Real knowledge, not another label

When first diagnosed and placed into the category of being a 'Paranoid Schizophrenic', I was glad that someone had finally shed some light on the distress / experiences I was having. Nobody else had been able to relate to what was happening to me or understand my thought processes before. Initially I took the Doctors’ words as gospel. I saw myself as 'Schizophrenic' and soon developed an identity in both the inner and outer worlds accordingly.

I think I can safely say that we are all Human Beings with as much right as each other to form one’s own individuality or experience one’s own person. When engaging distress brought about by complications in life, people should have the right to see it at face value, or converse with other human beings to help analyse their problems. Sadly this wasn't taken into consideration by the western scientific mind of psychiatry when dealing with matters outside of the measurable; it invented the term schizophrenia. If you take into consideration that there might be a lot of truth in experiences outside of the material world or that there are different ways of processing thoughts or that injustices in the social/world environment might cause distress. Where does a 'schizophrenic' or anyone go to help understand their own mind, the world, and be at peace with it? Rather you having someone understand it for you and sweep it all under the bed with a chemical lobotomy.

In a social setting, explaining to people that you are not feeling well, or feeling you have to justify why you might be acting strange. When in actual fact you might be. Does not make the process any easier when you have to drop the word paranoid schizophrenia into the conversation to explain your situation or cut you some slack. This in turn creates a whole set of other social problems. What is to be expected when the category of schizophrenia is so broad that it encompasses ‘people with split personality’, serial killers and murders? Surely there is not one aspect of social interaction or social inclusion that is not affected by this?

People with 'mental health' issues or distress need to be empowered with real knowledge as to why they are in the situation, be it environmental factors, society, perceptual difference and, I use the term loosely, 'biological' factors. The latter problem is open to onslaught via medication and maybe spreading misinformation about the origins of the 'problem' .The last thing a person needs is to be so lost within another variable that its near enough impossible to distinguish what the problem was in the first place. Maybe next time I would ask for a brain scan to see my chemical imbalances.

Education, social inclusion, holistic ways of healing, physical activity, information on diet, self-empowerment, honesty and truthful straight up empathy need to be incorporated more into the structure of people’s lives suffering from schizophrenia or any other diagnosis.