May 20, 2025 • 27 mins
Darrell Herrmann, a retired US Army captain and former computer programmer, shares his remarkable journey of living with schizophrenia since 1984 and his mission to help others with severe mental illness live better lives.
• Former US Army captain specializing in field artillery and nuclear weapons before developing schizophrenia
• Earned a computer science degree and worked as a programmer for 18 years after his military discharge
• Spoke to over 30,000 people in hospital groups before COVID, helping patients understand psychosis
• Author of "Straight Talk About Living with Severe Mental Illness," available on Amazon
• Explains that diagnosis often changes and finding the right medication takes time and patience
• Defines psychosis as experiencing hallucinations and delusions while losing touch with reality
• Developed a personal three-bucket strategy to sort real experiences from hallucinations
• Advocates for comprehensive education programs for people diagnosed with psychotic disorders
• Believes the mental health profession itself is often the biggest source of stigma
• Argues most mental health professionals lack proper training in understanding and treating psychosis
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to why Not Me ?
The World Podcast, hosted byTony Mantor, broadcasting from
Music City USA, nashville,tennessee.
Join us as our guests tell ustheir stories.
Some will make you laugh, somewill make you cry.
Their stories Some will makeyou laugh, some will make you
(00:28):
cry.
Real life people who willinspire and show that you are
not alone in this world.
Hopefully, you gain moreawareness, acceptance and a
better understanding for autismaround the world.
Hi, I'm Tony Mantor.
(00:53):
Welcome to why Not Me?
The World Humanity OverHandcuffs the Silent Crisis
special event.
Joining us today is Daryl Herman.
He's a retired US Army captainand computer programmer from a
small family farm in Weston,kansas, about 30 miles east of
Dodge City.
Specialized in field artilleryand nuclear weapons, his
(01:17):
military career ended after hesought treatment at an army
hospital, believing he was beingdrugged with experimental
medicine.
Doctors recognized hisdelusions and emerging psychosis
, leading to his discharge.
He later earned a collegedegree and worked as a
professional programmer, but jobstress triggered mild
delusional thinking, promptinghim to go on disability.
(01:39):
Since then, he's found purposein volunteering, speaking to
patients and writing a book,straight Talk, about Living with
Severe Mental Illness.
He continues to advocate forthose with serious mental health
challenges, bringing tremendousinsight to his work.
It's truly an honor to have himhere generously sharing his
deep insights and remarkablejourney with us.
(01:59):
Thanks for coming on.
No problem, let's tell us alittle bit about your story,
because pretty fascinating storyof what you've done, what
started your getting in tosupport the NSSC.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I developed schizophrenia in 1984 when I was
a captain of the United StatesArmy.
My specialty at the time werefield artillery and nuclear
weapons and obviously you can'thave a military career with
nuclear weapons when you haveschizophrenia.
So I had to do other things.
So I went back to college, gota computer science degree,
became a professional computerprogrammer, did that for 18
(02:33):
years and then the stress ofdoing that and coping with my
job and all with my illness justbecame more than I could manage
and I decided to go withdisability.
Because I found out this kindof stress was just endemic in
the American workplace.
And when I went on disability Imade it my mission in life to
do everything I could to helpother people with severe mental
illness live better lives.
Ever since then that's whatI've been doing.
(02:55):
I started doing hospital groups,talking to patients in the
hospital about how to livebetter lives with a severe
mental illness, and that grewover the years.
In the 10 years before COVID Ispoke to more than 30,000 people
of those hospital groups.
With COVID all my groups gotshut down and as of now the
hospitals have not reopened forme to come in and do groups.
So I have no hospital groupstoday, but up until COVID I was
(03:18):
doing many groups a week.
Like I said, I saw more than30,000 people before COVID.
As part of that, I learned whatthe people that were being
hospitalized need to know, basedon my own experience, my own
research and talking to them andanswering their questions and
finding out what they need toknow.
As a result of all that, Iwrote a book.
The book is called StraightTalk About Living with
Subliminal Illness and isavailable on Amazon in paperback
(03:40):
, kindle or audiobook.
It's the things that everybodyneeds to know, the basics they
should know when they're dealingwith cerebral illness, but
sadly, most people don't knowthem.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
When you first sit down with a new group, what is
some of the things that you dosay to them to make them realize
that they are not in this bythemselves.
They have someone that willhelp and definitely know that
they are not alone.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Most of them know that they're not alone, but what
I find they don't know is thatyou can live a relatively normal
life after having a cerebralillness.
When I was doing those hospitalgroups, I was usually the first
one to ever come in and tellthem that you could live a
normal life after mental illness.
I'd give my own example ofbeing a programmer for 18 years,
so most of that was justunheard of.
They thought their life wasover when they got a diagnosis
with a psychotic illness.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Okay, so everyone that has this illness is
affected differently, of course,then you have to approach it
and focus on the things that aremost important to them and
their lives.
What do you find that are someof the more important things
that people will bring up to youthat they may not know or they
(04:48):
may just need more clarificationabout it?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
There's a lot of things that they need more
clarification on.
That's why I wrote my book, andit's a short book it's about 60
or 70 pages but it's the basicstuff they need to know.
Some of the big things theyneed to know are the fact that
diagnosis often changes.
You may have schizophrenia now,you may have bipolar or any of
these things.
It's affecting you some othertime.
It often changes and that's onething they need to know, so
don't get worried about yourdiagnosis changing.
(05:14):
It happens.
Another thing to know is thatmedications are different for
everyone.
Medication does wonders for oneperson, maybe absolute poison
to the next, and it takes a lotof time to find the right
medication for most of us.
Some of us have to try three orfour, half a dozen before we
find something that works reallywell for us, and it takes time
to find the right medication,the right dose and get on with
(05:35):
your life.
It's not an easy thing.
The doctor doesn't know what'sgoing to work and what side
effects you're going to haveuntil you try the medication.
There's just no way to know.
Another thing to know is thatthere's no blame to this illness
.
It's a combination of geneticand environmental factors and
there's no single cause you canpoint at.
You can't point at any onething and say this caused the
person's illness.
It's a combination of thingsand there's no blame to be had.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It's just something happens, like cancer or diabetes
.
There's no blame.
It's an illness just like anyother.
I think that's a great thing topoint out.
Now that you've addressed that,I think it needs to be more
focused so people do realizethat it's not their fault.
Sometimes people with psychosis, because of the stigma that's
attached with it, think thatthey're bad, but they're really
not.
