i have to take a Medicaid paid van service to my appointments. the driver today, was really nice. we got to talking and eventually he asked me why was i seeing a psychiatrist for i seemed normal. i told him i had schizoaffective disorder with ptsd. so he asked if i really heard voices, i told him yeah but first i had to explain schizoaffective disorder to him.
he told me a story about a good friend of his that had schizophrenia. said he didn’t understand how someone can be that far gone. i explained to him people with sz or sza can’t help it. its like a run away train.
i also told him i was gay, that was a whole other conversation.
I think when people typically think of schizophrenia, they think we don’t have it because they’ve been watching too many movies where like the people are drooling and rambling in gibberish with a straitjacket on and don’t understand that most of the disability caused by it is in our heads where it can’t be seen and then they just dismiss the peculiar behavior we have as idiosyncrasies or something because it’s not so disruptive and bizarre we can’t get by with it while doing OK.
That’s my in laws the driver asked honest questions and didn’t judge me when I told him about how its in my family history. he said he didn’t know mental illnesses could be hereditary. I talked with him about his wife who he says needs to see a professional for her depression and mood swings. I told him how it took a week before my partner convinced me to go to the hospital to get help.