New Clinics in California Seek to Stop Schizophrenia Before it Starts

The important thing is that Reagan knew something was wrong.

When I met her, she was 23, a smart, wry young woman living with her mother and stepdad in Simi Valley, about an hour east of Ventura.

“Reagan” had just started a program that would train her to be a respiratory therapist. Concerned about future job prospects, she asked me not to use her real name.

Five years ago, Reagan’s prospects weren’t nearly so bright. At 19, she had been severely depressed, on and off, for years. During the bad times, she’d hide out in her room making thin, neat cuts with a razor on her upper arm.

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I like that they spoke about insight. I think anosognosia is something that needs more attention and seems to be relatively new from a mental illness point of view. If someone with a physical/neurological condition has this, then it is recognized that something is not allowing the person to see their own limitation. This can be so true for some with a mental illness. I have read that close to 40-50% suffer from lack of insight which is part of the condition itself.

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I think the insight is something that is most common very early in the process as someone starts to develop schizophrenia - then as it progresses (if untreated) people tend to lose the insight.

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These quacks at this clinic need to know that karma is the reason we schizophrenics have this illness, no other reason but karma. That is the truth as I know you all know already. You cannot intervene with destiny.

wow, i wish they had caught my schizophrenia early like that, my earliest recollection of me doing something strange was when i was 15 and i went shopping for school clothes with my mum and i was just not thinking straight, i bought a big pair of steel toe boots and a massive bag (the boots were to big for me in the first place and they were heavy like wearing bricks on my feet, the bag was horrible and i hated carrying it with my big bag, i remember i never actually got any clothes that day and for that matter for the new school year and i ended up having to wear old clothes as usual, i started to withdraw from friends and getting into trouble, shoplifting and bunking off from school,

i remember i was bunking off and shoplifting on mothers day with a friend and we stole some rather expensive mothers day cards and we were almost at the train station when i saw a security guard who knew we were shoplifters at this point most people would run away but i didn’t i walked over and handed myself in, he looked in the bag and took us to the control centre where the police came and showed us on camera up to no good, i didn’t really care at this point what was going to happen so we were taken back to the school and nothing happened, the school never told my mother for some reason and we were not suspended or even given lines,

if i was to pin point a time in my life where things were changing radically it would be then

even tho i had what could be called prodromal stages of something i am not sure it was schiz but it led to a bitter road of depression and not talking to people etc, i believe i did not have a predisposition to mental illness i believe mental illness broke down the barriers of my mind over a prolonged period of time. other factors could be that i never spent enough time with my dad growing up or never had enough money or good dinners etc,

lots of factors to think about, lots of things to ponder and most of it forgotten or buried deep in my psyches unconscious waste basket never to be seen again.

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I always wonder if my son had any symptoms earlier. He was diagnosed at 19, but there were a lot of other things going on with him. His father and I thought it was typical teenage behavior—later, drugs—then a car accident to with injuries to his forehead and concussion.
I will never know. California and Canada seem to have much better programs and resources! Maybe I should move us both!

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My leaves came out withered at the bud. I didn’t read all the article. For one thing I consider insight to be something inside of you seen in a new light so that you grow by this and other insights like it. I’ve been going through something minor that others are calling paranoia, but I know 99.9% or more that it’s real. I only doubt because everyone else say I’m wrong. People would be on me to gain ‘insight.’ And they are the ‘sane’ ones so they must b e right. Sometimes that’s for real, but it isn’t in my case. And then they say - that’s what all paranoid people say. And I say - That’s what a sane person would say, too.

I think we - or I at least- need more of the insights, which can be gained by oneself and allow for opening and growth.