They just need some help.
So how do you address this withpeople so they can realize that
(06:29):
they are not these demonspeople think they are.
They just need some help.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Well, the first thing you have to understand is what
psychosis is, and right now themedical system does not teach
anyone what psychosis is or whatit does to you.
And in psychosis a lot goesinto the diagnosis.
But basically, for practicalpurposes, there's two things you
need to look at.
One is having hallucinationsand one is having delusions.
Hallucinations are sensoryexperiences you have that others
(06:56):
around you don't.
For instance, you may hearvoices that aren't there.
You may see things that aren'tthere.
It can affect either of thefive senses, but while you're
experiencing that, it's usuallyabsolutely real to you.
Delusions are fixed, falsebeliefs you may have, but those
around you don't.
They could be anythingimaginable.
It could be that you'rePresident of the United States
(07:16):
or the Antichrist or timetraveler or someone's applying a
computer chip in your brain.
There's no limit.
And to the person experiencingpsychosis these are the reality.
To them it's absolutely real,even though it makes no sense to
anyone else around them.
And that's why they're makingdecisions and acting in ways
that make no sense to thosearound them, because to them the
hallucinations and delusionsare the reality.
And the other way to controlthose hallucinations and
(07:36):
delusions is through medication.
But even when you take themedication, once you're longer
psychotic.
To be psychotic you have to havehallucinations, illusions, but
you also have to lose touch withreality.
You have to not realize thatit's not real.
If you can realize it's real,you're not psychotic.
The psychosis is when you can'ttell it's not real.
But anyway the medications willget you out of psychosis.
(07:57):
But you still remember whatwent on To you.
It was still real.
And unless someone tells youabout hallucination, delusions,
and tells you what psychosis isand what it does, you have no
way of knowing.
You should question things thatmay have happened to you, and I
think that's a big piece ofwhat adenocytosis, or lack of
insight, is.
No one tells people whatpsychosis is, what
(08:19):
hallucinations and delusions arethe fact that you can't trust
your own mind as a result.
To them it was all real.
Another piece of it is theydon't explain what, for example,
schizophrenia is.
If you're told you haveschizophrenia, basically you
think that's a villain or ahorror movie or a mass murderer
or some other dangerous, scaryperson and you're sitting there
saying I'm not one of thosepeople.
So you just throw it all outthe window, say it doesn't apply
(08:39):
to me, it's total nonsense, andyou go on.
You don't accept it.
I think that's a big piece ofasshole notion that nobody tells
people what these illnesses areand how psychosis affects the
person, and that's somethingI've been campaigning to have
corrected.
But how do you expect a personto understand that they can't
trust their own thoughts if youdon't tell them?
That's a possibility to beginwith.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, I think you had in your writing.
You had something that waspretty impressive in the fact
that a lot of people might notrealize this or think about it,
but you just touched on it justslightly there.
I'd like to expand on that, andthat's the fact that after they
get the medication and it helpsthem they still have the
memories of what they thoughthappened, what they went through
(09:20):
.
How do you get past that?
Because some of these memoriescan be very delusional, as you
were saying, and not real.
So how do you get past thatwith the medication, so that you
can separate the two, so youcan still move forward and not
let the past memories affect you?
Medication doesn't haveanything to do with that at all.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Okay, it's all up to you.
You have to realize that youcannot trust your own mind.
Okay, there's a lot of ways youcan come to that conclusion,
but you have to come to thatconclusion.
There are things that happenedto me 40 years ago, my first
psychosis, that to this day Idon't know what was real, what
was hallucinations, delusions,and I've just had to accept I
never will.
And that's part of dealing withthis illness or other psychotic
(10:02):
illnesses you have to acceptthat you can never be sure of
what reality is.
There's another very troublingaspect to this as well.
Some people who experiencepsychosis develop persistent
false memories of things thatnever actually happened.
For example, they may thinkthey were abused sexually or
physically as a child, eventhough it never actually
happened, but to them it's real.
(10:25):
They remember it happening eventhough it never did.
And some people have majorportions of their lives that are
fiction, but to them it's realand factual because that's what
their mind tells them Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
So when that happens, is it medication and therapy of
just talking it out that willhelp them at least better
understand what they've beenthrough, so they can move
forward and have that betterlife that they want to have?
The medication has nothing todo with that.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
The medication just stops the psychosis.
It stops further problems.
All right.
Having to realize that it's notreal is insight that you have
to develop on your own, andthere's no good way to do that.
Our mental health professionalsright now don't have any idea
how to go about that.
What I have found the best wayto do is just explain what
hallucinations are, whatpsychosis is, what it does, let
(11:09):
them know they could be subjectto that, and then let them start
thinking about it on their ownand say you know, maybe this
thing I experienced doesn't makesense after all.
And then they can startquestioning and come to realize
that they themselves may havesome experiences that weren't
real.
And that's the only way I knowto deal with this.
You have to come to it on yourown realization.
There's no way to force that onsomeone.
If you try to force it, theywill not accept it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
They'll fight you when you had the groups that you
had, did you go into those kindof topics or what kind of
conversations did you havewithin those groups, and how
long did that usually last asfar as the group time Groups-
typically lasted 45 to 50minutes.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
We talked about some of the things I've just talked
about, yes, but I also spent alot of time talking about other
things and that's probably justas important.
That, again, the mental healthsystem doesn't do anything to
teach you about and that is howto live and cope with the mental
illness.
Things like what causesrelapses, one of the most common
causes of relapses.
No one tells you that.
How do you cope withrecognizing you're going
downhill so you can ask for helpbefore you end up back in the
(12:11):
hospital?
Nobody tells you that.
How do you cope withhallucinations and delusions,
even though you're not psychotic?
Some of us still havehallucinations when we're not
psychotic and properly medicatedand have to carry on.
When I was working as acomputer programmer, I
occasionally hallucinated thingsI had to sort out Is this real,
is this hallucination?
And that's another thing I talkabout in those groups is
(12:33):
helping figure out how to sortout what's real or what's not
real, what you're experiencing,because when you have a
psychotic illness, you aresubject to not experiencing
things that are not real at anytime.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
When you experience that that's not real in your
mind, that it is, how do youhelp or how do you get the
people that are around them tounderstand what they need so
that they can still help themget through what they're going
through and then eventually,hopefully, they'll get a better
(13:07):
side of where they were?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
there's no real surefire solution here.
I think the best way is to makesure they understand it can
happen first.
That's the key understand itcan happen, and then you start
talking about whether or notthis is real.
