On May 29, Suchita Bhhatia raised this question on her podcast "First case of #schizophrenia was identified in 1887. In 2020 we still do not have a cure of it despite massive research"
Today Dr/Prof.Vikram Patel spoke on a news channel about the state of mental health during this covid lockdown, especially amongst young people. He said something interesting which reflected my entire life recovery crisply (and most of others I know).
He said “This situation has brought in more clinical depression & anxiety because for the youth, their lives have been thrown under the bus...from education to employment....” something on these lines.
I wondered...how come this similar perspective on life, on recovery was never a given for those of us who have lost our entire lives to conditions like schizophrenia. Why was each year of our life, from relapses, breakdowns or episodes not seen as reactions to the loss of life we were having to deal with alone in our already faltering minds? To see how our friends graduate & get jobs. See our peers move on & marry? See others' younger grow before us & seek out opportunities while we were just trying to find acceptance in a society as people and not as monsters or criminals. How did everything we react to get reduced to the symptoms our label carries?
I write this not because of my story any longer - but because I still get caregivers calling in specifically for a family member with schizophrenia and they do not know what to do. I’ve seen caregivers ask the same questions to professionals - but the answer is always that of treatment and long term plans around it. The only knowledge they are provided about their ‘mentally ill’ family member is - Schizophrenia has to be treated. The person needs to be in rehab. Life long medicines. I see intellectuals and professors trying to 'decode' and better understand schizophrenia as if everything the person is bound to is the schizophrenia. No one is really looking at the daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and decade of loss a person deals with.
How I really wish people could see how the same issues they are now dealing with have been the same issues many of us have had to deal with for years in our own heads and simply accept that we will never lead the same lives as everyone else just because of one label.
If 2 months is bringing out all kinds of stuff in your mind about your life, maybe you will now be able to understand what 2 years or 20 years can do to a person. Things will change if we ask a different question that does not reduce the person to their schizophrenic state of mind.
This video was from World Mental Health Day in 2013. The hand belongs to Hina Siddiqui. (Just for fun)
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