Nearly 90% of people with schizophrenia\u00a0report experiencing discrimination in social interactions, employment, housing, and health care.<\/a> And there\u2019s no celebrity poster child like Michael J. Fox raising awareness.<\/p>\n Nicole Gillen is the director of community engagement for the nonprofit\u00a0Schizophrenia & Psychosis Action Alliance (S&PAA).<\/a> She is also the mother of a 27-year-old daughter who has been managing the disease for six years.<\/p>\n \u201cI have this beautiful human being of a daughter who is funny, smart, interesting, kind, and wouldn\u2019t hurt a fly,\u201d says Gillen, who also authored a\u00a0handbook for caregivers<\/a>. \u201cShe is everything you want in a human and in a child, who just happens to have this terrible illness that has changed the trajectory of her life. But it doesn\u2019t fundamentally change who she is at her core.\u201d<\/p>\n It affects men and women about equally, though the typical age of onset is earlier for men (ages 18 to 25) than women (ages 25 to 35).\u00a0<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to believe Gillen or even the science or statistics. Instead, reach your own conclusions by listening to three people with schizophrenia (managed with medication) describe their lives.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTheo Karantsalis\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Sixty-three-year-old Theo Karantsalis has been dealing with schizophrenia ever since he says an angel visited him in his bedroom when he was 8. Although he excelled in math, science, and languages at school and eventually earned two master\u2019s degrees, he often exhibited bizarre behavior, including refusing to bathe, skateboarding naked, fighting, diving off rooftops and cliffs, and believing people were trying to poison him. He tried taking his life twice (at ages 12 and 15) with pills and razor blades. (An estimated\u00a05%<\/a> of people with schizophrenia die by suicide,\u00a0much higher<\/a> than the general population.)<\/p>\n His second attempt landed him in psychiatric treatment, but he says he got little support at home from a mother with mental health issues herself and a father who\u00a0 was largely absent.<\/p>\n Karantsalis was in and out of treatment for the next 20 years. He managed to graduate from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and worked as a customs agent in San Francisco from 1992 to 1996, \u201cuntil I started stamping passports with Flintstones stamps and singing over the loudspeaker. … I guess you can say I\u2019m stable until I\u2019m not. I\u2019ve been fired from every job I\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n Although he occasionally loses his train of thought and stutters, Karantsalis comes across as smart, well-spoken, and engaging. He\u2019s been married for 30-plus years and has two sons in their 20s, the younger of whom has schizophrenia and lives with them in Miami, Florida. But he lives in a dualistic world, where he sees significant barriers between \u201cus\u201d and \u201cyou.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe stigma surrounding schizophrenia is the greatest barrier that we face,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re treated as dangerous, broken, and incapable because of our diagnosis. This discourages treatment, it strips away our dignity, and it excludes us from living in your world. I\u2019ve been excluded by the police when they show up for a wellness check. They surround my house; they come in with lights and sirens. That\u2019s not the way to approach somebody who may be having mental health issues. This stigma is in the courts, too. If I walk into a courtroom and tell the security guard I have multiple sclerosis, he will hold the door open for me. But if I tell him I have schizophrenia, he\u2019ll call for backup.\u201d<\/p>\n Karantsalis doesn\u2019t expect to ever fully recover from his mental illness. He takes \u201cabout 20 medications\u201d daily to manage his schizophrenia, MS<\/a>, heart<\/a> condition, and arthritis<\/a>. He finds solace and support in his family, prayer, riding the train to the pool where he swims 30-60 minutes daily, and advocating for those like him. He is the vice-chair of the Miami-Dade County Commission on Disability Issues and helped found the Miami-Dade County Mental Advisory Board. Although he may seem high functioning, \u201cto borrow a swimming metaphor, I\u2019m struggling to stay afloat.\u201d But he remains resolute.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the most beautiful things about schizophrenia is this authenticity you have,\u201d he says. \u201cThose who live in our world shun conformity; we don\u2019t pretend to be something we\u2019re not. Others, they try to fit in, but we live as we are. That kind of honesty is misunderstood.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI believe that the meaning of life is making a difference in the lives of others, and that\u2019s what I aim to do,\u201d he concludes. \u201cThere\u2019s a quote by my train stop from Martin Luther King [Jr.]: \u2018Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.