Now the method I use todetermine what's real for me
this is my own method.
I developed it on my own.
I divide the things I experienceup into three big buckets.
(13:31):
First bucket is those thingsI'm pretty sure are real,
factual, actually happening,real-world stuff.
And the second bucket is thosethings I'm pretty sure are not
real, not happening, notreal-world stuff, hallucinations
, illusions.
And I have a third bucket ofthings I'm just not sure about
and I put things in little,three buckets based on my past
experience with my own illness.
(13:51):
If someone is talking to medirectly face-to-face, I very
seldom hallucinate that, sothat's probably going to go in
the bucket of real.
If I hear something whispereddown the corner, down the
hallway, those are things thatoften hallucinate.
And then look at what I've justheard and ask myself does this
make sense?
Would the person really knowthat?
Would they really be sayingthat?
Does it make sense or is itnonsense?
(14:12):
If it does make sense that Iput it in the bucket of things
that are not real, just dismissit and move on with my life.
But otherwise I put things inthat third bucket until I get
some information that will allowme to put it in one of the
other two buckets.
Sometimes that informationnever does come.
It kind of festers andfrustrates you.
You want to know what's real,but I've learned that acting on
things that are not real can getme in big trouble real quick.
(14:35):
So I just leave it in thatthird bucket until I get some
information where I would put itin one of the other two buckets
.
And sometimes that informationnever does come and that's the
only way I know to cope withthis.
That's my strategy.
I tell everyone I do with SkyCoast.
They need a strategy somewhatsimilar to that.
They can have their ownstrategy, but that's the one I
use and that works well for me.
They may want to try it, butyou need some kind of strategy
(15:01):
to help sort out what's real andwhat's not real in your world
as you go through life.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
When you first started having these issues, was
you aware of it, that it wasgoing on?
What was your thought processto get to that point of where
you realized that, okay, thisisn't real and this is.
It took time.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
It took time because no one teaches you this stuff.
No one tells you this stuff.
When I became ill, theywouldn't even tell me what my
diagnosis was.
I was in a military psychiatricward.
I knew I had the right to readmy medical records, so I asked
for my medical records, asked toread them.
Well, they had to give them tome.
So I read them.
I found out my diagnosis wasschizophrenia form disorder.
But they wouldn't tell meanything about what that meant.
(15:39):
I knew nothing about it.
It was total nonsense to me.
And when I got out of thehospital I tried to find that in
a psychology book because Irealized it was a mental illness
diagnosis.
I never found that in anypsychology book, but I did find
descriptions of schizophreniawith hallucinations and
delusions.
I was looking at that andsaying you know, some of the
things I experienced don't makesense to me.
(15:59):
I don't think they could havebeen real.
So I went on from that andlearned how to start doing that
stuff.
But it was not easy and therewas no clear pattern.
I just had to develop it on myown because no one taught me or
told me how to do it.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Okay.
So, with the fact that no onetold you and you had to do it on
your own, there's a lot ofpeople out there.
Unfortunately, they're notgoing to have that mindset to
actually dig, find and try andwork it out.
So what would you give peoplethat when they start having this
?
I mean, it's the big black hole.
(16:34):
It's unknown, so anythingunknown can be very scary, and
when people get scared they willdo things that they normally
wouldn't do.
To compensate for it, how doyou tell them where they can
take a deep breath and relax alittle bit, to take and balance
that, so they can figure outwhat's going on and what they
need to do?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I think that's the biggest problem in the mental
health system today is that noone teaches you this stuff.
When you first become psychotic, they're going to sit down and
talk to you about all this stuff, but no one does.
If you get hospitalized forpsychosis today, what happens is
you get put on a medication,sometimes at your own free will,
sometimes against your will,but you get put on a psychotic
medication.
In about three, four, five daysyou're no longer psychotic and
(17:13):
they discharge you, and that'sall they do.
They put you on medication.
Well, as soon as you're nolonger psychotic, they discharge
you.
During that time in thehospital, you most likely
receive no other information atall, no therapy, nothing but
medication.
And that's why we have so manyproblems, in my opinion, because
no one understands what's goingon with themselves.
I think we need to educate thepeople there about this stuff.
(17:33):
I've been advocating for thatfor some time.
I think that's what my groupswere trying to do.
You have to educate them orthey can't come to this
conclusion, really, until Ifound the book Surviving
Schizophrenia by Dr E FullerTorrey, that I really understood
what I had.
The psychiatry textbooks gaveme the first insight, first
glimmerings, when I got back tocollege after getting out of the
(17:53):
Army I was trying to researchthe college library and I
couldn't find anything of value.
Everything was based onpsychoanalysis.
They weren't even talking aboutmedications in most of the
stuff I read.
And then I found in the samelibrary the book Surviving
Schizophrenia by Dr E FullerTorrey MD.
This was one of the first booksever written about
schizophrenia as a physicalmedical illness for the layman.
(18:15):
That told me what I needed toknow and got me on the track to
recovery.
If I hadn't found that book, Idon't think I'd be talking to
you today.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Wow.
So I guess the big question isyou've been very fortunate that
you found the book.
You did your due diligence, youfigured it out and you've been
able to work it through so thatyour life can be what you'd
hoped it was in the earlier life.
Now how do we help those thatthey don't have that deep dive
(18:43):
ability?
They're just relying on doctorsor they're just relying on
psychiatrists or medication tostop it.
How do we get it out there sothat we can help the greater
amount of people that need thehelp, rather than just a select
few that might do what you did?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Comprehensive education program for everyone
to become psychotic.
That's what I've beenadvocating for for years.
If you think about it, if youget diagnosed with type 1
diabetes, you get education aswell as insulin.
They tell you how to deal withit.
They give you lots ofinformation how to cope stuff
like that.
If you get diagnosed with it.
It's free you information howto cope stuff like that.
If you get diagnosed withschizophrenia, you get
medication told to go on yourway.
If you did that with type 1diabetics, they wouldn't get
(19:19):
anywhere.
Most of them would die prettyquickly.
And that's what's happeningwith schizophrenia we're giving
them nothing but medication andsend them on their way.
There's no education whatsoever.
That's where our mental healthsystem's biggest failure is.
At the end of the day is no oneteaches you how to live with it
.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
The only way to get changes like that sometimes is
through legislation, and eventhat can't help that part of it,
because you're talking aboutdoctors and the way that they
treat people and help them andcontinue to try to help.
It seems like the dog chasinghis tail here.
