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How She Helped Me – Small Things, Big Impact
To the coworker who helped me when I had a hallucination at work, thank you. When I told you I had a weird question and I didn’t know how to ask, you gave me your full attention. No discomfort, no judgement, you listened. You listened to me say that I had been sitting at my desk working and heard the sound of scratching from the inside of the server room door and I didn’t know if it was real or all in my head. Only a select few people in the office know that I have schizoaffective disorder, including you. But I had never approached anyone in the office with…
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Supporting a loved one who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia
That moment where you hear the words “schizophrenia.” Heart wrenching, gut turning news. What do you do? How do you help someone fight such a complex illness? What’s going to happen to them? And what is your own life going to be like now? In no way do I have all the answers, and this is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are a few things you can do to help a loved one who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Educate yourself Schizophrenia is a complex illness that affects both the brain and mental health. Medication for schizophrenia can also be confusing. One of the…
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Reality Checking
During a question and answer session after myself and another speaker shared our stories to educate sheriff officers during Crisis Intervention Training, one of the officers brought up that he has a friend with schizophrenia and his friend will sometimes ask him if he heard or saw something, which is a tool many of us refer to as reality checking. The officer continued, saying he was usually able to confirm the experience as real, but then he asked, “what do I do if it isn’t real?” I cannot stress enough how important this question is, and I have the feeling this is a question many people have, and may or…