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Schizophrenia and Capgras Syndrome by Kartar Diamond

Because schizophrenia is a cluster of symptoms and brain function anomalies, not everyone with schizophrenia has the same beliefs, perceptions or experiences. One phenomenon experienced by a few people I know with schizophrenia is called Capgras syndrome. Capgras syndrome causes a person to have the irrational belief that someone they know is not who they really are, replaced by an imposter. Capgras syndrome can also be experienced by people with Lewy body dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease. Even anxiety could bring on an [...]

By |2021-01-12T23:06:01+00:00January 12, 2021|Mental Illness|0 Comments
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Ben Behind His Voices: One Family’s Journey From the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope

Ben Behind His Voices: One Family’s Journey From the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope By Randye Kaye This book was published in 2011, but unfortunately it is what the literary world calls an “evergreen.” This means the information in it is always timely and is not outdated.  The unfortunate part includes the fact that so many families, like Randye Kaye and her son, continue to suffer the pervasive emotional trauma and societal stigma for having serious mental illness.  Worse yet, there is still [...]

By |2020-12-19T19:36:10+00:00December 19, 2020|Book Reviews, Family, Mental Illness|0 Comments
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When Your Mentally Ill Loved One Lives At Home by Kartar Diamond

In my parents’ era, kids were often out of the house and working at age eighteen or away in college. As the decades have rolled forward, more and more young adults live at home, usually for financial reasons. There is also a phrase, “failure to launch” which is mostly ascribed to young men who have a difficult time gaining independence. With economic downturns, such as in 2008, multi-generational households have become quite common. With the COVID-19/ Economic Lock Down, for sure we will [...]

By |2020-12-18T03:30:42+00:00December 18, 2020|Advocacy, Family, Mental Illness|0 Comments
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How Does a Mentally Ill Person Get Diagnosed? by Kartar Diamond

In the span of six weeks, back in the summer of 2007, my son received several different diagnoses, with each of four separate hospitalizations. The varying diagnoses ranged from schizoaffective disorder, to bipolar disorder with psychotic features, to schizophrenia paranoid type. Only six months prior, the first diagnosis was schizophrenia and a month later downgraded to Social Anxiety by the same doctor. For many people, it is difficult to get an accurate diagnosis. First of all, it may take a long time before [...]

By |2020-12-06T03:25:24+00:00December 6, 2020|Mental Illness, Treatment|0 Comments
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Can People With Schizophrenia Lead Normal Lives? by Kartar Diamond

The functional recovery, aptitudes or limitations of people with schizophrenia is complicated. Different parts of the brain are affected under the same diagnosis and some people can maintain superior intellectual and creative capabilities, even when other areas of functionality are lacking.  There are many variables which come into play and I learned a lot from reading Dr. E. Fuller Torrey’s book, Surviving Schizophrenia.  The operative words in this article are “functional recovery” because there is no cure for the disease, but it can [...]

By |2020-11-13T17:29:53+00:00November 13, 2020|Advocacy, Family, Mental Illness|0 Comments
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Natural Approaches to Mental Health Issues by Kartar Diamond

The subject of using natural approaches for mental health issues is complicated.  First and foremost, we may not have a willing participant when referring to someone with SMI (serious mental illness).  An unfortunate component of SMI is that many people, especially those with schizophrenia, lack insight into their illness.  When you have a segment of the mentally ill population who does not believe they are ill, taking any kind of supplementation or natural approach could be rebuffed as swiftly as taking prescribed medication. [...]

By |2020-10-23T23:40:45+00:00October 23, 2020|Mental Illness|0 Comments
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He Came In With It-A Book Review by Kartar Diamond

He Came In With It: A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness by Miriam Feldman A Book Review Before sitting down to review of this memoir, I read over some of the praises by others. The author’s writing style is so engrossing that she deserves a very unique review from me and I’ll strive not to be redundant. I approached He Came In With It from the perspective of also being a mother with a son who has schizophrenia, and also as an author [...]

By |2020-10-13T20:45:37+00:00October 13, 2020|Book Reviews, Family|0 Comments
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We Understand What You Are Going Through by Kartar Diamond

Many caretakers and family members come to a support group feeling isolated, frustrated and embarrassed about their situations with their mentally ill loved one. What you are going through is unique, but we also share some nearly universal circumstances: Most of us took a while to fully comprehend that our MIL (Mentally ill Loved One) has a serious mental illness which transcends ordinary emotions, personality or behavioral dysfunctions. Most of us have endured the fear of not knowing what to do and a [...]

By |2020-09-29T23:51:31+00:00September 29, 2020|Advocacy, Family, Mental Illness|0 Comments
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Why Do the Mentally Ill Stop Taking Their Medication? by Kartar Diamond

The purpose of this article is to highlight the reasons why some individuals stop taking anti-psychotic medication, against the advice of family, friends and doctors. My purpose here is not to rally sympathy for a mass shooter who has stopped taking his medication. My purpose is not to discuss the merits or the risks of taking anti-psychotics to begin with. In fact we have, generally speaking, two large camps when it comes to public opinion. There are those who are strongly opposed to [...]

By |2020-09-22T18:14:06+00:00September 22, 2020|Advocacy, Mental Illness, Policy|0 Comments
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Breakdown: A Clinician’s Experience In A Broken System of Emergency Psychiatry

I had a very personal interest in reading Breakdown, by Lynn Nanos, L.I.C.S.W., because I have a family member with schizophrenia. Along with many others, I have felt intensely frustrated with every aspect of the mental health care system, including hospitals and their staff.  I needed to find out what she had to report from her own professional experiences as a mobile emergency psychiatric clinician, with the special skills and ability to orchestrate involuntary hospital admissions. The book is well written, heart-wrenching in [...]

By |2020-09-21T03:58:08+00:00September 21, 2020|Advocacy, Book Reviews, Policy|0 Comments
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