How do we figure this thing out?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Well, I think we have to get the doctors and mental
health professionals to startdoing this stuff.
That's what I'm advocating for.
I have currently four articlesthat I've submitted to the
Schizophrenia Bulletin, which isa professional journal for
psychotic illnesses that I'madvocating for this.
They're under review.
I'm trying to get this out inthe public and say we need to be
doing this stuff Right now.
The biggest obstacle, thebiggest source of stigma about
(20:15):
mental illness, I believe comesto the mental health profession
itself.
There are doctors who don'tbelieve you can do what I did
with schizophrenia.
There are doctors who don'tbelieve you can have a life with
schizophrenia.
We've got to educate the mentalhealth profession itself before
we can get anywhere.
The mental health profession,in my opinion, is the biggest
source of stigma against severemental illness there is.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Wow.
That's not good, becausethey're the ones that are
supposed to give you support andhelp.
I've talked with severaldifferent people and they went
through 10 years of hell, youknow, basically figuring this
thing out.
But then, once they figured itout, got the right medication,
got the right treatment, they'vegone on to have very satisfying
lives.
So we need to get that outthere so that not only the
(20:55):
doctors and the mental healthinstitutions know and promote it
, but so that it can help takethis stigma away from people
that don't understand it,because I think one of the
biggest challenges that we haveis the average person.
You know, like myself, thatdon't understand everything
about it because we haven't beenaround it.
So we've got to get the massesto understand that just because
(21:17):
some label is put on somebody,it doesn't mean it's a death
sentence.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I agree totally and that's why I wrote the article
on peer guide to psychosis thatNSSC is putting out.
That's why I wrote that becausewe have to educate the general
public.
We wrote that with specificallyin mind legislatures and judges
and district attorneys andprosecutors and sheriffs and law
professionals and justbasically anyone that didn't
(21:42):
know this information, and whatI did was I tried to explain in
simple, clear, easilyunderstandable terms the very
basics of what they know aboutwhat psychosis is and what it
does to a person.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, because there's this big dark cloud hovering
over it and stopping people fromunderstanding that it's not the
end of the world.
It just means that someone hasto take and help these people so
they can get back on where theywere and start creating the
life that they had hoped thatthey was going to have.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
I agree totally.
And I think the mental healthprofessors are a big obstacle to
that because a lot of themdon't understand it either.
Right now.
If you're a psychiatrist, youget educated on psychosis and
psychotic illness to some degree.
Some psychiatrists know a lotabout it, some know very little.
Some psychiatrists do not treatpeople with psychosis at all.
They treat people withdepression or anxiety or
substance abuse.
(22:31):
They don't treat the psychosisat all.
So they don't understand thateither.
And we look at psychologists,for example.
Most psychologists getabsolutely no training
whatsoever on psychosis or whatgoes with it or anything to deal
with it.
Social workers and licensedcounselors again, they don't get
any training in this.
It's totally foreign to them.
And if you look at our mentalhealth professional right now,
basically the general populationand most mental health
(22:54):
professionals think if you are amental health professional
you're qualified to speak withauthority on any mental health
problem or issue.
That's like saying if you're amedical doctor you can be a
general practitioner one day, aheart surgeon the next day, do a
lung transplant the day after,do a knee transplant the day
after that.
It's nonsense.
We need specialties in mentalhealth where they have the
(23:15):
skills to deal with this stuff,dealing with psychosis requires
a very special skill set that,frankly, most mental health
professionals do not have.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So, wow, I just didn't realize it was this deep.
How do we get there?
I mean, because there are somany layers to this.
You've got the legal system,which we always worry about.
We've got the medication to getthem at least to get it to this
.
You've got the legal system,which we always worry about.
We've got the medication to getthem at least to get it to stop
.
And then you've got the knowingand the things that you've just
gone.
The one thing that kind ofconnect all these things
together are the doctors and thenurses and all that that are
(23:46):
supposed to help.
So if they're a challenge, howdo we get this to the point of
where we can get those peoplethat lessen that challenge and
actually get into the ditch andhelp dig the ditch and help the
people that need to help?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I think we've got to start with mental health
professionals.
I think that's where we need tostart.
The mental health professionalsneed to be taught what
psychosis is, how to deal withit.
But most of them just don'tknow.
I find that most mental healthprofessionals, other than
psychiatrists, don't evenunderstand what psychosis really
is.
A lot of them have no idea whatto do other than give you a
pill and there's a whole lotmore you need in recovery than
(24:20):
just a pill.
But most of them think that'swhat it takes.
And we have a problem with thegovernment too.
There's an agency called SAMHSA, which you probably know of,
that has guidelines for recovery.
If you look at their guidelinesfor recovery, they make no
exceptions whatsoever forpsychosis.
They say everything should befree will, self-determination,
build your own path to recovery,self-actualization,
(24:41):
self-determination, self-guidedthat works fine if you deal with
drug abuse or depression, butwhen you deal with psychosis,
where you don't know whatreality is, how can you do that?
You just can't do that.
Furthermore, that guideline forpsychosis doesn't put any
requirement on the institutionslike hospitals, other than that
they have to provide culturallycompetent care and they have to
(25:03):
provide trauma-informed care.
Well, cultural competence.
Most of them don't evenunderstand what psychosis is how
can it be culturally competentto someone with psychosis?
As far as trauma-informed care,that's become a buzzword that
doesn't really mean a whole lotanymore, and I found my
psychotic experiences to be verytraumatic, and I think most
people with psychosis do believepsychosis is traumatic.
(25:24):
But I've never seen anyallowances in a hospital
anywhere for trauma as a resultof psychosis.
They don't even address it,they just pretend to ignore it.
So they're not even doing thatand that's all they're required
to do.
They're not required to tellyou anything else, not even
required to tell you what yourdiagnosis is or explain what it
means.
Yeah, Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
So in closing, you've covered a lot of things and I
think it's really goodinformation that people need to
hear.
What would you like to say thatyou think is the most important
thing for people to understandin the closing statement here?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I think the most important thing to understand is
what psychosis is or what itdoes to a person, and beyond
that, I think the next mostimportant thing is for me to
educate people as to how to livewith their illness, because
right now, we're just basicallygiving a pill and send them on
their way with nothing else, andthat doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Okay, great, yeah, it's been great.
A lot of great information.
I really appreciate you comingon.
Thanks, glad to help.
Thank you very much, tony.
It's been my pleasure.
Thanks again.
