As someone who has survived schizophrenia, I have a unique perspective on how to help others who are struggling with schizophrenia.
Here are my personal thoughts on the subject:
Learn all about the disease and how to cope with schizophrenia. In my experience, families (understandably) struggle to cope when their loved one is disconnected from reality and may be a danger to themselves or others.
In my experience, one of the main symptoms of schizophrenia is psychosis. People who experience psychosis experience a frightening experience.
Don’t take it personally. Those affected may lash out at you… if they are in a psychotic state, they have disconnected from reality. Understand that they are in a “dreamland”… try to empathize with them, don’t argue with them, but make sure they get help in a controlled environment.
Be patient, empathetic, and trust that they will get better.
Believe me, they can recover, but they may never be the same.
Trauma can affect people in ways that burn bridges… it’s the brain’s way of physically coping with something it literally can’t handle. Having people tell you that what you saw or heard didn’t exist and that you were just “crazy” when you saw or heard it so realistically and tangibly… that in itself can be traumatic.
People who have a psychotic episode may not have PTSD, but they can come out the other side with PTSD.
Personally, I’ve never been able to fully recover. Don’t get me wrong, I’m stable, but I’ve changed. From my perspective, when a major neural pathway is severed, it never comes back the same way, but it reconnects over time. In someone’s brain, it can permanently change their personality, but that doesn’t mean they can’t come back to reality and stop being a threat.
A common stigma against people with the condition is that someone who has recovered from psychosis is still considered schizophrenic and “dangerous to people,” even if the person who has recovered is actually 100% real and not dangerous to people.
Communication can be problematic, so patience and empathy are key.
For a moderate amount of time in the beginning, I lost all of my short-term memory, even though my long-term memory was perfectly fine! Because I lost my short-term memory, I couldn’t hold a conversation long enough to remember what I was talking about. It was very frustrating. But I remember everything I was thinking at the time, and even thinking about it makes me feel so embarrassed!
After the frustration of not being able to finish a sentence, my coping mechanism was to bypass the “filter” process and start communicating more with my gut feeling instead of my thoughts. This led to me saying things and interrupting people. I felt bad about doing this because it made me come across as rude and argumentative… but I knew it was the only way to communicate and get my message across.
During this period of troubled communication and being lost in “dreamland,” many people stopped being my friends and very few stayed in touch to see how I was. I appreciate those who stayed in touch; they make me feel more valued and worthy of love.
People with schizophrenia may seem “not there,” but they really are.
A person in psychosis is not “out of their mind.” They have difficulty communicating or perhaps are not fully in touch with themselves and misunderstand what is happening around them. Think of a dream state—this is an example of living in a dream, or perhaps living with one foot in the dream world and one foot in the real world. This is psychosis, a loss of connection to reality.
Show them that you will be there for them.
Stay in touch with your family or caregivers, even if it means distancing yourself for them. Of course, your friend needs to know that you are worried and will find comfort in that. Being schizophrenic can be a scary experience, and feeling abandoned on top of that makes the trauma even worse.
So, try to rebuild bridges as much as you can. They may not be in reality right now, but they really need you.
They will get better with help. Please keep the faith.
Recovery is possible when “best practices” are applied in the mental health system, families, and society in general. “Getting better” means getting well enough to have a job, drive a car, take care of yourself and your loved ones, have a social life, set goals and achieve them, etc.
Getting better takes time, treatment, medication, patience, and understanding from loved ones. In order to get better, those struggling must accept their diagnosis, continue taking their medications, understand their symptoms, and consciously manage their positive symptoms. When it comes to recovery, hope makes all the difference!
People fear what they don’t understand. Many people with schizophrenia never have another psychotic episode after their first one and are actually as stable as anyone else. Yet people fear them. People even describe people who have recovered as “schizophrenic” and see them as dangerous, when in reality, the opposite is true. Labels and generalizations are not true and make dealing with traumatic illness much more difficult.
Educate yourself. Trust that they will recover. Know that they are “out there.” Empathize and support. Protect yourself; seek psychiatric help if they pose a danger to anyone you love. If you are keeping your distance, stay in touch with your care providers and/or family to monitor their recovery.
Your diligence in this regard is more important than you realize.