- When I was first experiencing symptoms
of what I later knew was schizophrenia disorder.
I really began to question my own sanity.
And you know, thoughts like, am I losing my mind?
Am I going crazy, started to run through my head.
And then when I was diagnosed with schizophrenia disorder,
this idea of the fact that I had lost my mind
was kind of confirmed in my own head.
I think that this is something
that a lot of people experience
when they are first working through the experience
of symptoms and diagnosis and whatnot.
And I think it largely has to do
with the intense amount of stigma there is
around chronic mental illnesses like schizophrenia.
Perhaps, you know, one of the major reasons
why there is still this permeating stigma around it
is kind of the historical context of what used to happen
when you were diagnosed with schizophrenia.
People with schizophrenia were often placed
in institutions, like insane asylums basically,
and were locked up and kind of stripped of any personhood.
And that was kind of how serious mental illness
like schizophrenia was dealt with historically.
And I think that this is kind of where our notion
of what it means to be crazy has developed.
And you know, this is where people
have an understanding of what the term crazy means.
Crazy referred to the people
who are being locked away in these mental institutions.
And now we use the word crazy for other things
that maybe don't even pertain to mental illness at all.
But do convey maybe an extreme nature of something
or different or not grounded in reality.
So it's really not surprising
that this external stigma that exists
around illnesses like schizophrenia
starts to kind of transition into
an internalized experience of stigma
around having an illness like schizophrenia.
I think that when you are living
with an illness like schizophrenia,
you kind of live in fear
of other people being afraid of you,
or other people you know, exerting control over you,
locking you away like they did historically
with insane asylums and whatnot,
treating you like they have treated people like you
in the past.
My experience with having a schizophrenia spectrum illness
has been that of, you know,
beginning to kind of think of and perceive the world
a little bit differently than other people may.
And I think that because of the internalized stigma
that I've experienced.
This kind of difference in thinking
has kind of been ingrained into me
to be thought of as though I'm losing my mind.
So how do you deal with this internalization
of what society views as crazy?
I think to start off with
an important place to kind of consider is
what does it mean to be in control of your own mind?
And now by that, I mean,
you know, what is delusional thinking?
I think that as a society,
we engage in some shared delusional thought.
And an example of this would be the delusion
of the fact that money has any value at all.
It doesn't, that's a shared delusion
that we all have agreed to experience together.
It could also be argued that religion
is a form of shared delusion,
or the institution of marriage
where people have the kind of borderline delusional thinking
going into marriage that it is forever,
that it is for their lifetime,
when statistically speaking
50% of marriages don't end in forever.
So I guess that kind of leads me to question
who gets to decide what train of thinking is acceptable?
And who gets to decide the way in which
it is most accepted to perceive the world?
If you are experiencing a chronic mental illness
and are being made to feel like you are crazy
or you have lost your mind or that kind of thing,
I want to encourage you to try to think about it
a little bit differently and to try to think of it as
your brain functioning a little bit differently
than is typical.
There is a lot more conversation going on right now
about what it means to be neurodivergent.
And what neurodivergence is,
is basically when your brain functions differently
than is standard or typical.
It's not necessarily a bad thing that your brain
may function a little bit differently.
Neurodivergence offers a lot of benefits to society
when we come from a place of accepting neurodivergence.
There's also a wide range
in how people experience their symptoms.
So if you have symptoms of schizophrenia
or chronic mental illness,
and they're not causing you any distress
or impacting your life negatively in any way, then cool.
There is literally no harm happening.
And that said, if your symptoms are causing you distress,
there are ways to manage it.
And this can be through medication, therapy,
changes in your lifestyle, et cetera.
We have a whole video specific
to treatments for illnesses like schizophrenia,
which you can check out here.
The point that I'm really trying to make here is that
if you are experiencing a difference
in how your brain processes the world
or a mental illness, if you will,
you're not crazy.
You are not broken or defective,
and you have not lost your mind.
I completely understand that this can be
a really, really difficult train of thinking to overcome
for reasons like,
the internalized stigma and the external stigma
around illnesses like schizophrenia still.
But it is a really important part of self-acceptance,
which is a really important part of recovery
and living with a chronic illness like schizophrenia.
The more that you believe that internalized notion
that you are crazy or that you've lost your mind
the less agency you ultimately have over your own life.
It's really important to remember that you are still you,
and you are fully capable of leading
a meaningful and fulfilling life.
If you are feeling alone
and struggling with thoughts like these around,
you know, internalized stigma
and issues with self-acceptance
and you wanna meet other people
who maybe process the world a little bit differently,
we have an online peer support community for people
who are experiencing schizophrenia spectrum illnesses,
which you may be interested in.
You can access that through our Patreon page
at the link in the description below.
So thank you so much for watching, and as always,
wishing you and your loved ones good health.
We see you in the next video. Bye.