Seeing Schizophrenia With New Eyes

Like many others, I know very little about schizophrenia. I’ve never known a schizophrenic person and the only info I ever got on it was stories of people who know someone whose relative is one or from movies or Wikipedia search. When I heard about Dan Frey presenting his story at The Wheel, at first it didn’t appeal to me because I attend this place for metaphysical purposes and mental illness wasn’t on my radar. I went anyway.

There’s so much stigma around all mental illness that it’s a whole other “can of worms” to open so-to-speak, it opened my eyes to what Dan and many others like him were dealing with. I couldn’t help but think there was so much we just don’t know about this condition and instead of investigating it and treating these people with curiosity and learning from them, we instill fear around psychosis and into the people themselves, just medicating or putting them away in institutions.

I feel that schizophrenia is a phenomenon that is connected to the supernatural but our society, medical establishment and scientists don’t care for that because they have no answers. So instead of trying to find answers, they silence, bury and sweep under the rug.

After Dan’s speech which was easy to follow, even relatable at times, I was left with more questions and curiosity hoping that some time soon these harmful medications and putting people away would cease and we would know how to deal with schizophrenia in a productive, healthy way that would enable these people to lead normal lives and not fear “the voices.”