\u2019 Another quote I like is from Eleanor Roosevelt: \u2018You must do the thing you think you cannot do.\u2019 What do I think I can\u2019t do? Things like this interview, speaking in front of important people at government meetings. … But I do them because I must let others know that we want to be part of your world. So please, be a little more patient and compassionate.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBethany James\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Better.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the word that underlies everything for someone with schizophrenia. It\u2019s the promise that gives them hope. It\u2019s the six letters by which they measure progress (and the occasional setbacks). Without that word, there\u2019s nothing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest misconception about those of us with schizophrenia,\u201d says Bethany James, 32, \u201cis that we aren\u2019t\u00a0going to get better.\u201d In other words, society assumes the diagnosis is a life sentence of instability, delusional thinking, and dangerous behavior.<\/p>\n \u201cBut better means so many different things,\u201d she continues. \u201cAt first, better means not missing your doctor appointments and taking your meds so you don\u2019t have any more episodes. Then better becomes having a place to stay and working a steady job. Next, better\u00a0might be joining the church choir. Better is gradually regaining your sense of functionality and feeling that you\u2019re a whole individual.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s not a fantasy. Although schizophrenia is a lifelong disorder, about 25% of people diagnosed with it recover \u2014 meaning their symptoms are well controlled and they can live independently, says Christian Kohler, MD, a psychiatrist<\/a> at the Penn Psychosis Evaluation and Recovery Center (PERC) who specializes in treating people with serious mental illness. \u201cThese are people who can marry, have kids, and to the public they don\u2019t appear to have a mental illness.\u201d<\/p>\n James knows. In her early 20s while studying at Colorado State University, she began feeling lonely, indecisive, anxious, and depressed for reasons she didn\u2019t fully understand. She retreated into her dorm room and refused to leave or eat for a week. When she wasn\u2019t sleeping, she paced the floor, reciting prayers and listening to God.<\/p>\n Finally, her dorm\u2019s resident advisor summoned help. She was hospitalized and then sent to a local inpatient clinic where she was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder \u2014 schizophrenia and a major mood disorder (depression). Her grandma came from Florida to take her back home to Punta Gorda. There she became a patient at Suncoast Behavioral Health Center in Bradenton, where they \u201chelped put me back together.\u201d<\/p>\n As with most schizophrenia patients, the road back was winding. She was an occasional inpatient at the health center. She lived in a group home for a while where she got arrested for fighting. But after 10 years, she is now living on her own in Denver, Colorado, where she works part-time for a publishing company, advocates for mental health (especially among African Americans), hopes to return to college, and dreams of starting her own T-shirt and handbag company. She has even written a\u00a0book of poetry<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI am better.\u201d<\/p>\n But she knows better is a process. In one of her poems, she writes: \u201cMental health is not a trend; it\u2019s a tender war some of us fight daily in secret.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSchizophrenia and other mental health disorders are invisible diseases,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen society doesn\u2019t see a walker, crutches, a cane, or any other sign of debilitation, it assumes you\u2019re OK. But for people like me, there\u2019s a silent ongoing war with our morale that we must fight every day. That\u2019s our determination to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStephen Dages\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Going away to college is a big step, but for 18-year-old Stephen Dages it was a step off a cliff. Seven hours from his New Jersey home, \u201cI started having these strange experiences,\u201d he recounts. \u201cI thought I heard people on campus and on the TV and radio talking about me like I was a jerk.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n These \u201cauditory hallucinations\u201d and \u201creferential thinking,\u201d as Dages later learned, are common symptoms of schizophrenia. The episodes became more frequent, eating away at his emotional stability and self-esteem.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"photo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/280x340-schizophrenia-theo-features.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"photo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/280x340-schizophrenia-james-features.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"photo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/280x340-schizophrenia-stephen-features.jpg\")
<\/p>\n