Theres this thing called a variable in mathematics, it applies equally in the mental health field.
Modern psychiatry is still in its infancy, if not still in its conception. If you dont know all of the variables at hand, you cant solve the equation. I will never understand why people can sleep at night after trying to dictate the concsiousness of another human being.
THAT is the most important statement in your post. Keep looking forward, and enjoy your happiness!
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Hi There,
I’d like to offer an alternative perspective.
I am currently 35 years old. I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia at the age of 29. Since that diagnosis I have had a total of 3 psychoses. Each one has been terrifying, extraordinarily difficult and the existential pain that I have suffered from each exceeds that of major surgery I had last year by an order of magnitude. I would not wish it upon my worst enemy.
That said - if you overlay the history of my mental illness on top of my CV - you’ll notice that my career trajectory (climbing the corporate ladder) actually accelerated following each psychosis (this is a good thing). I have worked at a number of major well-known (ubiquitous) global tier-1 technology companies - and recently beat 2,000 applicants to make it in to a global entrepreneurship programme. Thus, I believe that - my intelligence has improved (based on IQ tests and the aforementioned accomplishments), my communication and writing style have improved and my character has developed/improved (makes sense if you adjust your behaviour to avoid paranoia).
Whilst the common medical opinion is that this is a degenerative disease - I disagree. My hypothesis is that a psychosis temporarily enhances the plasticity of the brain (its ability to adapt/change on a physical level). And if you feed positive “inputs” in to it, it will actually improve as opposed to degenerate. However if you feed garbage in to it, it will degenerate. “Garbage in, garbage out”. And unfortunately, a lot of advise that I have received from medical professionals has been garbage in my personal opinion (outside of them telling me to take my meds - that’s obviously the correct thing to do). Please take note that this is all my personal opinion that I have arrived at through introspection, research and observing the results of my own psychoses followed by accomplishments that I’ve had shortly thereafter.
I have a tonne of other insights around cause, treatment, etc. However all of my attempts to get in touch with academics researching this have trailed off as soon as I mention my diagnosis. A real problem within this field of research and within the medical/psychiatric industries in general. As many people with my condition might attest to - psychiatrists often fail to connect with their patients, and prefer to interact with them as though they are the subject of a medical experiment (at a distance).
I’m continuing to attempt to find in-roads in psychiatry/government/policy but feel as though this may be a long and arduous journey.
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Oh. And here are some other thoughts / insights that I’ve gotten:
1. The government criminalises access to critical experimental medication…
… that can almost totally relieve negative symptoms. Disclaimer: it could potentially trigger positive symptoms in some. So I can’t really mention it by name on this forum.
When attempting to find legal avenues to access this medication reliably, I may have mentioned that I was sourcing it myself, and I received a, for the most-part, professional response (which was positive and empathetic - which surprised me), but that was accompanied by some stern language - highlighting that that the fact that accessing it myself was a criminal act with possible imprisonment. A lovely thing to hear given that I have (in the past) experienced paranoid episodes. And when your negative symptoms are so strong normally that you cannot function in any job that you could say you could get passionate about and you’ve always been a high achiever - you’re effectively doing this for one of the most fundamental of human rights - The Right to Survive…
He went on to give me a very thorough explanation of the possible methods to access this medication, and then went on to explain why none of them were possible. Referring me back to my psychiatrist, who had had me on the proper pharmaceutical equivalent of this medication for a period of 6 months (on prescription, under his supervision) but had then withdrawn the script.
Culminating with my negative symptoms increasing to the level where I was effectively useless at my job. Resulting in me losing my job at the beginning of COVID.
I’m pretty lucky that one of the directors of the entrepreneurship programme reached out to me - as starting my own venture-funded tech business has always been a dream. However at the end of the programme - I disclosed my condition to my co-founder (the only ethical thing to do). He got advice and believed that with my condition - the team would be un-investable.
So now I have a lot of time on my hands and fixing schizophrenia appears to be an area that no-one with any scientific training (in the medical industry, in government or in activism) is properly focussing on.
Please Note - I studied Med Chem at uni for 4 years and designed and developed Anti-HIV drugs. And I have studied a lot of philosophy (around awareness, belief, etc - formation, etc…) on my own volition, and am both highly technical (a hardcore coder) and able to throw on my sales hat and do a BDM role. Or a product role (lookup “validation” in context of entrepreneurship and product management. Imagine having that drilled in to your psyche day-in, day-out). Or almost anything in between. That’s my CV in a nut-shell. Not to mention the volunteer work I’ve done on the side, that is.
Anyway - that first insight was a bit of a soliloquy. Sorry about that! On to insight number 2…
2. I have experimented on myself…
The previous insight is one example of this. I have also induced a psychedelic state in myself under controlled conditions (both this and the psychotic state feel like they have pretty similar impacts on cognition - but with the psychedelic state having some some nice visuals too). And have taken myself out of it quite easily. Because I have a belief that schizophrenia is a disease of awareness (which precedes belief - in belief formation), I believe that the primary cause of this illness is weighted more significantly towards environmental influences upon the afflicted’s psyche - usually due to another person (or group of people’s) behaviour - which may or may not be intended by said people.
