Quote:
Originally Posted by Buddha443556
Most schizophrenia to me seems to be a misdiagnosis. Your son is expressing a lot of feelings. I think anyone who can feel, can fully recover. If your son is irrational then cognitive behavioral therapy may help him over come his false beliefs. I'm not a big fan of medication because it deadens ones feelings and reinforces the disorder. In Finland, they have schizophrenia rate of 1 in 100,000 compared to the US where it is 1 in 100. They don't use medications for the most part and their success rate is 90% for first episode psychosis. Schizophrenia isn't a death sentence for most, 2/3 recover to some extent even in the US (though unlike Finland most will be on disability for the rest of their lives).
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I wish I could tell you that it was just the pill culture that caused the US's numbers to be so shoddy. Unfortunately, it's a bit more than that.
I've been off meds for about 3 years or so. Sure, it's difficult, but I manage more than not, I think. Problem is, the moment anyone in this country hears the S word, any chance of employment goes out the window. Two main factors contribute to this:
- Any hiring company is terrified of being sued by either customers, other employees or the schizophrenic employee, due to an incident
- Our culture demonizes neurological disorders of all flavors - schizophrenia arguably worst among them - so bias against those with it is
extremely high here
Couple that with a bare-bones support system, and it becomes next-to-impossible to get anything useful done here. I don't know that I agree with your assessment about schizophrenia being frequently mis-diagnosed, but I definitely agree with your sentiment that it's handled very poorly here, across the board. Except for this forum, I've yet to find anything even barely adequate in the form of a support system.