Thanks for taking the time outof your busy schedule to listen
to our show today.
We hope that you enjoyed it asmuch as we enjoyed bringing it
(26:40):
to you.
If you know anyone that wouldlike to tell us their story,
send them to TonyMantorcomContact then they can give us
their information so one daythey may be a guest on our show.
One more thing we ask telleveryone everywhere about why
(27:02):
Not Me, the World, theconversations we're having and
the inspiration our guests giveto everyone everywhere that you
are not alone in this world.
Welcome to why Not Me ?
The World Podcast, hosted byTony Mantor, broadcasting from
Music City USA, nashville,tennessee.
Join us as our guests tell ustheir stories.
Some will make you laugh, somewill make you cry.
Their stories Some will makeyou laugh, some will make you
(00:28):
cry.
Real life people who willinspire and show that you are
not alone in this world.
Hopefully, you gain moreawareness, acceptance and a
better understanding for autismaround the world.
Hi, I'm Tony Mantor.
(00:53):
Welcome to why Not Me?
The World Humanity OverHandcuffs the Silent Crisis
special event.
Joining us today is Daryl Herman.
He's a retired US Army captainand computer programmer from a
small family farm in Weston,kansas, about 30 miles east of
Dodge City.
Specialized in field artilleryand nuclear weapons, his
(01:17):
military career ended after hesought treatment at an army
hospital, believing he was beingdrugged with experimental
medicine.
Doctors recognized hisdelusions and emerging psychosis
, leading to his discharge.
He later earned a collegedegree and worked as a
professional programmer, but jobstress triggered mild
delusional thinking, promptinghim to go on disability.
(01:39):
Since then, he's found purposein volunteering, speaking to
patients and writing a book,straight Talk, about Living with
Severe Mental Illness.
He continues to advocate forthose with serious mental health
challenges, bringing tremendousinsight to his work.
It's truly an honor to have himhere generously sharing his
deep insights and remarkablejourney with us.
(01:59):
Thanks for coming on.
No problem, let's tell us alittle bit about your story,
because pretty fascinating storyof what you've done, what
started your getting in tosupport the NSSC.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I developed schizophrenia in 1984 when I was
a captain of the United StatesArmy.
My specialty at the time werefield artillery and nuclear
weapons and obviously you can'thave a military career with
nuclear weapons when you haveschizophrenia.
So I had to do other things.
So I went back to college, gota computer science degree,
became a professional computerprogrammer, did that for 18
(02:33):
years and then the stress ofdoing that and coping with my
job and all with my illness justbecame more than I could manage
and I decided to go withdisability.
Because I found out this kindof stress was just endemic in
the American workplace.
And when I went on disability Imade it my mission in life to
do everything I could to helpother people with severe mental
illness live better lives.
Ever since then that's whatI've been doing.
(02:55):
I started doing hospital groups,talking to patients in the
hospital about how to livebetter lives with a severe
mental illness, and that grewover the years.
In the 10 years before COVID Ispoke to more than 30,000 people
of those hospital groups.
With COVID all my groups gotshut down and as of now the
hospitals have not reopened forme to come in and do groups.
So I have no hospital groupstoday, but up until COVID I was
(03:18):
doing many groups a week.
Like I said, I saw more than30,000 people before COVID.
As part of that, I learned whatthe people that were being
hospitalized need to know, basedon my own experience, my own
research and talking to them andanswering their questions and
finding out what they need toknow.
As a result of all that, Iwrote a book.
The book is called StraightTalk About Living with
Subliminal Illness and isavailable on Amazon in paperback
(03:40):
, kindle or audiobook.
It's the things that everybodyneeds to know, the basics they
should know when they're dealingwith cerebral illness, but
sadly, most people don't knowthem.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
When you first sit down with a new group, what is
some of the things that you dosay to them to make them realize
that they are not in this bythemselves.
They have someone that willhelp and definitely know that
they are not alone.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Most of them know that they're not alone, but what
I find they don't know is thatyou can live a relatively normal
life after having a cerebralillness.
When I was doing those hospitalgroups, I was usually the first
one to ever come in and tellthem that you could live a
normal life after mental illness.
I'd give my own example ofbeing a programmer for 18 years,
so most of that was justunheard of.
They thought their life wasover when they got a diagnosis
with a psychotic illness.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Okay, so everyone that has this illness is
affected differently, of course,then you have to approach it
and focus on the things that aremost important to them and
their lives.
What do you find that are someof the more important things
that people will bring up to youthat they may not know or they
(04:48):
may just need more clarificationabout it?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
There's a lot of things that they need more
clarification on.
That's why I wrote my book, andit's a short book it's about 60
or 70 pages but it's the basicstuff they need to know.
Some of the big things theyneed to know are the fact that
diagnosis often changes.
You may have schizophrenia now,you may have bipolar or any of
these things.
It's affecting you some othertime.
It often changes and that's onething they need to know, so
don't get worried about yourdiagnosis changing.
(05:14):
It happens.
Another thing to know is thatmedications are different for
everyone.
Medication does wonders for oneperson, maybe absolute poison
to the next, and it takes a lotof time to find the right
medication for most of us.
Some of us have to try three orfour, half a dozen before we
find something that works reallywell for us, and it takes time
to find the right medication,the right dose and get on with
(05:35):
your life.
It's not an easy thing.
The doctor doesn't know what'sgoing to work and what side
effects you're going to haveuntil you try the medication.
There's just no way to know.
Another thing to know is thatthere's no blame to this illness
.
It's a combination of geneticand environmental factors and
there's no single cause you canpoint at.
You can't point at any onething and say this caused the
person's illness.
It's a combination of thingsand there's no blame to be had.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It's just something happens, like cancer or diabetes
.
There's no blame.
It's an illness just like anyother.
I think that's a great thing topoint out.
Now that you've addressed that,I think it needs to be more
focused so people do realizethat it's not their fault.
Sometimes people with psychosis, because of the stigma that's
attached with it, think thatthey're bad, but they're really
not.
They just need some help.
So how do you address this withpeople so they can realize that
(06:29):
they are not these demonspeople think they are.
They just need some help.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Well, the first thing you have to understand is what
psychosis is, and right now themedical system does not teach
anyone what psychosis is or whatit does to you.
And in psychosis a lot goesinto the diagnosis.
But basically, for practicalpurposes, there's two things you
need to look at.
One is having hallucinationsand one is having delusions.
Hallucinations are sensoryexperiences you have that others
(06:56):
around you don't.
