A woman recounts her journey with chronic schizophrenia, detailing her struggles with psychosis, hospitalizations, and the challenges she faced during her academic and professional life. Despite a prognosis that predicted a life of dependency and menial work, she became a law professor and an advocate for mental health, emphasizing the importance of treatment, support systems, and workplace accommodations. She advocates against the use of force in psychiatric care and stresses the need for better understanding and treatment of mental illness to avoid criminalization. Her story is one of resilience, hope, and the pursuit of a fulfilling life despite her condition.
1. The speaker is a woman with chronic schizophrenia.
2. She has spent hundreds of days in psychiatric hospitals.
3. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia and given a "grave" prognosis, which meant she was expected to live in aborted care and work at menial jobs.
4. She graduated from Yale Law School and got her first law job in New Haven.
5. Her analyst, Dr. White, announced that he would be closing his practice in three months.
6. The speaker's best friend, Steve, flew to New Haven to be with her during a difficult time.
7. Steve is a lawyer and a psychologist who has treated many patients with severe mental illness.
8. The speaker was hospitalized for almost three decades due to her condition.
9. She is now a chaired professor of law, psychology, and psychiatry at the University of Southern California (USC) Gould School of Law.
10. She has a beloved husband named Will.
11. The speaker defines schizophrenia as a brain disease characterized by psychosis, delusions, and hallucinations.
12. She explains that delusions are fixed and false beliefs that aren't responsive to evidence, and hallucinations are false sensory experiences.
13. The speaker describes her experience of being psychotic, including having delusions and hallucinations.
14. She mentions that schizophrenia is not the same as multiple personality disorder or split personality.
15. The speaker notes that people with schizophrenia can be found across a wide array of socioeconomic statuses.
16. She shares an episode from her past where she became psychotic while working on a memo assignment at Yale Law School.
17. The episode led to her first hospitalization in America.
18. The speaker spent five months in a psychiatric hospital, where she was restrained for up to 20 hours at a time.
19. She notes that restraints can be deadly, with estimated deaths ranging from one to three people per week in the United States.
20. The speaker eventually came to Los Angeles to teach at USC Law School and has been taking medication for her condition.
21. She credits her excellent treatment, supportive family and friends, and accommodating workplace for her ability to manage her condition.
22. The speaker notes that the stigma against mental illness is still powerful and that she only made her illness public relatively late in life.
23. She emphasizes that people with schizophrenia are not defined by their diagnosis and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.
24. The speaker calls for increased resources for research and treatment of mental illness and an end to the criminalization of mental illness.
25. She encourages the entertainment industry and press to portray people with severe mental illness sympathetically and in all the richness and depth of their experience as people, not just diagnoses.