A question for the Schizophrenia Community

Thinking about how other people talk about your or your loved one’s condition, what are some words or perceptions that make you cringe? What do you wish people wouldn’t say?

Answers from the Community

Things that make me cringe are when people think somebody with a mental illness is crazy. They may do some things that in our society are viewed as crazy but it’s something that they can’t control. I wish it would be viewed as a disease just like diabetes is or a heart condition, that it wouldn’t have a stigma attached to the name just because it’s a mental illness. Maybe instead of saying a mental or behavioral illness we should use the word psychiatric condition. I think that’s what I most cringe about, is that people think someone with a diagnosis of schizophrenia is crazy and can’t be trusted. I think a person with schizophrenia is just as capable of love as somebody that doesn’t have it.

Well, it’s not what they say or don’t say about it. There was nothing too bad. There was things that most people realize that probably been way off the deep end before. But the problem is I don’t get no trust. Even though they talk or whatever… That’s how they talk or seem to say or whatever, I just detect a feeling of mistrust that that’s just what it’s going to really be. And that’s about the biggest one.

The words or perceptions? It really is more the perceptions. I have not really heard people say a lot of negative things, ugly things; more so perception of, that he’s dumb, not intelligent at all, a criminal, someone that would harm someone just because he may be talking to himself. And that’s just not the case. What I wish people wouldn’t say? I wish they wouldn’t say that someone with a mental health issue, a diagnosis of schizophrenia, I wish they would not say that these people are slow, or retarded, or anything like that. A lot of people with these diagnoses are very bright, intelligent, and have something to offer; everyone has something to offer.

I wish people wouldn’t say that I’m crazy, I’m a freak or a lunatic.

I don’t like it when people describe suicide as selfish. I feel that there is overall a lack of understanding about what it means to struggle with a mental illness and one that causes suicidal thoughts, or people who just struggle with suicidal thoughts in general. So when people say it’s selfish, I think it really negates the experience that people who are struggling with it has. I also don’t like it when people create a shame or a stigma around medication. I feel pressure from my family to get off the medication because, in their words, I’ve just been on them so long. Do I really need them? Shouldn’t I be able to be off them right now? And so, even though they’ve been a really important part of me getting stable, for some reason, I still feel like the people, at least in my life, feel like they’re bad, or you shouldn’t be reliant on them if they change a part of who you are. So, I wish there was kind of more of a general consensus or dialogue that it isn’t bad to be on medication, that it isn’t shameful. And so this reduction of stigma around medication, is something I would really like to see more. I also, I think just a general misconception is that people with schizophrenia are violent or dangerous. So this, in general, is really not the case. And so that creates more shame and stigma as well. So that, yeah. That would be another one that I don’t like.

The perception that people with schizophrenia are violent is awful. I wish people wouldn’t write people off just because of a diagnosis like this.

There aren’t many things that annoy me or insult me. I try to look at everything with humor because there’s a lot of things that happen in this world that are unexplainable. They are strange or weird or [PII redacted] acts that way, I’m not going to say that he doesn’t, but nobody has really ever insulted us or made us feel bad, except for, when [PII redacted] was in maybe third grade and they called DCFS saying that we weren’t doing enough for him. When, at that point, by third grade, he had been to eight or nine psychologists, two psychiatrists, his medical, his normal GP. And no one could help us. Even the school couldn’t help us, but they’re the ones who call DCFS, which of course DCFS came and saw that there was nothing out of the ordinary. And they knew we were having a hard time with him and they just had to follow up on their end. But yeah, that was probably the worst one out of all of them. But nothing really gets to us too much. We tried to let everything go because everybody’s different. We’re all different.

Well, I’ve never not told people. I think you have to be open to try to fight the stigma. People who know me, they don’t really say anything. It’s just the stuff that you hear in general. Like if you, sometimes we’ve been in churches where it’s very negative or they say something or you see something on TV that’s negative, or you read something that’s very negative about schizophrenia. It’s just the general environment that is still pretty negative and a lot of stigma around me on this. That always hurts, and it makes you cringe. If somebody hurts somebody else, right away where we’re hoping the person didn’t have mental illness, because of all the stigma that’s involved, even though people with mental illness get hurt more than they hurt others. There’s that real perception of being scared. And I guess it bothers me that family members don’t go out of their way. They wouldn’t … no one would just go and visit them and say, “Let’s go out to lunch” to him. Really, we’re the only ones who do that. Even though he’s quite capable and he’s living in his own apartment and he has the FACT team, he needs a lot of support, but he also does some work at a place called Jeff Industries in Florida. And that’s supportive work for people with mental illness and training. Yeah, he’s not accepted quite as everybody else is in the family. And that’s kind of hurtful, but it’s mostly messages that are just in the general environment that we’re in.

Something that made me cringe is “Make sure he takes his med before he hurts himself.” “Watch your back before he hurts you,” or “Those crazy people will hurt anyone.” So, that words that made me cringe are when you refer to him as a possible suicidal person or as a crazy person or as a person that would hurt somebody someday.

I don’t like being called crazy, insane, or unable to fit in with society. Those are just a couple of things that I don’t like being said.

When people describe my condition or talk about it, they usually see it as a very aggressive and debilitating condition, which makes me cringe. I wish people wouldn’t look at people with schizophrenia as aggressive people.

I wish people would not make fun of me by calling me a weirdo or a oddball, but it makes me cringe when I hear those. Yes. At the same time, I know I have overcome quite a bit just by taking it one day at a time. It’s been hard, yes. At the same time, I do know that I can do it. I know that I’ll be challenging, but I know in my heart that it just takes one day at a time, and just praying to the Lord will help get me through it.

I wish people would not think I’m crazy or delusional or that I’m making it up.

The main thing is, for me, is that I don’t know if it’s anything my loved ones say, it’s just that I know there’s embarrassment around my illness because people don’t want to talk about it. And I think there’s a minimizing of how bad it is, because I think that people really want me to get a job, which I would love to have a job if I didn’t have these episodes. But as it stands now, I still do have the episodes so I can’t get a job. And I think people are just embarrassed of me, and embarrassed for me. And it’s more, not so much what they say, as what they don’t say.

I don’t like it when people say I have a mental condition or I think of hurting myself, which is untrue.

This is a really big one for us. It’s hard when people will jokingly say that somebody’s psycho or psychotic because that’s his condition. It’s not, like when they call other people that don’t have that condition that, it’s really upsetting because they’re making a joke out of it, rather than it being a real condition. I just wish people would, there’d be more education about mental illness in general and how to talk to people and not treat, because we’ve had medical providers and nurses in the past treat my husband like he was a child when that’s not the case. So just more respect for the patients that suffer with mental illness and just more education.