For instance, you may hearvoices that aren't there.
You may see things that aren'tthere.
It can affect either of thefive senses, but while you're
experiencing that, it's usuallyabsolutely real to you.
Delusions are fixed, falsebeliefs you may have, but those
around you don't.
They could be anythingimaginable.
It could be that you'rePresident of the United States
(07:16):
or the Antichrist or timetraveler or someone's applying a
computer chip in your brain.
There's no limit.
And to the person experiencingpsychosis these are the reality.
To them it's absolutely real,even though it makes no sense to
anyone else around them.
And that's why they're makingdecisions and acting in ways
that make no sense to thosearound them, because to them the
hallucinations and delusionsare the reality.
And the other way to controlthose hallucinations and
(07:36):
delusions is through medication.
But even when you take themedication, once you're longer
psychotic.
To be psychotic you have to havehallucinations, illusions, but
you also have to lose touch withreality.
You have to not realize thatit's not real.
If you can realize it's real,you're not psychotic.
The psychosis is when you can'ttell it's not real.
But anyway the medications willget you out of psychosis.
(07:57):
But you still remember whatwent on To you.
It was still real.
And unless someone tells youabout hallucination, delusions,
and tells you what psychosis isand what it does, you have no
way of knowing.
You should question things thatmay have happened to you, and I
think that's a big piece ofwhat adenocytosis, or lack of
insight, is.
No one tells people whatpsychosis is, what
(08:19):
hallucinations and delusions arethe fact that you can't trust
your own mind as a result.
To them it was all real.
Another piece of it is theydon't explain what, for example,
schizophrenia is.
If you're told you haveschizophrenia, basically you
think that's a villain or ahorror movie or a mass murderer
or some other dangerous, scaryperson and you're sitting there
saying I'm not one of thosepeople.
So you just throw it all outthe window, say it doesn't apply
(08:39):
to me, it's total nonsense, andyou go on.
You don't accept it.
I think that's a big piece ofasshole notion that nobody tells
people what these illnesses areand how psychosis affects the
person, and that's somethingI've been campaigning to have
corrected.
But how do you expect a personto understand that they can't
trust their own thoughts if youdon't tell them?
That's a possibility to beginwith.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, I think you had in your writing.
You had something that waspretty impressive in the fact
that a lot of people might notrealize this or think about it,
but you just touched on it justslightly there.
I'd like to expand on that, andthat's the fact that after they
get the medication and it helpsthem they still have the
memories of what they thoughthappened, what they went through
(09:20):
.
How do you get past that?
Because some of these memoriescan be very delusional, as you
were saying, and not real.
So how do you get past thatwith the medication, so that you
can separate the two, so youcan still move forward and not
let the past memories affect you?
Medication doesn't haveanything to do with that at all.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Okay, it's all up to you.
You have to realize that youcannot trust your own mind.
Okay, there's a lot of ways youcan come to that conclusion,
but you have to come to thatconclusion.
There are things that happenedto me 40 years ago, my first
psychosis, that to this day Idon't know what was real, what
was hallucinations, delusions,and I've just had to accept I
never will.
And that's part of dealing withthis illness or other psychotic
(10:02):
illnesses you have to acceptthat you can never be sure of
what reality is.
There's another very troublingaspect to this as well.
Some people who experiencepsychosis develop persistent
false memories of things thatnever actually happened.
For example, they may thinkthey were abused sexually or
physically as a child, eventhough it never actually
happened, but to them it's real.
(10:25):
They remember it happening eventhough it never did.
And some people have majorportions of their lives that are
fiction, but to them it's realand factual because that's what
their mind tells them Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
So when that happens, is it medication and therapy of
just talking it out that willhelp them at least better
understand what they've beenthrough, so they can move
forward and have that betterlife that they want to have?
The medication has nothing todo with that.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
The medication just stops the psychosis.
It stops further problems.
All right.
Having to realize that it's notreal is insight that you have
to develop on your own, andthere's no good way to do that.
Our mental health professionalsright now don't have any idea
how to go about that.
What I have found the best wayto do is just explain what
hallucinations are, whatpsychosis is, what it does, let
(11:09):
them know they could be subjectto that, and then let them start
thinking about it on their ownand say you know, maybe this
thing I experienced doesn't makesense after all.
And then they can startquestioning and come to realize
that they themselves may havesome experiences that weren't
real.
And that's the only way I knowto deal with this.
You have to come to it on yourown realization.
There's no way to force that onsomeone.
If you try to force it, theywill not accept it.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
They'll fight you when you had the groups that you
had, did you go into those kindof topics or what kind of
conversations did you havewithin those groups, and how
long did that usually last asfar as the group time Groups-
typically lasted 45 to 50minutes.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
We talked about some of the things I've just talked
about, yes, but I also spent alot of time talking about other
things and that's probably justas important.
That, again, the mental healthsystem doesn't do anything to
teach you about and that is howto live and cope with the mental
illness.
Things like what causesrelapses, one of the most common
causes of relapses.
No one tells you that.
How do you cope withrecognizing you're going
downhill so you can ask for helpbefore you end up back in the
(12:11):
hospital?
Nobody tells you that.
How do you cope withhallucinations and delusions,
even though you're not psychotic?
Some of us still havehallucinations when we're not
psychotic and properly medicatedand have to carry on.
When I was working as acomputer programmer, I
occasionally hallucinated thingsI had to sort out Is this real,
is this hallucination?
And that's another thing I talkabout in those groups is
(12:33):
helping figure out how to sortout what's real or what's not
real, what you're experiencing,because when you have a
psychotic illness, you aresubject to not experiencing
things that are not real at anytime.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
When you experience that that's not real in your
mind, that it is, how do youhelp or how do you get the
people that are around them tounderstand what they need so
that they can still help themget through what they're going
through and then eventually,hopefully, they'll get a better
(13:07):
side of where they were?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
there's no real surefire solution here.
I think the best way is to makesure they understand it can
happen first.
That's the key understand itcan happen, and then you start
talking about whether or notthis is real.
Now the method I use todetermine what's real for me
this is my own method.
I developed it on my own.
I divide the things I experienceup into three big buckets.
(13:31):
First bucket is those thingsI'm pretty sure are real,
factual, actually happening,real-world stuff.
And the second bucket is thosethings I'm pretty sure are not
real, not happening, notreal-world stuff, hallucinations
, illusions.
And I have a third bucket ofthings I'm just not sure about
and I put things in little,three buckets based on my past
experience with my own illness.
