me there when he died.Seeing your program on YouTube is healing for me I have a much better awareness and understanding of schizophrenia now I can’t thankyou enough 😊

As someone with borderline personality disorder, I can relate to a lot of this... stigma sucks but we are so resilient <3

Peter is so incredibly sweet, wanna give him a hug. All brave for talking. Thanks.

Lauren, congratulations on a great opening for your interviews. Your questions were spot on. Your guests were very open and informative. The process of getting the appropriate therapist is so important and can be so frustrating. Your presentation is real and that is important. Keep up the good work.

Lighting, camerawork, sound... this production value is supperb and you are such a great and caring host

I was diagnosed with schizophrenia at 25 after my first psychosis- I've had 6 Now, I am 36. I take an antipsychotic injection once a month and anxiety medication daily because I also deal with anxiety disorder. Over the years trying different medications, I have found that my anxiety meds are really what is helping me the most in terms of controlling my schizophrenic symptoms like paranoia and hallucinations. I also have problems like when I don't sleep enough my symptoms come back or if I'm under any stress for prolonged periods of time. Thank you for this video and showing the world that even though we have schizophrenia we are normal people there are just different degrees of the illness I believe. What keeps me healthy is eating Well, taking my meds, getting some exercise to stay fit and getting good sleep. Looking forward to future videos.

My diagnosis began with "emotionally disturbed" in Elementary and middle school, but when I had my first psychotic episode at 20 I was just given a general acute psychosis diagnosis and my diagnosis evolved from Bipolar I to schizoaffective disorder. I was alarmed by the symptoms in my more lucid moments but craved answers so I looked up diagnostic books in the resources of the mental hospitals I was hospitalized in. Routines have always been very helpful for me to maintain both productivity and wellness so I enjoy being employed and having something to do with work, or with church or with academics. Free time is fine, but if I have nothing but free time my self care work collapses. I have a more long lasting mood cycle like Lauren and Peter were saying. I am terrified of mania because I'm more prone to depressive moods by nature and have suffered a lot in life so the euphoria of mania is so seductive even though I now know the crash is life wrecking. Hallucinations for me tend to be mostly visual hallucinations and are usually stuff like lights pulsing or becoming giant pillars of light. Auditory Hallucinations are voices of people I know from my personal life. Sometimes it's mindless banter, other times it's scary and abusive and on one occasion life saving. The only other type of hallucination I've had was the sensation that one of my back teeth was eroding or dissolving but that was in a full blown psychotic state. I use other people's lack of response as a means to reality test. I've lucked out with a simple medication regimen where I just take all my pills before bed time. I suppose the blunted affect and paranoia are the most frustrating parts of the illness for me. The other symptoms I can sort of handle. Racing thoughts might be another one because I hate the feeling of helplessness that accompanies them. It's like not being in the driver's seat of your own mind. Hate being unable to troubleshoot.

If I do not work, I loose it in to depression. I need to work:(

Stress makes my symptoms worse. I have been through so many diagnosis until 2014.. I have been diagnosed with paranoia schizophrenia/ schizoaffective disorder.

Great video Lauren, Vicki and Peter! Thank you for sharing your stories ❤️

Love hearing from the younger people perspective on this hot 🔥 topic to help myself understand my own diagnosis

Thank you so much for this video !!! In my city they have shut down the crisis center and like you were all talking about the revolving door , its so true for my family and now the only place to put my son is in jail and he hasn't even commited a serious crime!! They released him and he didn't have a scheduled day or have any idea how to take care of his schizoeffective disorder not one professional would check on him until he just couldn't take it anymore. Ive said this before but we need this channel more than ever right now !! And your so appriecated ❤❤

What likeable people :) It's funny, the whole time I watched this, I was thinking that the things all of you describe almost seem like very ramped up versions of what all people have to one degree or another, even people with no diagnosis to speak of. They just seem to happen in the extreme. As a random example, some women going through menopause will experience formication, which is the sensation of bugs crawling on your skin. How weird is that? Same mechanism, different trigger. The brain and its chemistry is so mysterious and interesting. I hope one day they unravel the mystery of what schizophrenia is. Thanks, this was really interesting. I'm happy for the three of you that you are living now and not 100 years ago...

I live in America and just started listening to your videos. I have found them helpful as I have a friend in her late 50's and her daughter in her late 30's who were diagnosed with mental illness over 20 years ago. I am not sure exactly , but at one time I was told my friend had bipolar disorder/ paranoid schizophrenia, her daughter's mental diagnosis I have no idea other than it maybe on the order as her mother's. As an outsider it is difficult for me to understand how at times my friend can come across sounding very rational and then at other times makes no sense at all. Sometimes she claims people are talking about her or are stealing from her and I question if it is true or not. In 2015 she started acting differently towards me and then would not speak to me again until 2017, when I moved to another town. Since I had known her for over 30 years I wanted to tell her goodbye before I left and when I saw her she acted as if nothing was wrong. I the meantime her daughter had been telling others I had threatened to kill her. ( I found this out from my friends sister). I felt horrible as I never said any such thing. I felt very angry about it. Slowly I am understanding more about why they say & do things they do. Since I moved I hear more often from my friend then when I lived 2 miles from her. She calls or texts at least twice a week. She never acknowledges what her mental illness is though. I have basically learned about it through her sister. I am glad I found your videos as it had helped me to understand more about it. When she is on her meds everything is great, when for some reason she goes off of them or they stop working not so much great. I'm not sure about whether to confront her about her behavior or not. At times I'm not even sure I want to continue our friendship. In the area I live there does not seem to be much support for friends of people who suffer with mental illness. More so for family. I heard my friend's illness by listening to your program. A lot of similarities I found between her, you & your guests. Thank You for sharing. I am thinking about sharing this with her.