There are days I think about how much energy average people spend trying to appear ordinary. We carefully manage how we sound and appear, hiding the vulnerable parts of ourselves from a world quick to judge what it cannot explain.
Yesterday was World Schizophrenia Day, and after a long phone conversation with Chase, I found myself thinking especially about people like him who wake each morning carrying battles inside their minds, while still trying to move through the world as if nothing is wrong.
Schizophrenia is one of those words people speak quietly, if they speak it at all. The word itself has become tangled in fear, jokes, stereotypes, and misunderstanding. Too often, people hear “schizophrenia” and imagine danger instead of suffering. They imagine instability instead of humanity. They imagine someone beyond saving instead of someone desperately trying to survive.
What I’ve learned through my relationship with Chase is that most people never see the exhausting effort it takes for someone living with schizophrenia. The exhaustion of simply trying to make it through an ordinary day fighting intrusive thoughts, confusion, paranoia, or voices while going about daily tasks. A person may look composed on the outside while their minds feel loud and fractured within. I think that hidden struggle deserves more compassion than society often gives.
Just last night I was watching a favorite TV show where mental illness was a punchline. Hallucinations and psychosis were mocked by the very people who supposedly trying to help. I’ve seen countless TikTok videos of individuals clearly suffering from psychosis, and the videos are meant as entertainment. The comment sections are even worse. Meanwhile, real people see and absorb these videos, comments, and messages, and no doubt learn that honesty about their suffering may cost them dignity, friendships, jobs, or even their own safety. I know Chase has spent so much of his life withdrawing and isolating himself from others, which in turn often makes his mental health worse. Human beings are built for connection, yet stigma teaches people to disappear.
And the pain doesn’t stop with the individual, either. Families often carry enormous emotional weight while trying to support someone they love, something Chase and I have discussed at great length, and I’ve seen with other families I know, including my own. Confusion, exhaustion, fear, helplessness, and grief can all exist together in the same household. Family members spending sleepless nights worrying whether their loved one is safe, taking medication, eating properly, or slipping deeper into symptoms they can’t control.
What frustrates me most is how often society defines people entirely by a serious diagnosis, because people living with schizophrenia are not empty shells of illness. The 2-3 million people in the United States living with schizophrenia are spouses, parents, students, artists, co-workers, and friends. They still have personalities, dreams, talents, and desires beyond their diagnosis.
Mental illness doesn’t and shouldn’t erase humanity.
After my phone call with Chase ended, I kept returning to one simple truth: behind every diagnosis is still a person who wants what most of us want. To be understood. To be accepted without shame. To be loved without conditions.
Sometimes the greatest thing we can offer another person is not a solution, but patience. A willingness to listen. A refusal to reduce them to their worst moments. Compassion may not cure mental illness, but it can lessen the loneliness surrounding it.
And for many people living with an SMI like schizophrenia, loneliness may be the heaviest burden of all. ~
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