(13:51):
If someone is talking to medirectly face-to-face, I very
seldom hallucinate that, sothat's probably going to go in
the bucket of real.
If I hear something whispereddown the corner, down the
hallway, those are things thatoften hallucinate.
And then look at what I've justheard and ask myself does this
make sense?
Would the person really knowthat?
Would they really be sayingthat?
Does it make sense or is itnonsense?
(14:12):
If it does make sense that Iput it in the bucket of things
that are not real, just dismissit and move on with my life.
But otherwise I put things inthat third bucket until I get
some information that will allowme to put it in one of the
other two buckets.
Sometimes that informationnever does come.
It kind of festers andfrustrates you.
You want to know what's real,but I've learned that acting on
things that are not real can getme in big trouble real quick.
(14:35):
So I just leave it in thatthird bucket until I get some
information where I would put itin one of the other two buckets
.
And sometimes that informationnever does come and that's the
only way I know to cope withthis.
That's my strategy.
I tell everyone I do with SkyCoast.
They need a strategy somewhatsimilar to that.
They can have their ownstrategy, but that's the one I
use and that works well for me.
They may want to try it, butyou need some kind of strategy
(15:01):
to help sort out what's real andwhat's not real in your world
as you go through life.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
When you first started having these issues, was
you aware of it, that it wasgoing on?
What was your thought processto get to that point of where
you realized that, okay, thisisn't real and this is.
It took time.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
It took time because no one teaches you this stuff.
No one tells you this stuff.
When I became ill, theywouldn't even tell me what my
diagnosis was.
I was in a military psychiatricward.
I knew I had the right to readmy medical records, so I asked
for my medical records, asked toread them.
Well, they had to give them tome.
So I read them.
I found out my diagnosis wasschizophrenia form disorder.
But they wouldn't tell meanything about what that meant.
(15:39):
I knew nothing about it.
It was total nonsense to me.
And when I got out of thehospital I tried to find that in
a psychology book because Irealized it was a mental illness
diagnosis.
I never found that in anypsychology book, but I did find
descriptions of schizophreniawith hallucinations and
delusions.
I was looking at that andsaying you know, some of the
things I experienced don't makesense to me.
(15:59):
I don't think they could havebeen real.
So I went on from that andlearned how to start doing that
stuff.
But it was not easy and therewas no clear pattern.
I just had to develop it on myown because no one taught me or
told me how to do it.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Okay.
So, with the fact that no onetold you and you had to do it on
your own, there's a lot ofpeople out there.
Unfortunately, they're notgoing to have that mindset to
actually dig, find and try andwork it out.
So what would you give peoplethat when they start having this
?
I mean, it's the big black hole.
(16:34):
It's unknown, so anythingunknown can be very scary, and
when people get scared they willdo things that they normally
wouldn't do.
To compensate for it, how doyou tell them where they can
take a deep breath and relax alittle bit, to take and balance
that, so they can figure outwhat's going on and what they
need to do?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I think that's the biggest problem in the mental
health system today is that noone teaches you this stuff.
When you first become psychotic, they're going to sit down and
talk to you about all this stuff, but no one does.
If you get hospitalized forpsychosis today, what happens is
you get put on a medication,sometimes at your own free will,
sometimes against your will,but you get put on a psychotic
medication.
In about three, four, five daysyou're no longer psychotic and
(17:13):
they discharge you, and that'sall they do.
They put you on medication.
Well, as soon as you're nolonger psychotic, they discharge
you.
During that time in thehospital, you most likely
receive no other information atall, no therapy, nothing but
medication.
And that's why we have so manyproblems, in my opinion, because
no one understands what's goingon with themselves.
I think we need to educate thepeople there about this stuff.
(17:33):
I've been advocating for thatfor some time.
I think that's what my groupswere trying to do.
You have to educate them orthey can't come to this
conclusion, really, until Ifound the book Surviving
Schizophrenia by Dr E FullerTorrey, that I really understood
what I had.
The psychiatry textbooks gaveme the first insight, first
glimmerings, when I got back tocollege after getting out of the
(17:53):
Army I was trying to researchthe college library and I
couldn't find anything of value.
Everything was based onpsychoanalysis.
They weren't even talking aboutmedications in most of the
stuff I read.
And then I found in the samelibrary the book Surviving
Schizophrenia by Dr E FullerTorrey MD.
This was one of the first booksever written about
schizophrenia as a physicalmedical illness for the layman.
(18:15):
That told me what I needed toknow and got me on the track to
recovery.
If I hadn't found that book, Idon't think I'd be talking to
you today.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Wow.
So I guess the big question isyou've been very fortunate that
you found the book.
You did your due diligence, youfigured it out and you've been
able to work it through so thatyour life can be what you'd
hoped it was in the earlier life.
Now how do we help those thatthey don't have that deep dive
(18:43):
ability?
They're just relying on doctorsor they're just relying on
psychiatrists or medication tostop it.
How do we get it out there sothat we can help the greater
amount of people that need thehelp, rather than just a select
few that might do what you did?
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Comprehensive education program for everyone
to become psychotic.
That's what I've beenadvocating for for years.
If you think about it, if youget diagnosed with type 1
diabetes, you get education aswell as insulin.
They tell you how to deal withit.
They give you lots ofinformation how to cope stuff
like that.
If you get diagnosed with it.
It's free you information howto cope stuff like that.
If you get diagnosed withschizophrenia, you get
medication told to go on yourway.
If you did that with type 1diabetics, they wouldn't get
(19:19):
anywhere.
Most of them would die prettyquickly.
And that's what's happeningwith schizophrenia we're giving
them nothing but medication andsend them on their way.
There's no education whatsoever.
That's where our mental healthsystem's biggest failure is.
At the end of the day is no oneteaches you how to live with it
.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
The only way to get changes like that sometimes is
through legislation, and eventhat can't help that part of it,
because you're talking aboutdoctors and the way that they
treat people and help them andcontinue to try to help.
It seems like the dog chasinghis tail here.
How do we figure this thing out?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Well, I think we have to get the doctors and mental
health professionals to startdoing this stuff.
That's what I'm advocating for.
I have currently four articlesthat I've submitted to the
Schizophrenia Bulletin, which isa professional journal for
psychotic illnesses that I'madvocating for this.
They're under review.
I'm trying to get this out inthe public and say we need to be
doing this stuff Right now.
The biggest obstacle, thebiggest source of stigma about
(20:15):
mental illness, I believe comesto the mental health profession
itself.
