Hearing Voices
"National Schizophrenia Awareness Day, marked on 25 July every year by the charity Rethink Mental Illness, explores what it means to live with this much misunderstood and often stigmatised mental health condition. In England, approximately one adult in every 100 will live with a diagnosis of schizophrenia."
There's a lot of misconceptions about schizophrenia.
Here's our experience of it.
Someone close to us hears voices.
It's a blighter of a condition...and hard for those nearest ...to know how to help because often we don't understand it.
Here's her story.
She was in her 20s.
Lived in Brighton.
Months away from completing nurse training.
Vivacious.
Large circle of friends.
Dated.
Enjoyed clubbing.
Shopped in trendy clothes shops in the Brighton Lanes.
In short?
Lead a normal life.
Then ..bewildered and frightened she knew something was happening to her...but couldn't understand what.
She was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Life changed......
Family and friends feel ill equipped to deal with mental illness.
Many with schizophrenia are able to lead a normal life with the help of medication and support.
In this case sadly, it hasn't been so.
She lived with her mother... then when mother couldn't cope..30 years in a group home .
Friends disappeared.
Invitations to weddings...parties...family gatherings...dwindled and stopped...
people are nervous of the condition..
...but also her own voices tell her not to go...or not to answer the door to company...or the phone..
...not all the time...but much of it...
...so for this gentle, loving person...her circle ever decreased...and people stop visiting.
The voices became so bad she took to pulling the duvet over her head for days on end....the side effects of that?
Physically weak...not eating...dehydration.
As a result... at present..now aged 60.. she is in a nursing home...we hope it's only temporary.
When she does talk about her life she says how she would have loved normality..
... a partner..family..home of her own.
Instead ...sadly....she has been isolated much of her life...
....by 70 voices...
more
#mind.org.uk
#nationalschizophreniaawarenessday
#hearingvoices
#mentalillness.
There's a lot of misconceptions about schizophrenia.
Here's our experience of it.
Someone close to us hears voices.
It's a blighter of a condition...and hard for those nearest ...to know how to help because often we don't understand it.
Here's her story.
She was in her 20s.
Lived in Brighton.
Months away from completing nurse training.
Vivacious.
Large circle of friends.
Dated.
Enjoyed clubbing.
Shopped in trendy clothes shops in the Brighton Lanes.
In short?
Lead a normal life.
Then ..bewildered and frightened she knew something was happening to her...but couldn't understand what.
She was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Life changed......
Family and friends feel ill equipped to deal with mental illness.
Many with schizophrenia are able to lead a normal life with the help of medication and support.
In this case sadly, it hasn't been so.
She lived with her mother... then when mother couldn't cope..30 years in a group home .
Friends disappeared.
Invitations to weddings...parties...family gatherings...dwindled and stopped...
people are nervous of the condition..
...but also her own voices tell her not to go...or not to answer the door to company...or the phone..
...not all the time...but much of it...
...so for this gentle, loving person...her circle ever decreased...and people stop visiting.
The voices became so bad she took to pulling the duvet over her head for days on end....the side effects of that?
Physically weak...not eating...dehydration.
As a result... at present..now aged 60.. she is in a nursing home...we hope it's only temporary.
When she does talk about her life she says how she would have loved normality..
... a partner..family..home of her own.
Instead ...sadly....she has been isolated much of her life...
....by 70 voices...
more
#mind.org.uk
#nationalschizophreniaawarenessday
#hearingvoices
#mentalillness.
