It can be challenging to motivate yourself to exercise when you struggle with your mental health. On paper, the best thing to do would be to join a group of people practicing some exercise you enjoy with the help of a coach. Examples are Tai Chi, Yoga, Pilates, or more vigorous sports like basketball or … Read more

Some well-known insightful movies have been made about someone living with a mental illness. Examples are: “The Three Faces Of Eve (1957),” “A Beautiful Mind (2001),” and “Silver Linings Playbook (2012).” However, these movies are the exception rather than the rule. Focussing on Hollywood, for example, countless movies have been made which propagate the worst … Read more

What is Anosognosia? It is a Greek term meaning “to not know a disease.” NAMI (National Alliance On Mental Illness) has some information on its website about Anosognosia: click here to see it. From that information, I quote: “When we talk about anosognosia in mental illness, we mean that someone is unaware of their own … Read more

A lot of the stigma surrounding mental illness, particularly paranoid schizophrenia, is founded on a reaction of fear when someone either learns you are a mental health consumer or sees you behaving abnormally when you are in crisis. Many people ignore or are unaware of how terrifying the symptoms of a severe mental illness or … Read more

The use of “people first” language in the context of political correctness when speaking about mental health is not as widespread or even acknowledged as it needs to be. For example, “Rhys is schizophrenic” is not “people first” as it identifies Rhys with schizophrenia. A more courteous term is “Rhys lives with schizophrenia.” This last … Read more

Several Blog posts ago, we talked about Anosognosia. Today, we’ll talk about the LEAP method and schizophrenia, a mainstream, proven approach to helping people overcome anosognosia and accept treatment for their mental illness or brain disorder. I will reproduce here an edited extract from the transcript of Chapter 6 of my podcast “Schizophrenia as I … Read more

In this blog post, we will compare the meaning of “Overlife” in my book “The Overlife, A Tale Of Schizophrenia” and the meaning of the same word among scholars of Ancient Egypt or Egyptologists. We will see that they are pretty different but nonetheless interesting to compare. Egyptologists also use “Underlife,” which doesn’t occur in … Read more

One of the often-quoted symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia is a loss of touch with reality. However, it is important to stress that the person living with schizophrenia and currently struggling with its symptoms still perceives the world in a way that is convincing to them and can even make sense to them. The LEAP Method … Read more

There are various ways that stigma against someone living with paranoid schizophrenia can arise. Many people are scared of the diagnosis itself. The words “paranoid schizophrenia” evoke fear in a person who often does not even know what they mean. They may think they know, due perhaps to watching movies, TV Shows, and reading novels … Read more

A common symptom of schizophrenia is auditory hallucinations. Auditory hallucinations happen when you hear voices or noises that aren’t there. The sounds you hear may seem real, but they’re not. It’s essential to include noises that are not imitating human speech. In other words, “hearing voices” is too restrictive, albeit accurate in describing some auditory … Read more