There are doctors who don'tbelieve you can do what I did
with schizophrenia.
There are doctors who don'tbelieve you can have a life with
schizophrenia.
We've got to educate the mentalhealth profession itself before
we can get anywhere.
The mental health profession,in my opinion, is the biggest
source of stigma against severemental illness there is.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Wow.
That's not good, becausethey're the ones that are
supposed to give you support andhelp.
I've talked with severaldifferent people and they went
through 10 years of hell, youknow, basically figuring this
thing out.
But then, once they figured itout, got the right medication,
got the right treatment, they'vegone on to have very satisfying
lives.
So we need to get that outthere so that not only the
(20:55):
doctors and the mental healthinstitutions know and promote it
, but so that it can help takethis stigma away from people
that don't understand it,because I think one of the
biggest challenges that we haveis the average person.
You know, like myself, thatdon't understand everything
about it because we haven't beenaround it.
So we've got to get the massesto understand that just because
(21:17):
some label is put on somebody,it doesn't mean it's a death
sentence.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I agree totally and that's why I wrote the article
on peer guide to psychosis thatNSSC is putting out.
That's why I wrote that becausewe have to educate the general
public.
We wrote that with specificallyin mind legislatures and judges
and district attorneys andprosecutors and sheriffs and law
professionals and justbasically anyone that didn't
(21:42):
know this information, and whatI did was I tried to explain in
simple, clear, easilyunderstandable terms the very
basics of what they know aboutwhat psychosis is and what it
does to a person.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Yeah, because there's this big dark cloud hovering
over it and stopping people fromunderstanding that it's not the
end of the world.
It just means that someone hasto take and help these people so
they can get back on where theywere and start creating the
life that they had hoped thatthey was going to have.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
I agree totally.
And I think the mental healthprofessors are a big obstacle to
that because a lot of themdon't understand it either.
Right now.
If you're a psychiatrist, youget educated on psychosis and
psychotic illness to some degree.
Some psychiatrists know a lotabout it, some know very little.
Some psychiatrists do not treatpeople with psychosis at all.
They treat people withdepression or anxiety or
substance abuse.
(22:31):
They don't treat the psychosisat all.
So they don't understand thateither.
And we look at psychologists,for example.
Most psychologists getabsolutely no training
whatsoever on psychosis or whatgoes with it or anything to deal
with it.
Social workers and licensedcounselors again, they don't get
any training in this.
It's totally foreign to them.
And if you look at our mentalhealth professional right now,
basically the general populationand most mental health
(22:54):
professionals think if you are amental health professional
you're qualified to speak withauthority on any mental health
problem or issue.
That's like saying if you're amedical doctor you can be a
general practitioner one day, aheart surgeon the next day, do a
lung transplant the day after,do a knee transplant the day
after that.
It's nonsense.
We need specialties in mentalhealth where they have the
(23:15):
skills to deal with this stuff,dealing with psychosis requires
a very special skill set that,frankly, most mental health
professionals do not have.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So, wow, I just didn't realize it was this deep.
How do we get there?
I mean, because there are somany layers to this.
You've got the legal system,which we always worry about.
We've got the medication to getthem at least to get it to this
.
You've got the legal system,which we always worry about.
We've got the medication to getthem at least to get it to stop
.
And then you've got the knowingand the things that you've just
gone.
The one thing that kind ofconnect all these things
together are the doctors and thenurses and all that that are
(23:46):
supposed to help.
So if they're a challenge, howdo we get this to the point of
where we can get those peoplethat lessen that challenge and
actually get into the ditch andhelp dig the ditch and help the
people that need to help?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
I think we've got to start with mental health
professionals.
I think that's where we need tostart.
The mental health professionalsneed to be taught what
psychosis is, how to deal withit.
But most of them just don'tknow.
I find that most mental healthprofessionals, other than
psychiatrists, don't evenunderstand what psychosis really
is.
A lot of them have no idea whatto do other than give you a
pill and there's a whole lotmore you need in recovery than
(24:20):
just a pill.
But most of them think that'swhat it takes.
And we have a problem with thegovernment too.
There's an agency called SAMHSA, which you probably know of,
that has guidelines for recovery.
If you look at their guidelinesfor recovery, they make no
exceptions whatsoever forpsychosis.
They say everything should befree will, self-determination,
build your own path to recovery,self-actualization,
(24:41):
self-determination, self-guidedthat works fine if you deal with
drug abuse or depression, butwhen you deal with psychosis,
where you don't know whatreality is, how can you do that?
You just can't do that.
Furthermore, that guideline forpsychosis doesn't put any
requirement on the institutionslike hospitals, other than that
they have to provide culturallycompetent care and they have to
(25:03):
provide trauma-informed care.
Well, cultural competence.
Most of them don't evenunderstand what psychosis is how
can it be culturally competentto someone with psychosis?
As far as trauma-informed care,that's become a buzzword that
doesn't really mean a whole lotanymore, and I found my
psychotic experiences to be verytraumatic, and I think most
people with psychosis do believepsychosis is traumatic.
(25:24):
But I've never seen anyallowances in a hospital
anywhere for trauma as a resultof psychosis.
They don't even address it,they just pretend to ignore it.
So they're not even doing thatand that's all they're required
to do.
They're not required to tellyou anything else, not even
required to tell you what yourdiagnosis is or explain what it
means.
Yeah, Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
So in closing, you've covered a lot of things and I
think it's really goodinformation that people need to
hear.
What would you like to say thatyou think is the most important
thing for people to understandin the closing statement here?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I think the most important thing to understand is
what psychosis is or what itdoes to a person, and beyond
that, I think the next mostimportant thing is for me to
educate people as to how to livewith their illness, because
right now, we're just basicallygiving a pill and send them on
their way with nothing else, andthat doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Okay, great, yeah, it's been great.
A lot of great information.
I really appreciate you comingon.
Thanks, glad to help.
Thank you very much, tony.
It's been my pleasure.
Thanks again.
Thanks for taking the time outof your busy schedule to listen
to our show today.
We hope that you enjoyed it asmuch as we enjoyed bringing it
(26:40):
to you.
If you know anyone that wouldlike to tell us their story,
send them to TonyMantorcomContact then they can give us
their information so one daythey may be a guest on our show.
One more thing we ask telleveryone everywhere about why
(27:02):
Not Me, the World, theconversations we're having and
the inspiration our guests giveto everyone everywhere that you
are not alone in this world.
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