I believe that many “drugs” (and the psychotic state if you strip away all the stuff that “tangles” up the state) are just amplifiers of environmental noise and serve to enhance states that people are in anyway. Ie; if you have a reason to be paranoid (your fault or someone else’s) and you enter one of these two states - you’re going to become pretty damned paranoid for the next month, without a kill switch. However if you have no reason to be paranoid (through direct environmental inputs such as conversations, or through malformed-knowledge due to a poor “trust radar”). Then you’ll probably have a good time. With the same cognitive attributes as the psychotic state (increased thought pattern, improved analytical ability). And well… If channeled right you could become a problem-solving machine.
All this said - apparently (but somewhat obviously) - I am breaking laws in order to improve my own scientifically-backed understanding of this illness. An understanding that can help fix the problem and the huge burden on not only the afflicted - but their friends, their family, the healthcare system and our economy as a whole. Think about the waste of human talent and the productivity that is being lost as a result of this problem. Not to mention - the pain… And the level to which we could accelerate social progress, and advancement of our society if this were no longer a problem.
And all of this because there is a global delusion around drugs in general - where they are grouped together as one evil - when more realistically each is probably a weighted average of good and bad - with some having a higher percentage of good to bad, and others being overwhelmingly bad. Grouping them together is a gross over-generalisation (akin to racism or sexism) that is highly “lossy”, as far as potential value is concerned.
Note - Of the psychoses that I’ve had - only one has occurred in relation to (or anywhere near) drug use and that was my first.
And a few more thoughts… To criminalise self-experimentation for “advancement of knowledge and positive societal impact” - where the person who is experimenting on themselves is capable of, and has capacity/experience to, understand the risks that they are taking and chooses to accept them (an act that does not cause any harm for others) - is to take away our very freedoms. No law should undermine the ability of people to learn and grow - both themselves (mind, body, soul) - and the knowledge of the wider community around critical problems that are both incredibly expensive to tax-payers and cause so much pain and angish for so many people (millions in Australia alone). No law should suppress a population’s awareness or knowledge. - for a nation with such a law is an authoritarian regime (wrapped up nicely as a “show” democracy). To have such laws - that take people’s liberty and freedom from them for simply trying to do what is good for the world - has part-parallels with murder - where in murder you take 100% of someone’s life, whilst in a drug trial, the government takes an allotted percentage of the life of the upstanding citizen who is solid of character and creates value within the world. Not to mention the parallels of targeting minority groups and causing them harm - like in Germany in the 40s. These disgustingly unethical practices - by a government who for all intents and purposes is otherwise doing a pretty damned good job (I’m in AUS) - seem like a glitch. Like there is a lack of awareness/insight over right and wrong. An ignorance if you will. Although one that is wilful. And for which they have no excuse.
Anyway - that was obviously another soliloquy. Sorry - I’m quite impassioned about this topic. I might give it a rest now.
Let me know if:
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You think I’m dellusional and/or am misunderstanding this problem or related issues; or
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You think what I’m saying could have at least a granule of truth to it and would like to hear more. Plenty more where this comes from - and pretty much none of my other insights relate to drugs - so you will know that I’ll let that topic rest
A lot of interesting and good stuff here, I thought, but one quick question first (before I go back and take notes so I can properly respond to each and every thought provoking thing, 
as I don’t think my memory can do it in one fell swoop!) are you on or have you been on any prescription medications that you found to be helpful or felt were successful?
Per the topic, I was a little surprised that nobody mentioned that, when treated ‘classically’ with certain antipsychotic medications, over a long duration, this can have some pretty rough side effects on other vital physiological functions that may contribute to earlier death rates.
But all in all there seem to be many success stories that live long and overall healthy lives (as healthy as any of the rest of us anyways!)
Are you thinking of others aside from metabolic syndrome and obesity which were mentioned? That covers high blood pressure, high cholesterol and elevated blood sugar. I didn’t mention Tardive Dyskinesia, because while debilitating, I’m unclear it shortens lifespan. I recall some have issues with progesterone at high dosages of some of the typicals, but I wasn’t aware this was widespread as aside from Haldol they’ve fallen into disuse.
Yup! I re-read and caught it! You got it! Antipsychotics first and second, heart problems and metabolic…
I somehow got a condensed thread initially too it seems and only saw the topic post and the most recent five or so… 
Tardive dyskinesia as you said, debilitating yes. I would only suspect shortening life expectancy if it effected somebody’s ability to complete ADLs like feeding themselves and didn’t have the level of care to accommodate though…
Good call.
Do Antipsychotics Protect Against Early Death? A Review of the Evidence
Two of these studies (Parks and Olfson) charted SMR rates among those with schizophrenia and the seriously mentally ill in the United States. Two others charted global SMR (standardized mortality rate) rates for these diagnostic groups. All four found that seriously mentally ill patients, a large percentage of whom are prescribed antipsychotics, die from somatic illnesses at rates two to five times that of the general population.
Is this a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t situation? I mean what’s the alternative? Don’t take psychiatric drugs? Many of us with experience know where that leads!
Get regular screening and mitigate the risk of somatic illnesses with preventative medicine and diet and exercise.
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@Maggotbrane. Right. I would hope that when a psychiatrist prescribes these drugs they do all they can to inform the patient of those three: tests for high blood pressure and blood glucose and lipid levels , meds (blood pressure and metformin for weight and blood sugar), diet and exercise. That has to go along with prescribing the drugs.
A simple thing to do would be to give the patient written instructions.